Gold Silver Reports – According to market sources, the USDA will issue their Prospective Plantings Report on March 31st. This is their first acreage estimate based on farmer surveys and there is always a lot of speculation at this time of the year as to what the report may say.

Up to this point, the acreage estimates released during the Outlook Forum last month which indicated that U.S. farmers may plant 90 million acres of corn in 2017 and 88 million acres of soybeans. The 2017 corn and soybean acreage in the U.S. might end up being slightly higher than what was reported in the Outlook Forum last month.

Currently, sources would estimate the 2017 U.S. corn acreage in the range of 91 million acres and the soybean acreage in the range of 89 million acres. Traders basis for anticipating more planted acres that the Outlook Forum is the possibility that we may have an early spring planting this year. The weather could change of course, but right now it looks like it could be a good spring for planting which could result in fewer prevent plant acres, thus more acres planted of both crops. In other words, the overall acreage pie gets bigger if there is less prevent plant.