Energy costs fuel move toward planting soybeans

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By ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star

If you think of it as a battle between corn and beans, beans are kicking butt in 2006.

Farmers factoring in the high cost of fuel and fertilizer will plant more soybeans and less corn this year, based on an annual planting intentions report released Friday by the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Beans need less fertilizer and less irrigation to deliver optimum yields.

Accordingly, at the state level, bean acres are expected to reach record territory of 5 million acres. The corn that many farmers will begin planting over the next two weeks would cover 8.2 million acres, down 4 percent in the results of local surveys conducted in early March.

Scott Keller, keeper of state numbers for the federal agency in Lincoln, called it “one of the narrower spreads in history.”

It’s even narrower nationally. Friday’s bigger picture included 78 million acres of corn, down 5 percent from 2005, and 76.9 million acres of beans, up 7 percent. That’s the tightest alignment between the two crops in spring-planting history.

Don Hutchens of the Nebraska Corn Board isn’t taking it personally.

“Every year, producers weigh a lot of agronomic issues,” he said, “and the cost of fertilizer and fuels weighs heavy. That and marketing opportunities will sure have some impact.”

Victor Bohuslavsky, Hutchens’ counterpart with the Nebraska Soybean Board, isn’t quite ready to suggest the state’s many uses of a cornhusker nickname be converted to tofu.

“I guess I think it took everybody by surprise,” Bohuslavsky said of the planting forecast. “I think there are a lot more people switching acres than we thought.”

Taking into account a series of recent announcements about building more ethanol plants in the state and using more corn, one could say planting intentions are going against the grain.

Soybean acres are up 300,000. Corn acres are down 300,000 in Nebraska.

But Hutchens said new ethanol demand won’t hit the market all at once.

“Some of the plants that have had groundbreakings or are in the discussion phase won’t be built for two or three years,” he said.

Signs of a soybean surge emerged the same day a separate report said off-farm storage of soybeans in Nebraska stood at an all-time record of 75.2 million bushels.

With that in mind, is it possible to grow too many beans?

Bohuslavsky said the 2006 output could be a big challenge.

“We grow too many if we don’t have enough markets for everything. But if we continue to grow our markets then we won’t have a problem.”

Despite the high cost of fuel and fertilizer, York farmer Dennis Scamehorn is looking at his average return per acre and staying with his usual rotation of 70 percent corn and 30 percent soybeans.

He’s also feeling the optimism that goes with his farming roots and with the melting of moisture-laden snow.

“Oh man,” he said, “it really sets things up nice for planting anyway.”

Reach Art Hovey at (402) 523-4949 or at ahovey@alltel.net.