by Ann Courtmanche, U.S. Wheat Associates market analyst

U.S. winter wheat area seeded is down 4 percent from last year, according to the USDA’s first estimate of the 2005 crop. The report puts U.S. winter wheat acres at 41.6 million acres (16.8 million hectares).

The drop in acreage is mostly due to a 19 percent drop in soft red winter wheat acreage, to approximately 6.6 million acres (2.7 million hectares) seeded for 2005. Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia and New Jersey all report record low acreage plantings for 2005.

"Farmers just couldn’t get the wheat planted," states Marlowe Schlegel, deputy director of Missouri Agricultural Statistics Service. "Wet weather in the late fall made it too wet to plant."

Acreage planted is also down in Texas and Oklahoma, where growers of hard red winter (HRW) wheat faced wet weather conditions at planting. Yet HRW area seeded increased from last year in many states in which seeding conditions were optimal. For example, Colorado, the fourth largest winter wheat growing state, seeded 2.7 million acres, up 15 percent from last year. Total HRW area seeded for 2005 is 30.5 million acres (12.3 million hectares); area seeded is only 1 percent below 2004 area. Kansas, which produces almost one quarter of all winter wheat, seeded an estimated 10.1 million acres (4.1 million hectares) -- up 1 percent from last year. Increases in seeding are also reported for Montana, according to the USDA report.

White wheat acreage planted is 4.5 million acres (1.8 million hectares), up 4 percent from 2004, due in large part to good conditions at seeding in the Pacific Northwest.

Reporting begins for new wheat crop plantings in the rest of the world

In other countries, wheat acreage planted is also projected down. Brazil’s 2005 wheat area will likely be below the 2004 estimate of 6.8 million acres (2.8 million hectares), according to a Brazilian government report which cites low prices and increased competition from Argentina as the main reason producers will plant less in 2005.

In China’s top wheat growing province of Henan, winter wheat acreage was nearly 5 percent higher than last year, according to reports from the Zhengzhou Grain Wholesale Market. China’s state grain agency placed early forecasts of the 2005 crop at 88 MMT, slightly higher than 2004’s 86 MMT estimate, but well below the country’s estimated wheat needs which USDA estimates at 102 MMT.

Early reports of wheat plantings in the United Kingdom indicate that 2005 wheat area will be steady or perhaps slightly higher than last year. The U.K.’s farm ministry estimated the 2004 plantings at 4.7 million acres (1.9 million hectares).

Bulgaria producers planted 2.6 million acres (1.1 million hectares) and the sowings are in good condition thus far, according to the Bulgarian Agriculture ministry. Plantings are up nearly 14 percent from 2004, due in part to state subsidies and possibly a newly negotiated 300,000 tariff-free rate quota to European Union.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, the 2004/05 marketing-year wheat harvest is 93 percent complete on 15.4 million acres (6.2 million hectares) seeded in 2004, according to a January 11 report from the government of Argentina. USDA forecasts Argentina’s wheat production at 16 million metric tons, up more than 18 percent from the 2003/04 marketing year.