Farmers in the western corn belt are talking about planting more corn and less soybeans in the 2019 growing season. This follows a year of disastrous soybean prices due to the ongoing trade dispute with China and record U.S. soybean production, which led to record carryout of 955 million bushel.
DEKALB Asgrow Agronomist Keith Mockler covers southeast South Dakota. He says farmers are telling him they’ll plant more corn next year due to economics and that trend is playing out across the country.
The one caveat is Mother Nature. With the late harvest season some farmers didn’t get all their fall tillage done and if it stays wet through spring that may prevent spring wheat and corn planting.
Mockler says generally the corn soybean ration has to be 2.5 to 1 or higher in favor of soybeans to spur farmers to plant more beans.
For 2019, farmers are also looking at higher input costs for herbicides and fertilizer, in part due to the ongoing China tariffs. Mockler says nitrogen has taken the biggest hike and urea is $70 per ton higher than a year ago. Some herbicides that contain active ingredients manufactured in China have also gone up in price. He says that is the case with products containing generic glyphosate or Roundup.
