The United States has seen a 7 percent increase in the number of soybeans planted in 2017, compared with that of last year. That’s huge, and makes the estimated 89.5 million acres a new record, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. Producers planted 94 percent of the soybean acreage to herbicide-resistant seed varieties.
Corn acreage, on the other hand, is down 3 percent, leaving the planted area at about 91 million acres. Ninety-two percent of all corn acres planted in the United States are biotech varieties.
In other categories:
- All cotton planted for 2017 is estimated at 12.1 million acres, 20 percent above last year.
- All wheat planted area for 2017 is estimated at 45.7 million acres, down 9 percent from last year. This represents the lowest all wheat planted area since records began in 1919.
