??Quote from USDA conference:
 Up 4 million new acres over last year.
Paul said:
> That's actually less than the 93.6 million acres that were planted in
> 2007:

What was discussed on the U.S. Farm report show was that the 4 million acres
were *new* acres coming into production and said CRP land was being pulled
and plowed up for corn.

The whole point of paying farmers to not plant corn was for price support.
Interesting that the USDA has been signing farmers up and paying CRP to
support corn prices when corn prices have been high for years now. Ethanol
demand for corn is in part driving up the price of corn which in turn is
driving up animal feed (which I buy in bulk) which is costing the consumer a
lot more than the amount they save by adding ethanol to gasoline. Although
gasoline with ethanol is a few cents cheaper per gallon when I checked I get
a couple more miles per gallon by using the non ethanol fuel.

As far as trying to understand why the acreage changes from year to year as 
having significance Paul I see you are not a farmer. Farmer is also on my 
income tax form. I have a USDA assigned farm number.

Many factors enter into the decision as to what to plant. Corn needs 120 
days to mature. If the ground is too wet then although the farmer wants to 
plant corn after a certain date he has to go with soy beans I could do 
several posts on what goes into the decision to plant both crops.

My only point in my post was to show corn is the most planted row crop in 
the U.S. in ANY year with very little canola planted (like Canada) and that 
in the U.S. the corn is mostly  neonic treated and mostly GMO.


Paul said:
> Corn acreage in the Midwestern States has not been increasing
> consistently from year to year:

If you have time some time I will explain row crops. For years I bought corn 
for my bin at a little over a dollar a bushel. 6-$7 today. and needs filled 
now! Farmers also feed corn. Farmers will plant what makes the most money. 
When corn prices go up farmers growing sorghum & wheat will move some acres 
into corn as too expensive to buy what they can grow.

If corn prices continue to rise and are high next year more corn will be 
planted. If the bottom falls out of the market (unlikely) then farmers will 
go back to alternating with beans.

My concern as far as the bees goes is with planting neonic treated corn 
seeds year after year in the same field and the level of the neonics in the 
plants because of planting year after year.

bob 

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