By Illinois Radio Network

SPRINGFIELD – The latest report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows corn growers are using less land to plant their crops this year, but it likely won’t have an impact on corn yields.
In fact, it may give it a boost.

Corn growers will use 11.3 million acres of land this year, which is down 3 percent from 2016, according to the Illinois Prospective Plantings report by the USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service. Rodney Weinzierl, executive director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, said farmers make decisions like reducing land usage based on pricing, crop rotations and weather predictability. There’s another factor that also impacts the amount of acres farmers use on their land.

“The major reason behind that is the ag economy has been overproducing and prices for both corn and beans and other commodities have been going down,” Weinzierl explained.

Soybean growers are expected to use 10.2 million acres of land this year, up 1 percent from last year. Farmers will lose less money this year if they chose to plant soybeans instead of corn, according to Weinzierl. The use of less land may play a part in boosting yields.

“Reducing corn acres and bringing more alignment with corn acres and bean acres, which means more farmers are moving towards a more of a traditional corn-bean rotation actually should increase the yield of both over time,” Weinzierl said.

If the weather remains stable, the planting area for corn may change on farms this year, Weinzierl explained.

“If the weather stays really good for the next two weeks, then it’s possible that we might actually plant more corn than what we were thinking,” Weinzierl said.

Farmers are using less land for crops across the state. The planting area of sorghum is down 17 percent, winter wheat is down 8 percent and oats are down 22 percent, according to the report.