By Robert Pore
robert.pore@theindependent.com

Of that crop, farmers harvested 1.037 million bushels from 5.7 million acres of irrigated land. The state's leading irrigated corn county was Phelps County with 37.4 million bushels with Dakota County having the state's top average irrigated yield of 206 bushels per acre.

The average irrigated yield in the state was 181.2 bushels per acre, which the lowest yield since 2002's 166.2 bushels per acre.

State farmers last year harvested 434.3 million acres of corn off of 3.475 million acres of non-irrigated land. That was the most harvested non-irrigated acres since 2002's 3.550 million acres.

The average state-wide non-irrigated yield was 125 bushels per acre, which was the best since 2004's 134 bushels per acre statewide average.

The top non-irrigated county was Cuming, which the state's best average non-irrigated yield of 161 bushels per acre for a total production of 20.4 million acres.

What produced Nebraska's record corn yield of 1.472 billion acres was that farmers harvested a record 9.2 million acres.

The state's top producing corn county was Custer County with 40.6 million bushels. The top yielding county was Phelps County with a 198.8 bushels per acre average.

With U.S. Department of Agriculture's planting intention report published March 31, a recent survey by Farm Futures magazine provided a preview of what producers may be intending to do this year.

According to the survey, farmers intend to plant 71.8 million acres of soybeans this spring, up from 63.6 million last year. Spring wheat acres will rise to 14.3 million, up 1 million from 2007, while corn sees a drop to 87.7 million from last year's huge 93.6 million acres.

Total wheat plantings should hit 63.9 million acres, compared to 60.4 million last year.

"Farmers once again showed they're ready to respond to the market's signals," said Farm Futures Senior Editor Bryce Knorr, who directed the survey. "And the market is telling them to plant more soybeans due to very tight projected Sept. 1 supplies in the U.S."

Knorr said questions about acreage are only beginning.

"Farmers planted much more corn last year than their March intentions indicated, while soybean acreage dropped sharply," he said.

Knorr also said there's a big question this year about how much new ground pasture and hay fields will be converted to row crops.

In Nebraska, state farmers last year planted 3.8 million acres of soybeans compared to 5 million acres in 2006, which was the most acres ever planted in the state. That same year, state farmers planted 7.750 million acres.

Farm Futures Market analyst Arlan Suderman said many will look at the increased soybean acreage estimate as an opportunity to rest easy, that the market has done its job.

"However, a move to 71.8 million acres is barely enough to maintain soybean stocks at a tight level if the crop achieves trend yields this year," he said. "That will keep traders very nervous through the growing season, ready to quickly react to any perceived threat to the crop."

But, Suderman said, the drop of nearly 6 million acres of corn is more than that market can allow to happen.

"A drop of that magnitude would require significant price rationing of demand to prevent the corn pipeline from running dry, even if trend yields are achieved," he said.