The highly anticipated March 31 Planting Intentions Report shows that all wheat acreage in the United States is expected to drop by 9 percent, but not spring wheat. «The USDA has all wheat acreage down 9 percent to 53.8 million acres,» noted Erica Olson, marketing specialist for the North Dakota Wheat Commission. «Looking specifically at spring wheat, including hard red and white wheat, the acreage is estimated at 13.9 million acres, which is actually up five percent on the year.» Olson said the numbers were a little bit higher than pre-report trade estimates, specifically for hard red spring wheat. HRSW acreage is estimated at 13.3 million acres with the biggest increase — 400,000 acres — coming in Montana. North Dakota hard red spring wheat acreage is up about 250,000 and South Dakota is up 100,000 acres. In this region only Minnesota showed a decline of 100,000 acres. «There really were no big surprises in the report for any of the major crops, although the spring wheat number was a little bit higher than expected,» Olson said. "These are not the final numbers, however, and right now there appears to be some acreage unaccounted for. «But even with the lower prices that we have right now, it doesn’t appear this will have a huge impact on acreage.» Cash prices in the region range from $4.90 to $5.50 with an average of about $5.25. The International Grains Council, in its recent monthly report, is looking at world harvested wheat acres to be down by .7 percent in 2010. That’s actually slightly higher than its February estimate. Considering average yields, the IGC is only expecting production to drop by 2.5 percent, according to Olson. «Again, that’s not as big of a decline in acreage as we would have first thought with the present wheat prices,» she said. Given the current supply levels on hand, even with next year’s lower production, Olson said world ending stocks are expected to increase and reach a nine-year high. «Just with the outlook we have right now, it looks like wheat supplies will remain plentiful into the next crop year,» she said. USDA also released its March 1 stocks numbers which again confirmed that there is plenty of wheat on hand. As of March 1 U.S. wheat stocks wear at 1.35 billion bushels. That’s up 30 percent from a year ago. «However, the wheat disappearance from December to February was up 12 percent compared to one year ago, so that’s one positive bit of news that came from the reports,» Olson said. «The planted acreage and stocks reports didn’t have a lot of friendly news for wheat and we did see quite a bit of price pressure that day.» On the export side, this week’s sales report showed about 15.8 million bushels were sold. Of that amount, hard red spring wheat was the biggest class with 10 million bushels sold. Total sales and exports for hard red spring wheat now stand at 193 million bushels. USDA had projected 195 million bushels so that is well within reach, and it is possible that USDA will raise that projection in next month’s report. «The next thing will be to wait and see how the planting season goes and see how many acres actually do get in the ground,» Olson said. That’s always a big question mark in this region because Mother Nature has a way of impacting that as evidenced by the early April snowstorm that pounded parts of central North Dakota. It’s hard to say how that will affect spring planting decisions at this time.