USDA Crop Acreage Report Confirms Wharton County Planted Acres for 2020
By Corrie Bowen
County Extension Agent
Wharton County
USDA Farm Service Agency policy requires that producers participating in several programs submit an annual report, or certify all cropland use on their farms. These programs include Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC). Reporting also applies to those who receive marketing assistance loans or loan deficiency payments. The deadline to certify planted acres is July 15th.
USDA Farm Services’ Crop Acreage Data Report for the 2020 crop year was first posted on August 12, 2020. Updates are released on the following dates: Sept 11th, Oct. 9th, Nov 10th, December 10th, and again in January. USDA-FSA posts these acreage reports at https://www.fsa.usda.gov/news-room/efoia/electronic-reading-room/frequently-requested-information/crop-acreage-data/index
Per the September 11, 2020 USDA FSA Crop Acreage Data report, for the 2020 crop year Wharton County farmers certified 101,424.99 acres of corn planted; 14,475.68 acres of grain sorghum planted; 71,958.44 acres of cotton planted; 34,407.84 acres of conventional rice planted; 4,451.81 acres of seed rice planted; 7,379.20 acres of soybeans planted. Total planted acres of the five major grain commodities in Wharton County for 2020 comes in at 234,079.96 acres planted, compared to 213,096.12 acres planted in 2019.
Planted cotton acres in Wharton County are down 18% in 2020 compared to 2019. Wharton County had 90,114 acres planted to cotton in 2018; 87,930 acres planted to cotton in 2019. Planted corn acres is up 73% in 2020 over the 58,543.48 acres that were planted in 2019. Of course, in 2019 we had a lot of prevented planting corn acres, so corn acres were down tremendously in 2019. But if we compare 2020 to the 69,174 acres of corn planted that was planted in 2018, that’s still significant increase (46%). Conventional rice acres are up 33% over the 25,813 acres of conventional rice planted in 2019. Seed rice acres are down 34% in 2020, compared to the 6,844 acres of seed rice planted in 2019. Grain sorghum acres are up slightly (6%) from the 13,559 acres planted in 2019.
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Corrie P. Bowen
County Extension Agent – Agriculture & Natural Resources
Wharton County
979-532-3310
cbowen@ag.tamu.edu
