When the USDA sends out planting predictions for the year, they cannot predict what the spring weather will be or how that will affect plantings. Idaho’s very wet spring and lingering snowpack go a long way to explain why some of the actual plantings the USDA reported on June 30, 2023, are off by as much as 60% compared to March 2023 predictions (Table 1).
Those crops taking a significant hit (reduced planted acres from the March projections) include dry edible beans – down 11% to an actual planting of 40,000 acres. Small chickpea actual planted acres are 20,000 acres (down 33% from predictions), but that is balanced somewhat with the large chickpea market, whose acreage increased by 33% at 53,000 acres. On the other hand, lentil acreage was down 43% from predicted plantings to 14,000 acres. With a very wet spring, it was difficult to get in dry edible peas early enough, and that predicted acreage dropped in half, from 28,000 acres to 14,000 acres.
In Idaho, potato-planted acres are the lowest since 1965; however, acreage is up 8% to 330,000 acres, when 305,000 acres were earlier predicted. This is a 12% increase over 2022 acres. Most of the increase is intended for frozen processing.
The other “winner” was oat acreage, which went from 40,000 predicted acres to 45,000 actual acres, a 13% increase.
