Nationwide, corn growers intend to plant 86 million acres of corn for all purposes in 2008, said Greg Roth, professor of agronomy.
The corn price outlook remains strong, due in part to the continued expansion in ethanol production. Corn acreage in 2007 was the highest since 1944.
Pennsylvania farmers intend to plant 1.43 million acres of corn this year, compared to 1.41 million acres in 2007.
Pennsylvania is a corndeficit state that is home to extensive animal agriculture, Roth noted.
"We feed a lot of animals, and farmers here are especially sensitive to the price of corn because they import a significant amount," he said. "So if they have a chance to offset some of those higher prices by growing their own corn, they are going to do that."
Another factor in the corngrowing equation, Roth explains, is that Midwest farmers are facing high nitrogen-fertilizer costs.
"But in Pennsylvania, we have the opportunity to reduce some of these production costs because we can offset some fertilizer costs with animal manure," he said. "We are also seeing more manure being exported to grain farms and the value of that manure has grown in accordance with its nutrient value."
Growing corn in rotation with alfalfa and other soil-nitrogen-fixing legumes also reduces the need for fertilizer, Roth said.
"In many of our extension programs this winter, tactics for improving the effectiveness of fertilizer use and controlling costs in corn production was a hot topic," he said.
Agricultural experts expect the acreage planted in virtually all crops to be increased in Pennsylvania this year.
Higher commodity prices have one positive side, Roth said. The price of corn has been low for many years, which reduced the incentive for planting, he said.
Commodity prices were so low that farmers had to be subsidized to grow them, and that created low world prices that discouraged farmers from growing them in other countries.
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