CHICAGO, June 30 (Reuters) - U.S. farmers planted the most corn in 10 years and cut back on their soybean plantings as dry weather across the Midwest allowed them devote more acres to the yellow grain, a government report showed on Friday.
The expanded acres of corn, which are planted before soybeans, could help boost domestic supplies that have fallen to their lowest since 2014 and mitigate concerns that continued dry weather will hurt the crop's yield.
The U.S. Agriculture Department also said wheat stocks had been diminished, with domestic supplies hitting their lowest in 15 years. The harvest of a drought-stricken winter crop is unlikely to boost wheat supplies.
Soybean futures rallied on the disappointing planting total, with the contract that tracks the recently seeded crop surging 6.1% and on track for its biggest daily percentage gain in two years. The smaller soybean plantings could limit supplies of soybean oil that is in increasing demand for renewable diesel biofuel.
"The report is a big game-changer of how we look at this market going forward," said Craig Turner of Daniels Trading.
Corn and wheat futures were weaker, with the most-active corn contract hitting its lowest since Sept. 10, 2021.
"The story on corn now is the opposite of beans," said Don Roose of U.S. Commodities. "Our fears of yield drops are nullified."
The United States is the second largest exporter of corn and soybeans.
The U.S. Agriculture Department's annual acreage report showed that farmers seeded 94.096 million acres of corn, up 6.2% from a year earlier and the most since 95.365 million acres in 2013. Analysts had been expecting the report to show 91.853 million acres of corn plantings.
Soybean plantings sank 4.5% to 83.505 million acres, well below market expectations for 87.673 million acres.
In a separate report, USDA said U.S. wheat stocks as of June 1 stood at 580 million bushels, down 17.0% from a year earlier and the lowest for the period since 2008, when stocks stood at 306 million bushels.
Corn stocks were at a nine-year low of 4.106 billion bushels, down 5.6% from a year earlier, and soybean stocks dropped 17.7% to 796 million bushels. (Additional reporting by P.J. Huffstutter; Editing by Richard Chang)
