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NDS Extension: Soybean acres could expand in ND

North Dakota could see an increase in soybean acres in 2018.

"On paper, it looks like that's the crop that can gove you a positive return in all 9 of our crop budget regions of the state," said NDSU Extension Service farm management specialist Andrew Swenson.

Swenson said in the past two crop years, soybeans have dethroned hard red spring wheat as the state’s number one crop. But he said in most regions of the state, hard red spring wheat also shows the potential for a decent return on investment. Swenson said that’s better than it has been for the last few years.

"We had a decent price increase (on spring wheat) in 2017, due to the drought in the spring wheat growing areas," Swenson said. "Although the prices have come down some from the high, they're still quite a bit higher going into this year relative to what they were going into last year."

Swenson said forecasts show durum to be positive. But he said corn is projecting “negative returns” over most of the state – the only exceptions being the northwest and southwest regions, where the costs are lower, but there is a higher production risk.

Swenson said these are only projections – and they could change.