Plantings Plans Released

North Carolina farmers say they will plant more acres of cotton, peanuts and sweet potatoes this year than in 2009. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Prospective Plantings report says farmers intend to plant less wheat, soybeans and tobacco. Cotton has the biggest turnaround -- after a three year decline in planted acres, farmers say they will increase cotton plantings by 44-percent this year. Cotton is planned for 540-thousand acres, just less than the planned plantings of wheat, which are down 21% from 2009. The leading crop again this year will be soybeans, with 1.65 million acres planned for planting. That's a decline of 8-percent, though. Tobacco acres are down 6-percent, and now are barely more than either wheat or cotton.