USDA trims soybean planting estimate for 2001(Adds with CBOT closing paragraph 7)

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - U.S. soybean plantings will climb to arecord 75.4 million acres this year, a level somewhat less than previouslyestimated due to soggy springtime weather in the Midwest and South, theU.S. Agriculture Department said on Friday.U.S. soybean sowings have steadily climbed every year since 1990, and theUSDA had forecast in March that plantings would top 76.6 million acresthis year.But the department adjusted its estimate on Friday to reflect the wetfields in the Mississippi Delta, which forced many farmers to switch fromplanting soybeans to cotton this year.The rainy weather also trimmed corn plantings to an estimated 76.1 millionacres, down 500,000 acres from USDA's March forecast and off 4 percentfrom actual plantings last year."This is the lowest (corn) acreage since 1995 when excess rainfall alsolimited plantings," the USDA said in its new estimate of U.S. cropplantings. Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas saw thebiggest drops in corn sowings.The soybean and corn acreage estimates were below analysts' forecastssending commodity futures prices higher at the Chicago Board of Trade.On Friday, July soybean contracts closed up 20-1/2 cents at $4.83 perbushel on the news, while July corn ended down 1/4 at $1.89 per bushel."The soybean numbers are surprising on a couple of terms," said MarkWeidner, analyst with Cargill Investor Services. "They actually show theabandonment that many people were expecting in the Northern Plains...andlost acreage down in the Delta regions comes also as a bit of a surprise."Weidner said USDA's 2001 soybean estimates indicated a crop of nearly 2.94billion bushels, slightly below USDA's June 12 estimate of 2.99 billion.USDA also estimated U.S. wheat plantings at 59.6 million acres, down 5percent from 2000. Cotton plantings were forecast at 16.3 million acres,five percent above last year.The new USDA report also showed U.S. farmers continued to embracegenetically modified crops despite the reluctance of some overseascustomers to buy biotech foods.Growers told the USDA that 68 percent of soybeans planted this year werebiotech varieties, up from 54 percent last year.Biotech corn varieties made up 26 percent of this year's corn crop, up 1percent from 2000. Genetically engineered cotton surged to 69 percent,from last year's 61 percent.The USDA also reported that U.S. soybean stocks totaled 708 millionbushels on June 1, down 9 percent from the same period last year. Cornstocks totaled 3.92 billion bushels, up 9 percent from 2000 and thehighest level since 1998.