The pending approach of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) June 30 acreage report is escalating the focus on the amount of acres sown to soybeans this year. While the smaller than expected soybean planting estimate in the March 31 report wasn’t as much of a surprise as the large corn number, it wasn’t expected.

Prices had started moving up by the release of the March report, but it wasn’t ...