It would be the biggest year-on-year percentage decline in nine years and would follow the surge in corn futures at the Chicago Board of Trade to an all-time high of $7.99-3/4 per bushel in June 2011. An average of the analysts' estimates pegged the price of spot corn at the end of this year at $5.47 per bushel, 15 percent below the 2011 ending price of $6.47. Estimates ranged widely from a low of $4 per bushel, which would be the lowest year-end price in seven years, to what would be a record high of $8.12. Eleven of the 12 analysts forecast the end-2012 price would be lower than a year ago. The remaining analyst expected the price to soar to $8.12 per bushel based on his expectations for a short crop and strong demand. Corn stocks in the United States, the world's top grower and exporter of the feed grain, are at their lowest level in 16 years due to a disappointing harvest last year and demand from the ethanol sector. "Corn prices will be very strong into the spring and probably even summer because of the tight stocks. The strength is an old-crop play," said Terry Roggensack, analyst for The Hightower Report. "Corn is the most profitable grain to plant in the US and maybe even the world." Roggensack said he was penciling in US corn plantings this year at 94.5 million acres, harvested acreage at 86.6 million and yield per acre at 162 bushels. He sees total production at a record 14.029 billion bushels. "I'm basing my projections on normal weather. It will be difficult not to have record production this year. Assuming the USDA's corn ending stocks for this year is correct at 846 million, this gets me to ending corn stocks next year at 1.8 billion bushels," Roggensack said. Don Roose, analyst and president of US Commodities, Des Moines, Iowa, said between 95 million and 96 million acres of corn could be planted and, assuming normal weather, a huge crop of nearly 14-1/2 billion bushels could be harvested. "We think the carryout could be over 2.0 billion bushels next year. The usage will increase with lower prices but not enough to keep from building stocks," Roose said. Most analysts have based their current forecast on normal crop weather and an increase in corn area to roughly 94.0 million acres, the most since 1944 when 95.475 million were planted and above last year's seedings of nearly 92 million acres. Early last year the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecast 2011 corn plantings at 92.178 million, 4 million more than were sown to corn the previous year. Final plantings for 2011 totaled 91.9 million acres, close to the March USDA plantings forecast, but total production was reduced by hot, dry weather during the crop's pollination phase. SOLE CONTRARION SEES CORN ABOVE $8 Chris Manns, president of Traders Group Inc, is the only analyst polled who expects corn prices to rise this year, based on the likelihood of a weather problem in the US Midwest this summer similar to the heat and dryness that has trimmed Argentina's corn and soybean crops. "I'm a bull this year. I think we'll eat through the excessive feed wheat and I'm banking on a hot and dry summer in the US So in short, good demand and a reduced crop this year," Manns said. Corn prices have been on a roller coaster ride over the past 12 months. They started 2011 at $6.29 per bushel and had soared 27 percent by the summer to a record high of $7.99-3/4 as hot weather began to trim the crop's production potential. Prices retreated 20 percent by the end of the year as the high price resulted in demand rationing, soaring wheat supplies offered a cheap feed alternative, and the euro zone debt crisis pressured corn futures.