The U.S. Department of Agriculture will release two key reports on Tuesday morning. One will reveal how many soybeans are still in U.S. storage bins as of June 1. The second will report how much corn, soybeans and spring wheat farmers planted this season after an unusually wet spring in the eastern Midwest, a bellwether for world grain exports each year.

“The one that has the potential for immediate fireworks going into the Fourth of July is the soybean stocks,” said Don Roose, an analyst with U.S. Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Typically, stocks levels at this time of the season do not garner such huge attention. USDA’s acreage numbers released on June 30 tend to steal the show, since so much guesswork has been done for months on when, where and what farmers plant.

But this year’s outlook for U.S. soy stocks on hand to hit a 32-year low before the September harvest amid strong Chinese soybean demand is keeping the heat on soybean figures.

“Any time you get into a tight-balance-sheet years there is plenty of uncertainty in the quarterly stocks numbers for beans. That could be the biggest unknown or uncertainty going into this report: the bean stocks,” said Randy Mittelstaedt, an analyst with Chicago brokerage R.J. O’Brien.

Analysts are estimating that USDA will report June 1 U.S. soybean stocks at 559 million to 620 million bushels — down from a year ago when June 1 stocks were 676 million bushels.

But the acreage numbers could also spark some excitement given the unusual planting season across the heartland. Heavy rains pounded the southeastern Midwest, where some 6 million acres intended for soybean were yet to be planted last week with fields too wet to seed. Late planting — which also hurt corn seeding — puts yield losses in greater play.

USDA in March said total intended plantings forecast for major U.S. row crops — corn, soy, wheat, cotton — were down about 4 million acres from 2008. Higher prices since then has  some private analysts expecting bigger plantings on Tuesday.

“Is it an outlook-altering report? That’s the question,” said Dan Cekander, a grains analyst with Newedge USA, LLC.

The Independence day weekend is usually the busiest travel weekend of the summer driving season, but this year, the number of Americans travelling this year will drop 1.9 percent, mostly due to high prices at the pump and economic worries.

That means this year the number of people taking a Fourth of July Day trip will be the fewest since 2000:

The drop in travel isn’t nearly as severe as last year, when July 4 travel sank 10.5 percent as drivers steered away from $4 a gallon gasoline, but the recent rise in gasoline prices– about 9 percent from memorial day through June 12– are likely taking their toll on American consumers, AAA said.

Are you planning to travel over the Fourth of July weekend?

Asked whether growth in emerging economies would be enough to compensate for slowing in the U.S., he said: “No.”

Fabbri pointed out that emerging economies accounted for only about 25 percent of global growth and would not be sufficient to take up the slack in the sagging U.S. economy.

“Contrary to some people’s thinking at the start of the recession who thought there would be a decoupling of the U.S. from other economies like China that has not been the case,” the economist said.

So while infrastructure spending in countries like China might lift metals demand, its growth pace will be limited without the support of robust industrial and economic output in developed countries.

Furthermore, while China, India and Brazil may continue to grow during the current global recession, he noted that not all emerging markets are alike, citing faltering economies in Eastern Europe and parts of South America as examples.

PHOTO: Newly emerged corn in north central Illinois.

For those who’ve decided to invest in more fuel efficient cars, however, the choice is now paying off. Jose Ferro, a cab driver who was also filling up at the 46th St. station began leasing a hybrid taxi about eight weeks ago said the higher leasing fee is already paying off as gasoline prices climb higher.

Ferro, 72, a retired television commercial producer, who has been driving a cab for about three years said he used to fork out $38-$45 to fill up the Ford he used to lease, compared with about $10 to fill up the hybrid, which means a little bit extra take-home pay.

Despite Americans’ complaints about the rising cost of gasoline, Reuters data shows that the price Americans are paying for gasoline is well below prices drivers in many other developing countries pay.

While the summer driving season has been underway for only two weeks, gasoline prices have already blown expert forecasts for highs for the summer.

Average prices at the pump on Monday were $2.62 a gallon, according to AAA, up 16 percent from just a month ago, and over the $2.50 a gallon high that AAA had forecast for the entire summer. Last week, AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom said the group revised its forecast for the summer high to $2.75 a gallon.

Although prices are much lower than the $4 a gallon national average a year ago, experts say the prices will hurt American consumers already hard hit by the recession.

How are higher U.S. gasoline prices affecting you? Are you cutting back on other expenses in order to keep your car fueled up? Are you considering cutting back on driving? Are you worried about prices moving a lot higher?