CHICAGO: US old-crop corn futures rose 1.3 percent o n T uesday morning, their third straight day of gains, on worries that supplies will run thin before harvest replenishes storage bins and grain elevators, traders said.
New-crop December corn also rose, but gains were muted on expectations that farmers will plant the largest area with the grain in 75 years as projected by the US government, setting the stage for what could be a record harvest in the fall.
"It is bull spreading in a big way so it has got to be people looking for corn right up front," said Mark Schultz, chief analyst for Northstar Commodities.
Soybean futures also were strong, firming after a weak open due to strength in the corn market. Soy prices, which have risen 5.5 percent in the past three days, remained underpinned by the US Agriculture Department's forecast for a drop in acreage.
US wheat futures fell for the second day in a row on forecasts for beneficial crop weather in key growing areas which should raise already ample supplies, traders said.
At 10:26 a.m. CDT (1526 GMT), CBOT May corn was up 8-3/4 cents at $6.63-3/4 a bushel while the new-crop December contract was 1 cent higher at $5.46 a bushel.
The July/December corn spread has widened by 40 percent since the USDA's plantings report was released on Friday morning.
CBOT May soybeans were up 9 cents at $14.30 a bushel.
A fast start to planting buoyed expectations of large corn seedings, followed by a bumper crop, this year. USDA said on Monday afternoon that farmers had seeded 3 percent of their intended corn acreage as of April 1, matching the quickest start on record.
CBOT May wheat was down 1-1/2 cents at $6.55-1/2 a bushel. New-crop July wheat dropped 3-1/2 cents to $6.66a bushel.
Prices for the benchmark wheat contract failed to fall below Monday's low of $6.49-1/4 after testing that mark early in the session.
Significant rainfall was being received this week in the US Plains this week, which will further boost growth and development of the hard red winter wheat crop, said Don Keeney, meteorologist for MDA CropCast Weather.
"We're certainly seeing showers ramp up in the Southern Plains," Keeney said.
The rain will spread eastward into the southern Midwest and
Delta later in the week, helping the developing soft red winter wheat crop.
US winter wheat was rated 58 percent good-to-excellent as of April 1, compared with 37 percent a year ago, according to the USDA's weekly crop progress report issued on Monday afternoon.
"There is a little bit of weakness in wheat as crop conditions have emerged substantially better than when they went into dormancy last year," said Victor Thianpiriya, an agricultural commodity strategist at ANZ.
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