CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures dropped on Friday after a crop tour through Kansas this week projected better-than-average yields in a top US winter wheat state, analysts said.
Corn also headed lower on improving U.S weather forecasts while soybeans extended gains as forecasts for more rain in southern Brazil fueled concern about crop losses to floods.
The July wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was down 9-3/4 cents at $6.53-1/2 a bushel by 12:07 P.M. CDT (1707 GMT). Scouts on the Wheat Quality Council’s annual wheat crop tour concluded their trip on Thursday, estimating Kansas wheat’s yield potential at 46.5 bushels per acre (bpa) after scouting 449 fields over three days. The figure was the highest since 2021 and above the five-year tour average of 42.4 bpa from 2018-2023.
Wheat futures were technically overbought and due for a correction, said Austin Schroeder, a commodity analyst with Brugler Marketing and Management.
Futures hit 10-month highs this week on concerns about frost killing crops in Russia, the world’s biggest wheat exporter. In corn, forecasts for a drier window in corn-growing areas over the weekend before rains arrive next week had capped prices, Schroeder said. “I think its fairly open in terms of planting,” he said.
CBOT July corn was down 4-3/4 cents at $4.52-1/4 while July soybeans added 10 cents to $12.26-1/4 a bushel. Soybeans rose as the harvesting of soybeans, corn and rice in Brazil’s flood-devastated Rio Grande do Sul advanced slowly in the last week as relentless rains and stubbornly high waters failed to subside.
“There was a sharp reduction in grain quality in comparison to the product obtained before the excess rain,” Brazilian crop agency Emater said on Thursday. Gains in soyoil helped boost soybeans, Schroeder said.
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