The same wheat stories have been going around about global wheat problems and concerns – and we don’t like to repeat ourselves.  What’s new?  Well, at least today we did see some rumours about potential Chinese SRW purchases, but predictably enough there’s been nothing firm since then.  Black Sea harvest is still poking along and pushing further north. The slow start to harvest, under half of normal albeit with acceptable quality so far, leaves more uncertainty on yields. Spring wheat weather looks very suspect with no real relief likely on the weather maps.  US spring wheat areas are looking at solid chances of some more moisture coming, which will help fill in gaps from the last storm band.  At the same time though, there are still reports that a fair piece of the North Dakota crop has already seen significant damage. There’s also talk of overly wet parts of Canada seeing crop damage, though the bears will point to exceptional standing crops further west in both countries.  Weekly US export sales data showed slightly higher bean sales, including just under a million tonnes of old crop beans compared with prior guesses at under 800,0000t. Corn sales, at a millions tonnes across both marketing years, were mixed and wheat was mediocre, 326,000t compared with ideas over half a million tonnes.

Tomorrow brings the next USDA WASDE report, although some of the larger changes area already known as they will adopt data from the stocks and acreage reports.  The million dollar question is what will happen to yield?  In the meantime markets are glued to the weather maps.

Local markets picked up $3-4/t yesterday on wheat early in the day, but failed to push any further later in the day as more sales interest hit the books.  New season ASX January 21 east coast wheat futures traded around $295/t.  Weekend rains are still on the forecast maps for much of the east coast, but a few are questioning how much will fall.