US wheat futures closed higher on further short covering and speculation America (not Russia) has a chance to fill the supply void being left by an ever decreasing supply of wheat from France.
Overnight French officials reduced expected yields to a 30 year low of 5.57t/ha, the lowest since 1986. The soft wheat crop now 50% harvested and currently only rated 35% good to excellent is expected to come in around 29.1mt a drop of over 11mt on last year.
Durum production is France was also reduced 376kt to 1.438mt. Barley and rapeseed were also reduced in the announcement.

Early harvest results in Germany are not fantastic either. The first crop off is barley and to date yields are running around 13% lower than last year. Wet weather in Poland is also causing some concern for both yield prospects and quality. The UK wheat crop is expected to be back around 12% year on year but this is more to do with lower acres than production issues.
The news had little impact on EU markets though as it is now generally considered old news or simply confirming what most had expected.
Russian kabuli chickpeas are starting to hit the Indian market below old crop desi values. The Russian product will fill a short term gap but will not meet the entire import demand of India prior to our harvest.