They have had a good crack at the US durum crop over the last seven days. Quality is looking better than expected with early fields in North Dakota seeing protein as high as 14.5%, test weight, falling number and moisture are all very good too.

Overnight futures values for US wheat, corn and soybeans all closed lower. Wheat set a new 10 year low, corn a new 7 year low while soybeans drifted back to values of only one month ago. Weather in the US is favourable for corn and soybeans with warmer conditions expected next week.
The US traders pegged corn condition rating to be unchanged in the weekly crop progress report which came out after the session closed and they won’t be disappointed as it is unchanged at 75% good to excellent. Maturation is a little ahead of normal and has the US expecting to be in the middle of corn harvest by mid September.

Egypt have changed the goal posts again by re-confirming that they will once again be placing a 0% ergot tolerance on imported wheat. This is not what the Europeans wanted to hear. It will most likely limit the number of offers in future tenders but may also help increase the grade spread for quality wheat like that produced in Australia.