The US futures market eased a little last night as reality started to creep back in. Corn, soybeans and soft wheat were all lower while hard wheat managed to hold onto some of yesterday’s gains and remain at values close to where they were in the beginning of March.
Looking closely at maps and reading reports out of Kansas the worst of the storm was in the very far NW corner of the state, not exactly where huge amounts of wheat are grown. Conditions were frosty in some locations further east but once again not cold enough to do a massive amount of damage. There is a good chance we will see damage reports keep the market from slipping sharply lower in the days to come and we may see further fund liquidation of their massive short in wheat support US futures but fundamentally there does not seem to be the level of damage done to the Kansas crop that needs to be seen to spike a market.

The weekly crop progress report out of the USDA does show around 44% of the Kansas crop was in head and usually the earliest crops are to the SW and south central part of Kansas so potentially the NE area is still jointing or at the shot leaf stage. Some pics I’ve seen do tend to indicate this too, so less likely to be damaged. The HRW crop in Kansas was rated at 49% good to excellent.