US wheat futures were sharply lower in overnight trade. The US Wheat Quality Council crop tour of Kansas really couldn’t have come at a better time to quash speculation over the amount of damage done to the Kansas wheat crop during last weekends snow storm.
The tour reported that yields will actually come in better than the 5 year average by around 10%, not as good as last year though. This will still only see Kansas produce around 8mt of wheat versus a huge 13mt last year.
Crop tour participants also acknowledged that many crops will not show the full degree of damage for another week or more so judging yield estimates on these crops was difficult.
The weather in the US will make the USDA’s job compiling this month WASDE report even harder. The trade will be keen to see what the official estimates are when the report comes out on May 10th.
The funds seemed to have been the main driver to the rally in futures. It’s hard to believe that there is little damage to what most are saying was the worst weather event to hit the Kansas crop in years, I guess we just have to wait and see.