US markets were quiet on Friday with most punters happy to work with spread trade and positioning around the usual market news such as the US / China trade discussions and the impact of last week’s weather on the standing crops. The later preventing prices from slipping to far. It was interesting to see spring wheat futures actually fall away though. On the support side was the thought wet weather will see a reduced winter wheat plant in the US as growers start to walk away from unsown wheat acres.

Wheat is still finding international support from dry weather in Australia and in Argentina. Rainfall totals for the last seven days are much better in Argentina than here in Australia. During the week 15mm – 30mm fell across most of the major wheat regions in Argentina. It may be a case of too little too late but with a lot of the crop still at late grain fill in the south any rainfall should be considered beneficial. The Pampas is still a little dry, with the 14 day anomaly showing just 60% – 80% of normal rainfall for this period, not exactly the end of the world though is it.
Good rainfall was recorded across much of the Black Sea and Russia over the last two weeks. Flooding across Crimea is subsiding but generally speaking the rains have been good for agriculture.
Severe drought in South Africa is also causing production issues there. We haven’t heard much about this drought on international wires but the impact has been huge on production. Feed grain imports are expected to increase significantly in future months.