In the US we see wheat futures generally flat to lower. Across the Atlantic Paris milling wheat and UK feed wheat were a little firmer but no one market is jumping out of its skin at the moment. The weaker AUD saw export offers off the west coast of Australia a smidge higher.

Looking at the weather around the world we see dry weather starting to have an impact on corn production in southern Brazil. The driest regions in Brazil are actually the largest corn producing regions. The Brazilian corn crop is split between two plants, the first, north, and second plant in the south. The second plant is called the Safrinha plant. Many years ago the second plant was the smaller of the two, thus its name in Portuguese Safrinha means “little harvest”. Now days this is not the case, the Safrinha crop makes up roughly 70%-75% of the Brazilian corn crop and is the one that is mostly exported.
In last month’s USDA report Brazil was pencilled in to produce around 101mt of corn this year. With exports predicted at 36mt any reduction in this month’s USDA report, due out on the 12th, may play straight into the hands of the USA.
It’s hard to say if this is the news the bleeding corn market in the USA is looking for but if combined with some more positive news from the ethanol sector it may see further losses prevented.
Russian 7 day rainfall totals look good, there’s been around 20-30mm across much of the winter wheat regions of central Russian and the Black Sea region. Ukraine has seen useful rain as has much of Romania and Turkey. Rainfall across N.Africa was limited but useful.