The lower weekly crop condition rating for corn and soybeans saw some support in the row crops but technical selling was sill the dominant force. Good weather in the US is also capping any attempt beans and corn make to rally. The spring wheat area is set to miss this week’s rain though so we may start to see some further support for DNS and durum next week. Canadian 1CWAD13 values are flat and convert to roughly AUD$392 Newcastle port equivalent for a December slot.
Rainfall across the Canadian durum belt has been mixed. There has generally been some excellent falls across the durum belt in the month of July where up to 50mm has fallen but there is a thin drier strip that has missed the bigger falls. Generally the falls have been pretty good though with Regina seeing around 45mm-50mm for July. Swift Current, 150km west of Regina has seen about 47mm, Kindersley 100km NW of Swift Current has seen 62mm,  Redvers in the far SE of Saskatchewan has seen 26mm and further west, closer to the US border, Estevan SA has seen around 40mm. One might expect to see an slight upward revision in production estimates for durum in the coming weeks but the increased demand from N.Africa and the Mediterranean this year should consume these small increases.

Corn may find some further support from a sale of 1.76mt of US corn to China when it appears on the weekly loading schedule later in the year. It’s a good sale but a sale to China isn’t a sale until it’s unloaded at China. Wheat may find support from lower Russian production estimates, Sovecon last night said the crop will come in around 74.4mt. This may be countered by an increasing Ukraine estimate.