Corn futures at Chicago continued to be pressured by a better weather outlook for the central corn belt.
There were reports of strong winds associated with a severe storm that crossed SE Iowa, central Illinois, and southern Indiana, possibly laying large swaths of corn flat. This should be confirmed or not over the weekend, but there’s plenty of pics on twitter this morning. Wind gusts of 120-130kmph were reported from this group of storms that crossed area of the central corn belt around 600km long and 100km wide. For those that dodged the wind rainfall was a little disappointing with 2-10 mm recorded. Around storms 50mm+ was recorded, but so were the stronger winds.

Nearby Chicago soybean futures found some support as the July contract nears expiry. Outer months were generally either side of unchanged not really showing a lot of support for the move in the Winnipeg canola contract. The move there now being fuelled by deteriorating conditions across much of Saskatchewan and southern Alberta. World Ag Weather.com shows that the Canadian Prairies have seen roughly 20-40% of the average rainfall they usually receive over the last 14 days, the 30-day anomaly doesn’t look a lot better. The 7-day forecast for the Prairies predicts some storms towards the western edge of the plains in Alberta and along the mountains, but not much of anything across eastern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan.

US wheat futures were mixed, tending lower. Spring wheat found some support from the dry weather in Canada. Harvest is pressuring the HRWW there is coming off, and the thought that soft red winter wheat yields in the north of the US could be better than expected weighed on SRWW. Weekly US wheat sales for last week were lower than expected but prices have fallen a lot since then.