Chicago and Minneapolis wheat futures contracts all closed a little higher overnight. Spring wheat the winner, finding support from not only hot dry conditions in Canada, Russian and Ukraine but also the continued poor weather in Europe. A quick look at WorldAgWeather.com shows rain continuing across northern France and Germany while conditions remain dry across central and western Europe and towards the Black Sea.
The quality of the French soft wheat crop that is currently being harvested continues to decline, but with an average test weight of 75-76kg/hl and protein measurements averaging around 11.5%, it’s not dire, yet. So far samples are also mostly mycotoxin free. Continued rain on what wheat is left to harvest could change all these attributes though. The poor season in France has analyst expecting to see soft wheat production there as low as 26.4mt. A level last seen in the 1980’s. With around 50% of the French wheat still in the field the potential for further reductions in IGC and USDA projections is possible.
In Russia we’ve heard all about the dry spring, frosts and heat damage to the winter wheat, but there’s been little focus on the spring wheat. Spring wheat in Russia is currently flowering / filling grain, harvest would normally start mid to later this month. With the 30 day rainfall across much of both Kazak and Russian spring wheat area exceeding 200-300% of normal, we could be looking at two things. A very large crop or a very weather beaten crop with low test weight, low protein, and for the durum grower, low vitreous. The seven day forecast continues to show the chance of rain across the central and eastern spring wheat region of Russian and Kazakhstan, with falls of 15-30mm possible.
Argentina remains very dry but the 7 days forecast does predict some falls across the eastern edge of their major wheat production area.
Southern Saskatchewan is expected to remain dry, western Alberta may see some showers towards the mountains, hopefully putting out a few fires.

Both cash and futures values for canola and rapeseed saw steep losses over night, confirming the recent rally was indeed just a dead cat bounce.