Argentina has finished sowing their wheat crop but conditions remain less than ideal as cold, dry conditions hamper establishment in some western locations. Argentina has sown approximately 6.3mha this year but there’s a distinct difference between the east and west portions of their crop. The east hasn’t seen a bad start to the season good rain and better more heat units, but the west continues to be dry and has seen some frosts.
Overall their national crop condition rating is reflecting these differences with just one third of the crop rated as Good / Excellent and roughly 20% of the crop rated poor. With over 60% of the crop grown in the east, this still leaves the crop in good shape if they get a spring break.

The more you read about the possible direction of the AUD the more confused you can become. There’s so many significant variables at play, and the house of cards, built with the best Chinese cardboard available, is very fragile. If one looks at the retail sector, or whats left of it, than it’s obvious that the economy is trashed. In the meantime we see gold pushing back towards US$2500. Unemployment is a big problem in Victoria and there are more builders going broke in Victoria than crooked politicians……. well maybe. There is a view that the AUD will continue to be range bound if not pushed lower between now and the US election.
With world wheat prices generally trending lower producers need a sub 60c AUD to make a margin this year. Overnight US wheat futures pushed lower, dragging cash values lower out of the PNW. Although white wheat values were relatively unchanged, red wheat’s were back AUD$3.00 to AUD$6.00 on the day to day conversions. Argentine values were flat. Black Sea values were flat to firmer, Russian values up as much as AUD$6.00 out of the Black Sea when compared to yesterdays conversion. This comes not only on news of some issues with their war on Ukraine, but also on the back of SovEcon lowering their public estimate for Russian wheat production this year. The SovEcon estimate falling 1.8mt to 82.9mt, due mostly to lower winter wheat yields.