The Russian wheat crop has passed the 70% harvested market. Thus far 71mt of wheat has been harvested, roughly 72% of the area has now had a header over it. The news for the Russian spring wheat area continues to get worse. Another oblast has been placed into a state of emergency as rain continues to create flooding and destroy spring and summer crops in the Tomsk region.
This news comes on the back of lower export estimates from major analysts. SovEcon is expecting to see Russia export just 46.1mt of wheat this season, back from last years 52.2mt. Ukraine exports are also predicted to decline significantly, falling from 18.2mt last year to 13.6mt this season. The two Black Sea giants of wheat are expected to see a combined reduction of 10.7mt in wheat exports. The scale of this reduction in availability could help world prices start to recover from their recent lows.
Current weather condition across the Russian winter wheat region are also adding a little petrol to this fire. Conditions have been very dry, seeing winter wheat sowing commence in less than ideal conditions. A quick look at WorldAgWeather.com shows that things are not about to improve, with little to no rain predicted to fall there over the next 7 days. That goes for the spring wheat region too, which probably isn’t a bad thing there.

The weekly USDA crop progress report shows 5% of the US corn crop in the bin, the southern states leading the charge. The G/E rating for corn was back 1pt to 64%. One may have thought it would need to be higher to see the type of yields the last WASDE was indicating. The soybean G/E rating was left unchanged with 25% of the US crop now dropping leaves. The cotton condition rating dropped 2pts to 40% G/E. US sorghum harvest progressed to 21% complete, Texas now at 77% in the bin, Kansas 2% harvested. The sorghum G/E rating slipped 2pts to 48%. International sorghum values were generally AUD$1.00 to AUD$3.00 lower overnight. Spring wheat harvest is nearly completion in the US, pegged at 85% complete as of the end of last week.