Some nice gains were posted in US wheat futures last night. With US weekly crop progress report is expected to start again in April we will then start to get a better idea on how the US winter wheat crop is shaping up.
This week saw a MoM decline of 4% in the good to excellent rating for the Kansas HRWW crop, down to 52% G/E, that’s not a terrible crop nor a fantastic crop. Dry weather across western and central Kansas and the Texas Panhandle are concerning. With the 7 day forecast for the US showing little to no rain there, there’s a good chance we’ll see the hard red winter wheat crop break dormancy is less than ideal conditions this year.
Temperatures across the HRWW belt have generally been average over the last week. The coldest weather was pretty much to the NE across the central corn belt and spring wheat states. Temperatures will change next week as warmer weather accompanies the dry spell. Days potentially pushing into the mid to high 20sC across Texas and Oklahoma and the low 20s across much of Kansas.
France and Poland remain unusually dry. The 14 day anomaly showing just 40% – 20% of average rainfall across much of eastern Europe, and conditions are not much better in France. Germany is expected to see some useful rainfall again next week, but showers across France and Poland are expected to be light or absent.
Conditions are also becoming a little dry across western Russia, while the spring wheat region of Russia and Kazakhstan is seeing very high levels of rainfall. This isn’t a problem for the eastern region, as spring wheat sowing is some time off, moisture there will be viewed as mostly beneficial now.
Drier parts of Argentina are expected to see heavy rainfall over the next 7 days. Some models show falls of 100-150mm are possible early next week for parts of southern Santa Fe and eastern Cordoba and BA. This is the prime wheat growing region. Excessive rainfall now isn’t great for any remaining summer crop to be harvested. Winter crop sowing is still some weeks away, but keep an eye out for sowing delays if further heavy falls develop early April and May.