Corn futures at Chicago couldn’t do it but wheat managed to close in the green. One would think given the current weather conditions in the US that the fear would lay in the corn crop. Granted that a lot of the corn crop is still standing in relatively moist soil. Temperatures into the high 30’s across some of the western parts of the corn belt must be pruning yields. It appears not by enough to counter the central and eastern US corn belt. Potentially the bearish sentiment came from Brazil lifting their production number for the 2025-26 crop to 141.7mt. Sighting better than expected production in the second crop corn.

The focus on US wheat appears to be on quality now, or the lack of it. This must come as a blessing to the HRWW contract which had struggled to create a more traditional premium to SRWW for some time. Hopefully this signals that the current spreads are sustainable if not likely to increase in the mid term.
US HRWW out of the US Pacific Northwest is indicated at roughly US$272 FOB, which equates to something close to US$301 C&F Asian consumer. If we stack that up against current grower bids here converted to a central Asian consumer market price equivalent we come up with something close to US$308 for H2. So we can see the premium local H2 was asking for over US HRWW has eroded significantly over the last week or so.
The past doesn’t always predict the future, but if this spread is an indicator of what may happen next, my guess is we are probably heading towards a slight correction lower in US wheat values. Unless we see some significant changes to fundamental demand, or some large production adjustments lower from the major exporters.
Given the date, production adjustments still have time to play out. Reports of lower yields than expected across parts of Europe and the UK, lower acres in Russia, and Australia is yet to go through spring. All these cards are still on the table. Will we see huge volatility, probably not. The current world stocks to use ratio, even with some reductions is indicating that things will not get tight unless there are some very large adjustments. Could be a “sell the spike” kind of year.