US wheat futures continue to sink under all but ideal autumn weather conditions. Rain and showers are expected to ease across the HRWW belt next week, allowing winter wheat sowing to wind up in many locations. In last Tuesday USDA crop progress report, US winter wheat sowing had progressed to 51% complete, 7pts behind the 5 year average pace.
Kansas, the USA’s largest winter wheat producing state, moved from 24% sown to 44% sown week on week, and should show good progress again in next week report. Kansas is usually about 56% sown by the date of the last report. So it was a little behind the average pace. The showers that delayed sowing do place the crop in a good seed bed once emerged though. So there’s not a lot to worry about as US wheat looks to go into the winter in good shape.

Conditions remain less than ideal across the Russian wheat belt, particularly the Black Soil plains of the Volga Valley. The last 30 days has produced around 30%-50% of average rainfall for this time of year. The dryness spreads west into central Russia, where around 60%-70% of average rain has fallen. Combine the less than ideal sowing conditions with the high cost of sowing, and it’s understandable why we are reading some reports calling the Russian wheat area being greatly reduced year on year.
Conditions in Ukraine appear to be much better, from a weather perspective at least. Northern Europe is a little drier than they would like it to be but generally not too bad. Germany is pretty much seeing average rainfall for this time of year. France remains remarkably dry, as it has been for months now. Northern France has received just 20%-40% of average rainfall over the last 30 days. Many locations seeing less than 20mm of rain for the month.
Argentina has seen favourable rainfall, if not a little too wet on the Pampas. The major wheat production regions have picked up 25mm to 75mm over the last 30 days, some parts of the Pampas have seen more than 120mm. Brazil’s main wheat region has seen 200mm to 400mm+ over the last 30 days, very wet.