Strength in US wheat futures comes as heavy snow across Kansas basically puts an end to the 2018 winter wheat sowing program. Some punters expect to see significant reductions in Kansas area due to the delay. It will be interesting to see what the crop progress report pegs Kansas wheat percentage sown at this evening. In last week’s report it was estimated 83% of the crop had been sown versus 95% on average. Let’s say they managed to sow another 5% so total in is 88%. Let’s say Kansas was heading for 8 million acres and now around 10% of that will go unsown, that could roll out to something like 500kt to 1mt of wheat out of the US production estimate. This is probably a small deal for the US but from a global perspective it is not huge. We’ve seen 6mt peeled off the Aussie crop only to support the international market by a small amount. The question to ask is, is the global wheat production estimate dyeing the death of a thousand cuts. Bring on a dry spell on the Russian Steppes this spring I say.

Russian wheat export data confirms a slowing down in export pace but with total exports around 34% higher than this time last year a slightly slower pace was to be expected. With exports now at 18.2mt and the annual estimate at 35mt we should expect to see the pace slow a little. With the monthly average going forward only needing be about 2.4mt we will need to see either internal issues like weather or inflation in local values, to see less than the current projection being achieved. One thing that’s not being mentioned is the quality of what will remain in Russia, this may well be the key to the S&D number for the Black Sea come February.