Last night’s US session was all about squaring up, wheat, corn and soybeans were all under pressure at Chicago as the punters prepare for next Tuesday’s USDA WASDE report. Spring wheat futures at Minneapolis bucked the trend but spring wheat cash bids across SE Saskatchewan fell in line with US soft and hard red winter wheat futures, with both Canadian spring and durum wheat slipping a buck or so.

A quick look at durum spreads in Canada shows the drop from 13% to 11.5% is roughly C$11. There is also a premium of about C$7.35 for 14% protein durum.  The spread between 13% milling wheat and 11.5% milling wheat is about C$18.40.
At the US Pacific North West the difference between 10.5% club white wheat and Dark Northern Spring wheat at 13% is about US$46 in favour of the white wheat.
Short supplies of US white wheat has pushed US domestic bids through the roof. It will be interesting to see what projected white wheat exports from the US into the Asia market will be this year. I can’t imagine it will be much. As we know hard white wheat is also preferred by the bakers for bread production.

Ukraine continues to take advantage of higher priced Russian grain out of the Black Sea. Ukraine grain export sales are up about 18.5% on this time last year. As mentioned yesterday parts of Ukraine are getting dry. With the winter crop now just 46% sown rain will be needed.