Corn and soybeans futures at Chicago continued to push higher in Monday’s session. The stronger soybean market helped to support strong canola and rapeseed futures. Paris rapeseed, which had been leading the charge higher until the latest rally in soybeans, was not as strong last night. Nearby Paris rapeseed futures fell away €1.25 but May 25 > May26 slots were all a little higher by the close. Winnipeg canola found more strength from soybeans, gaining C$6.10 for both the Jan25 and March 25 contracts.
Bargain hunting crept into the wheat pit at Chicago and Minneapolis, all three grades of US wheat closed with good gains. The move in US wheat futures was reflected in some cash markets. FOB French and Ukraine milling wheat values were also higher overnight. Values out of the Pacific Northwest for both spring wheat and hard red winter wheat reflected to move in US futures. Hard red winter wheat gaining roughly AUD$4.73/t against Friday nights conversion. The slightly stronger AUD pared back gains a little, roughly 50c/t. The move higher in US FOB values places HRWW just above Aussie H2 wheat on a delivered north Asia consumer basis.

The rally in US corn and soybean futures is in part due to the worsening conditions for the Argentine summer crops. The combination of hot dry weather for Argentina over the last few weeks has a few of the punters expecting to see a production reduction for both corn and soybeans. The 30 day anomaly map for rainfall shows it’s definitely dry. A lot of the rain that was expected to fall fell along the western edge of the main production areas and across the south of BA. Temperatures are now pushing into the high 30’sC across much of the southern region and have been in the mid to low 30sC for much of January. Not unusually hot for this time of year. Further north in Brazil summer crop conditions are mixed, some locations too wet, some too dry, but generally not in as much trouble as Argentina could be with another week or two of hot dry weather. The 7 day forecast shows the chance of 20-30mm for BA late this week.