Crop Prices Decline on Speculation U.S. Winter Wheat May Recover
Category: Grains
(Businessweek) – Crop prices dropped, led by wheat, as investors cashed in gains on speculation rains may help the winter variety recover in Kansas, the largest U.S. grower, after drought and frost damaged plants.
Wheat for delivery in July lost as much as 1.2 percent to $7.225 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after climbing 5.6 percent in the past two days. Futures traded at $7.2525 at 11:02 a.m. Singapore time.
Yields in central Kansas were estimated at 43.8 bushels an acre after a survey of 277 fields by analysts, farmers and grain traders participating in an annual three-day tour of the state’s crop. That compares with an average of 44 bushels an acre in the central district of the state and 44.5 bushels in the north-central region last year, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed. Rains may help the state get a “decent crop” even as it sustains freeze damage, Julia Debes, a spokesman at Arlington, Virginia-based U.S. Wheat Associates, said in an interview.
“We’re seeing profit-taking in the market after the surge in prices,” Hiroyuki Kikukawa, general manager for researcher at Nihon Unicom Inc., said in an e-mail from Tokyo today.
Rains were forecast in some parts of central and south plains in the U.S., Joel Burgio, an agricultural meteorologist at DTN, said in a report yesterday. In the Midwest, continued dry and warm weather today may benefit crops before rains redevelop in Illinois, he said. The Midwest is the largest U.S. corn and soybean growing region.
Corn for July delivery declined 0.7 percent to $6.455 a bushel in Chicago, while soybeans slipped 0.2 percent to $13.9625 a bushel.
To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
