(Reuters) – Chicago soybean futures slid to their lowest in almost a week on Monday and corn fell for a second session, under pressure from forecasts of dry weather in the U.S. Midwest that will prompt farmers to speed up harvesting.
Wheat lost more ground in early Asian trade, tracking the weakness in corn and soybeans.
Chicago Board of Trade front-month soybeans fell as much as 0.7 percent to $9.45-1/2 a bushel by 0233 GMT, lowest since Oct. 14, while corn gave up 0.7 percent to $3.45-3/4 a bushel and wheat lost 0.5 percent to $5.13-1/4 a bushel.
“The weather is looking great and it will help the U.S. farmers to speed up the harvest,” said Ole Houe, an analyst at Sydney-based brokerage IKON Commodities. “Last week’s rally was purely about delayed harvest in the U.S. and I won’t be surprised if we see prices dropping most of the days this week.”
Forecasts called for mostly dry conditions across the Midwest this week. The sunshine should dry saturated fields after a week-long rainy spell that hit the southern half of the Corn Belt especially hard.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the U.S. corn harvest was only 24 percent complete by Oct. 12, compared with the five-year average of 43 percent. Soybeans were 40 percent harvested, compared with an average of 53 percent. Traders expect farmers to make up for lost time in the coming days.
Soybeans came under more pressure after private analytics firm Informa Economics raised its projection of U.S. soybean plantings for 2015 to a record high 88.5 million acres. If realized, this would represent the first time since 1983 that U.S. farmers plant more soybeans than corn.
The firm also raised its forecast of 2015 U.S. corn plantings to 87.771 million acres, from 87.275 million previously.
Still, soybean planting in Brazil’s top growing state of Mato Grosso is 18 percentage points behind last year’s pace, the state’s farm institute IMEA said on Friday, likely limiting the country’s soy offer in January.
As of Oct. 16, 9.3 percent of the state’s expected crop had been sowed, barely changed from 8.4 percent a week earlier amid a two-week dry spell, IMEA said in a weekly bulletin.
Ukrainian grain exports may rise to a record 34.3 million tonnes in the 2014/15 season from the 32.8 million tonnes sold abroad the season before, the economy ministry said on Friday.
The ministry data shows exports could include 11.7 million tonnes of wheat, 4.16 million tonnes of barley and 17.9 million tonnes of maize.
Large speculators raised their net long position in Chicago Board of Trade corn futures in the week to Oct. 14, regulatory data released on Friday showed.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that noncommercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, trimmed their net short position in CBOT wheat and trimmed their net short position in soybeans.
