(Reuters) – Sept 28 U.S. wheat rose 1 percent on Monday to its highest in more than a month, with prices underpinned as dry weather triggered concerns over winter crop production in the United States and the Black Sea region.
Soybeans eased after climbing to a near two-week peak earlier in the session on the back of strong demand, while corn was little changed as the market took a breather following a near 2-percent rally on Friday.
Chicago Board of Trade December wheat had risen 1 percent to $5.13 a bushel by 0239 GMT, the highest since Aug. 25. Wheat firmed 2.1 percent on Friday.
November soybeans fell 0.5 percent to $8.84-3/4 a bushel after rising 2.4 percent in the previous session. December corn was unchanged at $3.89 a bushel.
“Croppers continue to look at very dry fields in large swathes of winter wheat regions in the U.S., Ukraine and Russia which, unchanged, will leave crops in a poor state ahead of winter dormancy,” Tobin Gorey, director of agricultural strategy at Commonwealth Bank of Australia said in a note to clients.
“Weather forecasters expect little change to dry Black Sea regions while weather models are throwing a confusing array of projections for U.S. hard red winter wheat regions.”
Dry weather is threatening the 2016 grain harvests in Ukraine and Russia, both major Black Sea wheat exporters which are currently sowing winter crops, analysts and forecasters say.
The soybean market, which rose to its highest since Sept. 16 earlier on Monday before giving up gains, is being buoyed by strong demand for the oilseed.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday morning that exporters reported a flash sale of 260,000 tonnes of soybeans to China for delivery in the 2015/16 marketing year.
Importers from China, the world’s top soybean buyer, signed agreements to buy a total of 13.18 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans valued at about $5.3 billion at a signing ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday.
Large speculators switched to a net short position in CBOT corn futures in the week to Sept. 22, 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 increased their net short position in soybeans.
