MGE wheat down

Spring wheat futures at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange closed mostly lower on Monday, tracking a technical retreat in the Chicago and Kansas City wheat markets, traders said.
Ideas of improving planting weather in the northern US Plains spring wheat belt added pressure, despite scattered weekend rains. "It looks like the planting delays we've had are over," one MGE floor source said. Minneapolis May wheat closed 4 cents lower at $4.14-3/4 per bushel, with July down 3 at $4.24-1/4.
ADM Investor Services and Country Hedging each sold 100-200 May, 100-200 July and 100-200 December contracts, while ADMIS also bought 200 July, traders said.
Volume was estimated by the exchange at 6,507 contracts, down from 8,574 on Friday. Spreading was a feature, with May/July trading at a carry of 7-1/2 to 8-3/4 cents. Traders were rolling May positions forward ahead of first notice day on April 28.
After the markets closed, the US Department of Agriculture said the US spring wheat crop was 20 percent seeded, compared with the five-year average of 27 percent. Traders had estimated spring wheat seeding progress at 15-20 percent.
The USDA said the US winter wheat crop was rated 39 percent good to excellent, matching the previous week's figure. But 34 percent was rated poor to very poor, up from 32 percent the previous week.
Traders had expected a slight decline in ratings. Wheat futures had support from bullish weekly export data and continued concerns about the US hard red winter wheat crop. The USDA put weekly export inspections of US wheat at 19.1 million bushels, above trade estimates for 8 million to 13 million.
But traders struggled to assess the impact of weather in the HRW belt, including weekend rains and hail in Kansas and Nebraska. More rain was forecast for Monday, but some traders said the moisture might be too little, too late for the drought-hit HRW wheat crop.
Traders were awaiting planting estimates from Statistics Canada on Tuesday. The average Canadian spring wheat estimate among analysts surveyed by Reuters was 19.2 million acres, up from the 17.9 million acres seeded in 2005.