US MIDDAY: wheat lower

Soft red winter (SRW) wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were lower early on Wednesday on rains this week in key portions of the US Plains hard red winter wheat growing region, traders said.
The rainfall in the drought-stricken region of western Kansas will help buoy prospects for the 2005 US HRW wheat crop. Dry weather cut into HRW output this year. Kansas is the top US producer of bread or HRW wheat.
At 10:06 a.m. CDT (1506 GMT), CBOT wheat was down 1-1/2 to 2-3/4 cents per bushel, with December down 2-3/4 cents at $3.32-1/4.
Pit sources said Rand Financial was the key seller of 200 lots of December.