US wheat futures surged more than 3 percent on Monday as traders responded to fresh tensions in the Black Sea region, coupled with the threat of freeze damage to crops in the US Plains. Corn and soyabeans followed wheat higher, with corn buoyed by strong weekly export inspections data. At the Chicago Board of Trade as of 12:08 pm CDT (1708 GMT), May wheat was up 22 cents at $6.82-1/4 per bushel, while the KC May hard red winter wheat contract was up 26-1/4 cents at $7.45-3/4.
May corn was up 7-1/4 cents at $5.05-3/4 a bushel and May soyabeans were up 6 cents at $14.69 a bushel. Wheat posted the biggest gains as traders eyed weather forecasts for the southern Plains hard red winter wheat belt. The US National Weather Service posted hard freeze warnings for Tuesday morning across western Oklahoma and parts of northern Texas.
Crop ratings for the US winter wheat crop are already at a 12-year low following a brutal winter in the Plains. "We are looking at a freeze event in hard red winter wheat areas, this morning and tomorrow. Tomorrow morning is the concern. The forecasts are a little colder than they were Friday," said Austin Damiani, a broker with Frontier Futures in Minneapolis.
Winter wheat becomes more vulnerable to freeze injury as it matures in the spring. Crops in the "jointing" stage of growth can be hurt when temperatures fall to 24 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 4.4 Celsius) for two hours. For crops in the more advanced "boot" stage, the threshold for damage is two hours at 28 F (minus 2.2 C) or below. The US Department of Agriculture said 52 percent of Oklahoma's wheat had reached the jointing stage by April 6. In Kansas, the top US wheat state, 14 percent of the crop was jointing.
Ahead of USDA's weekly crop progress report later on Monday, analysts estimated US farmers had seeded 1 to 5 percent of their 2014 corn crop as of Sunday. The average trade estimate was 3 percent and compares with the seasonal average of 6-7 percent seeded by mid-April.
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