Spot basis bids for hard red winter (HRW) wheat in the US Plains production area were flat on Tuesday, with harvesting picking up speed in Kansas amid hot and mostly dry conditions, merchants said.
High humidity Tuesday morning was expected to keep combining slow until midday, but hot and windy conditions should dry fields and make for active harvesting on the day, a Kansas merchant said.
The Kansas Association of Wheat Growers issued a harvest update early Tuesday that included a report from the Farmers Co-Op Grain Company in Caldwell, where 40,000 bushels came in over the weekend. The wheat showed test weights of 57 to 58 pounds, KAWG said.
About 20 percent of the Kansas wheat crop was ripe, as of Sunday, according to the state's weekly crop report.
The Oklahoma crop was 62 percent harvested as of Sunday, according to a state crop report, though in a report out Monday Mark Hodges, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, estimated harvest at 75 percent completed.
Hodges said yields were about average according to most reports, and quality is better than last year's crop.
Overall, the US winter wheat crop was 12 percent completed, according to the USDA.
The protein scale for railcar wheat to and through Kansas City was up 2 cents a bushel for 11.00 percent protein through 11.80-pro wheat.
In export news, Taiwan set a tender for Wednesday for 42,510 tonnes of US wheat.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said Tuesday that farmers should bring in a bumper wheat crop of 23.2 million tonnes this season. Wheat production would be down 6.8 percent on the record 24.9 million tonne crop of last season.
The futures market at the Kansas City Board of Trade closed 2 to 6-1/4 cents lower on Monday, with the July at $3.83-1/2 a bushel, down 5-1/2 cents.