Corn futures at the Chicago Board of Trade rallied on Tuesday on spill-over buying after a strong technical close on Monday, traders said. Also supportive was a bigger-than-expected drop in US corn crop ratings and a rally in soybean futures.
The US Department of Agriculture late Monday reported that 73 percent of the corn crop was in good to excellent condition, down 3 percentage points from last week.
Traders had expected a drop of 1 to 2 percentage points.
Corn added to its early gains when buy stops were hit in December futures between $2.38 and $2.39 per bushel, traders said.
By 11:15 am CDT (1615 GMT), corn futures were 3-1/2 cents to 6-1/4 cents per bushel higher. September was up 5-3/4 cents at $2.28 and new-crop December was 6 cents higher at $2.39.
Commodity funds were buying corn futures, with Calyon and Fimat Futures featured buying December, traders said.