US Plains hard red winter wheat basis bids were mostly steady on Wednesday with rain delays continuing to frustrate farmers in many areas of the Plains, wheat merchants said. Yields and quality reports continued to be variable.
A report issued Wednesday by an organisation for Kansas wheat growers said that combining around Sublette, Kansas, showed good yields and good test weights, though protein was lower than normal. In the Great Bend area of the state, yields ranged from 5 to 60 bushels per acre with the majority from 25-30 bushels per acre, according to the grower report.
The wet weather in the Plains has been helping support wheat futures prices. Also supportive are production shortfall fears elsewhere around the globe and good demand.
French grain analyst Offer et Demande agricole cut its estimate of the French 2007 wheat harvest by 500,000 tonnes to 34.3 million tonnes on Wednesday. On the export front, Egypt said Wednesday it bought 55,000 tonnes of US wheat and two 30,000-tonne cargoes of Russian wheat for July 21-31 shipment. There was also news than Iraq was tendering for 50,000 tonnes of hard wheat. And Japan bought 110,000 tonnes of wheat from the United States, Canada and Australia at a regular import tender.