Spot basis bids for soyabeans and corn firmed at processors and elevators around the US Midwest on Tuesday amid slow selling by farmers, grain dealers said. Cash bids for soyabeans were particularly strong in Iowa, rising by as much as 10 cents per bushel at processors in Sioux City and Des Moines.
Although farmer selling of both commodities was mostly slow, some growers in the Council Bluffs, Iowa, area were booking light sales of old crop corn, a dealer at an elevator there said.
Most growers had very few bushels of old crop soyabeans to sell and they were reluctant to commit to any more new crop sales until they finalise their acreage calculations for this year, a northern Ohio dealer said. The combination of tighter basis bids for soyabeans and a rally in the futures market pushed soyabean prices as much as 23 cents per bushel higher.
Farmer selling of both corn and soyabeans earlier this month left most growers with enough cash to handle their short-term needs so they were under little pressure to sell.
Although the basis was mostly stronger, bids for corn fell by 2 cents per bushel at a processor in eastern Nebraska. Cash bids had risen by 2 cents per bushel at that location earlier in the week. At the Chicago Board of Trade, March soyabean futures rose 13 cents, a 1 percent gain, to close at $12.66-3/4 per bushel, drawing support from the Minneapolis wheat market and follow-through technical buying from Monday's close.
March corn futures closed 1-1/4 cents lower at $5.01 a bushel in choppy trade. March wheat futures fell 19 cents, a 2 percent drop, to $9.44 a bushel, turning lower on news that Argentina was reopening its wheat export registry for 2 million tonnes of wheat over five months.