CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures dropped 1.2% on Wednesday, pressured by a firm dollar that traders said was depressing already weak overseas demand for US supplies.

“We are still not getting the export demand,” said Mark Schultz, chief market analyst at Northstar Commodity. “There is plenty of wheat globally.”

The drop in wheat weighed on the corn market, which also faced seasonal harvest pressure as farmers around the US Midwest began running their combines. Soyabeans were trading close to unchanged, buoyed by strong export demand as well as strength in the soyameal market.

At 11:08 a.m. CDT (1608 GMT), Chicago Board of Trade December wheat futures were down 6-1/2 cents at $5.51-1/2 a bushel.

US wheat exporters were winning routine business for small shipments to places such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea but prices were still too high to be competitive for larger deals. Egypt on Tuesday purchased 405,000 tonnes of Russian wheat at around $256 per tonne, including freight, up about $7 a tonne from what it paid in a similar tender last week.

Russian supplies also were the cheapest offered in a Pakistani tender for 300,000 tonnes.

CBOT November soyabeans were flat at $10.19-3/4 a bushel.

“The US harvest is gathering pace but prices are unlikely to decline much as Chinese demand is pretty strong for soyabeans and corn,” said one Singapore-based grains trader.

USDA on Wednesday morning confirmed private sales of another 132,000 tonnes of soyabeans to China as well as 126,000 tonnes of soyabeans to unknown destinations. It was the fourteenth trading day in a row that the government has announced a soyabean sale to China. “The demand is ferocious,” Northstar’s Schultz added. “It just keeps coming.”

CBOT December corn futures were down 3/4 cent at $3.68-1/2 a bushel.