NEW YORK: Chicago corn and wheat futures rose on Thursday, while soybeans were mostly steady in choppy trading as traders digested a US government report on American farm export sales, while weaker oil prices, falling equity markets and soaring bond yields raised concern about global demand.

Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn climbed over 1.5% to $4.94 a bushel by 11:23 a.m. CDT (1723 GMT), rebounding from two sessions of losses and finding support at the December contract’s 20-day moving average.

Soft red winter wheat rose nearly 3% to $5.76-3/4, rallying after Wednesday’s slide as drought risks to southern hemisphere crops countered pressure from ample Black Sea supplies. The most-active soybean contract was about 0.3% higher at $12.77 a bushel.

Export sales figures from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Thursday pegged weekly foreign purchases of US corn, soybeans and wheat within the estimates of analysts polled by Reuters. “The export sales today were reasonably good,” said Dale Durchholz, a private commodity risk consultant in Bloomington, Illinois. But he added that they did little to assuage worries about what he called “a generally lackluster export sector.”

US crop supplies are in sharp focus. Mild autumn weather is expected to speed harvesting, while recent data suggested better yields than feared following hot, dry summer spells.

“There’s a bull camp out there in the corn and bean markets absolutely insisting that we’re in for some shock on yields, that they’re really going to be much lower than anybody’s thinking. I’m not in that camp,” said Clayton Pope of agriculture risk consultancy Clayton Pope Commodities in Champaign, Illinois. “We’re actually hearing the opposite.

Most of our customers are extremely pleased with their yields,” he said. The USDA is set to release a closely-watched report on the current US harvest on Oct. 12.