US wheat futures rose sharply for the second straight day on Tuesday on worries that the winter wheat crop will fall short of expectations due to weather woes, traders said. MGEX spring wheat hit its highest level since February 8 on worries about planting delays in the northern US Plains.
Both the front-month Chicago Board of Trade soft red winter wheat contract and the front-month Kansas City Board of Trade hard red winter wheat contract hit their highest level since March 28 during Tuesday's session. Technical buying also helped spur gains in wheat futures. The benchmark Chicago Board of Trade July soft red winter wheat contract found support after briefly dipping below its 20-day moving average early in the day.
The front-month CBOT wheat contract rose 5.1 percent in April, its biggest monthly gain since July. Another cold snap forecast in the US Plains, with snow forecast in Kansas, eastern Colorado and Nebraska, said Don Keeney, meteorologist for MDA Weather Services. A cold spring has stressed developing hard red winter wheat, which was already struggling due to dry soil conditions, across the Plains.
Winter wheat yield prospects in east-central Kansas are down slightly from a year ago and crop development is one to two weeks behind normal, according to crop scouts on the Wheat Quality Council's annual tour of the state. US Agriculture Department said late on Monday that winter wheat ratings fell to 33 percent good to excellent, the lowest for this time of year since 1996, from 35 percent a week earlier. Australian wheat crop needs significant rainfall in the weeks ahead to avoid yield losses as dry weather across the country's east coast delays plantings.