US corn and soyabean futures firmed on Wednesday, rebounding from one-month lows set in both commodities a day earlier, but outlooks for improved weather for US crops continued to keep prices in check. Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures fell, retreating from early advances on technical selling and easing global supply concerns.
As of 12:55 p.m. CDT (1755 GMT), CBOT December corn was up 2-1/2 cents at $3.79 per bushel and November soyabeans were up 6-1/4 cents at $9.78 a bushel. Corn drew support from a bullish US corn yield estimate from commodity brokerage INTL FCStone. The firm late Tuesday projected the US corn crop at 13.590 billion bushels, with an average yield of 162.8 bushels per acre (bpa).
That was well below the USDA's most recent forecast for a corn crop of 14.255 billion bushels, with a trend-based yield of 170.4 bpa. Weather forecasts, he added, showed few serious threats in the next two weeks for the heart of the US Midwest crop belt, where the corn crop is filling kernels and soyabeans are in the key pod-setting phase.
Wheat futures were headed for a third straight lower close. CBOT September wheat was down 2-1/2 cents at $4.58-3/4 a bushel after dipping to $4.55-3/4, the contract's lowest since mid-June. Extremely poor conditions for US spring wheat were seen as largely priced in, with harvesting of the drought-hit crop now under way, while rising expectations for production in rival exporter Russia were tempering supply concerns. Russian agriculture consultancy IKAR on Tuesday increased its estimate for this year's wheat production in Russia to a record 74-77 million tonne range.