Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures closed lower Friday on technical selling and seasonal pressure from the start of the US hard red winter wheat harvest, traders said. CBOT July soft red winter wheat settled down 3 cents at $5.23-1/4 per bushel but stayed inside the previous day's trading range. For the week, CBOT July wheat fell 19-3/4 cents per bushel or 3.6 percent.
K.C. July hard red winter (HRW) wheat ended down 1-3/4 cents Friday at $5.40-3/4 a bushel and MGEX July spring wheat fell 8 cents at $6.04. Additional pressure on MGEX spring wheat tied to beneficial rains falling in the northern US Plains crop belt and portions of Canada.
The HRW wheat harvest was 29 percent complete in Texas and about 15 percent done in Oklahoma, wheat industry group Plains Grains Inc said in its first harvest report of the year.
The US Department of Agriculture reported export sales of US wheat in the latest week at 300,400 tonnes (old and new crop years combined), in line with trade expectations.