Chicago | Reuters — U.S. wheat futures sank 5.7 per cent on Tuesday to their lowest level in 2-1/2 months, pressured by early harvesting in the United States and Europe as well as fresh efforts to boost the amount of grain shipped from Ukraine.
Corn futures were down three per cent as weather forecasts turned cooler for late June and early July, a key crop development period in the U.S. Midwest.
The drop in corn weighed on soybeans, which hit their lowest since June 1 and notched their sixth negative close in seven sessions.
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Chicago Board of Trade July soft red winter wheat ended down 59 cents at $9.75-1/4 a bushel. Prices bottomed out at $9.73-1/2, their lowest since March 29.
“The start of the wheat harvest in the U.S. and Europe is generating additional price pressure,” Commerzbank analysts said in a note.
Ankara’s military delegation will travel to Russia this week to discuss details of a possible safe sea corridor in the Black Sea to export Ukrainian grain, Turkish presidency sources said.
Traders shrugged off a heat wave that descended over the Midwest during the weekend as it sped up growth of crops that were seeded late.
“Many in the trade believe that warm temperatures in the early stages of plant development could be beneficial and that a little rain along with it should put the crop in great shape to close out the month,” Tomm Pfitzenmaier, analyst for Summit Commodity Brokerage, said in a note to clients.
The U.S. Agriculture Department was to provide an update on the progress of the wheat harvest at 3 p.m. CT. USDA also would report corn and soybean crop conditions.
CBOT July corn was off 23-1/2 cents at $7.60-3/4 a bushel and CBOT July soybeans were down 21 cents at $16.81 a bushel.
— Mark Weinraub is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Chicago; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
