CHICAGO- US wheat futures rose on Friday, with traders focused on forecasts for crop shortfalls in the drought-stricken US Plains, while corn and soybeans were mostly lower on a government outlook for record-large harvests of both crops.
K.C. hard red winter wheat futures posted the biggest gains, surging more than 4 percent, and the July contract hit its highest level since Nov. 25 after the US Agriculture Department said the harvest in the Plains would be the smallest since 1957 as farmers across Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas were forced to abandon crops due to dry conditions.
“The most important number was the new-crop wheat production,” Marex Capital analyst Charlie Sernatinger said in a note to clients.
Chicago Board of Trade July soft red winter wheat futures the most actively traded wheat contract, settled up 7-3/4 cents at $6.35 a bushel.
The USDA projected that US farmers would produce a record 15.265 billion bushels of corn, raising stocks by the end of the 2023/24 marketing year to 2.222 billion bushels, up from 1.417 billion by the end of 2022/23.
For soybeans, the government forecast a 4.510 billion-bushel crop and pegged 2023/24 soy ending stocks 335 million bushels, up from 215 million expected at the end of 2022/23. – Reuters
