Soybeans were mixed in consolidation trade. Soybeans continue to focus on the weather with a slightly improved chance for rain in parts of the Cornbelt this weekend. Still, those may not come to fruition and even then, total accumulation and coverage may be limited. USDA’s updated acreage estimates and quarterly stocks are out Friday with the trade seeing bigger area and a tighter supply. Soybean meal was firm in the nearbys, lower in the deferreds, mirroring beans, and bean oil was up on the higher crude oil. According to Statistics Canada, canola acreage should be a record 21.273 million acres, up nearly 1 million from the March estimate and 2.4 million more than in 2011.
Corn was modestly higher on fund and commercial buying but those updated weather forecasts did push contracts down from early highs. Corn, of course, is also watching the weather very closely – there’s been some yield trimmed from this year’s crop and the question now is just how much. Analysts are expecting a slight increase in the acreage guess and a big reduction in quarterly stocks. Dow Jones Newswires reports another low move in the cash basis due to increased farmer selling. Ethanol futures were higher. Stats Canada projects 2012 corn acreage at 3.638 million tons, up slightly from the March estimate and more than 600,000 acres from last year’s total.
The wheat complex was higher on short covering and spillover from corn. World crop weather’s an issue for wheat with Russia reporting harvest activity 10 days earlier than normal and well below-a-year-ago yields. Moscow expects the grain crop to total 85 million tons with domestic consumption pegged at 72.7 million tons. The trade sees increased spring wheat acreage against a tighter supply Friday morning. Tunisia issued a tender for 125,000 tons of optional origin wheat and in sell-buy-sell activity, Japan tendered for 120,000 tons of feed wheat and 200,000 tons of feed barley. Statistics Canada expects wheat acreage to total 23.812 million acres, down around 500,000 from the March guess but still up 2.35 million on the year. Durum is pegged at 4.710 million acres, down 390,000 from March but up nearly 700,000 from a year ago.
Latest: 
