-Improved crop conditions weigh on wheat overnight
-China to review anti-dumping duties on US DDGS
-Corn planting across the south mostly ahead of average
-Egypt rejects French wheat cargo
-USDA reports at 11:00 AM CT – trade estimate summary included
CBOT and KCBT wheat traded lower overnight following yesterday afternoon’s USDA Crop Progress report showing a solid improvement in HRW and SRW conditions last week. SRW conditions remain historically low, but are improving, while HRW conditions are now the best for early April in 9 years. MPLS wheat held mostly steady overnight on the slow start to spring wheat plantings. Corn and soybeans were little-changed as the USDA’s reports today are awaited. The USDA will release the monthly WASDE supply/demand balance sheet report today at 11:00 AM CT. A summary of the trade estimates is on the following page. Our pre-report commentary/analysis can be found on Market Insights at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/35509.
ï‚· U.S. winter wheat conditions improved 4% in good/excellent last week to 60%, while wire service-reported expectations were unchanged. Based on our state-level by-class analysis, nationwide HRW conditions improved by 5% g/e, SRW by 3% g/e and white by 5% g/e. Specifically, NE was up 5%, KS up 3%, OK up 7% and TX up 6%, while IL was up 4%, MO up 8%, AR up 3%, IN up 3% and OH up 1%. In the PNW, WA was up 7%, ID up 12% and MT up 8%, while OR was down 1%.
ï‚· Spring wheat planting is just underway at 1% complete (3% expected) and compares to 2% last year and 5% avg.
ï‚· Corn planting was reported at 2% complete, as expected, vs 2% last year and 2% average. Impressively, no major delays at all are being reported across the Delta with LA 96% complete vs 83% avg, MS 52% vs 50% avg and AL 48% vs 27% avg, while GA is 67% vs 57% avg and AR at 27% is a bit behind average of 37%. TX is 53% planted vs 51% avg. With the heavy snow amounts expected in the western belt this week, obviously talk of planting issues remains active. Keep in mind SD was only 6% planted last year by May 6 vs 33% avg, with MN 9% planted at the time vs 44% avg.
 France slightly lowered their estimate of this year’s winter rapeseed planted area to 1.32 million hectares from 1.34 million previously and is down 18.5% from last year and 13.2% below the 5-year average. Their estimate of soft wheat planted area was unchanged from previous ideas at 5.01 million hectares (12.4 million acres) and is up 2.8% from last year. Total barley planted area was estimated up 7.7% from last year, including a 17% increase in spring barley area, which accounts for roughly 30% of total barley area.
ï‚· Egypt rejected a 63k tonne cargo of French wheat due to higher than allowed amounts of ergot fungus.
 China maintained their official estimate of 2018/19 soybean imports at 85.0 MMT, which compares to USDA’s last estimate of 88.0 MMT and last year’s 94.1 MMT. They did not make any changes to their overall corn or soybean published supply/demand factors. They lowered their estimate of 2018/19 domestic rapeseed oil production to 5.25 MMT from 5.7 MMT previously due to the expected reduction in Canadian rapeseed imports.
 At the request of the US Grains Council, China’s Commerce Ministry reportedly is going to review the current 42-54% antidumping tariffs on imports of US DDGS. Various companies in related industries have been asked to submit comments on the topic by tomorrow upon which information will be provided to the Ministry for consideration.
ï‚· South Korea bought 69k tonnes of corn overnight at $187.99/tonne c&f for November 5 arrival.
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