-Another Argentine soybean crop estimate bumped lower
-French wheat conditions slip/spring barley planting struggles
-USDA reports modest corn sale to South Korea
News is quite limited this morning, with global markets continuing the rollercoaster-type activity of late. U.S. equity and energy markets are solidly higher, attempting to rebound, at least partially, from yesterday’s massive sell-off. The grains followed suit overnight with widespread gains of around 1% for most markets. Reminder, the CME Group is closing the Chicago trading floors for an indefinite amount of time after the close of business today in coronavirus prevention measures. This will push all trade to Globex.
 The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange lowered their estimate of the Argentine soybean crop to 52.0 MMT from 54.5 MMT previously and following the Rosario Exchange’s lowering earlier in the week to 51.5 MMT. USDA was last at 54.0 MMT. The BAGE left their estimate of the Argentine corn crop unchanged at 50.0 MMT, as did Rosario and is in line with USDA.
ï‚· French soft wheat crop conditions ticked lower this week to 63% good/excellent from 64% last week and compares to 85% g/e at this time last year. Continued heavy rains remain a concern as spring grain planting activity stays at a near standstill. Spring barley planting advanced only 1% last week to 33%, and following the previous week in which only 1% progress was made as well. At this time last year 96% of the crop was planted.
ï‚· USDA reported the sale of 136k tonnes of corn to South Korea for 2019/20 delivery this morning.
ï‚· Two South Korean feedmills tendered for a total of 209k tonnes of corn for July-Aug arrival.
ï‚· ADM put out another 117 contracts of March corn deliveries today following the 106 the put out yesterday in the first issues of the cycle for corn. Total deliveries today were 147 contracts. The last trade date is at 3/04/20.
Weather Argentina saw rains of .50-1†for western Santa Fe yesterday. Waves of showers and thunderstorms will continue to occur across the northern ½ to 2/3 of La Pampa and Buenos Aries, as well as the southern ½ to 2/3 of Santa Fe and Entre Rios for the next 2 days and then will be expanding north into all of the Argentine growing regions with the exception of Corrientes. Totals in the next 5 days will be in the .70-1.5†range, with areas of 1.5â€+ also possible. The models for the 6-10 day period have turned mixed with the European continuing to indicate rains of .40-1†to fail from northern Buenos Aries and La Pampa north in this time frame, while the GFS has turned dry. In Brazil, rains of .20-.80†fell across the northern ½ of Mato Grosso, Goias, Minas Gerais yesterday, with conditions dry elsewhere. Rains will continue to fall in the northern ½ of Mato Grosso, Goias and Minas Gerais in the few days and then will be gradually creeping south as we go through the 5-day period and end up falling in most of these three states by the weekend. Totals of 1-2†look to be common in the northern ½ of these states, with totals of .30-.70†south. The rest of the Brazilian growing regions look to be mainly dry for the next 5 days. The 6-10 day outlooks sees rains of .50-1â€+ to fall with coverage of around 85% in all of the Brazilian growing regions.