-Mississippi River closed to barge traffic at Memphis
-Argentine farmer selling maintains decent pace, but with reduced soybean sales
-USDA reports another new crop corn sale to China
-Chinese corn planting advances quickly with favorable soil moisture
-Export Sales uninspiring
The forecast for Mato Grosso safrinha corn areas remains mostly dry through the 10-day period, although a good shot of precip appears on tap for Parana in the 6-10 day and 11-15 day timeframes and MGDS in the 11-15 day period. (see table on page 2).
ï‚· All barge traffic on the Mississippi River is halted as a result of significant structural cracking found on the I-40 bridge at Memphis. It is unclear at this time how long barge traffic will be halted.
 Strategie Grains slightly lowered their estimate of the French soft wheat crop by 0.5 MMT to 36.1 MMT due to dryness and frosts in some areas, but remains up notably from last year’s 29.2 MMT, while their ideas of the EU total soft wheat crop were unchanged at 129.6 MMT as production ideas across southeast EU were raised. Overall, the EU soft wheat crop is expected to be up solidly from last year’s 119.4 MMT. Their estimate of the EU corn was essentially unchanged at 5.2 MMT (65.1 MMT previously) and would be up modestly from last year’s 63.2 MMT.
ï‚· Argentine farmer sales of soybeans remain steady with 886k tonnes sold over the last week, comparable to the 869k tonnes sold the week prior, but overall sales so far of 17.3 MMT remain below year ago sales at this time of 21.4 MMT, according to the Ag Minister. Farmer sales of corn, on the other hand, of 26.3 MMT, up 1.8 MMT from last week, are above year ago sales at this time of 22.9 MMT.
 Corn planting in China’s top-producing province of Heilongjiang is reportedly 79% complete, 10% ahead of last year’s pace, with soil moisture levels said to be in surplus.
ï‚· USDA reported the sale of 680k tonnes of new crop corn to China this morning.
ï‚· Sovecon raised their estimate of the Russian wheat crop to 81.7 MMT from 80.7 MMT previously. USDA put the crop at 85.0 MMT yesterday.
 Please see our Market Insights post at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/43880 for details on today’s USDA Export Sales report.
ï‚· U.S. corn old crop sales, for the week ended 5/06/21, were net cancellations of 113k tonnes (4.5 million bushels) vs market expectations for sales of 100-300k tonnes and were the first week of outright net cancellations of the year. This week’s old crop activity by China reflected net cancellations of 334k tonnes, leaving their outstanding unshipped purchases on the books at 11.1 MMT (437 mil bu). New crop sales were solid at 2.084 MMT (82.0 mil bu), thanks to sales of 1.360 MMT to China, 254k to unknown and 220k to Mexico.
ï‚· Old crop soybean sales were minimal at 94k tonnes (3.5 mil bu), but within market expectations of 0-250k tonnes and in line with the roughly 3.3 million/week average we estimate is needed through the end of August to reach the USDA’s 2.280 billion bushel export projection. New crop sales were also quite limited at just 103k tonnes (3.8 mil bu).
ï‚· Old crop wheat sales of 30k tonnes (1.1 mil bu) continued the recent-week trend of minimal sales, as would be expected with only three weeks remaining in the marketing year. New crop sales of 268k tonnes (9.8 mil bu) were within market expectations of 150-310k tonnes, but uninspiring.
ï‚· Old crop soybean meal sales of 75k tonnes were a 4-week low and at the bottom of market expectations of 75-285k tonnes. Old crop soybean oil sales were only 0.8k tonnes vs expectations of 0-30k.
Weather
NOTE: We have added weather model-estimated precip summary tables to our daily comments. The tables summarize the GFS and European model’s estimated precip by region and by period, along with the change in estimated precip from the forecast 24 hours prior. The U.S. table below compiles estimated state-average precip forecasts into regional averages: WCB (NE, MN, IA, MO), ECB (IL, IN, OH, WI), S. Plains (KS, OK, TX), N. Plains (ND, SD). On the following page, tables including precip estimates by state, as well as Brazilian safrinha corn areas and Ukraine production areas are also available.
U.S. growing areas were mainly dry yesterday, while some light rains were seen across the western portions of ND and SD.