-Russian wheat crop ideas bumped higher – large increase in new crop winter wheat area
-Brazilian soybean harvest keeps pace with average
-No USDA sales announcements
-South American precip forecast remains favorable
Export Inspections and Crop Progress data will be released today due to yesterday’s Veterans Day holiday. It’s a quiet news morning with markets settling down after yesterday’s weakness, particularly in soybeans.
 SovEcon bumped their estimate of this year’s Russian wheat crop up to 75.6 MMT from 75.4 MMT previously, while USDA is last at 74.0 MMT (does not include roughly 1.0 MMT in Crimean Peninsula production Russian estimates do), and compares to last year’s USDA-estimated crop of 71.7 MMT. SovEcon is very optimistic about next year’s wheat production potential with winter wheat planted area seen at 16.7 million hectares (41.3 mil acres), up a very strong 5.7% from last year’s 15.8 mil hectares (39.0 mil acres) with early crop conditions said to be “significantly better than average and better than last year.†With favorable spring weather, the 2017/18 record wheat crop of 85.2 MMT could very well be in their sites.
 Brazil’s soybean crop is 55% planted, up from 44% last week and in line with average of 56%, but below last year’s very fast 69%. Parana (82%) and Mato Grosso (92%) are ahead of average, but Mato Grosso do Sul at 60% is behind average of 83%. Rio Grande do Sul is now 18% planted vs 20% average.
 US corn harvest ideas in this afternoon’s update appear to be mostly in the 65-68% range (52% last week), with soybean harvest ideas mostly 85-89% (75% last week).
ï‚· There were no USDA sales announcements this morning.
 German oilseed association group UFOP estimated the country’s 2020 winter rapeseed planted area at 873k hectares (2.16 mil acres), up a modest 1.9% from this year’s crop planted area.
ï‚· South Korea bought 60k tonnes of optional-origin feed wheat at $228.70/tonne c&f for March 10, 2020 arrival. South Korean feedmills have been active of late, buying around 500k tonnes of corn over the last week at prices mostly in the $203- $206/tonne c&f range.
ï‚· China added Brazilian cottonseed meal to the growing list of approved protein/feed ingredient sources, but is essentially a nonevent as Brazil has exported virtually zero cottonseed meal over the last 20+ years. Brazilian cottonseed meal production increased to a record 1.8 MMT last year from 0.8-1.3 MMT produced annually over the previous 15 years or so.
Weather Brazilian growing regions look to see rains of 1-2†fall in most areas in the next 5 days. The 6-10 day sees rains of 1-2†to fall across northern sections of MGDS and Sao Paulo, as well as most of Mato Gross, Goias and Minas Gerais, with totals of generally less than .50†in the rest of the growing regions of Brazil. Argentine growing regions look to see rains of .50-1â€+ fall across all but northern Buenos Aries and southern Entre Rios in the next 5 days. The 6-10 day indicates mainly dry weather in most of the Argentine growing regions, with the exception being Buenos Aries and southern Entre Rios, where totals of .40-1†are indicated to fall. Temps will be running near average in most of the South American growing regions in the next 10 days. Some light snows will work through MN, WI and northern IA Wednesday, bringing a general 1-3†to those areas. Otherwise, the rest of the week and most of the weekend look to be dry across the region. By the middle of next week, an area of low pressure is indicated to bring snows to much of MN and rains to northern IA and most of WI. Very early estimates on amounts with that activity are in the 4-8†range for snow and .30-.80†range for rain. The rest of the region looks to be mainly dry through the first half of next week. Temps will run below average across the region through most of this week, including some very cold air for another day or two. Temps then look to moderate towards average by late in the weekend and the first half of next week.