US corn may advance on planting delay speculation

Corn, little changed, may gain on speculation that wet, cold weather in the US will keep fields too muddy to be prepared for seeding; increasing the risk that late planting will reduce crop yields.

Snow from northeastern Oklahoma to northern Illinois on March 20 would be followed by unusually cold weather through today, Allen Motew, a QT Weather meteorologist in Chicago, said March 18.

Rain will fall over most of the Midwest starting March 24 and planting may be stalled by higher-than-normal rainfall from Texas to Georgia in the next two weeks, Motew said.

Corn futures for May delivery traded at US$3.7425 a bushel at 11:29 a.m. Seoul time after rising as much as 0.5% to US$3.7625 on the CBOT. Futures rose 2.8% last week, the first weekly gain since February 26.

The most-active contract has fallen 9.7% this year on forecasts for larger crops in Argentina and Brazil, the biggest exporters after the US corn is the biggest US crop, valued at US$48.6 billion in 2009, government data show.

Corn may rise this week, while soy may gain on concern the government will report the tightest March 1 inventories in six years, according to reports. Twenty-two of 33 traders and analysts surveyed on March 19 from Tokyo to Chicago said corn will rise, and 19 said soy would rally.

Meanwhile, soy for May delivery dropped 0.2% to US$9.60 a bushel at 11:34 a.m. in Seoul after gaining 3.9% last week. China’s soy imports fell 9.6% on year to 2.95 million tonnes in February, customs data released today showed. Purchases dropped 28% from 4.1 million tonnes in January, according to data.

Wheat for delivery in the same month advanced 0.2% to US$4.8450 a bushel. Wheat lost 0.3% last week, the third straight weekly decline.