Weather watch for grain markets

Grain market analysts are watching weather conditions in a number of different regions of the world. Bruce Burnett, the director of weather and market analysis for the Canadian Wheat Board spoke on Wednesday in Kindersley. Burnett says winter wheat in the southern United States is being stressed by dry conditions. It’s been dry from Texas all the way to western Kansas and soil moisture levels are low. The winter wheat is actively growing and in Texas it’s at the jointing stage. Rain in the next week will be very important to maintaining yields. In the northern states, the problem has been too much moisture. Flooding is expected in the Red River Valley. Burnett says more moisture could cause a switch in seeded acres away from spring wheat and into soybeans. The durum price outlook is being affected by normal to above normal moisture conditions in North Africa. Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have good durum crops coming, more than offsetting dry conditions in Turkey, Syria and Iran. On malting barley, Burnett says Australia is the country to watch. There is still a lot of time for it to turn around, but drought is persisting in southeast Australia and that is a major barley production area. The Canadian Wheat Board will release another Pool Return Outlook next week. I’m Kevin Hursh.

www.hursh.ca

Kevin Hursh, PAg, CAC