A mostly lower start is expected this am, steady/easier wheat, 1 down corn and 10 lower beans. Crude oil and equities are lower while the $ index is higher, a bearish combination for all the grains.

China attempted to auction 500,000 tonnes of beans from their reserves today at above market prices and had the same result as last week, selling nothing. They will have to either lower prices or subsidize buyers to sell the beans, which they are expected to do eventually as they want to make room for the upcoming harvest in the fall.

The spring wheat tour concluded its first day, reporting very big yields in southern North Dakota of 45.7 bushels per acre (bpa). This compares with last year's 37.6 bpa for the same area and the tour's 5 year average of 35.9 bpa. Currently, the USDA yield guess is 38.3 bpa. The tour reported the crop is behind normal in development, as expected, due to late planting because of the wet, cool spring. These big yields are due to very favorable growing conditions over the last couple of months. The same result is likely in the Midwest corn and bean fields where very favorable weather has been the rule the last two months. The USDA will make its first field survey based yield and production guess for these crops on Aug 12.

The monsoon is weakening again in India with little rain forecast in the main bean growing areas the next 5 days or longer, for example.

The US delta bean growing area will continue to benefit from mild temps and scattered rain. The Midwest will see up to 1" widely scattered rain in the west today and tomorrow, along with continued cool temps. More scattered rain is forecast Sat and Mon, favoring southern and eastern parts of the belt. The northwest part of the belt needs more rain. The eastern half of the midwest had up to 1" scattered over the last 24 hours. More is forecast tomorrow, up to 1", and again over the weekend. ---Vic Lespinasse