Freezes overnight in Russia and Argentina, with more to come.

The overnight grain trade found wheat sharply higher, with gains of nearly $0.20 in the early hours on overnight freezing in northern areas of the Russian winter wheat corn crop. Most of the wheat was in the jointing or boot stage development, so with dry weather to follow, tillering is not an option. If planting spring wheat becomes an alternative, then it assures Russian wheat production is on the decline with smaller yields. Russia has another shot of freezing temperatures on Sunday morning.

Also, overnight, western and southern Argentina had frost/freezes that developed and caught some late-maturing crops. It will take 7-10 days to assess any crop losses, but at least the leafhoppers were killed, stopping the spreading of corn stunt disease. Additional areas of frost/freeze will again occur over the weekend, but for now, southern Buenos Aires and Santa Fe have been avoided. In Brazil, additional heavy rains of 4-12.00″ of rain is forecast to add to Río Grande do Sul’s miseries over the next 10 days. The state agency Emater estimated that the soybean harvest advanced 2% last week to 70% complete, which left an estimated 4.8 MMTs of soybeans in the field. The new round of rain will add to flooding and crop quantity/quality problems. It’s estimated that about 1.6-2.0 MMTs of soybeans have been lost due to flooding, and that estimate could grow with all the coming rain. Any soybeans that are being harvested have a seed moisture content of 18-22%, requiring mechanical drying.

Today’s WASDE crop report is out at 11:00 a.m. and is anticipated to be slightly bearish, which is par for USDA data as of late. Look for fund managers to buy into any sharp break created to reduce their still large short position ahead of the Northern Hemisphere growing season, which continues to produce volatile weather situations.

Open weather is now offered for the Plains and Midwest into May 15, with two advance spring seedings. The best seeding opportunities will be across the N Plains and NW Midwest over the next week with below-normal rainfall. Models are in better agreement that all the Southern and Western Plains will see needed rain, which will show up across W Kansas and the last half of next week. The Kansas rain models anticipate 1-3.00″ of rainfall to help aid the winter wheat crop and summer row crops.

Live and feeder cattle futures tumbled on Thursday, with the weaker outlook anticipated for starting trade today. The cash market trade has been slow to develop, with prices continuing to slump, both of which are maintaining the negative tone on the board. Late cash trade did pick up in Kansas on Thursday at $187, which was $3 higher for the week, while dressed trade in Nebraska was $1 higher at $ 296. The Kansas trade was $11 over June cattle, setting a new high for the year on a nearby basis, the highest for early May since 2020. On Thursday box beef values did have choice lower by $128 while select dropped $2.49. Become a broken record that June cattle are caught between $171 and $180. This is why we recommended selling the 180 June calls and buying the 170 puts when they had traded at even money for a fenced protection.