Wheat floats near one-month high amid European crop worries
Recasts, adds analyst comment, updates prices
CANBERRA, Sept 4 (Reuters) -Chicago wheat futures hovered near one-month highs on Wednesday as poor harvests in Europe lifted prices from near four-year lows.
Soybean futures slipped after rising sharply in the previous session when the possibility of Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola raised hopes that China could buy more U.S. soy.
Corn also edged lower.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Wv1 was up 0.1% at $5.67-1/2 a bushel at 0519 GMT, having climbed more than 6% since the start of last week.
Heavy rain has caused crop losses across Western Europe, with the EU saying its soft wheat exports so far in the 2024/25 season were more than a million metric tons lower than last year.
"The European market's driving a fair bit of the rally. France has really been downgraded," said Rod Baker, an analyst at Australian Crop Forecasters in Perth.
"Prices must be getting close to bottoming out," Baker said, adding that expectations of a bumper U.S. corn crop could stifle any rallies by keeping corn prices low.
Ample cheap supply of wheat from Russia, plentiful U.S. production and expectations of large harvests in Canada and Australia are also keeping pressure on prices.
However, large bets on lower wheat prices by speculators have left the market vulnerable to short-covering that amplify price rallies.
CBOT soybeans Sv1 were down 0.5% at $10.07-1/4 a bushel, having climbed 1.2% in the previous session and hitting their highest in a month when China responded to Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles with a probe into canola.
Overseas demand for U.S. soybeans has been lacklustre but recent days have seen an uptick in export inspections and sales reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Meanwhile, the USDA reported that weekly condition ratings for the U.S. soybean crop declined more than most analysts expected in the last week as dry conditions expanded in portions of the Midwest crop belt.
Stubbornly dry weather continues to linger over 20%-25% of the U.S. soy and corn crops, mainly in the Ohio Valley and far northwest U.S. Midwest areas, Commodity Weather Group said on Tuesday.
The USDA's corn condition ratings held steady, however.
CBOT corn Cv1 slipped 0.2% to $4.08-1/2 a bushel.
Like wheat, corn and soybean futures are near their lowest levels since 2020 due to plentiful supply.
Reporting by Peter Hobson; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Mrigank Dhaniwala
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