Its raining in all the wrong places
And its not raining in all the wrong places as well.
Chicago wheat jumped 4 percent Friday on speculation that U.S. winter crops emerging from dormancy may be damaged by persistent dry weather in the southern Great Plains and excessive precipitation in the eastern Midwest.
No rain will fall in western Kansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle and West Texas in the next week, Meteorlogix LLC said in a report today. Excessive rain from Arkansas to Ohio may flood more fields, lowering yield potential, the private forecaster said. Wheat prices have more than doubled in the past year, partly because adverse weather hurt global crops.
"Southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle and northwest Texas really are dry,'' said Darrell Holaday president of Advanced Market Concepts in Manhattan, Kansas. "The weather's definitely the story.''
The western parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, where 54 percent of all U.S. winter wheat was planted from September to November, got no precipitation in the past month, National Weather Service data show. Meanwhile as much as six times the normal amount of rain was recorded in the eastern Midwest, including Illinois and Ohio, the largest U.S. producers of soft red-winter varieties.
Elsewhere the wheat crop in India may be damaged by rains in the main growing areas in the northwest region in the next two days, said S.S. Singh, a professor at the state-run Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi.
Meanwhile a Spanish drought, said to be the worst since 1912, is causing crop concerns there. Local officials say Barcelona will combat drought by importing water from other parts of Spain and neighbouring France from next month. The second largest city in Spain is trying to deal with the region's worst drought in decades by bringing enough water to meet Barcelona's consumption needs for five days at a cost of 22 million euros.
Chicago wheat jumped 4 percent Friday on speculation that U.S. winter crops emerging from dormancy may be damaged by persistent dry weather in the southern Great Plains and excessive precipitation in the eastern Midwest.
No rain will fall in western Kansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle and West Texas in the next week, Meteorlogix LLC said in a report today. Excessive rain from Arkansas to Ohio may flood more fields, lowering yield potential, the private forecaster said. Wheat prices have more than doubled in the past year, partly because adverse weather hurt global crops.
"Southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle and northwest Texas really are dry,'' said Darrell Holaday president of Advanced Market Concepts in Manhattan, Kansas. "The weather's definitely the story.''
The western parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, where 54 percent of all U.S. winter wheat was planted from September to November, got no precipitation in the past month, National Weather Service data show. Meanwhile as much as six times the normal amount of rain was recorded in the eastern Midwest, including Illinois and Ohio, the largest U.S. producers of soft red-winter varieties.
Elsewhere the wheat crop in India may be damaged by rains in the main growing areas in the northwest region in the next two days, said S.S. Singh, a professor at the state-run Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi.
Meanwhile a Spanish drought, said to be the worst since 1912, is causing crop concerns there. Local officials say Barcelona will combat drought by importing water from other parts of Spain and neighbouring France from next month. The second largest city in Spain is trying to deal with the region's worst drought in decades by bringing enough water to meet Barcelona's consumption needs for five days at a cost of 22 million euros.
