eCBOT Latest, Early Call

The overnights are currently mixed, mostly a little lower, with front-month beans 3 cents higher, and the rest 5-7 cents lower. Corn is a cent or so weaker, with wheat 1-2 cents easier.

The US weather outlook has a slightly more benign feel to it, with no sign of frost for at least the next fortnight. The longer that stays the same, the more chance we have of a bumper harvest.

FC Stone issued their latest forecasts on US crop production last night, pegging the US corn crop at 13.020 billion bushels with a yield of 162.7 bu/acre. Both numbers are significantly higher than last month's USDA estimates of 12.761 billion and 159.5 bu/acre.

They also said that soybean production will come in at 3.266 billion bushels using a yield of 42.6 bu/acre. The production number is a bit higher than last month's lucky guess from the USDA of 3.199 billion bushels, and the yield figure is exactly the same.

Brazilian analysts Celeres said that the country will produce a record 64.7 MMT of beans in 2010. Assorted early guesses for Argentina are also record with Oil World saying 52 MMT.

China only found takers for 10,000 MT of soybeans in it's weekly auction today, nowhere near as good as yesterday's near 2 MMT of corn sold.

They will continue to subsidise both corn and bean sales in an attempt to free up some storage ahead of the impending harvest, they say.

SovEcon have increased their estimate on Russian grain production this season to 97 MMT, of which wheat output will now be 60 MMT, they say. Whilst both those numbers are down on last year, they are above early season expectations.

Dryness in Queensland and parts of NSW have led one or two private forecasters to cut their wheat production estimates there to around the 21 MMT mark.

Global stock markets are still trying to recover from a severe case of the jitters Monday when the Chinese market fell out of bed. The DJIA closed 185.68 points lower last night. Crude is hovering around $68.50/barrel ahead of this afternoon's stocks data from the US Energy Dept.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called flat to 2 lower; November soybeans called 5 to 7 lower; wheat called 2 to 3 lower.