eCBOT Close, Early Call

The overnights closed firmer, with beans up around 3-5 cents, wheat around 5 cents higher and corn up 1-2 cents.

Prices had traded even higher earlier in the overnight session, on news that this week's weather forecast appears to have more rain in it for the Midwest than was evident on Friday.

The trade is trying to balance potentially record crops, with the extremely late harvest. Whilst some analysts continue to talk of bumper yields, other report mould, disease and, in the case of soybeans, pod splitting.

The USDA will report after the close tonight on the latest harvest progress and crop conditions as of Sunday. The trade expects corn to be 20-25% harvested, only a fraction higher than last week's 17%. The bean harvest is thought to have moved on from 30% to around 40-50% done.

Winter wheat plantings are also expected to continue to lag, particularly in Illinois and Indiana.

There's not a lot of change to the dollar or crude oil so far today. Wall Street is seen opening a tad firmer, in line with European stocks which are also fractionally higher.

Early calls for this afternoon's CBOT session: corn called steady to 2 higher; beans called 2 to 4 higher; wheat called 3 to 5 higher.

Note: Chicago will open at 14.30 and close at 18.15 UK time after we returned from BST over the weekend.