Soft red winter wheat basis offers were higher amid slow movement, and as exporters paid premium prices for supplies with low levels of vomitoxin, a fungal residue which can sometimes sicken people.
Traders said three barges of SRW wheat with light test weights and some damage traded without discounts being placed in the CIF barge market because they had only 1 part-per-million vomitoxin.
The cargoes would have typically been hit with discounts of 3 to 6 cents a bushel, the traders said.
Importers of SRW wheat usually require vomitoxin at a maximum 2 ppm, although some European countries are more stringent and specify a level of 0.5 ppm or less.
USDA said China had switched its purchase of 140,000 tonnes of SRW wheat to hard red spring wheat, for delivery in the current season. Traders speculated that the switch could be due to difficulty in sourcing 2 ppm vomitoxin SRW wheat.
Egypt's General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) passed on its tender, citing high prices.
GASC sought to buy 50,000-60,000 tonnes of wheat for October 1 to 10 shipment from the United States, Australia and France.
Traders said there was only one offer for US SRW wheat at $144.54 per tonne FOB for just one cargo of 55,000 tonnes.
They said the best offers for US white wheat was $147.98 per tonne and $150.93 for HRW wheat.
The lowest French milling wheat offer was $139.63, while Australia offered soft wheat at $154 and hard wheat at $155.
Corn basis offers were mostly steady, and export interest was only from regular buyers like Japan.
Soybeans also lacked fresh export demand, with some importers waiting for the Midwest harvest to begin in September.
Traders said the Mississippi Delta harvest was advancing, pushing more supplies into the pipeline. Much of the beans were going to processors in the Midwest, they added.