As of 12:52 p.m. CST (1852 GMT), Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) March soyabean futures were up 5-1/4 cents at $9.14-1/2 a bushel, staying inside of Tuesday's trading range. CBOT March wheat was up 3-3/4 cents at $5.25 a bushel while March corn was down 3/4 cent at $3.78-1/4 a bushel.
Forecasters have been scaling back estimates for Brazil's soyabean harvest due to drought, and hot weather this week was expected to keep some regions dry. The average estimate of Brazil's 2018-19 soyabean production in a Reuters poll of analysts was 117.06 million tonnes, down from the average in a November poll of 120.8 million tonnes.
Looking ahead to US plantings for 2019, private analytics firm IEG Vantage, formerly known as Informa Economics IEG, projected that farmers would plant more corn and less soyabeans and wheat compared to 2018. The firm put 2019 soyabean plantings at 86.2 million acres, up 1.1 million acres from its mid-December forecast, but still down nearly 3 million acres from 2018.
IEG projected US 2019 corn plantings at 91.5 million acres, up from the 89.1 million in 2018. The firm put total US wheat seedings for 2019 at 47.163 million acres, compared with the 47.8 million a year earlier.