Winter wheat conditions determined by drought.

Highlights in today’s morning note

Wheat:

The wheat growing areas of the country could experience dry and cool conditions within the next two weeks. This could potentially worsen the winter wheat conditions, which are already not in good shape in large parts of the Western Cape and Free State provinces.

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Maize:

As indicated in our previous note, the focus this week is on the National Crop Estimate Committee’s (CEC) final maize production estimates which are due for release tomorrow. Bloomberg analyst’s survey shows that South Africa’s maize production could be revised up by 2% from the previous estimate to 16.7 million tonnes.

Soybeans:

The weather continues to be a key factor within the US soybean market. The recent showers in some parts of the Midwest led to a one-point improvement in crop conditions to 60% good/excellent at the beginning of this week. With that said, this will be 13-points behind the corresponding period last year.

Sunflower seed:

The focus today is on SAGIS monthly data. This should give an indication of monthly sunflower seed usage, as well as the current stock levels. In July 2017, the stocks were at 714 251 tonnes, up 32% from July 2016 due to a large harvest. At the same time, consumption was up by 27% from July 2016, reported at 81 729 tonnes.

RSA Fruit:

The fruit market ended the day mixed in yesterday’s trade session. The prices of apples and oranges were down by 2% and 3% from the previous day, closing at R7.35 per kilogramme and R3.85 per kilogramme, respectively. Meanwhile, the price of bananas inched up by 1% from the previous day, closing at R5.27 per kilogramme.