The latest outlook from SaskWheat says there is a lot of attention on the spring wheat outlook compared to medium and soft wheats.

Price spreads between classes of wheat have changed substantially.

For example, the spread between Chicago wheat and Minneapolis spring wheat has moved from minus 11 cents per bushel in January to plus 1.18 cents per bushel last week.

This is a signal of the demand for protein, or high protein spring wheat relative to lower protein wheats.

This is due to lower spring wheat seeding projections in North America, with the U.S. down 5 percent and Canada close to 10 percent.

There’s also delays in seeding in Russia and concern about crop conditions.

The latest numbers for wheat exports, week 45, show 255 thousand tons shipped out, a smaller number.

So far this crop year, wheat exports are 17.4 million tons, 2.5 million or 17 percent higher than last year to date.

Traders continue to watch weather in South America, new developments in Russia and whether China will continue to buy aggressively.

Wheat carryout stocks are forecast to drop to 4 million tons in Canada, the third lowest on record.

Crop conditions have improved in Saskatchewan with 77 percent of the spring wheat good to excellent, 21 percent fair and 2 percent poor.

Durum exports in week 45 were also small at 47 thousand tons, for year to date total of 5.5 million tons, 23 percent ahead of last year’s pace.

The newsletter suggests old crop durum should be sold now.

It points to supplies in Europe and North Africa are expected to increase.

The newsletter says the U.S. hard red spring wheat crop is heading out faster than normal, an indicator of stress on the crop.
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