Focus on weather

Market Line March 23, 2009 Wheat futures lost a few cents Friday in light trading in what some described as a tumultuous week. Traders today will be checking weekend rainfall and forecasts for the Plains from south to north. While it remains extremely dry in parts of the Southern Plains, Louise Gartner for the Linn Group at the Chicago Board of Trade says wet conditions could be a problem in the hard red spring wheat belt. Gartner: "Some talk of planting delays already in North Dakota where they would have to switch to soybeans. It is a long way off but we will see. Of course they have a tremendous amount of snow and the ground is mostly frozen. So they do have some warming up to do and some clearing to do of the snow and certainly could be the case where they get some delayed plantings but Mother Nature will control that." On Friday Chicago May wheat was down a nickel at 5-50 ¼. May corn unchanged at 3-96 ½. Portland soft white wheat any protein was steady at mostly 5-55. Maximum 10.5 percent protein 5-60. August new crop unchanged to down a nickel at 5-20 to 5-53. Club wheat 7-50. Maximum 10.5 percent club wheat 7-55. HRW 11.5 % protein down three cents at 6-53. DNS 14% protein three to eight cents lower at 7-96. No Portland barley bids. The USDA reported Friday afternoon that the cattle feedlot inventory as of March 1st was down five percent from a year ago. Placements were down three percent and marketings last month were down five percent from 2008. Ahead of the report cattle futures were mixed. April live cattle up 45 cents at 85-20. April feeders down 52 at 93-77. April Class III milk down 22 cents at 11-41. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Market Line on the Northwest Ag Information Network. Now this.