The bull which, in market lore, needs feeding to maintain a market upswing got a square meal on Thursday.

And this time in wheat, Chicago led the show, although the grain did close higher on both sides of the Atlantic. (And, whisper it, Paris wheat for November managed its second-best finish of the post-June rally.)

The bulls' menu included such. The starter was waning hopes for rain to break Russia's drought, and moisten soil for autumn seedings.

US Commodities noted "weather forecasts for winter wheat areas turning drier in the extended outlook which is problematic for winter seeding".

Darrell Holaday at Country Futures noted that the "projection of continue dry weather conditions Russia has supported the grains throughout the day".                               

Russian import surge?

The main course offered a choice of fare. If the International Grains Council's downgrade of the global wheat crop was not such a surprise, its forecast of rising consumption of the grain, despite higher prices, was something new.

The US Department of Agriculture contributed bumper weekly export data, of 1.08m tonnes for wheat, ahead of forecasts of 750,000-900,000 tonnes. (The data beat forecasts for corn, at 1.7m tonnes, and soybeans, at 992,000 tonnes, too).

 And Andrei Sizov, the managing director of SovEcon, the analysis group which has had its finger on the pulse of Russia's crop woes, served up a particularly tasty dish, by announcing that Russia may import up to 6m tonnes of grain in 2010-11.

(So much for official denials that any imports would be necessary, at least in 2010.)

On the side, he added that expected the country's ban on exports to be extended from the end of this year to July 1 2011.

Paris landmark 

For dessert, well, the European Union revealed it had cleared a solid 856,000 tonnes of wheat exports this week, a figure which came too late for the region's own markets, but could be reheated on Friday.

Last week's export total was 324,000 tonnes, and the week before's 261,000 tonnes. Furthermore, the latest data took the region's total wheat exports since the start of 2010-11 last month 2.7m tonnes, overtaking last year's 2.6m tonnes by this point.

Paris wheat for November had already ended up 1.1% at E216.25 a tonne � the contract's second-highest close of this rally, beaten only by the August 5 E223.50-a-tonne finish.

London feed wheat continued to lag, weighed down by the levels of German milling crop expected to be downgraded, and end up in animals' bellies. The November lot ended up 0.5% at �148.00 a tonne.

'Shrinking supply, growing demand'

Still, both were beaten by Chicago, which closed up 1.4% at $6.56 � a bushel for September delivery, if well below its day top. (And, for that matter, nowhere near its own finishing high for the rally of $7.85 � a bushel).

The fall in the dollar, which lost 0.5% against a basket of currencies, helped, by making US exports more affordable.

And wheat in turn was eclipsed by corn, which for September added 2.2% to $6.91 a bushel, with reports of lower yields, reported elsewhere on Agrimoney.com, adding to the bullish export sales data.

"For now we have a corn market with a shrinking supply and growing demand," US Commodities said.

Weather threat 

There was a little bit of the same idea about soybeans too, what, with forecasts of dry weather across the eastern Midwest "supportive" for the oilseed, according to Benson Quinn.

"Weather forecasts for the next two weeks keep rains in the northern Midwest, while the eastern half of the belt and the Delta remain dry with moisture deficit impacting fill out of bean pods," the broker said.

Will it show up in the USDA's weekly crop condition reports? If so, US Commodities flagged the rule of thumb that, from August, every 1 point drop in the percentage of the crop rated "good" or "excellent" equated to a loss of 0.45 bushels per acre in yield.

"If the good/excellent ratings remain unchanged to the year end, the top yield would be 44.3 bushels per acre," the broker said, compared with a current USDA forecast of 44.0 bushels per acre.

While soybeans for September added 0.5 cents to $10.13 a bushel, the new crop November contract jumped 15.5 cents, or 1.6%, to $10.14 � a bushel � taking a premium, indeed.

Longs to roll 

The fundamental fare on softs markets was altogether more sparse, although Unica, the cane industry association in top sugar producer Brazil, did provide some sustenance by trimming its forecast for production of the sweetener in the key Centre South region by 36,000 tonnes to 33.73m tonnes.

Unica, which cut its estimate of the cane crush by 25.7m tones to 570.2m tonnes, blamed the downgrade on the impact of dry weather on yields.

Still, with hopes in second-ranked producer India rising, and some technical factors stood against sugar, New York's October lot slumped 3.8% to 19.27 cents a pound.

"There appears a fund long to roll" to later contracts, Thomas Kujawa at Sucden Financial Sugar said. "That should keep the bulls in check for the time being."

Later lots, such as the nearest-but-one March 2011, certainly did better, ending a more modest 2.5% lower.

Short-term turbulence

There was also talk of options placed around 20 cents a pound, for October, also wreaking an undue influence.

"The technicians are widely in agreement, it seems, that the medium term trend remains to the upside, but some suggestion we have a short-term topping indicator," Mr Kujawa added.

In coffee, some noted the fall in volumes as New York's September lot rebounded 3.6% to 169.95 cents a pound, while its London robusta peer added 0.1% to $1.562 a tonne � a reduction that some attributed to the end of the fund selling wave, at least for now.