So which way will wheat go now?

The grain appears especially undecided, after falling sharply on Tuesday in Chicago, only to recover the ground and more in the last session.

"In the past few weeks has been trading in a range from $6.76 and $7.30 a bushel," Luke Mathews, agri commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia said.

"It is a near even bet as to which way it will break."

And early deals on Thursday provided few clues, with Chicago's December contract unchanged at $7.08 � a bushel, in weak volumes, as of 07:10 GMT (08:10 UK time).

Fundamental tensions 

Are investors reluctant to act ahead of what is a long weekend in the US?

Have the funds which supported grains in the last session with beginning-of-the-month buying spared some change for later purchases?

For now, fundamentals are not giving them a clear lead.

Sure, "increasing shower activity", in the words of Meteorlogix, is bringing relief to drought-stricken farms in the former Soviet Union, so raising hopes for planting of winter grains. But growers have, in some regions, a deadline of only two weeks to get crop sown.

In the southern hemisphere, rainfall has improved hopes for the major wheat exporter, Australia.

"Rain exited most Western Australia grain regions overnight, with totals from 5-40mm," Mr Mathews said.

However, for second-ranked shipper Argentina, prospects are not looking so hot, with the Rosario grains exchange pegging the 2010-11 crop at 9m-10.5m tonnes, well below official forecasts as large as 13m tonnes.

Export data 

US weekly export sales data later may give direction.

"Trade estimates have them down slightly from the previous week but still respectable for the time of year and considering the flat price levels we are at," Jon Michalscheck at Benson Quinn Commodities said.

Investors are expecting a fall in wheat sales to 750,000-950,000 tonnes from 1.08m tonnes last week.

Corn sales are expected to fall to 1.0m-1.3m tonnes, from 1.7m tonnes, with those for soybeans forecast at 700,000-900,000 tonnes, down from 992,000 tonnes.

Crop downgrade 

Corn too lacked clear direction in early deals, despite FC Stone fuelling thoughts of a (modestly) disappointing US harvest by cutting its production estimate by 235m bushels to 13.195bn bushels, leaving its 170m bushels below the US Department of Agriculture's latest guess.

(The USDA will update its estimates next week.)

But then funds appear to have sated much of their buying urge in the last session, when they are estimated to have bought more than 10,000 contracts, helped by continued reports of disappointing yields in southern Illinois.

Corn for September dipped 0.5 cents to $4.31 � a bushel, with the December lot unchanged at $4.46 � a bushel.

Technical battle 

That left soybeans, for once, as the top performer, with a rise of 1.25 cents to $10.05 � a bushel for September delivery, and 3.5 cents to $10.09 a bushel for November.

FC Stone downgraded its thoughts for the oilseed too, cutting its yield estimate by 0.5 bushels per acre to 43.5 bushels per acre, and reducing their production forecast to 3.390bn bushels, below the USDA's 3.433bn-bushel figure.

Soybeans need all the help they can get to avoid a technical sell-off, with Mike Mawdsley at Market 1 saying that a close under $9.90-10.00 a bushel would "look bearish on the charts"

"If beans can't get up and over $10.29 a bushel, they have an uptrend line as a downside target, currently located near $9.35-9.40 a bushel," he said, from assessment of weekly charts.

With yields relatively strong, and "world supplies good, funds are not excited about soybeans", he added.

Key data ahead 

In Kuala Lumpur, palm oil was a touch higher too, starting the afternoon session in a better heart than it left off morning trade.

The benchmark November lot stood 2 ringgit higher at 2,540 ringgit a tonne, above a low of 2,529 ringgit a tonne hit earlier.

Traders complained that trade was directionless ahead of latest monthly production, export and stocks data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, having already made an adjustment for weak statistics by dragging the vegetable oil below mid-August highs above 2,700 ringgit a tonne.