The market for lower quality wheat will be "very competitive" for the rest of 2009-10, the Canadian Wheat Board has said, while raising its grain export target to the highest in a decade.

The board, the world's biggest wheat and barley seller, said that while it expected to export 18.7m tonnes of grain in the marketing year, 2m tonnes more than expected in the summer, much of its wheat held relatively low protein levels.

"The Canada Western Red Spring crop is projected to have an average of 13.0% protein, which is lower than average for Western Canada," the board's chief operating officer, Ward Weisensel, said.

"We will be marketing much more low-protein spring wheat than normal."

'Fierce competition' 

These supplies would go head-to-head for buyers with Black Sea and Australian wheat, among which rivalry was already "fierce".

"We expect this segment off the wheat market to be very competitive for the rest of this year," Mr Weisensel said.

The board braced farmers with lower crops for "further downward pressure" on prices.

Spared by frost 

The CWB credited the rise in its export target to the once-in-century occurrence of a nearly frost-free September, which allowed crops "dramatically" to play catch up after a cool summer delayed development.

"Instead, record-high September temperatures allowed the bulk of the crop to mature."

The downside for Canadian growers was that their competitors in the north of the US enjoyed the same warm weather.

"As a result, there is more high-quality wheat, durum and malting barley available than would have otherwise been the case," so dampening price potential.