Wheat for September delivery stood 1.0% lower at $6.57 a bushel at 18:00 GMT.

In Paris, wheat for November ended 3.1% lower at E205.50 a bushel, and its London feed equivalent finished off 2.6% at £148.00 a tonne, falls reflecting the depth of Chicago's late decline in the last session.

The sell-off overcame a temporary boost provided by the purchase by the Egypt's state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities, of 55,000 tonnes of US hard red winter wheat after the organisation's fourth tender for wheat this month.

Tender results revealed the competitiveness of US wheat, with the winning offer, from Cargill, priced at $277.50 a tonne. The cheapest Australian hard wheat was priced at $298.50 a tonne, with German grain offered by Cargill at $303.00 a tonne.Historically, Cairo has turned to Russia for its hard wheat, which is mixed with soft wheat, as acquired from France last week, to improve milling results.

However, Russia's export ban has forced Egypt, the world's biggest wheat importer, to use other suppliers, with the GASC "moving aggressively" to replace 540,000 tonnes of wheat affected by the trade curbs.

Sparse rains 

Earlier, prices were supported by lower expectations for the rains forecast for drought-struck Russia. While deemed too late to save this year's crop, rainfall has been seen as improving prospects for sowings for next year's crop.

"Showers are mostly likely for the northern areas," Meteorlogix said, adding that rainfall would be "scattered light to locally moderate".

A London analyst told Agrimoney.com that "serious, soaking rains" were needed to improve the sowing prospects, adding that "the forecast showed that rain was not going to be as bountiful as everyone expected".

The analyst also questioned rumours that Ukraine was to halve its grain exports.

"Some rumours say they will allow 2.5m tonnes before December 31, others say 2.5m tonnes after December 31. I'm not sure anyone really knows."

'Very weak technically'

However, he added that wheat was "very weak technically", a factor encouraging investors to sell.

The comments were echoed by Darrel Holaday at US broker Country Futures, who said: "The technical picture for wheat is negative and points to lower prices if it closes lower on the day.

"If it makes another leg down, it will likely take corn with it."

Crop results

In other news:

*Spain pegged its soft wheat harvest at 4.79m tonnes, up 42% year on year, a rise helped by plentiful winter rains. The corn crop was set to fall by 8% to 3.2m tonnes, the country's farm ministry added.