Wheat users received a double fillip as world supplies were pegged at their second highest ever, and US growers revealed to have raised winter sowings for the next harvest by more than the market had expected.

The US Department of Agriculture lifted by 1.5m tonnes its estimate for world wheat supplies at the close of 2011-12, citing a bumper Kazakh crop, which was upgraded to a record 22.5m tonnes - unusually, beating the harvest in nearby Ukraine, once tagged the bread basket of the Soviet Union.

"The main [Kazakh] wheat-production region benefited from outstanding weather throughout the growing season," USDA analyst Mark Lindeman said.

At 210.0m tonnes, global wheat stocks are set to end the season at their second highest ever, less than 700,000 tonnes behind the record set 12 years ago, and equivalent to a healthy 16 weeks' consumption.

'Record low'

And prospects for the next harvest received a boost from a separate report from USDA, seen as the top world farming authority, showing domestic winter wheat plantings up 1.3m acres to a three-year high of 41.9m acres.

The rise, some 1m acres more than analysts had expected, came despite a dip in sowings of soft red winter wheat, the type traded in Chicago.

Large increases in soft red winter area in most of the Corn Belt were more than offset by a slump of one-third, to 580,000 hectares, in plantings in Ohio, typically the top grower, but where growers were hampered by poor weather.

"In Ohio, record low area was planted due to wet soil conditions during the fall," said Karis Gutter, the acting US agriculture secretary.

Area sown to hard red winter wheat, the main variety grown in the US, rose by some 1.6m acres to 30.1m acres.

"Acreage is above last year's level in all states in the hard red winter wheat growing area except California, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota", where a "dry fall limited planting", Mr Gutter said.

Rich supplies

The data were seen by Sal Gilbertie, chief investment officer at Teucrium Trading, an issuer of commodity-based exchange traded products, as showing that world wheat supplies were "more than adequate".

He added that And the rise in wheat sowings did not dampen hopes of high corn plantings, which are generally expected by many commentators to hit a post-World War II high this year.

"There are wheat-growing areas. They might lose some rapeseed to make way for wheat," Mr GIlbertie told Agrimoney.com,

"But corn competes far more with soybeans for land."