Written Commentary
The Ghost in the Machine Q1 2026
March 26, 2026
London Wheat Report
Wheat markets were on fire today with a perfect storm brewing in the USA. Drought fears have been growing over the past few weeks and the rain the US is due to see looks to be missing the main areas in need. This, coupled with the latest round of crop progress reports, showed wheat conditions as concerning. Spring wheat plantings reached 19%, lagging last year’s 28% and slightly below the 5-year average of 22%, though emergence is on track at 5%. Winter wheat conditions remain poor, with only 30% rated good/excellent and declines seen across key states like Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon. Kansas is particularly weak at 23% good/excellent, with high abandonment expected. Despite this, crop development is ahead, with 34% headed versus 25% last year.
Overall, wheat faces slower planting, weak crop health, and regional declines, contrasting with faster progress in other major crops. US wheat leads the way and the rest of the world followed. Kansas and Chicago were trading up 24 cents at the time of writing. This could not be ignored by the European wheat markets who also were trading well up all day.
May6 rapeseed has been on a ride this past week and as delivery looms, there was a HUGE squeeze on the short. Rapeseed May6 traded up 115 EUR to 663. Old crop stocks are there in Europe, but there is a perceived reluctance of farmer selling. There was some talk that the sellers will bring in a fair amount of GMO seed and will be running on that instead of their non-GM goods.
The Netherlands flagged four Argentine soybean meal shipments containing unauthorised genetically modified organisms, leading to at least two withdrawals, and prompting Argentina on Tuesday to question Dutch testing methods. The findings put a spotlight on GMO compliance from the European Union’s second-largest supplier of livestock feed and could boost demand for other origins, including the U.S. and Ukraine.
45 London wheat tenders were released today with Open interest in the May 6 still at over 1200 lots, punchy for this point of the tender period, especially looking at the number of warrants that have been raised…. There is certainly a story to follow.
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