CHICAGO, June 24 (Reuters) – U.S. soybean basis bids were steady to firmer and corn was steady on Tuesday, with farmer sales quiet as the drop in Chicago Board of Trade grain futures dampened selling interest, merchandisers said.
* River terminals boosted their spot soybean 1 to 3 cents a bushel, trying to entice some movement.
* While heavy rains raised waters on northern sections of Midwest waterways and forced lock closures in the Minneapolis area, barge movement was unaffected so far in the central Midwest, merchants said early Tuesday.
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* Barge freight rates on the mid-Mississippi at St. Louis were held steady, quoted at 250/260 percent of tariff late Monday.
* Merchants also reported some ponding in fields but overall U.S. crops were benefiting from the humidity and rainfall.
* The USDA reported late Monday 74 percent of the corn crop as good to excellent as of Sunday – down 2 percentage points from the week before, but still above the five-year average of about 68 percent for late June. Soybeans were rated 72 percent good to excellent, down a percentage point from the week before but the highest for this time of year, analysts said.
* Soft red winter wheat basis bids were unchanged as elevators await harvest to begin in northern locations. SRW wheat harvest was still a couple weeks away in Ohio and northern Indiana. But the harvest is underway in southern Illinois and Indiana and progressing in mid-South states where merchants are testing for wheat for vomitoxin, a fungal disease due to late season rains. Merchants were discounting wheat loads that tested above 2 ppm vomitoxin.
* Several inches of rain across the northern Midwest during the past week also damaged corn and soybean crops. The biggest crop concerns were in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota.
* At 10:35 am CDT (1535 GMT), July soybeans were down 17 cents at $14.07-3/4 a bushel, July corn was down 3-1/2 at $4.41, and CBOT July wheat was down 8 at $5.71-3/4.
Basis values are quoted against CBOT futures in cts/bu: CORN SOYBEANS CINCINNATI OH +2 + N UNC +90 + Q UNC BURNS HARBOR IN -12 + N UNC -5 + N UNC DECATUR IN -15 + N UNC DES MOINES IA UNQ UNC LINCOLN NE -10 + N UNC PROCESSORS CORN SOYBEANS DECATUR IL +18 + N UNC +85 + Q UNC DECATUR IN +85 + Q UNC MORRISTOWN IN +90 + Q UNC LAFAYETTE IN +85 + Q UNC CEDAR RAPIDS IA +22 + N DN 4 +65 + Q UNC COUNCIL BLUFFS IA +62 + Q UNC LINCOLN NE +60 + Q UNC BLAIR NE +0 + N UNCRIVER TERMINALS CORN SOYBEANS TOLEDO OH -10 + N UNC +75 + Q UNC SENECA IL +4 + N UP 1 +10 + N UP 1 SAVANNA IL +1 + N UNC +1 + N UNC DAVENPORT IA +6 + N DN 1 +0 + N UP 3 ETHANOL PLANTS LINDEN IN +3 + N UNC UNION CITY IN +10 + U NC ANNAWAN IL +4 + N UNC COUNCIL BLUFFS IA -2 + N UNC SRW WHEAT TOLEDO OH +0 + N UNC CINCINNATI OH -10 + N UNC DECATUR IN -10 + N UNC NOTES: 0 = Option price, UNC = Unchanged, UNQ = Unquoted, NC = Not comparable, DP = Delayed Price, N = July, Q = August --------------------------------------------------------------- LINKS: For U.S. forward basis spreadsheets, please double-click on: - CBOT corn report - CBOT soybean report - CBOT wheat report - U.S. grain barge freight values - U.S. Midwest cash grain PM - U.S. CIF Gulf Grain - U.S. FOB Gulf Grain (Reporting by Christine Stebbins Editing by W Simon)