UK November future wheat markets broke briefly through the highly significant £200/t threshold, according to the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB).

The £200/t threshold was breached on Wednesday of last week (July 22), though prices had settled back to just below £200/t by Friday (July 24).

In overall terms, AHDB is indicating that grain markets remained volatile, with continued bullish support for global grains early last week as Black Sea disruption and European heatwave concerns outweighed ample supply.

Geopolitics and weather drove speculative buying into grains, but global grains markets reduced on Friday (July 24) from "profit‑taking and positioning ahead of the weekend", AHDB said.

Further to that, on Friday afternoon, reports came in that Ukraine was discussing ways to protect vessels using its Odessa‑region ports for exporting grains, adding further pressure, which was later denied on Friday evening.

However, this added selling pressure on Friday, leaving some grain markets down week‑on‑week.

According to AHDB, the main market driver is continued disruption in the Black Sea, as further attacks on ports and commercial vessels deter shipping calls and push war‑risk insurance and freight costs higher.

With both Ukraine and Russia having harvested significant grain volumes, any prolonged or complete halt to Black Sea exports would remove a large share of global supply from the market and provide strong support to prices, the board said.

These events are evolving daily, which is adding to volatility.

Maize

Meanwhile, French maize crop ratings deteriorated further in the week to July 20 as a severe heatwave affected the EU’s largest grain producer.

Analysts are reporting that just 38% of the maize area was in good or excellent condition on July 20, down from 40% a week earlier and 69% a year ago.

Maize remains the most weather‑exposed cereal in France as it is still in its critical growing phase, while winter crop harvests were largely complete.

Grain

Russia’s 2026 grain crop is forecast at 139Mt, including 90Mt of wheat, according to consultancy IKAR.

Both grain and wheat production forecasts were cut due to difficult weather in Siberia and the Urals, even though conditions in the south remain good.

The agency expects Russia to export 58.5Mt of grain in 2026/2027, of which 44.5Mt would be wheat.

Grain markets are likely to remain volatile in the near term, but supply-side fundamentals are not currently supportive of a sustained rally.

Brazil’s safrinha crop is being harvested without major issues, and US weather is not yet tight enough to materially threaten maize production, despite a short-lived heatwave in the mid-west over recent days.