GRAINS-Corn rises after setting contract lows on favorable US crop prospects

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO, July 9 (Reuters) - Chicago Board of Trade corn futures turned higher on Wednesday after favorable U.S. crop conditions pushed prices to contract lows.

Soybean futures weakened for a third consecutive session amid uncertainty over U.S. trade prospects, while wheat futures edged up to halt a three-session fall.

Short covering helped to lift grain prices, analysts said, with the corn market recovering slightly from its recent losses.

U.S. weather has been largely favourable for corn and soybean crops, fuelling expectations for sizable harvests this autumn.

The next 15 days will likely be the most critical period of development for the corn crop, and generally favourable conditions are expected in most areas of the Midwest, weather firm Vaisala said.

"It's really good out west," Jim Gerlach, president of brokerage A/C Trading, said about crop weather.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday said 74% of the U.S. corn crop was in good or excellent condition, up 1 percentage point from a week earlier and the highest for this time of year since 2018.

For soybeans, the crop's good-excellent rating was unchanged from the previous week and down from last year.

Soybean fields in the eastern Midwest received too much rain earlier this year, Gerlach said.

"There's a lot of raggedy beans out there," he said.

The most-active corn contract Cv1 was 2 cents higher at $4.16-1/4 a bushel by 12 p.m. CDT (1700 GMT). Soybean futures Sv1 fell 6 cents to $10.11-1/2 a bushel, while wheat Wv1 rose 1 cent to $5.48-3/4 a bushel.

"Early Wednesday trade showed a modest bounce across grains, likely driven by short-term bargain buying rather than any shift in the broader outlook," Donatas Jankauskas, analyst with commodity data platform CM Navigator, said in an note.

Grain traders remain worried that tariff disputes with key trading partners may hurt demand for U.S. crops and exacerbate a glut in supply.

The European Union said it could reach an outline trade agreement with the United States in the coming days, while U.S. President Donald Trump promised that he would deliver further tariff notices on unnamed countries.

The USDA is slated to update monthly estimates for global grain supplies and demand on Friday.