GRAINS-Soybeans at six-week low on lack of Chinese buying; wheat eases

By Naveen Thukral

SINGAPORE, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Chicago soybeans lost more ground on Monday, hitting a six-week low as a phone call last week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping did not provide any news on agriculture.

Wheat slid to a one-week low on expectations of higher global supplies, while corn was largely unchanged.

"We were really hoping for some positive news from the call between the two leaders," said one oilseed trader in Singapore. "It is very difficult to imagine an upside for U.S. soybean prices if China continues to stay away from the market."

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade Sv1 fell 0.1% to $10.24-1/4 a bushel, as of 0302 GMT, after dropping to its weakest since August 12 earlier in the session.

Wheat Wv1 lost 0.2% to $5.21-1/4 a bushel, after touching its weakest since September 12, and corn Cv1 was flat at $4.24 a bushel.

Soybeans rose last week on hopes that the Trump-Xi talks could help end a freeze in soybean trade between the two countries. China, by far the world's largest soy importer, has yet to book any of the current U.S. soybean crop and has instead turned to South American supplies.

The two leaders made progress during the call on a TikTok agreement and pledged to meet face-to-face in just over a month in South Korea, but there was little mention of agriculture.

Harvesting is underway in the U.S. Midwest. Unusually warm temperatures this week are pushing crops toward maturity, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a daily weather note.

The market is monitoring early yield reports to gauge the impact of crop diseases and late-summer dryness that could prompt the USDA to lower its production estimates next month.

S&P Global Commodity Insights projected on Friday that U.S. farmers would plant 94.5 million acres of corn next year, down 4.3% from this year, and 84 million acres of soybeans, up 3.6%, according to a report from the firm seen by Reuters.

Farmers are struggling to turn profits on both crops this year because supplies are ample and China, the world's biggest soybean importer, has not bought U.S. soy from the autumn harvest amid its tariff dispute with Washington.

Wheat futures are being weighed down by improving wheat harvest prospects in Australia and globally.

Western Australia, the country's biggest grains-exporting region, will produce 300,000 metric tons more wheat, 1.1 million tons more barley, and 225,000 tons more canola this season than expected a month ago, an industry group said on Friday.

Large speculators trimmed their net short position in Chicago Board of Trade corn futures in the week to September 16, regulatory data released on Friday showed.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments of traders report also showed that noncommercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, trimmed their net short position in CBOT wheat and trimmed their net short position in soybeans.