CHICAGO, May 12 (Reuters) - U.S. wheat futures rose on Friday, with traders focused on forecasts for crop shortfalls in the drought-stricken U.S. Plains, while corn and soybeans were mostly lower on a government outlook for record-large harvests of both crops.
K.C. hard red winter wheat futures posted the biggest gains, surging more than 4%, and the July contract hit its highest level since Nov. 25 after the U.S. Agriculture Department said the harvest in the Plains would be the smallest since 1957 as farmers across Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas were forced to abandon crops due to dry conditions.
"The most important number was the new-crop wheat production," Marex Capital analyst Charlie Sernatinger said in a note to clients.
Chicago Board of Trade July soft red winter wheat futures , the most actively traded wheat contract, settled up 7-3/4 cents at $6.35 a bushel.
The USDA projected that U.S. farmers would produce a record 15.265 billion bushels of corn, raising stocks by the end of the 2023/24 marketing year to 2.222 billion bushels, up from 1.417 billion by the end of 2022/23.
For soybeans, the government forecast a 4.510 billion-bushel crop and pegged 2023/24 soy ending stocks 335 million bushels, up from 215 million expected at the end of 2022/23.
"The numbers on corn and beans were irredeemably bearish," Sernatinger added.
Chicago Board of Trade July soybeans settled 15-1/2 cents lower at $13.90 per bushel and new-crop November soybeans were down 24-1/4 cents at $12.23-3/4. July corn was up 4 cents at $5.86-1/4 a bushel while new-crop December corn dropped 5 cents to $5.08-3/4 a bushel.
The corn and soy production forecasts will be highly dependent on favorable Midwest weather over the next several months, which will be a key market concern as farmers finish planting and crops start to develop. (Reporting by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub in Chicago, Naveen Thukral in Singapore and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Matthew Lewis)
