GRAINS-Corn, soybean futures sag on U.S. crop prospects; wheat pares gains

(Rewrites first paragraph; updates prices, adds quotes, addsbyline, changes dateline from previous PARIS/SINGAPORE)

By Julie Ingwersen

CHICAGO, July 19 (Reuters) - U.S. corn futures fell morethan 2% on Tuesday and soybeans also declined on optimism forsizable U.S. crops and some forecasts for rain next week,despite pockets of stress from hot and dry conditions, traderssaid.

Wheat futures pared gains and turned lower at times afterEgypt's state grains buyer cancelled an international wheatpurchase tender that had drawn offers of U.S. wheat.

As of 1:08 p.m. CDT (1808 GMT), Chicago Board of TradeDecember corn was down 16 cents at $5.94-3/4 per bushel,poised to snap a four-session climb. CBOT November soybeanswere down 22 cents at $13.58-1/4 a bushel. CBOT Septemberwheat was up 2 cents at $8.14-3/4 a bushel, easing after aclimb to $8.22-1/4.

Corn and soybeans were pressured by a weekly report showingstabilizing U.S. crop conditions. The U.S. Department ofAgriculture (USDA) late on Monday rated 64% of the U.S. corncrop in good-to-excellent condition, unchanged from the previousweek, while analysts surveyed by Reuters on average had expecteda decline of 1 percentage point.

For soybeans, the USDA rated 61% of the crop asgood-to-excellent, down from 62% in the previous week, whileanalysts on average had expected no change.

"A second straight week of steady national corn conditionratings is giving the bears more hope that the current crop canmeet or exceed USDA expectations, despite the continuance of ahot and dry summer," Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economistat StoneX, wrote in a client note.

Forecasts pointed to beneficial rains in portions of theMidwest crop belt for next week, which could bolster yieldprospects.

Market pressure also stemmed from hopes that a deal will befound to export more grains out of Ukraine as Russian PresidentVladimir Putin met with his Turkish counterpart in Iran todiscuss the matter.

Still, analysts were cautious on the impact of a deal toresume maritime exports of Ukrainian grain.

"Progress on exports of Ukrainian grain stored at Black Seaports is not an indication of normalisation in export flows, andwe still see profound dislocations in global agricultural tradeflows," JPMorgan analysts said in a note.(Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by SherryJacob-Phillips, David Evans and Paul Simao)

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