* Record pace of U.S. harvest weighs on corn, soybeans
* Technicals see corn rising to $6.20/bsh
Chicago corn futures fell 0.4 percent on Wednesday while soybeans edged lower, snapping a
four-day winning streak as the record pace of the U.S. harvest and forecasts of crop-friendly
weather in Brazil weighed on the markets.
Corn is up 23 percent since the beginning of last week and has gained around 16 percent in the
last four sessions on support from a U.S. government report that slashed corn and soy crop
estimates. Soybeans have rallied nearly 11 percent since Thursday.
"It is certainly going to be difficult for corn to continue at the breakneck speed that we have seen
in the past few sessions," said Luke Mathews, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of
Australia.
"The Brazilian rain situation is going to improve, which will support summer crop plantings and
we saw in the USDA crop progress report a slight improvement in crop conditions. So potentially
those two stories may be enough to halt the rally that we have seen in the last week or so."
Chicago Board of Trade December corn fell 0.4 percent to $5.77 a bushel by 0204 GMT. The
contract touched a new two-year peak of $5.84-¼ a bushel in the previous session.
CBOT November soybeans fell 0.1 percent to $11.77-¼ a bushel and below Monday's peak of
$11.88-3/4, the highest since August 2009.
U.S. farmers were harvesting corn and soybeans at a record pace as dry weather and high
temperatures around the Midwest allowed them to make quick progress in the fields.
The corn harvest was 51 percent complete while the soybean harvest was 67 percent complete as
of Oct. 10, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Both figures were the largest on record
for mid-October, according to USDA data that dates back to 1981.
The planting of Brazil's 2010/11 (Sept-Aug) soybean crop reached 3 percent of the expected area
by Oct. 8, down from the 7 percent planted a year ago but on par with historical planting rates for this time of year, grain analysts Celeres said.
But local forecasters Somar said that regular, widespread rainfall is due to spread into the centerwest starting from Oct. 20.
Brazil's No. 2 soybean producer Parana is most advanced of the main growing states and has
planted 9 percent of its expected crop. This puts it up from 2 percent the prior week but slightly
behind the 10 percent planted at this time in 2009.
There was some bearish news from China, where an official grain think-tank maintained its
estimate for the country's corn output this year at a record 169 million tonnes, up 3.1 percent
from last year, despite unfavorable weather at the end of the season.