Euronext's front-month wheat futures eased Wednesday, as the Black Sea export supply competed with Euronext and traders looked for more information about the losses from a wet harvest in Western Europe.

The price of September wheat traded on Paris' Euronext fell 1.1% to 222.50 euro ($241.35) per metric tonne, a decline from the two-week high reached Monday at 227.50 euro.

The deferred positions of Euronext are mixed.

One German trader stated, "I believe the low prices offered by Black Sea exporters combined with the lack of demand in the purchase tenders held this week are overriding concerns about rain damaging French or German crops."

On Thursday, the price of Russian 11.5% protein for August Black Sea shipment ranged between $210 and $211 per ton FOB. Russian 12.5% was priced at $219 to $220 a ton.

Export activity in France remained low as the market awaited harvest-related news. Showers that have been occurring since the weekend caused the field work to be slow.

As we wait to find out if France's crop will be 26, 27 or 28 millions tons, a futures broker said, "we are simply not competitive in export."

The initial French wheat harvest forecast by the Ministry of Agriculture was 29.7 millions tons of soft wheat, 15% less than the previous year.

In Germany, the persistent rain also slowed down harvest progress, and raised concerns about wheat quality loss, even though many crops were not expected to be harvested until August.

The traders were discussing whether mills in the UK and EU might switch to U.S. Wheat.

Another trader stated that "Quality issues in France and Germany may lead to European imports of U.S. Wheat."

This week, U.S. red winter soft for August Gulf shipment was about $25 per ton FOB less than French 11%. This level of U.S. sales into Europe is certainly possible."

Euronext published data on Wednesday showing that financial investors have increased their net short positions in Euronext Wheat last week.