Chicago soybean futures slid for a second session on Wednesday as a bumper U.S. crop harvest is expected to gather pace after forecasts of dry weather in parts of the U.S. Midwest.

Wheat dropped but expectations of strong demand for U.S. cargoes provided a floor under the market.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was down 0.1 percent at $8.84 a bushel, as of 0314 GMT. Wheat fell 0.1 percent to $5.22-3/4 a bushel and corn added 0.1 percent to $3.75-1/2 a bushel.

"The weather is improving in the U.S. Midwest after rains which is good for the harvest, but there is limited downside risk to soybean prices as U.S. beans are at a big discount to Brazilian beans," said one India-based agricultural commodities analyst.

"U.S. domestic crushing is pretty strong because of attractive crush margins."

U.S. processors crushed 160.779 million bushels of soybeans in September, the largest-ever processing volume for the month, the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) said on Monday.

The figure was up from the 158.885 million bushels processed in August, and well above the September 2017 crush of 136.419 million bushels, according to NOPA, whose members handle about 95 percent of all soybeans processed in the United States.

Soybean and corn prices have come under pressure from expectations that dry weather across the U.S. Midwest will aid harvesting.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) late on Monday said the U.S. soybean harvest was 38 percent complete, lagging the five-year average of 53 percent and barely up from 32 percent in the previous week.

The corn harvest was 39 percent complete, still ahead of the five-year average of 35 percent.

The USDA rated 66 percent of the soybean crop as good-to-excellent, down from 68 percent the previous week, while condition ratings for corn were unchanged.

U.S. wheat exports look set for a strong second-half to the 2018/19 season when shipments from Russia are expected to slow, the chairman of the USDA's World Agricultural Outlook Board said on Tuesday.

Commodity funds were net sellers of CBOT corn, soybean, soymeal, soyoil and wheat futures contracts on Tuesday, traders said. (Reporting by Naveen Thukral, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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