By Tony C. Dreibus June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Soybeans rose, notching the first weekly gain since April, on speculation that unusually heavy rain will leave U.S. Midwest fields too muddy to plant. Corn also gained. Farmers in parts of Iowa and Illinois, the biggest U.S. soybean producers, must decide by June 20 to receive crop insurance payments instead of planting. Some areas received six times the normal rainfall in the past month, delaying soybean seeding and threatening to damage newly planted corn crops. “The rain amounts are looking extremely heavy for corn and for beans,” said Mike Zuzolo, the president of Global Commodity Analytics in Lafayette, Indiana. “The preventive planting date is coming up for beans on June 20. That keeps shorts from pressing the downside and keep longs from taking profits.” Soybean futures for November delivery rose 5.5 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $9.305 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. The price gained 2.3 percent this week, the first since April 23. Corn futures for December delivery rose 2.25 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $3.805 a bushel on the CBOT. Helped by a 2.6 percent increase this week, the price has jumped 13 percent since June 7, the last time futures declined. To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Dreibus in Chicago at tdreibus@bloomberg.net.

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