The SFE wheat futures market turned in a solid turnover performance with 76 contracts changing hands in a rising market.

The market was based on traders covering short positions as physical wheat supplies dried up, Colin Lethbridge of IAMA Ltd said.

SFE wheat's nearby month November 1998 sold up by 25 cents to A$169.50 a tonne. Market leader January 1999 added A$1.00 to A$169.75 on 71 lots. January 2000 slipped by 50 cents to A$180.00 on two lots.

Cash prices also rose as traders scrambled for supplies.

Australian Standard White (ASW) new crop wheat delivered Brisbane jumped by A$11 a tonne to A$159.00, although prices were steadier in areas more distant from where poor quality rain-affected new season wheat is being harvested.

"No wheat," said Colin Lethbridge of IAMA Ltd ofFriday's market.

"If you've got the wheat and you're hedged, that's fine, you can deliver it. If you haven't... forget it," he said.

"We've been closing contracts down, buying them back."

Turnover in high protein feed or pinched small-grain wheat was high in regional centres in Queensland and northern NSW, where it rained again on Friday.

"This is not a mathematical market now, it's got nothing to do with exchange rates, this is just a matter of people buying back short positions because they have no wheat," Lethbridge said. Barley being harvested at present was "a shocker" and lucky if it could fit into any feed category at all, he said.

High rainfall in the Queensland and northern NSW has seriously affected wheat presently being harvested, reducing protein grades and causing shortages of usable quality grain.