* Wheat claws back about half of Friday's steep losses
* Chicago corn rises, soybeans flat Brazil plantings race forward
Oct 2 (Reuters) - Chicago wheat futures rebounded on Monday on what one analyst characterized as "bottom-picking" after prices dropped more than 6% to three-year lows on Friday.
Corn followed wheat higher, but soybeans prices remained low after news reports of Brazilian farmers planting at a rapid clip.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) late Monday pegged the current U.S. corn harvest at 23% complete, compared with 19% at the same point in the prior year. It rated 53% of the current crop good or excellent, unchanged from a week earlier and up a percentage point from the same time in 2022.
Chicago Board of Trade's (CBOT) most-actively traded wheat contract was up more than 4%, climbing 23-1/4 cents to end at $5.64-3/4 a bushel. Those gains come after soft red December wheat on Friday hit its lowest level since Sept. 30, 2020 at $5.40.
"We're seeing some bottom-picking, and technical buying," said Terry Reilly, the head grains and oilseeds analyst at Marex in Chicago, adding that the buying comes despite a rising U.S. dollar and reports of continued Ukrainian success in moving grain exports by rail and by sea.
Wheat prices had already weakened to their lowest levels since December 2020, pressured by abundant Russian wheat supplies, before the USDA last week estimated a larger-than-expected domestic harvest.
Chicago corn chased wheat higher, rising 12 cents, more than 2.5%, to end at $4.88-3/4 a bushel.
Despite the rallies in grains, soybean futures remained largely flat, ending 2 cents higher at $12.77 a bushel, which Jack Scoville of the PRICE Futures Group said he suspected was due to an industry report that farmers in Brazil - the world's top soybean producer - were of last week planting at the quickest pace ever for the period.
"It looks like it's going to be a big bumper crop," Scoville said.
The USDA reported the current U.S. soybean harvest at 23% complete, compared with 20% last year. Crop condition had improved, with 52% deemed good or excellent, compared with 50% the prior week, but down from 55% a year ago. (Reporting by Zachary Goelman in New York City; Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
