CHICAGO — The CME Group will launch a mini-sized Kansas City hard red winter wheat futures contract for trading as of the evening of March 23.

The CME Group said the mini-sized wheat futures contract will be 1,000 bus, which is one-fifth the size of standard-sized futures contract.

“These 1,000 bushel contracts are highly attractive to commercial market participants who need more precise hedging tools, and other traders whose strategies are better served by smaller sized products,” the CME Group said.

The mini-sized Kansas City hard red winter wheat futures contract joins the corn, soybean and Chicago soft red winter wheat mini-sized contracts already being traded on the CME Group.

The CME Group said deliverable grades for the mini-sized wheat futures contract are the same as the standard-sized contract. Other features of the new contract include the ability to offset mini-sized wheat futures positions against the standard Kansas City hard red winter wheat contract on a 5-to-1 basis, a smaller tick size of 1/8c equaling $1.25 per contract compared with $12.50 for the standard-sized contracts and lower margin requirements because of the contract’s smaller size.

In addition, an extended trading window of 15 minutes will allow the smaller contracts to be used to adjust standard-sized contract positions at the end of a day’s trading. Trade is both open outcry and electronic via CME Globex, the CME Group said.

The CME Group introduced Kansas City hard red winter wheat calendar spread options on Jan. 27.