South America’s next soybean crop is almost all in the ground, at least in Brazil. While Argentina is having challenges, Dr. Michael Cordonnier of Soybeans and Corn Advisor says Brazil planting is almost finished.
“The beans are over 90 percent planted, and the only areas left to plant are far southern Brazil and far northern Brazil. They could use the rain in some of the western and southern areas of Brazil, and the forecast is calling for rain. Temperatures are hot, so they could use some relief. If the dry areas do get some good rain, I might raise my soybean estimate a little. If the dry areas don’t get very good rains and coverages aren’t very good, then I’ll probably leave it unchanged at 151 million tons.”
Argentina is a different story as they struggle with hot, dry weather.
“Argentina only got some slight relief from the dryness, more so in the southern areas and less so in the northern areas. Now, below-normal rainfall is expected across most of Argentina for the next ten days. Temperatures will heat it up and are forecast to be at or above 100 degrees for the next ten days. And soybeans are only 29 percent planted, which is 20 points behind average. The corn is only 25 percent planted. That’s 15 points or so behind the average. The corn planting only went up one-and-a-half percent this week. So, everything is slow in Argentina. I’ve already lowered my Argentine estimates once. I’m leaning towards lowering it again because of the adverse weather, so Argentina is problematic, to say the least.”
Argentina never really emerged from the drought that plagued last year’s crops, and now their wheat is really suffering.
“No, they never got out of it. It’s been dryer ever since. The wheat crop is a complete disaster. They started maybe at maybe 18-19 million tons. Now, most analysts are down to 10 or 11 million tons and getting lower as you go forward. And it was cold and dry, and they had a series of frosts, so they had by everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the wheat in Argentina. Right now, it’s really hot. But a month ago, they were getting frost in Argentina. So, it’s like going from winter to a hot summer in a matter of a couple of weeks.”
He says the world is counting on Brazil and South America to come up with a big soybean crop. It might be more difficult for the South American corn crop.
“On the corn side, it’s not a done deal that Brazil will compensate for problems with Argentina. The first corn crop is okay, but could be a lot better, but the cut back on first-crop corn acreage. So now 75 percent of Brazil’s corn is to be Safina production, and that’s always risky. There’s not as good an opportunity for Brazil to make up for corn problems in Argentina. It may not be a bigger corn crop in South America this year versus last year.”
For more information, go to soybeansandcorn.org.
