Ag Weather Forum

After rather favorable weather in the main corn and soybean areas of central Argentina during January, a drier weather pattern may be setting up over the next two weeks. This will deplete soil moisture and increase stress on pollinating and filling corn and filling soybeans. Periods of hot weather are expected along with this dryness.

This situation bears close watching as we head into the main soybean pod-filling month of February.

Favorable weather is expected to continue for filling soybeans in the major growing areas of Brazil. There could be some disruptions to the early harvest in central Brazil due to near daily chances of scattered showers and thunderstorms during the next seven days. There is favorable weather for planting the second corn crop, after the soybean harvest, with no sign of an end to the rainy season at this time.

After beneficial rain in the northeast soybean areas of Brazil last week, drier weather is expected to return during the next seven days. Despite the rain last week, we would still expect significant crop losses due to long periods of hot and dry weather during the growing season.

The Midwest has recently gone drier, which is very welcome news to producers dealing with saturated soils. Drier weather is expected to continue through the weekend. Precipitation is forecast to increase during the first part of next week.

We still expect to have issues with fieldwork and planting in the spring due to saturated soils. However, we are keeping our eye on the sea surface temperatures in the eastern pacific. As I reported last week, temperatures dropped sharply during the first half of January. We will be looking to see if this cooling trend continues during late winter and on into spring. If it does, that would imply drier weather for the Midwest in the coming months. We will have an update on the departure for the entire month of January next week.

We continue to see improving soil moisture conditions for winter wheat in the Southern Plains. Temperatures will be turning lower early next week. However, no damaging cold is expected.

Michael Palmerino can be reached at michael.palmerino@dtn.com

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