South America Calling

By Alastair Stewart
DTN South America Correspondent

The 2015-16 Argentine commercial corn harvest finally came to an end last week, the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange said Thursday.

With the final figures in, the exchange confirmed in its weekly report that planted area totaled 8.5 million acres, the average yield was 129 bushels per acre and output reached 28.0 million metric tons (mmt). Approximately 4% of planted area was lost, mainly due to excessively wet weather.

In the meantime, early 2016-17 corn is already being planted in the provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Rios and surrounding areas with 6.7% of the projected 11.1 million acres already in the ground and plants were emerging amid soil temperatures high enough to promote development.

Corn area is expected to jump 25% in 2016-17 following the end of export restrictions and tariffs and excellent projected margins.

The rump of the Argentine wheat crop continued to develop well over the last week, gaining nourishment from the moisture creased by rains at the start of the month, the exchange said.

Around half the crop is in critical development phases.

(AG)

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