South America Calling

Growing Season is one of Driest in Decades in Argentina

Mike Palmerino
By  Mike Palmerino , DTN Senior Ag Meteorologist
The five-day precipitation forecast shows a continued chance for showers in Brazil, but very little for Argentina's key crop areas. (NOAA/National Weather Service graphic)

Dry weather continues in the major corn and soybean areas of central Argentina. We have seen reports that this may be one of the driest growing seasons in 70 years in some areas.

Despite the dry weather, temperatures during the past week have not been high. This has been a bit of a surprise since normally in summer maximum temperatures correlate quite well with how dry the soils are.

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However, the lack of heat may in fact be maintaining the dry weather pattern, as often when temperatures get too high a strong thermal boundary develops which becomes the focus of scattered showers and thunderstorms.

We do not see any sign of this dry pattern ending with losses to filling corn and soybeans expected to continue. If the dry weather pattern continues, crop losses will be ongoing through at least mid-March.

Weather and crop conditions remain favorable across Brazil. The rainy season continues in central Brazil, which has kept soybean harvest progress and second-crop corn planting behind last year. However, it is equal to normal on the soybean harvest and ahead of normal on second-crop corn planting.

There is no sign of an end to the rainy season in Brazil at this time as the La Nina conditions that have kept central Argentina dry are keeping central Brazil wet.

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

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