South America Calling

After a dry spell of 20 to 30 days in January, many soybean farmers in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state, had a sinking sense of déjà vu.

They lost over half last year's crop to drought and were bracing themselves for another poor year.

Fortunately, rains made a timely return to Brazil's No. 3 soybean state in February, leaving the crop in good shape ahead of harvest, which gets going here next week.

"We feared another disaster but the soybean plants have bounced back and the pods are filling well," said Carlos Koch, who farms over 1,700 acres around Nao-Me-Toque, northern Rio Grande do Sul.

Koch expects his soybeans to yields 47 bushels per acre, not the 53 he was hoping for but a good return on a difficult year.

I have been hearing similar stories as I travelled through the north and west of the state with the Rally da Safra crop tour over the last two days.

"We have consistently seen good-looking crops, but rarely great-looking crops," said Alan Malinski, who is leading the tour run by Agroconsult, a local farm consultancy.

Teams participating in the tour reported gradually rising yields as trucks moved from the northern reaches of the state into the northwestern soybean heartlands.

Estimates of 46 to 53 bushels per were the norm in big-producing areas like Panambi, Santo Angelo and Julio de Castilhos.

As a result, Agroconsult will likely remain comfortable with its Rio Grande do Sul estimate of 12.2 million metric tons (mmt) in 2012-13 out of a total harvest of 84.2 mmt.

Signs of caterpillar attacks were everywhere, mirroring problems across Brazil's entire grain belt this season. Asian rust fungus also lurked in many fields and we may see the disease surge aggressively once harvesting starts throwing the spores in the air.

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