South America Calling

While rainfall has still not completely normalized across Brazil's grain belt, soil moisture was sufficient to allow soybean planting to accelerate in the first week of November, according to AgRural, a local farm consultancy.

Brazilian soybean planting was 46% complete as of Friday, up 17 percentage points from the week before but still well behind the 59% planted at the same stage last year, said the consultancy.

The delays are most pronounced in the Center-West, where a dry October put planting a month behind schedule. Despite the delays, yield potential has not yet been lost, AgRural said, and it continues to forecast a crop of 94.9 million metric tons, up 10% on the year before.

Farmers have been planting day and night in Mato Grosso, Brazil's top-producing soy state. As a result, planted area rose by 27 percentage points last week to 62% complete, but progress still lags the 85% planted at the same stage last year.

In the Center-North, the state's biggest soybean region, planting was 69% complete and beans planted in late September are beginning to flower and sowing continues in neighboring fields.

In neighboring Goias, planting jumped 21 percentage points to 45% complete, but is still much slower than the 77% planted last year.

Rains were light in the Center-West last week, but previous showers and the forecast of deluges this week gave farmers confidence to speed up planting.

Parana, the No. 2 soybean state in the south, did enjoy, for the most part, ample rainfall in October. But planting was also late there, some ten percentage points behind last year at 62% complete, due to irregular rainfall in the north and south of the state.

In the other southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, farmers took advantage of ample soil humidity to plant quickly, resulting in fieldwork running ahead of schedule at 34% complete and 47% complete respectively.

Over the next week, Center-West crops will be nourished by heavy showers, with averages of two to three inches common, according to Somar Meteorologia, a local weather service. Rain is also expected to fall in dry areas of Parana, although the south of Brazil will remain generally dry.

(CZ)

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