Dec 11, 2019
Dry Weather could Impact Early Pollinating Corn in Argentina
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
The weather in Argentina has never really gotten "on track" thus far this growing season and now the forecast is calling for more dry weather both near term and long term with below normal rainfall and higher than normal temperatures. Corn development in Argentina is very spread out, but about 15% of the corn is pollinating, so the hotter and dryer conditions could impact the corn.
Farmers in Argentina had planted approximately 50% of their intended corn acres as of late last week according to the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange. This represents an advance of 2.5% for the week. In the core production areas, the corn is approximately 95% planted with 40-70% planted in southern Argentina and 0% planted in far northern Argentina.
The early corn in Argentina is 73.6% in vegetative development and 14.8% pollinating. The corn is rated 0% very poor, 2.1% poor, 43.2% fair, 48.8% good, and 5.9% excellent, which is similar to last week. The soil moisture for the corn is rated 12.6% short to very short and 32.2% optimum to surplus, which is a little dryer than last week.
Farmers have started to plant their second phase of corn planting, which will be completed sometime in January. The corn production cycle in Argentina is very unusual in that some corn will already be maturing before all the second phase corn is planted.
In addition to worrying about the weather, farmers in Argentina are concerned about the potential policies of the new administration which assumed power on December 10th. It is widely expected that they will increase commodity export taxes and potentially interfere in the export market especially for corn.