May 06, 2020
2019/20 Argentina Corn Harvest Advanced 2% last Week to 37%
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Wet weather last week in central Argentina slowed the corn harvest and increased the moisture content of the grain. Additionally, farmers focused their harvest activity on soybeans instead of corn. As a result, the corn in Argentina was 36.7% harvested as of late last week. This represented an advance of only 2.2% for the week. In the core production areas, the corn is 85-95% harvested with 10-40% harvested in southern Argentina and 0% harvested in far northern Argentina. The early planted corn was 59% harvested while the later planted corn was 0% harvested.
The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange rated the corn as 37% good to excellent, which is up 2 points from the prior week. The soil moisture for the corn was rated 91% favorable to optimum, which is up 3 points from the prior week.
The Grain Exchange has the running nationwide corn yield at 9,220 kg/ha (141.9 bu/ac), which is down 0.2 bu/ac from the prior week. The corn in the northern core and southern core areas is over 90% harvested with yields in the range of about 10,150 kg/ha (156 bu/ac), which is about 25 to 40 bu/ac more than corn in many of the other areas of Argentina.
The best corn is being harvest first, so therefore, the nationwide corn yields should continue to decline as the harvest moves into the later planted corn and the lower yielding environments. The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange left their 2019/20 corn estimate unchanged this week at 50.0 million tons.