Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc said on Tuesday it had not issued a 2003/04 soyabean crop production estimate for Brazil, the second largest global soya producer.
Rumours that the giant Des Moines, Iowa-based Seed Company and DuPont subsidiary had issued a bullish estimate for Brazil's weather-battered crop helped rally Chicago Board of Trade soyabean futures to 15-1/2 year highs on Tuesday.
"We don't ever put out production estimates, we always use the USDA numbers," Courtney Chabot Dreyer, public affairs manager at Pioneer, told Reuters.
Dry conditions across Brazil's southern crop belt and wet weather and crop diseases in its northern belt have prompted some forecasters to cut yield estimates for the soyabean crop.
The Brazilian government on February 19 estimated the 2003/04 soya crop, now about 10 percent harvested, at 57.66 million tonnes, well below the US Department of Agriculture's latest forecast of 61 million tonnes issued on February 11.
On Tuesday's CBOT rally also followed a reduction by Memphis, Tennessee-based Sparks Cos., a leading US consultant, of its 2003/04 Brazil soyabean production estimate to 55.75 million tonnes, CBOT traders said.
"We would never have a reason to do production estimates," Pioneer's Dreyer said. "We produce seeds. We're not in the grain commodity business, and when we do need numbers like that, we just use the USDA numbers."
CBOT March soyabeans were 14-1/2 cents a bushel higher at $9.76-1/2.
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