A lack of rain is causing problems for Argentina's 2007/08 soy crop in leading growing areas, although light rains have helped some plants in recent days, the Agriculture Secretariat said on Friday.
By Thursday, farmers had planted 96 percent of the 16.47 million hectares (40.7 million acres) forecast for soy in the current crop cycle, 2 percentage points higher than a week earlier, but still 2 points behind the level in the same week last year due to the dryness. In top soy region Cordoba, dry soils continued to delay the last remaining sowing and hampered crops' development, some of which have started to enter the crucial reproductive phase.
"(In the district of Villa Maria) the early-seeded soy is in the flowering phase ... but with a lack of leaves, small plants and a general bad state," the secretariat said in its weekly crop progress report.
In the No 2 soybean province of Buenos Aires, sowing was wrapped up during the week in several areas despite inadequate levels of soil moisture. However, the situation was better in Santa Fe province, the No 3 growing area, due to rains, the report said.