Argentina corn planted early in the 2011/12 season was hit hard by weeks of drought at the turn of the year, while recent rains have refreshed late-seeded crops, the Agriculture Ministry said in a report on Friday.
The South American country is the world's second biggest corn exporter after the United States and the prolonged dry spell has dimmed prospects that it will be able to replenish global supplies to make up for a disappointing US crop.
The key growing area of Bragado, Buenos Aires province, got 40 to 80 millimetres of rain between February 2 and 7, the weekly crop progress report said. "The rains substantially improved ground moisture, contributing to the recuperation of corn seeded late in the season (November)," it said.
From 15 percent to 25 percent of Bragado's 2011/12 corn crop falls into that category, the report said. "Yields for this corn should be very good," it added. "On the other hand, for corn planted between August and the first half of October, the rains arrived too late to reverse the situation."
Argentine farmers had planted 98 percent of the 5 million hectares earmarked for the 2011/12 crop by Thursday, unchanged from the previous week and lagging 1 percentage point from last season's pace. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange on Thursday lowered its forecast for the 2011/12 corn harvest to 21.3 million tonnes from an earlier estimated 22 million tonnes, citing the damage done by hot, dry weather in December and early January.
Argentina's main grains area straddles northern Buenos Aires and southern Cordoba, Santa Fe and Entre Rios provinces. These areas were left panting by the drought, which was related to La Nina, a phenomenon caused by an abnormal cooling of waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that tends to inflict dryness on the Southern Hemisphere.
Rains this week helped parched soya crops in Argentina, the world's third-largest exporter of the oilseed. More showers, however, are needed to offset the damage from the drought, which in some areas is now irreversible, the report said. "The latest rains helped recovery of early-seeded crops that show improvements in flowering recovery, although there are important drops" due to dryness in January, the report said about Salliquelo in western Buenos Aires province, the country's top soya-producing region.
Argentina's 2011/12 soya harvest will be at least 47 million tonnes, a government official who asked not to be identified told Reuters on Monday. At the start of the season, the government expected the soya crop to come in at between 52 million and 53 million tonnes.
Growers seeded some soya later than usual in an attempt to escape the brunt of the drought. Although the late-planted soya is in better shape than early-planted lots, more showers are needed so it can develop with normal moisture levels, the ministry said. By Thursday, farmers had planted 99 percent of the 18.8 million hectares forecasted to be seeded with of soya, advancing 1 percentage point from last week.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Thursday slashed its estimate of Argentina's 2011/12 soya production to 48 million tonnes from 50.5 million tonnes forecast last month. The ministry said that by Thursday, farmers had gathered 23 percent of the 1.84 million hectares planted with sunseed in the 2011/12 season. The exchange forecasts the crop at 3.5 million tonnes.