Light-to-moderate rains on Argentina's Pampas grains belt slowed wheat sowing over the previous seven days, with 94.2 percent of projected sowing area already planted, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said in its weekly crop report on Thursday. The exchange previously forecast the country's total wheat area at 4.2 million hectares. Planting of the 2014/15 wheat crop advanced 2.9 percentage points during the week, lagging last season's sowing tempo by 3.7 percentage points, it said on Thursday.
"The areas yet to be planted are in Buenos Aires province," the report said. "According to our short-term weather forecasts, no rains are expected over the days ahead in central and southern Buenos Aires province," it added. "This should help improve areas suffering from excessive moisture and allow for remaining areas to be seeded."
Argentina recently completed a record 55.5 million-tonne soybean harvest despite having lost 860,000 hectares, or 4.2 percent of total 2013/14 planting area due to excessively wet weather, according to the exchange. The previous record was 55 million tonnes collected in the 2009/10 crop year, it said.