Argentina soy and corn crops deteriorate further on drought: BAGE

Argentine soy and corn crops rated "poor to very poor" increased further on the week to 82.1% and 76.4% respectively, due to continuous dry weather, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange (BAGE) said in an update Wednesday.

Yields of both crops have been hit hard by persistent dry weather since last November, cutting quality and crop expectations.

 The soy crop rated "poor to very poor" was estimated at 76.4% in BAGE last week’s update, while corn in "poor to very poor" condition was at 75.2%.

Despite the further deterioration of the crops, the exchange kept its forecasts for soy unchanged at 39.5 million mt and for corn 32 million mt, but warned that corn production could be lower if field remains dry.

"If it does not rain in the coming weeks, this could have a negative impact on our current production estimate."

The 2017/18 soy crop is down 18 million mt compared with last year, while the corn harvest is expected to be 7 million mt lower.

Dry weather accelerates harvest

So far 8.8%, or 3.8 million mt, of the Argentinian soy crop has already been harvested, which ironically has advanced quickly due to the dry weather, gaining 6.8 percentage points on the week.

The yields so far average 2.52 mt/ha and have seen "great variability" due to the dry weather.

Half of the collected crop comes from the Centre North, which saw yields ranging between 2.1 mt/ha and 4.3 mt/ha.

Corn farmers have collected 18% of the first corn crop, up from 13.3% last week and ahead of the five-year average, but with yields “remaining below expectations”.