Argentina wheat sowing gains 8 points on the week: BAGE

Wheat sowing in Argentina for 2020/21 continued to gain traction last week, with more than 13% of the projected 6.8 million ha area now planted with seeds, up 8% on the week, according to the latest weekly report from the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange (BAGE).

The pace of wheat planting is now close to 6%, ahead of the level set last year because of better soil conditions, the report said.

And the country’s soybean harvest is edging very close to completion, with 97% of the total area now fully collected, the fastest harvest since records by the organisation began at the turn of the millennium (2000/01) because of drier weather conditions.

Collected volumes now stand at 48.8 million mt, with a further 700,000 mt left to bring in with the harvest estimate unchanged at 49.5 million mt.

Yields are currently averaging 2.97 mt/ha, broadly in line with the 2.99 mt/ha registered in the previous week.

Finally, the country’s corn harvest continued to move at a steady pace, gaining close to 4% on the week with just over 47% of the country’s expected 50 million mt crop now collected with Average yields broadly steady at just over 9 mt/ha.

The pace of the corn harvest was also aided by the drier weather during the week, with farmers able to carry more of the crop in.