Brazil soy planting surges, corn window tightening: AgRural

Soy sowing in Brazil of the 2017/2018 crop has reached 92% of the expected area, according to consultants AgRural, an increase of 8 percentage points over the week.

The figures exceed last year’s rate of 90% and the five-year average of 87%, and mean the planting rate has surged 19 percentage points in just a fortnight.

The rapid pace was put down to normalization of weather and has left the consultants revising their forecast of Brazilian production to 110.2 million mt.

“At the beginning of the month, planting was delayed in several states due to irregular rainfall in October. But the precipitations normalized throughout November, allowing a rapid advance,” the consultants said.

However, this could impact the corn planting window in early 2018, which, the consultants, said would be done now in a tighter window and could impact the size of the planted area.

The consultants said corn planting was 89% complete and would release a new estimate of production next week.