Early yields down 11% in Brazil’s No.3 soy state

The first yield reports from Brazil’s third-largest soybean producing state of Rio Grande do Sul are down nearly 11% from last season’s record, and results are expected to deteriorate further as harvest reaches the drought hit southern portion of the state.

Meanwhile, more wet weather is expected in the coming week on much of Brazil’s soaked center-west soybean belt, which risks slowing the peak of harvest that is already behind schedule, according to local meteorologists.

The state farm agency of Rio Grande do Sul, Emater, said in a crop report yesterday that yield results ranged from 2.7 mt to 3.3 mt per hectare in early soybean harvesting that kicked off this week in its important north-western county of Santa Rosa along border with Argentina.

Yields in the county reached an average 3 mt/hectare over the 2,000 hectares harvested, 10.7% off the 3.65 mt/h yielded by the state’s farms during last season’s bumper harvest, Emater said.

Santa Rosa and other counties along the northwest arc of the state’s soybean belt have faired better than the southern growing areas in the state, which have suffered from drought this season, Emater said, adding that it was too early to extrapolate a statewide estimate from these early numbers.

“The southern half (of the state) surely will have difficultly reaching acceptable yields,” the report warned, referring to the dry weather that parched soy farms in the southern counties in December and January.

Spring rains were late to arrive for Brazil’s September-December soy planting season, but precipitation is lingering longer than in other years, causing problems for farmers ready to harvest mature fields, especially in Mato Grosso and Parana, the country’s first and second largest grains producing states.

Local meteorologists Ipmet and Climatempo are calling for widespread rainfall over much of Brazil’s soy belt starting this weekend and extending through the rest of February.

This could further complicate fieldwork for farmers in Mato Grosso and Parana who have delayed harvest to wait for flooded and muddy fields to dry out.