ESPIRITO SANTO DO PINHAL: Widespread rains across the southern half of the world's main arabica coffee region in Brazil are triggering early blooms on trees, which will form the first beans to mature for the 2017 harvest.
The first wave of rains, which broke a dry spell that started in June, pushed through southeast Brazil in mid-August, unleashing moderate flowering seen by Reuters while on a tour through the main coffee belt on Wednesday.
The early blooms are potentially a good sign for next year's crop but it is too soon to say for sure.
The question of whether these early flowers will yield coffee that makes it to market is an important one for traders, local roasters and international buyers of the commodity.
The world is entering its second year of a global coffee supply deficit that commodities analysts at Rabobank forecast will deepen to 2.2 million bags in 2016/2017.
All may be for naught, though, if there is too little rain in the coming months to sustain the development of coffee buds and cherries, said agronomist Ezelino Tessarini at the Coopinhal cooperative, which moves more than 125,000 bags of arabica beans a year.
"I'm not sure the coffee from these blooms will amount to much. It's very early," Tessarini said from a warehouse as he helped advise producers bustling through the hilly town now that most of the current bumper crop has been harvested.
From flower to a ripe cherry, it takes just over six months, Tessarini said, adding that the beans formed from these flowers would be ready in March, "which is still two months from the traditional start of harvest here."
Coffee research group Procafe said on Wednesday trees in Varginha, the heart of arabica country in South Minas Gerais, were flowering at least two weeks earlier than normal, which has raised concerns over the viability of the early blooms.
"We are also entering La Ni?a, which means a dry spell is likely before December rains start for real, so I wouldn't count on this flowering too much," Tessarini added.
NEXT FEW MONTHS CRUCIAL
The main flowering of Brazil's arabica coffee crop typically occurs in a few waves from late September through November. If these flowers, which are vulnerable to dry spells, abort in the coming months, it will sap trees' potential to produce.
Judith Ganes at J Ganes Consulting said after seeing photos of the flowering taken by Reuters that it was not robust and could be lost before harvest.
Next year's crop, by all accounts, will be smaller than this season's massive 40 million to 50 million bag arabica harvest as Brazil's trees gear down in their natural biennial cycle.
How far they do so will be defined in the coming months. Meanwhile, local roasters say they are struggling to find ample supplies of coffee, especially robusta, even as harvest winds down.
Record exports in 2015 combined with three years of drought over various parts of Brazil's coffee belt have depleted producers' stocks.
This prompted the government in the past weeks to resume auctions of public arabica stocks to help struggling roasters.
The rains, which drenched the lower half of Brazil's main coffee belt along the border between S?o Paulo and Minas Gerais states from dawn until nightfall on Wednesday, suspended harvesting of the tail end of the current crop.
The head of sales at Coopinhal, the coffee cooperative in Espirito Santo do Pinhal, said about 10 percent of the region's arabica crop was still on trees ready for harvest.
"Only the highest altitudes are left to bring in," said Carlos Eduardo Jeremias, speaking from a sorting room where workers culled through stacks of samples of new crop beans in small tin containers.
"Some of the best coffees come from these altitudes."
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