The wheat crop in parts of Argentina's top producing province is starting to show the impact of dry and chilly weather in recent weeks, the Agriculture Ministry said on Friday in a weekly report. Argentina, a leading global wheat exporter, has yet to forecast 2011/12 output, but the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) sees production dipping to 13.5 million tonnes from 15 million last season.
Drought conditions are taking hold in Bahia Blanca in the south of Buenos Aires province, which as a whole accounts for about half of the country's wheat production, the ministry said. Elsewhere in the province, rainfall was scant or non-existent, although many plants are still healthy. "Although moisture levels are somewhat lacking in surface soils, crops are still in good shape," the ministry report said, referring to the central Bolivar district.
In No 2 wheat province Cordoba, drought is starting to have an effect in the southern district of Laboulaye, where young plants "are stunted, with few shoots and faint colouring." Farmers have finished planting wheat on 4.53 million hectares, according to the government.
Argentina is the world's second-largest corn supplier after the United States and farmers are seeding the first of the 2011/12 crop in the central provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Rios thanks to ideal moisture conditions. Friday's report said seeding would start in Cordoba province in the next few days as long as rains arrived to soften soils.
The ministry has not yet forecast new season planting area but many private analysts expect an increase from last season when the country produced 21.9 million tonnes. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange sees the commercial-use corn area rising 9 percent to 3.5 million hectares. Farmers have harvested 99 percent of the 2010/11 corn crop, the government report said. With regard to 2011/12 sunseeds, the government said frosts last week in northern Chaco province had wrecked 8 percent of planted crops and damaged another 10 percent. In northern parts of Santa Fe, parched fields are delaying sowing.