SAO PAULO: Farmers in Brazil, who planted their second corn outside the ideal climate window, are bracing for potential yield losses across Center-South states, AgRural, an agribusiness consultancy, said on Monday.

At the end of March, AgRural reduced its estimate of second corn production to 80.1 million tonnes.

“The numbers will be revised in the second half of April and, following the drier and hotter pattern, further cuts may be expected,” the statement said.

Brazil’s second corn is planted after soybeans are harvested, but delays to collect the oilseed pushed back plantings. Through last Thursday, soy farmers had harvested 85% of their area, AgRural said, below the 89% at the same time a year ago.

AgRural said the pocket of dry and hot weather that formed two weeks ago over parts of Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul and São Paulo persisted in early April. As a result, crops sown in more sandy terrain or that have received less rainfall in recent weeks face “water stress.”

There are problems both in corn areas already entering the reproductive stage and in areas sown later, which are still in the vegetative stage, according to AgRural. The situation is somewhat better in states like Mato Grosso, Goiás and Minas Gerais, which had some rains.

“Even so, the apprehension among producers is great throughout the Center-South,” AgRural noted.—Reuters