May 13, 2010
Brazilian Farmers Look for Alternatives to Safrinha Corn
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Safrinha corn production in central Brazil has been quite successful over the last several years due to the extended rainy seasons that have allowed the crop to develop normally all the way through its life cycle. As a result, safrinha corn acreage continued to increase and it now accounts for nearly all the corn produced in central Brazil. The streak of favorable rainfall during April-May-June did not continue in 2010 and as a result, the 2010 safrinha corn crop is being negatively impacted by the current dry weather. This has prompted farmers in the region to take another look at alternatives crops to corn such as millet, sorghum, cotton, sunflowers, and even wheat. One thing in common to all these alternative crops is the fact that they require less rainfall than corn to complete their life cycles.
The second crop produced in central Brazil is sometimes called the winter production, but the use of the word winter is inappropriate. The second crop is produced during the end of the rainy season and the start of the dry season. Temperatures during the dry season in central Brazil are quite warm in the range of 80 to 90 degrees or even warmer, so it's the lack of rainfall that impedes crop production not cold temperatures. If irrigation is available, any number of crops could be grown during the dry season.
One of the crops that farmers in central Brazil are experimenting with for dry season production is millet. Millet is especially a drought tolerant crop that is currently grown on more than 26 million hectares in drought-prone regions of the world. The plant has the ability to go dormant during periods of moisture stress and resume growth when moisture becomes available. Millet can be used to produce grain used in animal rations, silage for dairy cows or confined beef production, help in nematode management by breaking the cycle of continuous soybean production, and it offers a ground cover that can help to limit soil erosion.
Newly introduced millet hybrids have the capacity to produce 30-45 60 kilogram sacks per hectare of grain or 5 to 8 tons per hectare of high quality silage. The crop pollinates 50-55 days after emergence and matures in 100 days allowing the crop to be planted up until the middle of March.
Even though Brazilian farmers are looking at alternative crops to grow during the dry season, corn remains the largest second crop by far in Brazil with nearly 5 million hectares planted in 2010 compared to 780,000 hectares of sorghum, 836,000 hectares of cotton, and 66,700 hectares of sunflowers.
In southern Brazil where the temperatures can occasionally reach the freezing mark, farmers plant small gains as the second crop. Wheat is the predominant second crop in southern Brazil with 2.43 million hectares followed by 122,000 hectares of oats, 77,500 hectares of barley, 67,500 hectares of triticale, 30,900 hectares of canola, and 4,400 hectares of rye.