Oct 25, 2010
Corn and Soy Planting Window in Brazil Narrower than Normal
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Farmers in southern Brazil continue to be concerned about the possibility that La Nina could result in periods of dry weather during November and December. If these dryer than normal conditions do develop, meteorologists feel they will most likely develop in southern Brazil in Parana and Rio Grande do Sul. As a result, agronomists have been advising farmers that they need to spread out their risks if at all possible.
The window for corn planting in southern Brazil is usually between early September and late October, but the extended dry season this year prevented most of the corn from being planted until October. As a result, the full season corn crop in southern Brazil is going to be planted in a narrower timeframe compared to other years. Approximately 75% of the full season corn in Parana has been planted and 60% of the full season corn in Rio Grande do Sul has been planted.
Agronomists feel that the best way for farmers to spread out their risks is to plant their corn and soybeans in stages if possible. Three different stages would be ideal with ten or fifteen days between stages. They also recommend planting different maturity groups as well. That way the corn or soybeans are not all at their sensitive reproductive stages at the same time. This strategy sounds good on paper, but in reality, the extended dry season has forced farmers in southern to Brazil to plant nearly all their 2010/11 corn crop in a narrow window. Therefore, nearly all the full season corn crop in southern Brazil will be pollinating during the month of December, just when the dry weather is forecasted to occur.
For soybeans, the planting window in southern Brazil extends until the end of November or early December, so there is still time to spread out the planting dates or the maturity groups. The soybean varieties grown in Brazil are not as sensitive to the length of daylight as are the soybean varieties in the U.S.; therefore, the planting window in Brazil is open much longer than it is in the United States.
A complicating factor for farmers in southern Brazil is the fact that many of them farm small parcels of land and they do not have their own combine. They hire out the harvesting to a neighbor or a custom harvesting crew. If they grow less than a thousand acres of soybeans, it doesn't justify the expense of owning a combine. As a result, they cannot plant three small fields of soybeans at different times and still expect to be able to hire someone to do the harvesting. Since their soybean acreage is already small, they need to plant it all at one time so that it can be harvested at one time as well.
The delayed start to planting the 2010/11 corn and soybean crops in Brazil is going to concentrate the sensitive reproductive periods into a narrower window making the crops more susceptible to potential yield reductions due to dry weather.