( Farm Journal ) (Bloomberg) — It was already looking bad for Argentina’s drought-stricken farmers.
Unrelenting dryness has parched fields across the Pampas, the nation’s main growing region.
His late-planted soy is in bad shape.
The pod, like many others in the baked field, had just two seeds.
Most beans, known as the early crop, are planted in October and November.
Those late beans are currently going through the critical yield-defining growth phase in brutally dry conditions, raising speculation that production estimates will continue to fall.
Things have gotten so bad that some farmers who have cattle won’t even bother to harvest.
About 2,000 hectares of his crop are late-sown.
Yield expectations on those late beans have fallen to 2 tons a hectare (30 bushels an acre) from 3.6 at planting, he said.
That would be just 20 percent less than last year, he said.