Alert in the countryside: the heat wave and lack of rain complicate the production of soybeans and corn

After going through the worst drought in decades in the 2022/2023 campaign, in late spring, with the arrival of El Niño and its abundant rains in most of the country, producers renewed their hopes and were keen to take revenge with the crops. summer this year. But on the field Until the harvest of the beans, everything is never said. and in the space of a few days things can change radically. This is precisely what is happening now in many Argentine locations where the lack of precipitation and high temperatures are causing considerable damage to the environment. corn and soybeans are going through key phases in defining returns. What a week ago promised a great harvest, today generates sadness and fear. The heat gives no respite and rain is only forecast for Wednesday or Thursday next week. The panorama is worrying.

Yesterday at noon Francisco Mendiverri, agricultural producer of Carlos Tejedorhe looked at his soybeans on a 50-acre sandy plot and assured, “It’s already been delivered.” In five days it went from “spectacular” to “liquidated”In this crop, with tall plants full of inflorescences, water stress caused “a brutal abortion of the flowers and there was practically nothing left”.

With a week of almost 40°C and no rain in sight in that area, there is currently no chance of recovery. There they received around 170 millimeters between October and November, and 200 in December which, after the previous severe drought, did not replenish their water reserves. In any case, the corn and soybean crops planted on the first date were doing very well. But in January just 50 millimeters fell,”the situation had changed again” and the crops are already showing symptoms of water stress. “Until January 15th it was a story, we were dealing with rainfall of 10 millimeters a week, but it was a matter of cutting it and calling it a day. “A waist-high crop, with a huge plant structure, very loaded with flowers and basically nothing left, the flower abortion was brutal, so that lot is about 20 hectares.” We will have to go and look for the record harvest elsewhere“he complained. “The pineapple will be strong,” he added.

“What was planned is happening, in Pehuajó area, Carlos Tejedor, Trenque Lauquen“The harvests look worse than last year,” agricultural engineer Juan Marsigliani said on July 9. Already on January 18th he had reported that in the central west of the province of Buenos Aires the plants were about to enter their critical period, the phase in which the yield is defined, without expectations of short-term rainfall and without sufficient water reserves many beans are counted in advance,” he warned of oilseed production projections for this year.

Inside center of the province of Santa FeGustavo Canavese, a producer and contractor at Angélica, reported that maturity group 5 soybeans that are going through the reproductive stage (R5) are already affected. “The worst days of the heat wave are yet to come. losses Given what was estimated up to 15 days ago, I don’t think they will escape 20 to 30 percent if it rains in less than 10 days, otherwise it will be worse,” he calculated.

“Terribly dry North Cordoba and several days of extreme heat are coming,” wrote producer Mario Aguilar Benítez of the Las Chilcas factory, accompanying his post in there is nothing left” he said, referring to the urgent need for rainfall. “I hope it lasts, but there isn’t much left and there’s no forecast nearby,” he added. In his ranching field in the east of that province, the soils don’t they have the ability to retain water. “Here we depend on the regularity of rainfall; In the north we can last longer because we have better soil and retention. Anyway, If the water doesn’t arrive soon, we’re in the oven“he clarified.

“Record harvest is coming… of debt“, said Agricultural Production engineer and member of the CREA América group, Diego García Álvarez, showing a dry soy plant in a field in the city of Buenos Aires Villa della Salsa. “She hasn’t rained at all in 20 days and we arrived without a reservation,” she said. And she said that while not all production will be lost, “in some parts it will give zero“.

“Have lots of soybeans and corn that give a terrible sadness“said Alejo Devincenzo, a farmer from Colonel Follow, a small town in the north of Buenos Aires belonging to the Alberti district. Nearby, in Junín, the Gómez lagoon is completely dry. “It makes you want to cry,” the producer said. Until now, More than 200 hectares have been affected due to water stress.

“He corn is losing a lot, needs urgent rain to complete grain formation and increase grain weight; THE top quality soybeanswith the dry season that exists, it has already begun to abort the flowers, It will not exceed 2,000 kilos and the second-rate corn waits, for God’s sake, begging for rain because it is lost,” he explained. Meanwhile, the second-rate corn, which is currently in flower, is not forming ears, so it requires a imminent supply of water. so as not to get lost. The corn he planted to feed his animals is “totally lost“, he said. “We had second choice corn to harvest and ensile, to produce for the winter, and these days I’m seriously thinking about releasing the cows because the corn is getting lost, it’s drying out completely,” he said. he said.” “It’s very sad,” she said.

Others do better

In other regions the situation is a little more encouraging. Engineer Matías Longinotti advises producers in General Arenales match and Junín, an area that extends 60 kilometers around the city of Ascensión. “Right now we are in one inflection point. The crops of the first planting date, both corn and soybeans, are not yet affected, but they no longer have much moisture reserve, except for very specific plots which are lower, with the influence of the water table, which are the last to show water stress, but we haven’t had napa here for two years,” he told Clarín Rural, warning however that the high temperatures expected for the next seven or eight days “will definitely have an effect.”

Currently, “the first corn is deliciouswith enormous potential, but It may affect the filling slightly., the weight of the grain. It won’t have a big impact on performance, but it could cost you dearly,” she explained. On the other hand, late or second corn, “they are complicatedare coming into bloom and out of water,” he indicated. The lots of corn and soybeans from winter crops “are suffering greatly”, he assured. “The highest fields, the steepest plots, with roughness, are the most complicated, where you can already see the drying of plants, especially in corn and second-grade soybeans,” he said.

The opposite occurs in much of southern Buenos Aires. In the area of Las Armas and Maiputhe engineer Juan Pablo Martínez, partner of the agronomic firm EDM of Balcarce, after visiting the basin, reported: “That is often very good (soybean, corn, sunflower) so far the caterpillars start already from the first class soybean which goes through the R3 and R4 reproductive stages.