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Argentina crops slide as dry weather slashes soybean, corn ratings

Farmers in Argentina are seeing crops deteriorate under dry conditions.

Market analyst Michael Cordonnier with Soybean and Corn Advisor says soybean condition ratings have been dropping for several consecutive weeks.

“And right now, the soybean crop is rated at 40 percent good to excellent. That’s down 7 points from last week. And corn is 44 percent good to excellent, down 1 point from last week.”

He tells Brownfield a month and a half ago both of those ratings were above 90 percent good to excellent.

“So they went from really, really good, they had good rains in September, October, November. But the rains ended in December and did not return in January, so they are very, very dry.”

Cordonnier says about 60 percent of the soybeans in Argentina are at the pod-filling stage, and the later-planted corn is suffering the most from dryness.