Argy Sunflower Crop Looking Wiped Out
The Argy sunflower crop looks like it has taken a severe pasting from the drought.
Planting sunflowers begins in September/October in northern provinces like Chaco, before moving onto southern areas like Buenos Aries and La Pampa.
Harvesting begins in the north February, and is usually pretty much wrapped up in southern areas by the end of April.
According to the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange rain in the last ten days or so may have arrived just in time to help soybeans, but for sunflower it's all too late.
The crop is already 14.1% harvested they say, well ahead of last year, and results so far have been "disappointing" they say.
In Buenos Aires, Cordoba and La Pampa farmers have started harvesting early with plants stressed by lack of rainfall and soaring temperatures.
The exact extent of crop losses so far remains unclear. What we do know is that last season's crop of around 4.5-4.65mmt never stood a chance of being matched with plantings down by around a third. The USDA say just 1.73m hectares went into the ground this season, 34% lower than last year.
If we call last season's crop 4.6mmt, then that gives us production of around 3mmt this time round, without factoring in worse weather than last year. The only year in recent history that Argentina had a crop that low was in 2000, when production plumbed to 3.05mmt.
The Argentine Agricultural Secretariat says that production this year will be "2.5-3.0mmt" and the USDA currently say 3mmt.
Neither of these figures seem to take into account the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange's comments Friday that early yields are coming in 45% down on last year. A crop reduction of that magnitude across the entire country would suggest final output of just 1.65mmt.
It is worth noting that the main crop areas in the north where planting & harvesting usually begins first actually had significantly more rainfall during January than Buenos Aires and La Pampa in the south:
Here's a map of the main crop areas, red being the most highly concentrated, green secondary, and grey more marginal areas:
Which ever way you look at it, it seems that this season's sunflower crop is going to be the lowest for many years, possibly down to the 2-2.5mmt region. Argentina typically exports around 300-350,000mt of whole sunseeds every year, in 2000 - the only year that production fell to the kind of level we are looking at here - exports were just 79,000mt.
Planting sunflowers begins in September/October in northern provinces like Chaco, before moving onto southern areas like Buenos Aries and La Pampa.
Harvesting begins in the north February, and is usually pretty much wrapped up in southern areas by the end of April.
According to the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange rain in the last ten days or so may have arrived just in time to help soybeans, but for sunflower it's all too late.
The crop is already 14.1% harvested they say, well ahead of last year, and results so far have been "disappointing" they say.
In Buenos Aires, Cordoba and La Pampa farmers have started harvesting early with plants stressed by lack of rainfall and soaring temperatures.
The exact extent of crop losses so far remains unclear. What we do know is that last season's crop of around 4.5-4.65mmt never stood a chance of being matched with plantings down by around a third. The USDA say just 1.73m hectares went into the ground this season, 34% lower than last year.
If we call last season's crop 4.6mmt, then that gives us production of around 3mmt this time round, without factoring in worse weather than last year. The only year in recent history that Argentina had a crop that low was in 2000, when production plumbed to 3.05mmt.
The Argentine Agricultural Secretariat says that production this year will be "2.5-3.0mmt" and the USDA currently say 3mmt.
Neither of these figures seem to take into account the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange's comments Friday that early yields are coming in 45% down on last year. A crop reduction of that magnitude across the entire country would suggest final output of just 1.65mmt.
It is worth noting that the main crop areas in the north where planting & harvesting usually begins first actually had significantly more rainfall during January than Buenos Aires and La Pampa in the south:
Here's a map of the main crop areas, red being the most highly concentrated, green secondary, and grey more marginal areas:
Which ever way you look at it, it seems that this season's sunflower crop is going to be the lowest for many years, possibly down to the 2-2.5mmt region. Argentina typically exports around 300-350,000mt of whole sunseeds every year, in 2000 - the only year that production fell to the kind of level we are looking at here - exports were just 79,000mt.
