By Hugh Bronstein
Rain over the weekend in drought-hit areas of Argentina's farm belt helped growers plant soy in fields that had been at risk of staying barren this season, Natalia Gattinoni, weather expert with the INTA national climate institute, said on Monday.
Farmers have been worried that excessively dry conditions in the northern part of the bread-basket province of Buenos Aires would persist, blocking them from planting soy in some areas.
"In the central and northern part of the country there were wide but inconsistent rains. Some areas got an important amount of rain while others did not," Gattinoni said.
For example, parts of Cordoba province and the key area Junin in northern Buenos Aires got more than 50 millimeters of rain, she added.
Growers further south were not as lucky, but southern Buenos Aires province was not as hard hit by drought.
"It rained quite a bit in the northern part of the country over the weekend. It did not rain here but we had already planted all the soy we planned to sow," said Fernando Meoli, a farmer in 9 de Julio and 25 de Mayo in the southern part of Argentina's main Pampas farm belt.
Meoli said his area got 20 millimeters of rain during the previous weekend, which allowed him to finish sowing last week.
He says the region's soy plants will be in a delicate stage of development early next month, requiring more ground moisture.
"The key to getting good soy yields will be how much rain falls in the first ten days of February. If we don't get good rains, there will be a big impact on soy yields," Meoli said.