Last week, in Rio Grande do Sul, the soybean and corn harvest progressed slowly due to floods that hit the state, also causing “high” production losses, according to Emater, the state’s technical assistance body.
Emater indicated that producers in Rio Grande do Sul have harvested 78% of the soybean fields, which represents an increase of only two points compared to last Thursday. According to the historical average, at this moment the State should have collected 89% of the surfaces.
Emater’s technical director, Claudinei Baldissera, had previously told Reuters that the harvested area in the state up to Thursday had been 78%, “at most”, due to difficulties imposed by the rains, which caused deaths and flooded cities and towns. rural areas. , as well as destroying the state’s logistical infrastructure.
“Producers have managed to harvest some areas on the western border,” Baldissera said earlier, referring to soybeans.
Emater did not provide information on the losses, as the waters still cover many areas and new rains are forecast for the next few days. This Thursday, the private consultancy firm AgResource estimated a reduction of 1.3 million tonnes in the oilseed harvest in Rio Grande do Sul.
The largest areas yet to be harvested, however, are exactly where the worst flooding occurred, Emater’s technical director said.
In the Santa Maria region and southern Rio Grande do Sul, producers were forced to delay soybean planting by a week or two due to excessive rain at the time of planting, according to the director.
Baldissera explains that most of the soybeans still in the fields are concentrated there.
According to the Emater report, production losses “will be high, potentially reaching up to 100% of the remaining areas”.
In a report, the agency also said that “some grain storage infrastructure was also damaged, which could impact previously harvested production.”
“The quality of grains taken from mature crops, which have been left in the rain for several days, is inadequate and many will not be harvested due to their economic impracticability,” he said in a report.
“The visual appearance of the crops intended for harvesting is not adequate, since the ideal harvesting phase has been significantly exceeded. The possibility of harvesting in these conditions, even in the presence of high humidity, involves significant discounts, reducing profitability and not being sufficient to cover production costs”.
In the administrative region of Bagé, in the extreme south of the state, the largest cultivated area in the state remains to be harvested. There are approximately 500 thousand hectares mature and 90 thousand hectares in the maturation phase
end of grain filling, Emater reported.
“Producers constantly monitored mature crops, trying to prioritize the most sensitive ones, as variations in the intensity of losses were observed between cultivars, linked to pod opening due to excess humidity.”
Emater also reported problems with the production flow.
“In the Campanha region, harvesting has resumed in areas with better drainage. Some local roads, important for the transport of cereals, have been seriously damaged by the traffic of loaded trucks, forming large swamps with dozens of vehicles”, he informed, noting that the inability to dispose of the harvest, combined with high humidity, accelerates the grain fermentation process during transportation.
CORN
The Gauchos also made little progress with the corn harvest, which reached 86% of the area, an increase of three percentage points from the previous week.
According to data from Emater, producers in Rio Grande do Sul grew corn on approximately 812 thousand hectares and soybeans on almost 6.7 million hectares.
Emater is currently trying to quantify potential crop losses resulting from heavy flooding, as well as the extent of damage caused to food silos located in low-lying regions, Baldissera said.
Soybean and rice warehouses may have been affected, he said, adding that crop losses and damage to storage facilities would only be better assessed in the coming weeks.
In the case of corn, “heavy rainfall over short periods not only made harvesting impossible, but also resulted in significant crop losses,” the Emater report states.
“The Emater/RS-Ascar administrative regions of Lajeado and Caxias do Sul showed significant losses, reaching 100%, in some crops.”
According to Emater, the high humidity, combined with high temperatures, provided favorable conditions for the germination of grains on the cobs.
One of the few exceptions is the Pelotas region, where corn areas are well developed, despite consecutive days of rain.
Source: Terra
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