September 4, 2007

Argentina's corn planting area to be up 9 percent next year

Argentina's area for corn planting would be up 9 percent next year to 3.9 million hectares from 2006-07, the Agriculture Secretariat said as the nation's farmers started the corn planting season this week.

Argentina's farmers began planting the first fields of 2007-08 corn during the past week, but dry weather and continued frosts prevented the start of wide-scale planting, the Agriculture Secretariat said in its weekly crop report Monday (Sep 3).

However, some farmers are waiting for adequate conditions, as continued frosts are keeping soil temperature levels abnormally low, the Secretariat said. This meant delayed planting until mid-September and those would use no-till planting to conserve soil moisture.

Meanwhile, the 2006-07 corn harvest is almost finished. Heavy rainfall late in the season spurred very high yields and record production of 22 million tonnes according to the Secretariat.