September 28, 2006

 

Brazil's soy farmers trying to beat Asian rust in Mato Grosso

 

 

Soybean growers in Mato Grosso are trying to beat Asian soybean rust in the 2006/07 crop year by planting early-cycle soy in hopes to harvest before the summer weather becomes ripe for the crop-destroying fungus, local agronomists said Wednesday.

 

"Farmers are planting more early-cycle soy than other varieties because that soy will be harvested sooner and that could mean farmers will have to apply less fungicide than they did last year," said Marcia Midori Yuyama, an agronomist at the Mato Grosso Foundation, a crop research firm in Mato Grosso.

 

In the 2005/06 crop year, Mato Grosso farmers sprayed more than five applications of the fungicide to control soybean rust, cutting into margins that were already in negative territory. Farm associations in the centre-west already said they would cut back again this year on fungicide spending to control overhead costs. Mato Grosso is Brazil's no. 1 soy producer.

 

"Planting early-cycle soy at least takes away one application of fungicide," said Andre Debastiani, a soy market analyst at farm consultancy Agroconsult.

 

Mato Grosso soy farmers usually plant over a period of 60 days, but by planting more early-cycle soy than traditional varieties means the planting season could end in 30 days, said Fabiano Siqueri, an agronomist at the Mato Grosso Foundation.

 

Soy takes roughly 130 days to reach maturity. Early-cycle soy takes 108 days or less, and yields tend to be 3 percent lower, said Emilio Ramos, a soy market analyst at AgRural, a local agribusiness consultancy.

 

"The good news is that it means you will have less soy in the ground during the hot and wet weather weeks in January and February," Ramos said. Asian soybean rust thrives in hot, humid weather.

 

Yuyama said that planting early-cycle soy means there will be less varieties of soy in the ground in Mato Grosso this season, and added that soybean rust has been found in the state as early as October.

 

Brazil is the world's second-largest soy producer and exporter. Early private estimates for 2006/07 crop size put it between 51 million and 53 million tonnes. Brazil harvested slightly over 53 million tonnes from the 2005/06 crop.