December 14, 2006

New soy crop 99 percent planted in Brazil's Parana state

Brazil's second-largest soy producing state, Parana, has 99 percent of the estimated 4.1 million hectares of its soy crop planted as of Monday (Dec 11), the state secretary of agriculture said Wednesday.

Of the total, 76 percent of the plants are still in the early vegetative stage with only 19 percent starting the flowering stage and roughly 3 percent in the fruit development stage.

Weather conditions throughout Parana have been favourable for crop development, leading to high early crop estimates of 11.6 million tonnes, according to a local agribusiness consultancy, AgRural. Agronomists in the state will be watching summer weather in January and February for crop damaging dry spells.

Early indications are for a nationwide total of 56.1 million tonnes from the 2006/07 soy crop, according to the National Commodities Supply Corp of Brazil's Agriculture Ministry.

Parana is located in southern Brazil, on the southern border of Sao Paulo state.

Brazil is the world's no. 2 soy producer behind the US.