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South American crop likely to get bigger

An analyst expects a projected large South American crop to pack on more bushels as harvest nears.

Ray Grabanski with Progressive Ag Marketing says intermediate dryness in parts of Brazil and Argentina won’t be enough to reduce expectations when the next WASDE report is released.

“Argentina was a little dry in December.  First it was all of Argentina with a dry weather pattern.  Then it was just southern Argentina.  Then, the dryness in Argentina went away the last two to three weeks.”

He tells Brownfield a similar dry pattern has developed in central Brazil, and continues to move around.

“And when that happens, you get intermittent periods of wetness, followed by intermittent periods of dryness.  That generally leads to bigger crops.  We’ll probably get an update on the South American crop on the January 12th report.”

Grabanski says while its possible production estimates for Brazil and Argentina remain the same, there’s a good chance the USDA increases projections for both corn and soybeans.