Rain To Briefly Disrupt Argentina Harvest
By Andrew Owen
Kansas City, March 16 (World Weather Inc.) – Limited rainfall and warm temperatures promoted significant drying across Argentina during the past week resulting in aggressive maturation and harvest progress of sunseed and faster drying and maturation of early planted corn. Fieldwork will 
resume at an aggressive pace next week, but rain Thursday into Saturday will disrupt crop maturation and harvest progress briefly. Rainfall will be greatest in the northeast where farming activity will be delayed most significantly. Sunseed quality may be compromised by the precipitation, although the duration of wetter conditions should be short enough to limit the negative impact on crop conditions. Soybeans, late planted corn and late season groundnuts will benefit from the moisture.
Little rain was reported in Argentina during the past week. A few areas in southeastern Formosa and Chaco near the Paraguay border reported up to 0.83 inch of rain for the seven day period ending Wednesday morning while one location in eastern San Luis reported 0.71 inch of rain. The remaining production areas were dry or mostly dry and temperatures were sufficiently warm to induce rapid evaporation which led to the firming of topsoil.
Topsoil moisture is now rated marginally adequate to slightly short in much of the production region. The environment is nearly ideal for crop maturation and harvest progress. Subsoil moisture remains sufficient to carry on normal crop 
development for late season crops.
Coarse grain and oilseeds are primarily produced in central and southern Argentina. Some crop conditions deteriorated briefly in southern Santa Fe, southern Cordoba, northern La Pampa and parts of Buenos Aires in February due to frequent rain and flooding. Some flooding lingered into early March, but has since abated. Most summer crops were not seriously impacted by flooding, but there were some exceptions. The lack of rain and warmer weather recently helped firm up the topsoil and reduced flooding. Maturation and harvest conditions improved significantly since the drier weather bias began.
Cotton conditions also improved and were recently rated in good or improving condition after recent drying. The region was frequently wet earlier this growing season and the change has been a big help to general crop conditions and production potentials.
The only significant rain event of the next ten days to two weeks will occur Thursday into Saturday with some lingering rain in the north Sunday. Much of the rain will fall in southern and central Argentina Thursday into Friday while northern portions of the grain, oilseed and cotton production region will continue dry or mostly dry until the weekend. Moisture totals will range from 0.40 to 1.25 inches with local amounts of 2.50 inches or more from Entre Rios through northern Cordoba and southern Santiago del Estero. Southern fringes of Buenos Aires could also receive more than 2.00 inches of rain. Shower activity will shift into northern and northeastern Argentina over the weekend while areas further south return to a dry mode. Rain in the north will be generally light and should not have much of an impact on fieldwork, although a few portions of Corrientes and southeastern Chaco will receive 0.50 to over 1.00 inch of rain. Today and the first part of next week will be mostly dry.
Temperatures will trend near to above average through next Wednesday. Daytime highs will often peak in the 80s and lower 90s Fahrenheit, although cooling Friday into the weekend will generate highs in the 70s and 80s followed by lows in the upper 40s and 50s in the far south and in the 50s and lower 60s elsewhere. The warm weather and lack of follow up rain over the weekend and next week will promote aggressive drying.
Minor maturation and harvest delays are expected as a result of the next few days of rain. Most farmers will resume harvesting after a brief day or two of drying time. Some of the lighter rainfall areas will only lose harvest time for a few hours before field conditions improve sufficiently to resume harvest progress
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