BUENOS AIRES, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange may again reduce its 2017/18 soy planting area estimate due to sowing delays caused by dry weather in the northwestern part of Argentina, it said on Thursday.
Last week the exchange trimmed its 2017/18 soy planting area estimate to 18 million hectares (44.5 million acres) from 18.1 million, citing dryness in the bread-basket province of Buenos Aires.
Some 30 percent of the 1 million hectares slated for soy in this part of the country has yet to be planted, the exchange said in its weekly crop report on Thursday.
“There is still the risk of not being able to finalize the planting plans in parts of southern Salta and Tucuman provinces, where some producers could move from soybeans to kidney beans,” the report said.
The window for sowing is rapidly closing because soy planted too late in January starts running the risk of dying from early frosts during the Southern Hemisphere spring in May and June. Argentine soy planting starts around mid-October and usually extends only into the first week of January.
The exchange said Argentine farmers had planted 96.7 percent of the total area planned for 2017/18 soybeans nationwide. (Reporting by Maximilian Heath and Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)