By Maximilian Heath
BUENOS AIRES, March 16 (Reuters) – Argentina’s soybeans and maize will receive much-needed rains next week, marking the start of a slow normalization of rainfall and temperatures in a country where a historic drought has is wreaking havoc on agricultural production, an agroclimatic specialist and report said on Thursday.
Precipitation would vary between 10 and 75 millimeters, with peaks of up to 100 millimeters, according to a report by the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange (BdeC) and would occur between Monday and Tuesday, said Germán Heinzenknecht, meteorologist at the Consultant en applied climatology. (CCA).
The news is good for agricultural producers in Argentina, where according to the Rosario Stock Exchange (BCR), the soybean harvest will not exceed 27 million tonnes, the lowest production for almost a quarter of a century.
However, Heinzenknecht explained that the arrival of the rains would also mark the start of a slow normalization of the climate in the South American country, where, due to the La Niña climate phenomenon, drought in some areas dates back to May 2022.
“With the seasonal transition, we entered the last week of March, then the whole month of April, in a period with more frequent precipitation and a slightly more favorable tendency to return to a normal level of precipitation,” Heinzenknecht explained. .
According to the expert, for the austral autumn, which begins on March 21, a “neutral” condition should prevail in the waters of the equatorial Pacific, after the presence of a La Niña which, in the main agricultural regions of Argentina, causes the rainfall to be below normal.
“What will be the conditions for the start of the fina (wheat and barley sowing 2023/24), at the end of May? Surely much improved, but not ideal”, added Heinzenknecht.
The BdeC also said the La Niña phenomenon has receded, while in its Thursday report it added that next week “cold and dry polar winds will enter”, after record high temperatures were recorded in many places during the first half of the month. .
(Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Editing by Walter Bianchi)