The South American crop production picture is getting a little clearer as their summer growing season begins to wind down. We got new numbers late last week via a University of Illinois Farmdoc webinar. Joanna Colussi, a postdoctoral student in Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois, provided an update on what promises to be a record corn crop in Brazil.

“We are seeing mixed results. Results across regions in the south, drought has negatively impacted yields, but has been offset by excellent yields in the Center West, where conditions have been much more favorable overall. Brazil is still on track for a record breaking soybean crop expected to surpass 6 billion bushels.”

The Brazilian soy crop yield was adjusted as well.

“The numbers were revised up a little bit compared to the last month’s report due to good yields in most regions of Brazil, bringing the forecast to over 6.1 billion bushels, a 13% increase from last year. It’s also worth noting that Conab’s estimate is quite conservative compared to private consultancies which are estimating between 6.2 and even 6.4 billion bushels.”

Silvina Cabrini of the National Institute of Agricultural Technology in Argentina provided an update on the current crop season there, starting with a disappointing report on corn.

“Expected production for this current crop year is 129 million bushels. This value is lower than last year and lower than the average, and this is mainly because of the decreasing planted area.”

But she says Argentina soy is holding steady.

“Expected production for this current crop year is 1,822 million bushels. So this is similar to the previous year. Have a higher acreage, but then lower yields are expected for soybeans, so we end up having more or less the same forecast production than the year before.”

That’s Joanna Colussi of the University of Illinois and Silvina Cabrini in Argentina.