Soybean planting in central Brazil has developed at a very rapid pace. According to Conab, as of Oct. 30, soybean planting is ahead of schedule in central Brazil's states of Mato Grosso, Goias, and Minas Gerais while northern Brazil is at a normal pace and southern Brazil is a little behind. For central and northern Brazil, it has been raining at just enough of a pace to keep soils workable while not being wet enough to cause significant delays in planting progress. However, that is also becoming a bit of a curse. Recent rainfall in these three central states has helped, but soil moisture is below normal in most if not all of these regions. Rainfall this week has been very spotty, with most areas receiving less than 25 millimeters (about 1 inch) over the last week. In Mato Grosso, it has been even drier with most areas seeing less than 10 mm (about 0.4 in).

With planting progress ahead of schedule, rain needs to come and come heavily to keep up with the building demand. When it is not raining, temperatures are regularly pushing into the upper 30s Celsius (upper 90s to lower 100s Fahrenheit). Many of these areas have poor soil texture, which limits the overall holding capacity and can cause topsoil to crack and fissure when too dry for too long. Producers count on regular rainfall to combat these issues, but it has been tougher to come by so far this year thanks to the peaking El Nino in the Pacific.

However, fronts have been very active across the country, which has allowed for heavy rain in southern Brazil, causing its own problems, but "good enough" rainfall in central Brazil. Monsoonal pop-up showers and thunderstorms have been more limited between fronts, so these fronts have become much more important. And the busy weather pattern is expected to pick up next week again.

A front will move through Brazil this weekend into early next week and is forecast to stall in central Brazil, keeping showers going. Additional fronts are expected to move through the country mid next week and next weekend, which should enhance showers. But what is more interesting is that models are starting to produce more rainfall between these fronts.

The European ECMWF model is aggressive at producing scattered showers across central Brazil next week. Through Sunday, Nov. 16, the latest European run has 50-100 mm (about 2-4 inches) of rain across the vast majority of these three states. That is good enough for near or slightly above normal rainfall. However, not all models agree. The latest American GFS has roughly half of that precipitation amount over the same period, resulting in only pockets of above-normal rainfall. Still, this rain needs to verify or there could be some issues with soybean development.

A big problem may exist though with these models. Last week, models were predicting widespread 30-75 mm (1-3 in) of precipitation across the three states. But what verified was more of 10-30 mm (0.4-1.2 in) with pockets of 30-50 mm (1.2-2 in). Roughly half of the forecast amount. If models are similarly poor with their prognostication for next week, the thoughts of good rainfall could turn quickly. This will be a situation to monitor very closely in the coming week. If precipitation is around half of the forecast, that may still be fair, but not enough to build soil moisture for drier times. Any dry times that do occur could have significant impacts for growing soybeans in central Brazil.

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John Baranick can be reached at john.baranick@dtn.com

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