The rainy over the weekend were generalized over the center and north of the Argentine agricultural area, with punctual accumulations that reached 90 millimeters in the core zone and in the north of Santa Fe, two of the areas hardest hit by the drought that affects the country and will promote the completion of soybean and corn planting.
The most important rainfall volume was recorded in Salta with 127 millimeters, followed by the Santa Fe town of Ceres, with 93 millimeters, and Junín in Buenos Aires with 92 millimeters, according to data provided by the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA).
Likewise, 65 mm were recorded in Reconquista (Santa Fe); 62 mm in Trenque Lauquen (Buenos Aires); 61 mm in Rafaela (Santa Fe); 52 mm in Bahía Blanca (Buenos Aires); 45.5 millimeters in Rosario (Santa Fe); 41.2 millimeters in San Pedro (Buenos Aires); and 36.5 millimeters in Pehuajo (Buenos Aires), as a review of the main points
According to the researcher of the Institute of Climate and Water of INTA, Natalia Gattinoni, the rains “were generated over a large part of the center and north of our territory and were a little more widespread than previous events, but also occasionally exceeded 70 millimeters, for example, in areas north of Buenos Aires”.
He also detailed that areas in the north of La Pampa, north of Santa Fe, Misiones and Salta had good accumulations, while central and western Buenos Aires received between 25 and 50 millimeters; in Entre Ríos between 20 and 40 millimeters; in the south and north of Córdoba the accumulations exceeded 30 millimeters.
The rains will make it possible to complete the planting plans that were pending pending rainfall.
As a result of the rains, Gattinoni highlighted that “there was an improvement in the water content of the soils in a large part of the Pampas region.”
On the other hand, it noted that the rains were accompanied by high temperatures during the week with values that exceeded 40°C in the north of the country and in areas of Córdoba and Santa Fe.
The Head of the Strategic Guide for Agriculture (GEA) of the Rosario Stock Exchange (BCR), Cristián Russo, commented to Télam that “the rains were very heterogeneous”, a matter for which “you have to be careful, because when the numbers left in the pampean region are not as good as one saw at the beginning“.
Thus, from the BCR they are “determining all the areas that have more than 40 or 45 millimeters, because we know that this is a bit of the threshold that will ensure a floor for soybeans and late corn and above all that a possibility of holding out without new rains until between February 10 and 15 in some areas”.
But also, the rains will allow the completion of the planting plans that were pending waiting for the rain.
“Many producers are already telling us that they are going to plant what is left of soybeans and corn,” he said, considering that “it is interesting to be able to determine these areas by province, because the answer will be there as to what this event meant, what It has been important because it has outperformed the most optimistic models”.
De Mendiguren: “Drought is everyone’s problem”
– Telam Agency (@AgenciaTelam) January 20, 2023
Regarding what can happen in the coming days with the rains, the director of INTA’s Natural Resources Research Center, Pablo Mercuri, indicated that “in the short term, we have a window of opportunity for precipitation events due to different atmospheric conditions that converge in the next few days and this will generate at least two, three, four different situations of rain and storms in many productive areas of the country”.
In dialogue with Télam Radio, he explained that “this is a prediction of the main models, a probabilistic projection”, and it is “an incentive”, he stressed, but at the same time warned that “it does not mean, for the moment, the end of this great drought that we have already suffered for three consecutive seasons”.
