It has been drier than desired in the central and northern regions of Brazil through November and the first half of December. 

This is the prime planting window for the main soybean crop. Due to the dry weather, producers have adjusted their intentions somewhat. A fuller season soybean is being used now to help buy some time for the weather forecasts to improve. This will mean a later harvest period than has been typical the last few seasons. 

The impact on the second corn crop, Brazil’s biggest of its three corn crops, is yet to be determined. Production forecasts were already pointing toward a smaller Brazilian crop than a year ago due to poor expected financial returns on planting corn. 

CONAB is predicting Brazil’s second corn crop to total 91.2 million metric tons, down 11 million ...