Quality of cotton fibers continues to suffer

Areas of instability that are affecting the center and north of the country, cause rain of moderate to heavy intensity over several cotton-producing areas in Mato Grosso and Bahia. This instability harms the quality of the fibers, causing losses to producers. The forecast is that both today (17) and the weekend, there will be regular rain over these areas, mainly in Mato Grosso.

On the other hand, the rain favors the development of plants, mainly covering plants, which will be dried in the coming weeks, for later planting of soybeans. Furthermore, as it also rains in the producing areas of Minas Gerais, coffee and sugar cane crops benefit from the wetter weather, in the middle of August, which is normally quite dry.

In São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul and throughout the South Region, today and tomorrow (18), the day will be marked by firm weather, with no rain forecast. However, on Sunday (19), a cold front advances over Rio Grande do Sul and brings widespread rain to the entire state. Over the next week, this system will advance over Santa Catarina and Paraná and make the weather unstable, with forecasts of rain showers. Furthermore, the advance of this system will maintain a humidity corridor over the western part of Brazil and thus, new rain showers may occur over Mato Grosso. The largest volumes of rain are concentrated in the south of Brazil throughout the second half of August.

Effect of rain on crops
 

For sugarcane and coffee crops, the dry weather in São Paulo and much of southern Minas Gerais maintains favorable conditions for harvesting and cultural treatments. Further rain showers are expected to occur in these locations next week.

Even irregularly, conditions will still remain very favorable both for the development of the plant and, mainly, for the coffee flowering, which occurred this week. On the other hand, harvesting work must be interrupted and the increase in humidity could affect the concentration of ATR in sugarcane and lead plants to produce more ethanol than sugar in the coming weeks.

Instability in the South will help raise soil moisture levels and ensure better conditions for crop development, as in the case of summer corn, whose planting has already started in Rio Grande do Sul this week. For rice producers, the rain will not be encouraging, as there are still many producers preparing the soil.

Temperature
 

Regarding temperatures, after the passage of the cold front, a mass of polar air advances over the entire center-south and causes the sharpest decline in temperatures during Wednesday (22) and Thursday (23) of next week. However, so far there is no risk of frost, except in the extreme south of Rio Grande do Sul.