Drought broken, coffee crop growing nicely
After a dry start to the year, Brazil’s plantations are now getting seasonal rains.
You may not know the growth cycle of the coffee plant any more than I do, but every season rain and frost play a vital role in that growth, the harvest size and therefore the price of their prized beans.
Brazil is the world’s largest exporter, so a forecast of frost at the wrong time will be newsworthy and may well affect the value of coffee futures. Likewise drought or flood are closely monitored.
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Drought has been the story of 2014 but this is no longer so. This season, the flowers have set without any major problems, and now the plants need water.
Minas Gerais is reportedly Brazil’s top producing coffee region, and being in the southeast is being watered by the daily growth of showers.
The forecast for the next four days continues with the theme of thundery rain showers. This is a typical pattern of rain for this time of the year – a broad swathe stretching inland from just north of Rio de Janeiro to the Brazilian Amazon.
However, in the immediate future, a brief intrusion of air from the south could leave anything up to 150mm of rain over northern Uruguay and the far southern states of Brazil, then boost the showers over all of southern Brazil and Bolivia.
This is not an unusual event but always carries the risk of soil erosion. Well established plantations will have planned for such regular torrents.