More than one month after the drought, October registered 239,2 mm of rain only in Irati.  As shown by the obtained datas through the Rural Economic Department (Deral) of State Secretariat of agriculture and supply (SEAB), from available information by a station of ministry agriculture, located in Forest School in Irati.
The datas still show that these values 85,8mm of rain occurred only the latest days of October. The quantity of rain is maintained in November where the first week there already registered 36,7 mm. The datas contrasts with the August and September scenery, which summed over than 30 days without rain. From August 21th to September 24th, Irati did not have a rain register, while in October there were 17 days of raining. As the result, the dry soil of September ended wet in November and many producers had to reschedule the harvesting and planting period of your crops.
Another critic point was also the small amount of sun during the days of the latest month, which damaged the plants. “This keeps the humidity of the soil, that damage the agriculture activities such as the harvesting as the planting, explain the agronomist engineer of SEAB, Adria Baumel.

Trigo

The most affected crop is the wheat, which it still has being harvested in this area. The trend of this crop is to decrease the cost, since the quality of the grain will not get satisfactory. “The wheat did not have the standard for industry, and it is eventually sent for animal feed. It is a lower quality product, and then may reduce the price. The main problem of the wheat is the quality because the grain humidity is not the standard industry humidity”, explain Adriana.
In the region of the regional hub of Irati, the initial expectation is that the production of the wheat achieves over than 73 thousand tonnes in 19,800 hectares planted. However, the weather resulted in crop failures when the production decreased close to what was predicted of beginning. The same thing should happen to the barley. “We are going to get a production decrease of the winter crops as wheat and barley. There was a reduction of 8% of both crops due to the rain” explain Adriana. 
According to Adriana, the Irati scenery is not too bad because the wheat production is not excessively significant. Although, in the other areas of the state, which they produce more this kind of crop, the market loss was notable. “Other areas of the state already finished the wheat harvest, as the west, southwest, the north of the state, and they practically had a higher market loss than ours.”

Summer Harvest

In the end of the harvest of winter crops the attention came back to the summer crops, among them the soy has good profits for the producer. In Irati, 45% of the available land was for soybeans that were already planted.
According to Adriana, the planting of the soybeans is slightly late because of the rains, in spite of October usually be the month which the producers do the planting.
According to Emater manager and agronomic engineer Flávio Cardoso D’Angelo in Irati, one of the difficulties is that some agriculturists did not do the soil preparation to receive the summer crop. “The majority did not get in this rainy season, in other words, the rain disturbed because they could not do the crop desiccation which it came earlier. Most of the producers plant oats as green coverage, then they could not go through using agriculture tractor”, he claimed.
Flávio believes it will be hard for the agriculturists accomplish the planting next week, since the soil should remain wet. “ Or they can not do the soil preparation when it is not no-till planting. When it is not no-till planting they can not accomplish the oat desiccation, I believe that it will be a little later,” he claimed.
However, he gives an alert that the planting should happen at the specified time depending on the variety of the seed have being planted. “This planting should be done within agricultural zoning which is a period, window of time which the research of Embrapa, which is federal, and it is from IAPAR, which is state, they say that is great time to planting. Being in this range, considering the time and the variety, since it has soy as a long cycle and short cycle, then inside of this window of time it also have the technical guarantee satisfactory.

Replantio da soja 

Another problem that  has been happening, is that some agriculturists already ended the planting and they had to replant the soybeans. “ Especially in lowlands, where it has the water accumulation. The grain rots inside of the soil, it stays wet and then causes the replanting. This also happens in some erosion areas, as consequence of the rain which some of it are occurring more in a local area because of erosion areas even when they fall in the whole area” said Adriana. 
Flávio explain that some of the cases, the germination of the seeds are damaged because some of the producers do not accept the no-till planting yet, which protects the soil. “Our soil compress very easily, then with the drops of water straight in the soil, it has a kind of explosion in the soil creating a compact layer above, which difficult or impede the seeds germination”.

Planted areas

The dry season in September helped on corn and bean crop and which move forward. The cities of the Regional Hub of Irati, practically the whole corn area were planted. On beans plantation still lack 20% of the area to be planted. The attention comes back for the soy now, where 55% of the available area needs to be planted. 
According to the predictions of SEAB in the area, the soy crop should have an increasing of the planted area, but a decreasing on the production. It should be planted more than 172 thousand of hectares of soy and the production should achieve almost 570 thousand tonnes.
This result is exactly because of the weather. Last year, when there was production record, the wether was more favourable development of the plants. Since the areas and the production should reduce as also corn and bean crops.

No-till Planting

According to the agronomic engineer, Flávio Cardoso D’Angelo the planting success is in the possibility to plant no-till. This technique as reported by Embrapa it is not necessary that the producer do the preparations of the soil as the ploughing and the harrowing. The soil should always be covered by plants that are developing and by vegetables waste.
The agronomic technician of the Emater in Irati, Décio Dalmolim explains that one of the advantages of this kind of technique is the erosion decreasing, which can minimize the needs of replanting in rainy weather. “You do not need to revolve or to blend the soil. You go less with the machine above the soil. It will be less compact and when the green coverage is done, it will provide an improvement on the soil, which is less easy to happen erosion. The rain washes and infiltrate faster. Then the mobile layer of the soil goes away when a heavy rain falls. Furthermore, this layer goes away along with the fertilizer that was already in the soil. Both side lose: the soil loses the fertilizer and the producer loses the investment”, explain him.
Décio highlights that this care of the soil involves many practises and all of them helps the water to infiltrate on soil to help on the plant development and it will not damage it. “The soil has the capacity to keep the water. When the plant needs water and the surface is dry then the water stored goes upstairs. When the soil is compact and the rain fall then it washes almost everything. Depending on the type of the soil it will store from 260 to 350 litres per cubic metre. It is a vast excess of water but our soils do not have this care because they are compacted”, said him.
According to Flávio, many factors do make the producers not acquire the practise such as the weather. One example is the tobacco producers with small properties, which they are not able to prepare the soil for the next crop. “the harvesting period of tobacco is sometimes the same period that it has to do the soil management “,said him. As the tobacco crop is more profitable for the producer, the focus is in this crop and not on the soil management and land planning which this kind of technique require. “On no-till planting the producer has to do a better planning of the land. The no-still planting recommends a division of the land in three parts and each 33% of the area will be recovering the soil structures” said him.

Source: Jornal Hoje Centro Sul