Once we arrived in Uruguay our hosts for the farm visit tours were Santiago Narbaiz and his brother Joaquin who own and operate an agronomy consulting business called " Servi Chacra" which means consulting service. They manage farmland for both local farmers and investors from all over the world as Uruguay is Good place to invest due to lower taxes, productive land and a thriving export market.
Today we toured across Uruguay with Santiago as our tour guide. There is generally two crops planted each growing season. Beans usually are planted with a cover crop during the growing season. Soybeans are are usually planted after oats. The oats are mainly just for a cover crop. The beans planted with the oats are generally producing about 45 bushels per acre. The next year of beans generally follow a wheat or barley crop and usually produce around 40 bushels per acre. The farmers do have the option to have crop insurance. Precision Ag is used by land owners but not as common for those who rent the ground they operate on. The soil is tested before the cereal crops but not the beans. The fertilizer programs in Uruguay are based from the soil tests and are generally broadcasted applied.
The farming practices are pretty similar to those in the US. The soybean fields have a lot of the same pests. The farmers generally plan on 5-6 spray applications. They spray several passes of herbicide and insecticide and usually one pass of foliage fertilizer depending on inputs and prices. They have birds called Rhea's they are like an emu and are a problem in the soybean fields because they eat the small soybean plants. In one day we were able to several different stages of soybeans with in about an hour of driving. Very interesting country with rolling hills and great crop ground.
Riley Canham
