Nelson Paludo has been spending a good deal of time in the shed, watching the rain.

He and lots of neighbors in the southern Brazilian state of Parana would like to get their early soybeans out—and the second-crop corn in. But a headstrong El Nino seems to like him just where he is—looking out on the rain near the town of Toledo, Parana State, Brazil.

“The intense and constant rains of recent months have hurt soybean crop development in the Toledo (Parana) area and across Brazil,” he told me.

El Nino impacts

El Nino in Brazil typically brings more rain throughout the production period along with an extended period of rains beyond the normal April cutoff, which can make for great second-crop corn yields. But this year’s El Nino has been fickle, bringing extreme differences in rainfall rather than an across the board increase.

In Parana, Paludo says, rains made plenty of producers miss the optimum planting window—though not all were unlucky. But statewide, producers there have suffered from a lack of sun, dragging the soybean cycle out by 10 to 15 days by his count.

“Last year at this time we had already harvested about five percent of the crop,” he says. But nothing so far in 2016.

In fact, the Brazilian government lowered projected nationwide soybean yields by more than a percent last week, to 45.9 bushels per acre, with farmers to the north of Paludo suffering the most.

Those Parana producers who have managed to get some 2015-16 beans in are seeing yields of 43 to 49 bushels per acre.  His own farm-wide average last year ended up at 53 bushels per acre.

That said, there is room for Parana yields to climb as the harvest progresses, given that those early beans planted early typically yield less than full-cycle beans anyway.

But as yield prospects tick upward, chances of getting the second crop in on time are leaving him concerned.

“The best time to get second-crop beans in is by February 20,” he says. “So from now until then, we’ll have to hope the weather cooperates with a few rains. But the forecast now is calling for little in the way of precipitation, which could reduce second-crop corn yields.”