The lowest plantings in a century will leave Argentina's wheat output well below US forecasts, a much-watched report has said.

There was some disagreement over translations of the report from the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange. Reuters said that the briefing showed a 7.55m-tonne crop, with Dow Jones reporting a 7.1m-tonne figure.

However, both figures lower than the US Department of Agriculture forecast of 8.0m tonnes.

While recent rains are expected to help average yields come in considerably higher than in 2008-09, when drought was the major factor behind a halving in output, plantings have slipped.

Farmers are estimated to have sown only 2.8m hectares, down nearly 40% year on year, in part because of lingering drought during the planting season, with high soybean prices and government export policy also tempting growers to switch out of wheat.

"The expected increase in the national average yield will help compensate for the sharp reduction in the seeded area," the exchange said.

Argentina has historically been one of the world's more important wheat nations, with production at 18.0m tonnes in 2007-08 and exports only narrowly behind those of the European Union and Russia.

Corn progress 

Both Reuters and Dow Jones agreed that the report said that corn planting for 2009-10 had proceeded apace over the last week, reaching 32% of the expected total.

The figure was 12 percentage points higher than a week before, and up 2% on the same period last year.

Corn plantings are expected to reach 1.88m hectares this year, the lowest figure since 1989, the exchange believes.

Argentina's corn planting season runs from August to December, with the harvest stretching from February to August.

Wheat is typically planted between April and the end of September, and harvested between October and January.