“It was an atypical year for Piauí, the best crop they ever had,” Gildomar Lindemann, Agroconsult analyst, told Reuters.

Maranhão state also did well this year after successive droughts spoiled the crop in prior seasons, said Smyllei Curcio, another Agroconsult analyst on the tour.

MATOPIBA, a region that also includes the states of Bahia and Tocantins and accounts for 11% of Brazil’s soybean output, enjoyed good weather and an increase in on-farm investments which positively affected yield and production volumes, the analysts said.

On Tuesday, Agroconsult will revise its soy crop estimate for Brazil after concluding field work.

In January, Agroconsult estimated Brazil’s soybean crop at 114.1 million tonnes. That figure was later revised to 117.5 million tonnes as the crop tour progressed in February.

In its latest yield forecast related to MATOPIBA, Agroconsult forecast average yields higher than last year’s and above 3 tonnes per hectare in all states that make up MATOPIBA.

The consultancy said its crop tour, which started in January and ended last week, covered 500 towns in Brazil’s 13 top grain-producing states, corresponding to 95% of the soybean area and 72% of the corn area.