By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent

SCOTTVILLE, Mich. — Heavy rainfall in the upper portion of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula came so quickly two weeks ago that much of the water ran off, causing little damage to crops, according to area agricultural officials.

Portions of Mason and Manistee counties received up to 11 inches of rainfall in less than 24 hours. According to Michigan State University Mason County extension Director Jim Breinling, however, crops withstood the rain quite well.

“In the area that was probably the hardest hit, the water drained off fast,” he said. “We don’t have much water standing. The crops don’t look too bad. It really was contained in a small, localized area.

“It quickly flowed off the cornfields and hayfields and into the creeks and rivers. That’s why the roads washed out.”
According to a report by MSU Assistant Professor Jeff Andresen, Department of Geography, more than 6 inches of rain fell from Mason and Manistee counties northeastward into Wexford, Lake, Osceola and Missaukee counties June 12-13.

“There was an observation of 11 inches in the Ludington area from roughly 9 p.m. on Thursday through 7 a.m. on Friday,” Andresen wrote.

According to Andresen, this would be a new state record for precipitation in both 12- and 24-hour periods. The old one-day record of 9.78 inches was set in Bloomingdale in 1914.
Areas of Mason and Manistee counties have been declared a disaster, with a 20-mile stretch of M-31 from Scottville to Manistee closed for several days because of massive washouts of the roadway. The road was reopened last week, but motorists should still expect lane closures in the hardest hit region.

Breinling has toured much of the area and talked with producers about potential damage. He hesitated to give an overall countywide damage estimate for all crops, but said it may fall in the range of 10 percent.

“It’s pretty early to tell,” he said. “I was talking with one dairy farmer right in the middle of it. He said he’ll know how much damage he has when he gets to harvest.”

Diverse agricultural offerings can be found in northern Michigan, including field crops, orchards, vegetables and livestock and dairy farms, where growers raise much of their feed for their animals.
“Where this hit, there’s corn for grain. We have some dairies and a lot of their corn is for silage, also,” Breinling said. “The corn should make silage. You may not get the maximum yield, but it should grow all right for silage.”

Breinling said in addition to concerns over flooding, he looked for evidence of wind damage to crops. “There’s not a bit of wheat that is down,” he said. “As an old farm boy, that’s an indication to me that it’s not as bad as it could have been. The city of Manistee got the wind, plus the rain. That’s where most of that type of damage occurred.”

One of the more prevalent concerns “is probably the fertilizer that washed away and the cost of that,” Breinling said. “Most of the corn is up to six to eight inches, so it had its feet in the ground already, and we’re not seeing it just being washed away like it could have been if it had only been up a couple of inches.”

He said, however, “some of the corn looks yellow at this time, but that’s probably a combination of the cool weather and the need for more nitrogen. Luckily, sidedressing of nitrogen had not yet been applied, so that was not a loss. But, on the negative side, farmers now need to apply even more. “If there’s any one thing that we’re seeing more consistently, it’s surface soil erosion,” Breinling added. “The water came so fast that in some places you can see the cuts in the soil.”

He said some farmers have concerns about long-term impacts to their soil structure, “but it’s just too early to tell.”