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| Rain has central Michigan farmers twiddling thumbs |
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By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent
STANTON, Mich. — Wet weather is keeping farmers out of the fields. Throughout central Lower Michigan, rain has varied from just under one inch to more than five during the last week.
Growers in Montcalm County have reported four to five inches of precipitation throughout the county, which has them treading water instead of planting crops. Keith Waldron, whose family farms about 2,000 acres in eastern Montcalm County, said the rain “is going to slow us down for a while.”
He said just before the rain set in a week ago, “We were on our heavy ground and we couldn’t even get all the way across it.”
Before the wet spring weather hit, he said he and his dad, Wayne, planted about 100 acres of their lightest ground. “By the time we were done, we were actually out of fields we could plant.”
Waldron expects it will be a week or more before fieldwork can continue. Andy Thorlund of Greenville, in southern Montcalm County, said there isn’t much going on at his family farm, either.
“We haven’t got anything in the ground yet,” he said.
His family grows about 3,000 acres of potatoes, light red kidney beans and corn for both grain and silage. “For potatoes, it’s a good thing that we haven’t planted any yet,” he said. “They don’t need all the train.”
About 3.5 inches of rain fell on the farm earlier in the week. Thorlund estimates they have received another two inches since then – and there’s more in the forecast.
“Looking around at the fields, at this rain we got today, I was a little concerned about how the low spots would take it, but they seem to be handling it,” he said. “There’s nothing planted here on the south side of Montcalm County. But, it’s only April 30. We still have some time left.”
According to a report from the Michigan Field Office of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service for the week ending April 26, rainy weather is hindering planting “in the majority of the state, but was much needed.
Corn and soybeans have not been planted in most areas of the state, but will begin as weather permits.”
The report also states “wheat was progressing despite some damage from the winter and animals.
Some alfalfa fields had significant amounts of standing water. However, the crop was making progress. Oat planting was underway and sugarbeet planting was nearing completion in many areas.”
With more than 900 acres of corn and soybean ground in central Montcalm County, Steve Sutherland said the rain is going to “delay me tremendously. It’s going to be 10 days or more” before he can return to the fields.
“I actually have 30 acres of corn planted, but there’s about two acres of it under water.
There is a tremendous pond out there. That’s what you get when you get three or four inches of rain in a day. Before this rain, the fields were just getting ready and fit to work.”
All this wet weather has Sutherland reconsidering his corn seed options. “I have a lot of 105-day corn. We may even have to switch to a shorter maturing hybrid,” he said. “Two years ago I was done planting corn on May 1.”
Unfortunately, this year he wasn’t even back in the fields by then.
“The good thing is we have 300 acres of sub-soiling done. It will really help things out. It will let the water get away,” Sutherland said.
“The other 600 acres is the problem. I doubt if we’ll be doing anymore sub-soiling. By the time we get back in the fields, we’ll just have to go.” |
| 5/6/2009 |
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