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Warm, dry weather pushes along Michigan’s crop development

A Saginaw Bay farmer says very little rain forecast for the past week has made it crop fields.

John Burk tells Brownfield, “They’ve got rain for tomorrow, but rain the next day and then again the next day, we had that all weekend too—rain forecasted with very little results.”

“I guess your guess is as good as mine,” he shares.

He says good soil health practices have helped buffer the dry conditions until now.

“You could be seeing 220-250 bushel corn here real easy,” he says. “However, if we don’t get some rain, those kernels don’t develop all the way. It could be light kernels, and then your yield potential goes way down.”

Burk grows corn, soybeans, wheat, sugarbeets and dry beans across four counties in the region.

In its latest crop progress report, USDA says Michigan’s corn is rated 57 percent good to excellent with 51 percent of the crop in the dough stage. Michigan’s soybean crop is rated 54 percent good to excellent, with 77 percent of the crop setting pods.