Dry bean planting on hold

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Dry bean planting on hold

Most of Michigan’s planting season is nearly complete except for dry beans.

Joe Cramer with the Michigan Bean Commission tells Brownfield that’s intentional.

“Most growers will generally wait until after the Memorial Day holiday hoping for that ground to warm up a little bit and hopefully have a little moisture in it,” he explains.

The forecast for next week looks ideal and Cramer says there’s also an art to planting to help farmers mitigate yield losses on their high value crops.

“They try to do their best and out guess Mother Nature a little bit and avoid the hottest possible days when we abort flowers and lose yield potential,” he says.  “They also like to spread out their planting a little bit and manage risk, it helps avoid that hot temperatures and spreads out the workload at fall as well.”

Improving corn and soybean prices have cut back expectations for Michigan’s dry bean plantings with USDA forecasting a reduction of 40,000 acres this year to 210,000.

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