News
Rain would solve a lot of problems
The president of the Michigan Corn Growers Association questions if an old adage about the planting season will hold true this year.
“A wise saying that my father used to tell me, ‘You plant in the dust, your bins will bust,’ we’ll see if that holds true this year.”
Randy Poll of Hamilton says extreme drought in his area of West Michigan has meant he had to turn on some irrigators early.
“We don’t want to start irrigating corn the first week of June but, if it would stay dry, we don’t want to get behind too, so we’re just spraying on enough to keep the moisture there and help the plant survive,” he says.
While sidedressing corn, he tells Brownfield early planted fields are about 10 inches tall this week.
“We were fortunate we had a lot of fall worked ground, so the moisture was right there when we planted, our wheat crop is looking a little tough on the light ground just because we haven’t had much rain,” he shares.
Poll says he feels blessed considering later planted corn in the area has had difficult emergence and is hopeful rain in the forecast will bring the relief crops need.
