Northern Michigan Crops Ahead of Schedule

There is not only great anticipation but confidence for a very positive 2024 harvest season in northern Michigan. In a Channel Seeds growing season update, Christian McGuire, Channel Technical Agronomist who covers that part of the state says,

“Corn and soybeans at this point are looking both pretty dang good. We’ve had adequate to above average moisture, and actually for Shiawassee County where I live, for the month of July we were at 250% of average. That’s a 5-year average from what I was seeing, so we had plenty of moisture and that did lead to some drowned out spots, but other than that the crop was loving it. As we progressed out of July into August and to the end of August here, corn has looked excellent and has really enjoyed all that excess moisture.”

But the excess has also led to some disease pressure.

“We’re starting to see some SDS, brown stem rot and white mold kind of rear their ugly heads in some soybeans and definitely as September progresses here I expect to be that to be kind of the norm.”

McGuire says farmers should be getting those combines ready because the crop is ahead of schedule and harvest could begin a week or two earlier than normal.

“I think dry down should be well paced to get going for some soybeans late September and then in the early October it should be rolling,” he told MAT. “That’s all dependent obviously on if these 1-inch rains per week slows down for us and lets that crop dry down well.”

With the amount of moisture that has been falling, McGuire says it is time for a break.

“Yeah, we actually had a spell of about seven days where we were without a shower and that felt abnormal, but you could definitely tell that the crop advanced quite a bit in that time frame where it hadn’t been before just because those rainfalls kept just teasing it along and keeping it green.”

The standability of the corn crop through the end of harvest looks promising right now. McGuire talks more about that and tar spot in the full MAT and Channel Seeds growing season update: