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Bumper specialty crop harvests offer opportunity

Irrigation has been critical for Michigan specialty crops this season as nearly 60 percent of the state has experienced some form of dryness.

Molly Sears, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics assistant professor at Michigan State University, tells Brownfield, “Yields, in general, are really high, it’s especially true in tree fruits.”   “They had a cold, rainy winter but not a lot of freeze cycles and yields are astronomically higher than they were last year—apple production is up 68 percent,” she says.

Sears says prices have also been good which will help cover rising costs like labor.

“Labor costs for farmers are around 13 percent, but for specialty crop producers, it’s 39 percent—when I talk to producers, they’re scrambling for labor,” she shares. 

She expects better returns to allow growers to invest in labor-saving technologies like trellising orchards.

“It’s $15,000 per acre, it doesn’t improve yields, it doesn’t change other inputs, but what it does is it allows for a platform harvesting system—you have fewer harvesters,” she explains.

Sears gave a specialty crop outlook during the recent Michigan Ag Credit Conference.