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First Michigan asparagus harvest wiped out by frost

Freezing overnight temperatures Monday killed the majority of Michigan’s first asparagus crop in the state’s largest growing area.

John Bakker, executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board, tells Brownfield harvest was just getting started this past week.  “We got started about 10 days ago in the southern part of the state.  The West Central, or main producing area, was just getting going when we got clobbered on early Monday by temperatures as low as the low to mid-20s.”

He says temperatures that low will cause growers to lose about two to three pickings of the crop.  “We probably lost somewhere between five and eight percent of our total year’s crop, but I can already see it starting new spears emerging yesterday, last night.  I would expect that we would be back in production by late weekend or early next week.”

Bakker says so far, he’s cautiously optimistic about growers having enough labor to harvest the crop which will run through mid-June.

Michigan growers harvested 9,200 acres in 2016, the most in the nation. Michigan asparagus production totaled 230,000 hundredweight last year, holding steady as the second largest producer in the country.

AUDIO: Interview with John Bakker