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Major push on planting in Michigan

An Eastern Michigan farmer says a week of warm, dry weather helped him wrap up planting.

Peter Maxwell grows corn, soybeans, sugarbeets and pumpkins in Hope, Michigan. He tells Brownfield sugarbeets were planted later than normal, but he made his goal of getting corn and soybeans in by the end of last week.  “The sugarbeet crop has had some, maybe, subpar stands.  It’s been cold and wet so emergence has been a little slow.”

Also a sugarbeet seed salesman, Maxwell says more growers have needed to replant sugarbeets this year than average.  “There were a few beets that were planted in the middle of April, but very few.  And a few more were planted at the end of April.  The majority were planted after the first of May which is a little bit behind pace, but the first two weeks of May were pretty conducive to planting.”

He says fortunately this year’s wet weather was ideal for corn emergence and stands look pretty good so far.  “We have a better start than we had last year.  We planted in a window that had some nice rains, it was actually warmer the first part of the month, and we didn’t have any gully washer, washout type of rains.”

In the next week Maxwell plans to transition to weed management activities and move into fertilizer applications.

AUDIO: Interview with Peter Maxwell

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