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Rains lengthening harvest for MCGA president

The president of the Michigan Corn Growers Association is halfway finished with harvest.

Randy Poll tells Brownfield on and off rains for the past several weeks have kept tractors out of fields and brought an early end to winter wheat planting.

“We got maybe 75 percent in that we wanted, right now it is getting wetter,” he shares.  “Fields are soft so there’s not much fall tillage being done either.”

Poll says he feels thankful there haven’t been quality issues as the corn is used to feed his pigs and tested regularly for mycotoxins.

“The variety we’re in has been really good, it’s kind of variable,” he says.  “It depends on where the rains came and how hot it was.”

With rising interest rates and high fertilizer prices, Poll says he’s waiting to see what happens with a lot of inputs.

“That is the biggest challenge for us, there’s a lot of unknowns so planning ahead to next year is kind of going to be a fly by the seat of your pants,” he says.

Poll farms 3,000 acres and raises hogs with his family in southwest Michigan. Brownfield joined him in the cab Monday near Bangor.