Good growing conditions launch Michigan produce deal
Good growing conditions launch Michigan produce deal
The springtime brought good growing conditions for Michigan’s produce industry.
The Michigan deal started four days earlier than a year ago, and the outlook going into July is great, said Loren Buurma, a partner in the Willard, OH-based Buurma Farms Inc.
Talbert Nething, the sales manager of Van Solkema Produce Inc., based in Byron Center, MI, said his firm will begin shipping Michigan sweet corn around July 20. Yellow squash and zucchini were to begin around June 28. Michigan blueberries are expected to begin around July 4 and celery shipments will start a couple of days after Independence Day. The expected first shipping date for Michigan cucumbers is July 10 and peppers are expected in the third week of July.
Curly mustard is harvested in a Michigan field. (Photo courtesy of Nathan Buurma, Buurma Farms Inc.)Having a broad view of three Michigan vegetable commodities is John Bakker. Bakker is the executive director Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board, the Michigan Onion Committee and the Michigan Carrot Committee.
On June 15, Bakker indicated Michigan’s asparagus deal would be finishing in the week of June 21, with most shippers finishing by June 19.
Bakker said it was a “strange” season for Michigan asparagus, which started early only to face insufficient harvest labor. Peruvian asparagus exporters took advantage of the U.S. market supply void and then when Michigan again got under way, the asparagus pipeline was filled and prices were low. Toward the end of the Michigan asparagus deal, the markets had improved “but this will not be one of our better years.”
Michigan harvested 9,500 acres of asparagus this year, which is the norm. Roughly half of this volume lands in the fresh market.
The next Michigan asparagus harvest will be expected to commence in late April 2016.
As much as two-thirds of Michigan’s carrot production goes to the processing market. The fresh market harvest is to begin in September, with shipping running into January. Michigan carrots are planted by seed and the 2015 crop was in the ground by mid-June. “So far, it looks pretty good,” Bakker said, “although we’ve had more water than we like.”
“The first reports” on planting Michigan’s onion crop also “look pretty good,” Bakker said. Michigan onions “will hit the market in mid-September.”
