WEST OLIVE, Mich. — The weather is causing some issues for west Michigan farmers.
The lack of rain coupled with rising costs have many worried about their bottom line.
FOX 17 went to Crossroads Blueberry Farm in Ottawa County, which has 700 acres filled with fruit.
Luke DeHaan manages the farm and he said it’s been their most expensive year yet.
“We use testing and stationary moisture probes,” DeHaan explained to FOX 17. “Get readings based on when it rained or after irrigation to make sure that the ground is saturated. Blueberries like to be wet, but not stay wet.”
DeHaan and many other local blueberry farmers already are harvesting some of their crops.
“I guess 25-percent. Yep. Down, just strictly due to lack of berry size. Quantity of berries seems to be there, but berry size for the first couple of weeks was just less than anticipated,” DeHaan said.
Michigan State University puts out monthly crop reports.
The MSU Extension points out that some strawberry, broccoli and potato farms are noticing an impact on these crops because of the heat and lack of rain.
However, MSU’s latest report does show that Saturday and Sunday’s rain did provide some relief for farmers.
“Dig down in this ground right now and you can see the top layer is wet, but as you get down to about three, four inches down, you can feel there’s a little bit of moisture in the ground,” DeHaan said. “So we have a later variety coming up that the rain hopefully will help size that and then hopefully those will be, I’m going to say a normal size compared to the early stuff.”
Still, DeHaan hopes for more rain.
“From a size standpoint, rain really increases the size of the blueberries.”
If that rain doesn’t come, DeHaan plans to use the irrigation system; however, it runs on diesel generators, which costs a lot.
“As a farmer, always hopelessly optimistic, you know. We can always look at, you know, there’s blessings and everything because I think, you know, if you talk to everybody, any farmer, it’s always next year, right?” DeHaan added.
DeHaan says the blueberry bushes do look healthier in 2022 and he attributes that to a wet spring.
