Michigan farmers who battled widespread spring flooding are now contending with unusually cool overnight temperatures that are delaying seed germination and tightening an already compressed planting schedule.
Field work has picked up significantly in recent weeks as fields dried out, but low soil temperatures are creating a new bottleneck for getting corn and soybeans into the ground.
Steve Whittington, a field crops educator with Michigan State University Extension, said many farmers feel slightly behind schedule because of earlier excessive moisture.
“Farmers would like to get out there as early as possible to spread that workload out,” Whittington said. “Now what we’re seeing is … we really haven’t had that excessive rainfall, or really much rainfall at all, in about two weeks. So that’s allowed the fields to dry out considerably.”
Current challenges center on cold soils. Overnight lows have dipped near or below freezing in parts of the state.
“They actually don’t need any sunlight to germinate. It’s moisture, soil temperature, and a good soil medium,” Whittington said. “When one of those … is excessively low, which is temperature, it’s going to create … delayed germination, or just a lack of germination at all.”
Farmers typically aim to have corn planted by Memorial Day weekend. With the calendar now at mid-May, that window is tightening.
“Farmers love to have their all their corn planted by Memorial Day weekend,” Whittington said. “We’ve only got a couple weeks until sort of that unofficial date.”
He noted that corn is particularly sensitive to cold conditions in its early vegetative stages.
On farmer sentiment, Whittington said anxiety has eased somewhat now that fieldwork is underway.
“Anxiety, maybe not … just feeling a little bit of a crunch,” he said. “Sentiment from farmers is not … completely low. … They’re just kind of looking to get in all the work that they’ve got to accomplish in a shorter period of time … but optimistic, all things considered.”
Whittington said farmers are closely watching growing degree days — a key measure of heat accumulation.
“Growing degree days is sort of like the quantitative way that farmers can look at making determinations on when to plant, when to harvest, when to expect different pests to occur in the field,” Whittington said. “We just need to warm it up. This trend is continuing through about mid-May, and once we surpass that mid-May window, things are going to warm up gradually and marginally for the rest of May.”
Regarding longer-term comparisons, Whittington pointed to MSU’s Enviroweather tool for soil temperature and growing degree day data, noting that conditions vary significantly field by field based on soil type, topography, previous crops and cover crops. Despite the recent cool spell, statewide growing degree day accumulations remain ahead of normal thanks to a warm April.
Whittington said warmer days with higher nighttime temperatures will be needed to build heat units and support steady planting progress through the rest of May.
He added that farmers are feeling the pressure but remain optimistic.