By Andi Anderson
This year, farmers harvested a whopping 46.5 million bushels, marking a 35% jump from last year. And guess what? This surge came even after some tricky drought conditions early on. Each acre produced an average of 83 bushels, just like the previous year.
But not everything went as planned. “We had slightly fewer acres than we first guessed,” says Chris Betz, a local grain expert. “However, we got lucky with the wheat yield. And the quality? Top-notch!” Michigan sowed wheat across 600,000 acres and collected from 560,000 of those.
Marlo D. Johnson, a bigwig at the NASS Great Lakes Office, shared, “We started slow, but boy did we finish strong! Our wheat yield and quality? Simply ace!”
On the national front, winter wheat hit 1.25 billion bushels, 13% more than last year, averaging 50.6 bushels an acre. And get this, states like Delaware, Texas, and New York set new yield records.
Switching to oats, Michigan's story is a tad different. Production touched 1.65 million bushels, slipping by 10% from last year. But every cloud has a silver lining – each acre produced 66 bushels, up by 5 from 2022. However, the national scenario was somewhat mixed. Oats were down by 1% but yield per acre jumped to 68.6 bushels.
Photo Credit: gettyimages-orientaly
Categories: Michigan, Crops, Wheat