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Michigan dry beans yielding surprising results

A Michigan dry bean grower says he’s more than halfway finished with dry bean harvest which is ahead of normal.

Thumb area farmer Mike Richmond tells Brownfield he was a little scared at the beginning of the planting season starting with the driest conditions he can remember for dry beans.  But at the end of June, adequate rains brought the yield.

“We basically had our crops spoon-fed all the way till flowering and podding even though it was pretty scary spring,” he says.

Richmond says he feels fortunate because dry bean growers in other regions haven’t been so lucky.

“There’s a lot of issues out there and the big area is in that southern Minn, all the way up to the Red River Valley, their yields aren’t going to be that great,” he says.

Richmond says low supplies and high demand have been extremely good for prices this year and into next.