Agriculture
Fewer Michigan chestnuts roasting over an open fire this year
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By EDITH ZHOU
Capital News Service
LANSING – Michigan’s chestnut growers are facing the same problems other fruit growers confront this year. The early surge of temperatures in March and the inevitable cold weather in April and May curtailed nut production, just as it did for apples and cherries. “Our yield is about a quarter of last year’s,” said Joyce Ivory, the sales representative of Chestnut Growers Inc. (CGI), Michigan’s only chestnut grower coorperative based in Jackson. Ivory grows 20 acres of chestnut trees with her husband in Hadley Township near Flint. “There are huge demands and our supply can’t meet them,” she said.