View From the Cab

DECATUR, Ill. (DTN) -- Farm operations collided this week on Henderson Farms near Madison, Alabama. With more wet weather threatening, partner Stuart Sanderson and the entire farm crew were full throttle busy trying to get wheat out of the field and into the bin.

Soybean planters were following immediately behind the combines. Early corn is already at full tassel and nearing timing for fungicide treatments. There's younger corn that still needs nitrogen. Low lying areas that have been wet still need planted. Weeds never wait.

"These wet conditions have really had us scrambling this season," said Sanderson on June 6. "We've been putting in some long days this week trying to get ahead of this next storm.

"We're lucky to have a farm team that can do almost every operation. Everyone understands that there are times when we must put our heads down and get things done," he said.

Sanderson reports in this season as part of DTN's View From the Cab project, a series that examines crop conditions and other rural topics from two different farming regions.

Also contributing this season is Ethan Zoerb, of Litchfield, Nebraska. Until recently, Zoerb's area of central Nebraska had been in a drought so severe that it required running pivots to encourage crop emergence. The rains that arrived during the past week now have him scouting fields for washed out areas.

View From the Cab offers readers a more intimate look at the daily aspects of farming. This week is proof farm life is rarely static, and downtime is often a misnomer. In this installment, Zoerb builds a tender for a drone and Sanderson gives thanks for technology that makes more man hours per machine possible and more.

ETHAN ZOERB: LITCHFIELD, NEBRASKA

Zoerb has weather whiplash. When he began taking stand counts a few weeks ago, he was worried about drought conditions influencing germination. This week he was walking crops looking for washouts and ponding after 2.5 to 3.5 inches of rain fell in a short time span.

"Only 15 minutes away from here they got 4 to 5 inches in some areas. A few of our fields have a little silting, but for the most part everything held remarkably well," said Zoerb, who farms in Custer and Sherman counties.

And the farm avoided most of the whammies that can accompany these weather events. "We got a little hail, but nothing that will require any replanting," he noted.

The concern right now is getting fast-growing corn sprayed before it grows past label restrictions. Spray windows have been hard to find as the winds accompanied the weather events. Even if winds subside, fields were too tacky for the sprayer to run most of the week.

"I feel like our crop should be a little more advanced than it is. We just haven't had those consistently warm days," Zoerb said, noting that highs of 65 degrees were normal in much of May.

When temperatures shot to 90 degrees Fahrenheit with 30-mile-per-hour (mph) winds and enough humidity to curl hair, he knew there was a storm coming. "But apart from that one day, we've had relatively low temperatures. Coupled with haze from the Canadian fires, we just haven't gotten those good clear sky growing days," he said. Corn was in the V5 to V6 growth range and soybeans were approximately one to three trifoliate on June 4.

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick noted that stripe of rain on June 2 was significant enough to reduce the U.S. Drought Monitor ratings by one category for this region.

"They should get a break from the weather through this week, or the first half of it," said Baranick. "Temperatures are rising too, with daytime highs in the mid-80s as of this forecast.

"We should see systems moving across the Northern Plains later in the week and weekend, and that may bring through some thunderstorms through the area. But the chances are now lower going into mid-June, and the awaited development of a hot and dry summer forecast may start turning the corner next week, as it looks awfully dry with temperatures in the 90s."

This week Zoerb started putting a new tool to the farm to work. The Leaftech Ag Scanner works like a mobile tissue test lab. "The idea is it allows me to scan the crop throughout the season and know whether our nutrient levels are on target before I ever leave the field," Zoerb said.

This is earlier than he would normally take tissue samples on corn. "I was curious to see if I could detect differences in some of our side-by-side trials at early growth stages," Zoerb said.

"I had one spot in the field where we tried some different fertilizer placement, and I thought I was seeing some visual differences. The scans with this device didn't show enough of a difference to warrant action. Sometimes knowing you don't need to do something is as important as knowing there is a deficit or a need for an input," he said.

However, it is the timeliness and portability of the device that is really blowing him away so far. "In the past, by the time I got the samples gathered and they were analyzed, and I got the results, things had changed," he noted.

Those rain days got put to good use this week, too. Zoerb started working on transforming a car trailer into a mobile drone spray tender. It will be outfitted with some cone chemical tanks, water totes, a generator and a covered area to keep the battery charging station cool and out of direct sunlight.

"We're still trying to decide on the pumping mechanism to refill the drone," he said. "There are lots of different ways to do it." This is the first year the farm has had a spray drone, so it will be a learning year.

Right now, Zoerb is still coming to terms with the fact that they went from crying for rain to getting the all-terrain vehicle stuck in the mud. "You learn never to cuss a rain in Nebraska. It doesn't take long before you need another," he said.

STUART SANDERSON: MADISON, ALABAMA

Hot, muggy conditions caused Sanderson to reach a tipping point while working in the field this week. "I did something I've never done in my farming career. I was soaked through with sweat, and I grabbed a knife and cut the sleeves out of my shirt," he said.

The move might have been made to beat the heat, but it was also something of a nod to how hectic life has been of late. The farm has mostly dodged any harsh outcomes from three tornadoes that have gone through the area. But wet weather has slowed and complicated farming plans.

On top of that, for the past few years, a crew of farmer friends have assisted to turn a 2,500-acre wheat harvest followed by double-crop bean planting into a five-day farming marathon. Unfortunately, the timing didn't work for all that extra labor this year.

That has meant some long operating hours for the regular farm staff, who have been fueled by more than a few Mountain Dew or Sun Drop sodas and Honey Buns, Sanderson said.

"We're only running two combines, and we normally run four. And we normally run two planters immediately behind the combines. So, we're a little tired this week," he noted.

DTN's Baranick is somewhat hopeful that northern Alabama might hold onto a slightly drier weather pattern this week.

"A front that moved into the region this weekend is going to stick around the area all week. Every day has a chance of rain, though I would doubt every day comes out with something measurable," Baranick said.

"It will be close by if it doesn't hit their farm. The rain will keep temperatures from getting too extreme, with daytime highs in the mid-80s," he added.

More than 20 inches of rain received through May has lowered wheat yields to around a mid-80 bushel-per-acre average this year, according to Sanderson. Test weight has been holding steady, and wheat is coming out of the field averaging 15.5% moisture.

Sanderson aims for a high-end milling quality wheat. Soon after harvest he plans to ship a couple of loads to get a measure of quality.

"Wheat is a funny thing. It can surprise you when it goes to town, or it can disappoint you when it goes to town. It's hard to know what kind of quality you've got and a lot of that is up to the one that is doing the checking," he said.

The farm's early planted corn is already at full-tassel and looking great, Sanderson said. Getting additional nitrogen on later-planted corn is a priority this coming week.

The strain of the extra hours behind the wheel is softened considerably through technology. "Auto steer doesn't really get a lot of love anymore because it's been around for so many years. But it sure makes a difference in these periods when we're spending hours and hours in the equipment.

"I got on the grain cart yesterday and just being able to set it on the same AB line as the combine is so helpful. I can turn around in the seat and watch the grain go in the cart. I can stretch if I need to and move around a bit. It's really a game changer," he said.

The farm was an early adopter of guidance. Sanderson remembers first putting a crude system on a 6500 Hi-Cycle self-propelled sprayer and a 4560 John Deere tractor. Today, the farm has its own RTK (real time kinematics) tower atop the grain leg and data is managed through John Deere's operation management system.

Being relieved of manual documentation during field operations is also huge, he added. Software systems that help record and manage grain entering and exiting the on-farm storage system helps simplify insurance reporting and landlord settlements.

Today's equipment allows for some incredible manhour efficiencies, he allowed.

But then, there are those times when there's just no substitute for a redneck solution that cuts to the chase and makes life just a little bit cooler.

Pamela Smith can be reached at pamela.smith@dtn.com

Follow her on social platform X @PamSmithDTN

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