What a planting season

This has been a spring planting season for the books. So many changes. New directions. New ideas. New-used equipment. New crops. My head is spinning at the fact that we were able to get everything in the ground in a timely manner — maybe not on the perfect timetable, but we got it done.

It all started with handing off the baton in this farming relay race. After 50 spring planting seasons, Mark has handed the job to Austin. Over the past few springs, Austin has demonstrated how he would implement new growing strategies with reduced tillage and no-till options. Of course, he had to practice on the back 40 where no one would be able to see what he was up to, just in case things didn’t work out. His actions proved his commitment and allowed Mark the space to step aside, knowing the planter will keep moving back and forth across the fields.

Austin grabbed this chance and is running full speed ahead. He ended up buying a used 12-row planter online from Iowa. While the snow was melting, Austin would slip over to the other place to work on his new “toys.” He was like a kid in the candy shop, going over every inch of the planter, inspecting, replacing and repairing. He would spend all his time between milkings working on prepping his corn planter and grain drill.

Due to our dry and very hot April and May, some of the large farmers were already done planting before we made it to the fields. This sense of being “behind” did create some nervousness and stress, but we had to keep reminding ourselves, “It’s still early on the calendar.”

Mark is used to prepping all the fields with a few rounds of tillage to work in the manure and disk down the corn stalks to create a perfect growing bed. Austin’s vision is to pull back on the tillage, to preserve the moisture in the ground and leave ground cover to suppress the weeds. Two different philosophies, but they have one common ground: to grow a profitable crop using the latest research combined with the success of past practices. In other words, compromise.

They agreed on which fields Mark should work just ahead of Austin’s planter. It was a choreographed dance across the fields, working the land just ahead of the planter to preserve moisture.

Following Austin’s lead of having the equipment field ready ahead of the need, Mark started to prep the irrigation pivots. The fields have been terribly dry, and it was just a matter of time before they needed to start watering the alfalfa fields to generate a decent first crop. Mark grabbed my aluminum ladder from the garage and headed off to the fields.

He climbed the ladder to check out the end guns and drain plugs. Al was hauling the air compressor around in his gator to fill all the pivot tires with air. Things were shaping up to be ready when they needed to flip the switch.

After milking one night, Mark threw the ladder on the back of the 4-wheeler and scooted off to finish up his pivot project. He climbed the steps for his last inspection. Things were looking good. He just needed to pop over to the pivot point to check out the box, but he didn’t want to bump along the field road, hanging on to the ladder. So, Mark set the ladder down on our field road and took off for the middle of the field to check the power box. By the time he got back to the road, he couldn’t find the ladder. In a matter of minutes, someone driving down the road spotted the ladder and decided they really needed one, and ours was just what they wanted.

Austin wasn’t only changing the way things went into the ground. He was also changing what was going in the ground.

On Thursday, a semi-truck backed up to our machine shed to drop off a delivery. Using our Bobcat with a pallet fork and long ropes, we pulled six pallets of blueberry plants off the trailer and stored them out of the blazing sun. The weather forecast was calling for temperatures to soar to the 90s in the next few days. With no rain in the forecast and sandy soils underfoot, it was creating harsh growing conditions for any seed or plant. We also knew we had only five days to get these 3,000 blueberry plants in the ground, regardless of the forecast.

Austin put the word out to anyone who would like a new experience and time outside. Families, friends and neighbors showed up for the next three days helping to plant the blueberry patch. From 3 years old to 70, there was a job for everyone, from digging holes to carrying potted plants to hauling water to every hole. In three days, every plant had its new growing space.

Austin is taking the field south of the driveway out of commodity production and introducing a new source of revenue. He had already explored how to siphon water off the main irrigation line to drip irrigation lines for his blueberry plants. Now we had to lay out the drip lines and install the emitters for each plant. On hands and knees, we crawled along the 3-acre patch, punching holes and attaching the emitters. That night, by the light of a full moon, Joelle and I finished installing the drip lines while the guys worked on the valves to move water to the new system.

Just after midnight, Austin threw the switch to start watering his new crop overnight. Luckily, everything worked. There were no kinks in the line, and only 80 plants needed to be watered by hand due to the wrong placement of emitters. It will be 2027 before the families who helped will be able to reap their reward of fresh blueberries, but they are still giddy from the excitement of doing something new and different as a community.

There are only a few acres of soybeans and cover crops to finish planting before we can close out Austin’s first full planting season. I think this handoff has been pretty smooth, and the next leg is off and running in the right direction.

As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark Schmitt started an adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.