Matthew and Nancy Bormann grow corn and soybeans near Algona, Iowa, in Kossuth County, with their three children, Reece, 15, Quinn, 12, and Greta, 9. Matthew is a fifth-generation Iowa farmer, farming since 1999. He is president of Bormann Ag LTD and has had several leadership roles on the Kossuth County Farm Bureau Board. Nancy Bohl Bormann is a manure and nutrient management researcher at the University of Minnesota. She received her bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University, master’s from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and doctorate at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Her main research project is development and implementation of a nationwide manure test database called ManureDB.

We’re having fabulous weather up here. We have had planters in the area going all over the place. We’ve been lucky with weather, some rain but not too much, missing big, damaging storms and soaking in the warm days. A little more warmth and fortune on precipitation could help get it all planted by the end of week … we’ll see. It’s really dusty. Heavily tilled fields are blowing bad. These farmers need to step up their game on sustainability.

Last week we received 0.4 of an inch of rain, many cloudy days, lots of wind and cooler temperatures. It made it hard to get anything planted or sprayed. Sunday evening we received 0.3 of an inch of rain. Currently sitting with half of my crops in the ground. Got some cover crop rye to kill, but I usually wait till it’s taller, about a foot to kneecap tall. Rye dies easy when you get two days of consistent temps of 75 and above.

We received 0.4 of an inch of rain April 27. Corn is starting to emerge. We could actually use some more rain. We had a very busy weekend trying to plant and deal with breakdowns.