Wayne Koehler grows corn and soybeans in Charles City with his wife of 35 years, Lisa. He has also been raising oats, and this year will be growing 65 acres of food-grade oats after buying into a farmer-owned oat milling plant in Albert Lea, Minnesota. “We look forward to that challenge,” he said. “The hope is we’ll be increasing our acres of oats and the goal would be to get to a three-crop rotation. We need to get some dedicated oat storage before harvest.” With the oats, he sometimes plants a clover cover crop that will take off and grow after the oats are harvested. He has transitioned to mostly no-till. The Koehlers have three adult children and are expecting their first grandchild in June.

The oats were seeded on March 31 and emerged April 14. Nice growth last week before receiving a light frost on April 20. Last week was an active weather week with some large hail and heavy rain. Our farms were spared from the hail, and rainfall totals for the week ranged from 0.2 to 0.8 inch. I may plant some soybeans this week and plan to spray some burndown for soybeans after a couple days of warmer temps. In my area, most pre-plant anhydrous applications have been completed and I expect quite a bit of pre-plant tillage will be done in the next few days.

The week of April 20 was a productive week for those that chose to plant in my area. Some farmers were very aggressive getting corn planted while others chose to wait. There were some soybeans planted as well. Pre-emerge spraying and burn down for soybeans was done as the temperatures warmed up during the week. We received 0.5 of an inch of rain on Thursday evening, April 23. Many farmers are waiting now for the rain on Monday the 27th and the cool temperatures forecast for the coming week before resuming planting.

We received 0.5 inch of rain on April 27 followed by very cool temps for most of the week. The morning of May 2 the low temperature was 31 degrees with light frost. The planters were running again by Saturday, and a lot of corn got planted over the weekend. Some farmers will be finishing corn planting and continuing with soybeans. Temperatures are forecast to turn cool again by midweek, but I think farmers will keep planting as the rain chances are slight. Pre-emerge spraying has kept up well with the planting.

Most of the corn and soybean planting in my area was completed last week. The early-planted corn is emerging. Too many cold days with strong winds and low humidity after the last rain on April 27 has made it difficult for some early-planted soybeans that are struggling to push through crusted soil. The topsoil moisture has really dried out from the winds every day — even the no-till fields. Rye cover crop is a challenge as the temperatures have been too cold to terminate if you missed the small window of warmer days around April 22. The rye that has not been terminated is taking the soil moisture and leaving dry soil to plant in. A soaking rain is much needed for germination, emergence and herbicide activation.

The warmer temperatures really helped the emergence of the later-planted corn and soybeans. Some replanting or interseeding of early-planted soybeans was done last week. The crop insurance adjuster noted several replant claims of both soybeans and corn around the area. Field borders are showing weed pressure as the temps warm up with the lack of rainfall to activate preemerge herbicides. We did finally get a nice 1-inch rain on May 15 and more on May 17. The oats are growing well and seem unaffected by the stretch of cool weather before the recent warm up.