Views from the Cab

By David Tollefson, Columnist

Many of you have heard the term for Minnesota weather as being the “Theatre of Seasons.”

According to Google, the slogan was coined by Cecil Kaercher, an Ortonville, Minn., lumber dealer in 1949.  He won a contest co-sponsored by WCCO-AM radio.

Also from Google, comes a story of a farmer who lived near the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. All his life he had supposed he lived in Minnesota, but one day he was visited by a crew who asked permission to survey his land, because they had received information that the state line in his vicinity might be misplaced. He said, “Sure, go ahead,” and anxiously awaited the results.  

Soon the surveyors were back to inform him that the boundary line was indeed wrong and that he actually lived in Wisconsin. That night, the farmer wrote in his diary, “Thank God! No more cold winters!”

Surely the summer of 2022 has been a “Theatre of Seasons!” We farmers have lived through a spring of endless cold and wet weather, and with that one of the latest plantings of our crops in history.  

So, with the planting of wheat in May, and planting of corn and soybeans in May AND June, it’s been crazy. And, then the weather turned hot and dry for the rest of the growing season!

Now, with almost 100 percent of the beans being in the bin, and a good part of the corn, it has been an incredible story. In past years, I can remember when we dried a good portion of our soybeans and all of the corn.  

Well, guess what. None of the beans needed drying (in fact, a lot of them were TOO dry). Ideally beans would be at 13%. Mine all came out of the field at 10-11%.

With corn, almost all is coming out of the field where it does not need artificial drying (most farmers now have fans on their bins where they can just blow air through the crop and slowly reduce the moisture to an ideal 15.5% or so for long-term storage).

Well, back to the crazy temperatures and lack of precipitation we have had this past summer and fall. While I keep track of precipitation, I don’t record temperatures each day. At Morris, we have the West Central Research and Outlook Center, which keeps close track of both temperatures and precipitation since 1885.

Concerning precipitation, the Morris reports are pretty close to mine in Southern Pope County, about 23 miles south-east of Morris.

Looking back to the early part of the growing season, one would expect with the late planting that we would have immature crops. My thoughts were that with the crazy start that the ultimate bad luck would be an early frost. But that did not happen. I recorded the first frost at my place on Sept. 28. But it did not meet the definition of a “killing frost.” A small portion of my soybeans were still green on that date, but frost at that stage of bean development was actually a good thing.  

My data of precipitation in April (3.14 inches) and May (7.79 inches) gave us a pretty good supply of sub-soil moisture when the below-normal amounts from June and on (1.36, 1.21, 2.64 and .93) occurred; crops in black heavy soil or clay soil were able to produce somewhat normal crops, while crops on the hilltops and sandy/gravelly areas were hurt.

Unfortunately, the heavy rains on May 11-12 came very hard and fast, causing historic erosion on some of my hilly ground. Even sandy ground could not absorb that much rain in that short a time. At that point there were no emerging crops to hold the soil.

Here is the official weather summary from WCROC for the past September:

“September 2022 proved to be warm with below-normal precipitation. The mean temperature for September was 63.5 degrees F, which is 4.2 degrees above the average of 59.3 (1886-2021).  The high temperature for the month was 91 on Sept. 2. The low temp for the month was 34 on Sept. 28. Frost in the area was noted that day. We consider a killing frost to be 28, so we did not have a killing frost in September of 2022.  

The highest temperature recorded in September at the WCROC from 1886 to 2021 was 106 on Sept. 10, 1931. The lowest temperature recorded historically was 20, which occurred on Sept. 22, 1974.

We have accumulated 2634 growing degree days for May, June, July, August and September. The average for this time 2363.”

As I write this, we are anticipating some precipitation (hopefully rain and not snow) early next week. Hopefully it will be in the amount of at least an inch, which will make fall tillage a whole lot easier. I have spent many hours in the past week operating a 31-foot chisel plow (not on my own ground). I did not write it down, but it seemed like I was spending as much time under the implement putting on new reversible shovels or turning the remaining sharp side, than I did up in the comfortable tractor cab. The dry, hard soil wore out the shovels significantly faster than normal. And many of the low spots (or even wet spots on side-hills where springs made for soft ground) had the planter go around the wet areas, and planted later, leaving ruts and deep tracks that the chisel smoothed over nicely preparing for next year’s crops. So, a memorable year for most of us farmers. But on the bright side, prices are pretty good, and yields maybe not records, but respectable.  

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Please contact David Tollefson with thoughts or comments on this or future columns at: adtollef@hcinet.net