From our side of the fence

Jenn and Justin Bauman

Elkton, South Dakota

Brookings County

65 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? We raise 60 acres of alfalfa, and we farm together with Justin’s parents. Altogether, this year we are farming approximately 400 acres of corn, 370 acres of soybeans and 200 acres of alfalfa.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts?  We store our planters field-ready in the fall, which minimizes spring preparation. Ahead of the season, we thoroughly inspect and grease all tillage equipment and complete full-service checks on all tractors to ensure everything is ready to go.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? Recently, we have increased our corn-on-corn acres, as it has proven to be more profitable and sustainable for our operation in the long run.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? While long hours in the tractor can be demanding, the best part of spring fieldwork is experiencing the sunrises and sunsets — there’s nothing quite like being out in the field during those moments, although the guys probably do not agree.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? The earliest we’ve started fieldwork was March 17, planting small grains several years ago. On the other hand, we’ve had seasons where planting was delayed until late May.

Tell us about a unique spring field work memory you have. One memorable experience was seeing a geomagnetic storm while working in the field — it was incredible to witness. However, it did interfere with our GPS systems, which made for a challenging day.

Tell us about your farm.  We farm alongside Justin’s dad, Don Bauman, raising hay, corn and soybeans while producing most of our own feed. Last year, we purchased the dairy side of the operation and now own Double J Dairy. It is nice to keep the small dairy industry going in the family; the kiddos are looking forward to taking it over one day. Looking ahead, we plan to expand into custom heifer raising.

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Holly Thompson

Plainview, Minnesota

Olmsted County

180 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? We raise 500 acres of corn, 75 acres of sweet corn, 230 acres of soybeans, 70 acres of peas, 110 acres of alfalfa and 33 acres of rye grass.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We check the shovels/sweeps on the soil finisher, replacing any that need to be, while also checking that the baskets are properly aligned. On the tractor, we do regular maintenance and check that the auto steer is working properly. Personally, I think that is one of the most important things. I personally don’t work on the planter.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? We recently traded in our planter so that we could move from dry to liquid fertilizer and be able to minimize the number of times we need to fill the planter.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? The most enjoyable aspect of spring field work is knowing that we are doing our best job to feed our animals. I also enjoy watching the plants grow throughout the summer.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? The earliest day we have started in the field was last year; we were able to start planting the week before Easter, even though it got cold and rained. It was one of the best corn years we have seen. The latest we got into the field was the year of the large snowstorm that happened at the beginning of May; we didn’t get into the field until the end of May.

Tell us about a unique spring field work memory you have. I don’t have any unique field work memories, as most of the interesting activities happen in the fall. I do enjoy the endless Snapchats while sitting in the tractor from friends who are also stuck in their tractors trying to stay awake. I also enjoy the individuals who turkey hunt on our land that will stop at the field, bring lunch, and talk with us.

Tell us about your farm. My husband, Donny, and I own and operate Little Valley Dairy where we raised our three kids: Nick, Catherine and Clara. They grew up showing cattle at local, state and national shows. Nick helps out most nights on the farm and also with the fieldwork. We own nearly 1,000 acres of crop, pasture and woodland and rent another 272 acres. On our farm we raise Holsteins and Red & Whites. I do most of the milking in a double-8 parlor. We just recently built a new calf barn, which I am thrilled about.

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Loren (left) and Keith Schumacher

Schumacher Dairy Inc.

Comfrey, Minnesota

Watonwan County

145 Cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? We have 260 acres of corn, 200 acres of soybeans and 85 acres of alfalfa, along with 45 acres of rented ground.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We go over the tillage equipment and planter to make sure nothing is cracked or broken. We replace any worn out sweeps on the field cultivator. On the planter, we make sure disc openers are set correctly and the press wheels are where they're supposed to be. We apply some of our fertilizer with the planter as a liquid, so we have to be sure we have no leaks.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? Last year we put hydraulic drives on our planter to get better control of our population versus the ground drive we had before. We can adjust our population while we are planting if we want to.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? I have always enjoyed tillage in the spring. The smell of fresh tilled ground is great.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? I think it was 1984 when we planted corn on Memorial Day because of the wet spring. It did not turn out very well. Three or maybe four years ago, we seeded some barley and peas about the middle of March because we knew we needed extra forage mid-summer.

Tell us about a unique spring fieldwork memory you have. A couple of years ago we had a really wet spring and there was a lot of prevented planting done.

Tell us about your farm. My brother and I farmed together until 2017. My son, Keith, wanted to come home to farm and also join the dairy operation. Keith purchased my brother's share of the dairy and related machinery. So here we are. I live across the road from the dairy and Keith and his family purchased the building site where my wife grew up. We are the only dairy operating in Watonwan County.

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Leo Schulte

Dorchester, Iowa

Allamakee County

260 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? We raise 125-150 acres of corn and about 180 acres of hay. We also grow about 100 acres of oats, peas and alfalfa together.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We have some fairly large tractors. We have an 8360R that’s 360 horsepower and last spring we bought an 8400R that is 400 horsepower. We also use a 16.5-foot Lemken tillage tool. We usually chop most of our corn for corn silage. We run through with the Lemken once, and go in with the grain drill to put in the oats. I follow the drill and seed the alfalfa. All our corn goes in sod ground. We’ll go through with the Lemken twice and we plant after that. We don’t use a field cultivator at all, or we didn’t last year.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? The biggest change we’ve made is when we got the Lemken. It eliminated the use of the moldboard plow and the field cultivator last year. We didn’t need to take them out of the shed. It saves us trips over the field, which is especially important when the fuel price is high.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? I get to watch Keith out in the field running the Lemken with our big 8400 R with low sidewall tires. Both tires are about 4 or 5 feet wide. It’s cool to see that because when I was a kid in the 1970s, I went with my dad to an Oliver plant in Charles City, Iowa. They had all these brand new Olivers with great big tires on them. I thought we should have one of those, and my dad said no, those were for wheat land. Now in my older years, we get to enjoy having a big tractor with big tires on like that.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? We’ve had some years where we started in March. My brother’s birthday is March 27, and I know we’ve been in the field on his birthday before, but this year we’re going to wait a bit yet. The year we got in the field so early, the oats we seeded then didn’t do much better than the oats planted about a month later. The latest we’ve been in is June 13. I think it was 2008. That was one year when we were finishing planting corn and it was so wet. We rented an organic farm seven miles away from our farm, and it was so wet we couldn’t get in there to finish up until June 13.

Tell us about a unique spring fieldwork memory you have. There’s a 1-acre strip of land on our farm that one time my dad forgot to plant. Everybody knows where it’s at and it's become a landmark on our farm.

Tell us about your farm. We are an organic dairy farm and have been certified since 1994. My brother, Keith, and my nephew, Adam, also work the farm with me. We have some hired help that helps with the dairy herd. My brother and I are third-generation farmers, and Adam is the fourth generation to dairy farm.

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Bruce Hinnenkamp

Brooten, Minnesota

Stearns County

120 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? My wife, Lois, and I raise corn, soybeans, alfalfa, barley for forage and grass hay and also have low-land grass hay. This year, we plan to plant 150 acres of corn, 100 acres of soybeans, 120 acres of alfalfa, 100 acres of barley and 75 acres of grass hay.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We change oil and filters on all the tractors and grease everything.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? We put a crumbler behind the digger, it firms the soil up and levels it off.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? Getting the work done in a timely fashion so you can catch the moisture and the seeds germinate.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? May 1 is the latest, and the earliest is the week before Easter in early April.

Tell us about a unique spring field work memory you have. The second year I was farming, our 9600 Ford tractor caught fire when I was discing in a 120-acre field. I drove home to put it out; luckily enough, the hose was still hooked up to the hydrant and still is to this day. I fanned the flames with my coat when I drove home. The only damage was to two hydraulic hoses.

Tell us about your farm. We have a family farm and all our children — two boys, Dylan and Billy, and two girls, Kendra and Caitlin — are involved with the farm in some aspect. We farm 800 acres and also raise 30 beef cows.

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Rick (left) and Peter Heuer

Lester Prairie, Minnesota

McLeod County

75 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? We raise 450 acres of corn, 350 acres of soybeans, 40 acres of alfalfa and 60 acres of grass.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We make sure that the tractors’ oil is changed and everything is greased. For the planter, we check that the fertilizer and seed tubes are all cleaned out.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? This winter we have upgraded to a 16-row high-speed planter and a larger tractor with front and back duals. We decided to upgrade because the window for planting has gotten narrower.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? When the crops come up unevenly, everything will pollinate at different times, and you will not get as good of crops. So the most enjoyable aspect for us is when the crop emerges at the same time.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? The latest we have planted is the middle of June in 2014. The earliest we have planted was April 19, at some point in the early 2000s.

Tell us about a unique spring fieldwork memory you have. In the 2010s there was a really wet year where we planted around wet spots so that we had enough feed for the cattle. Most people in the area prevent planted their acres that year.

Tell us about your farm. I bought the farm in 1995 with 360 acres owned and about 700 rented. Peter helped out as early as 5 years old and started working full time after high school in 2009. We raise all our steers to slaughter and our own replacement heifers. The cows are milked with one Lely robot we installed in 2022.

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Josh Hiemstra

Brandon, Wisconsin

Fond du Lac County

120 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? We plant 100 acres of corn grain, 165 acres of corn silage, 150 acres of soybeans, 80 acres of winter wheat, 35 acres of canning peas, 40 acres of forage rye, 40 acres of forage sorghum, 130 acres of alfalfa/clover grass for haylage, and 60 acres of grass hay for round baling.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We change engine oil and filter, air and fuel filters and transmission filters. We also replace tractor tires, lube up and tighten gangs on our vertical tillage tool, and check over the corn planter and sprayer.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? We rebuilt our soybean planter by adding in furrow fertilizer, central fill, and switching from 15-inch soybeans to twin rows 7.5 inches apart on 30-inch centers. This allows us to plant faster, add yield by feeding fertilizer on the seed, and make extra foliar passes with a ground sprayer late season.  Starting in the fall of 2026, we started using the same planter to plant twin-row wheat for grain and rye for forage or cover crop.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? The weather is usually good for working in, making it nice to be outside. 

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? The earliest was March 6, 2024, when we spread manure on dry ground. The latest was in 2022, when we started planting corn May 15 due to our new-to-us planter not working. We had to troubleshoot and then wait for parts.

Tell us about a unique spring field work memory you have. In 2004, we had all our crops planted by May 6.  On the way to the hospital on the night of May 7 for the birth of our son, it started raining and didn’t stop until the end of June.  We had 31 inches in two months. Our son was born May 8, and because planting was over and we couldn’t do much else because of all the rain, I got to spend extra time with him as a baby.

Tell us about your farm. I farm in partnership with my father, Robert, and my son, Mason. My dad’s brother, Arlin, helps us full time. Various family and friends also help.  We milk 120 Holstein cows twice a day in a double-9 herringbone parlor and ship our milk to Mullins Cheese in Knowlton. Our cows are housed in a 3-row tunnel-ventilated freestall barn. We finish out our 120 Angus-cross cattle, custom raise 260 replacement dairy heifers, do some custom fieldwork and farm 790 acres.

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Kaden Picknell

Prairie Farm,

Wisconsin

Barron County

65 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres of each do you have? We raise a little over 100 acres of corn and about 100 acres of hay and alfalfa.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We make sure the chisel plows and disc are greased, bearings are tight, tires hold air, etc. Then we change all the filters on our tractors, whether they are air, oil, fuel or hydraulic. It doesn't hurt to give the cab a once over with the shop vac as well.

What is the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? We have recently started to disc our hay-to-corn rotation twice, instead of doing more heavy tillage. This is to save time and fuel, and it also has not changed the yields of the corn we grow on that twice-disced hay ground, compared to running the chisel plow through it.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? Definitely just getting in the tractor and partaking in tillage. It is always satisfying when you see the dirt turning and know you are making progress when you look across the field and see the darker soil marking where you have been.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? We have gotten started in the middle of May at our latest, and probably early to middle of April at our earliest.

Tell us about a unique spring field work memory you have. Riding around with my father in his International Harvester 986 while I was a little boy — those tractors do not have buddy seats like most modern tractors, so I would ride on the foam padding behind his seat for hours.

Tell us about your farm. I work with my father on the farm he has run since around 1993. Over the years it has seen many improvements, such as new heifer facilities, concrete to replace as much mud and dirt as possible, and new dividers in our tie stall barn. A tornado in 2017 ripped the roof off our barn, took our silos down, or damaged them enough that they had to be torn down and replaced. We milk twice a day, in a 65-cow tiestall barn, and utilize most of our acres primarily for cattle feed, only selling a little excess corn after harvest.

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Charlie Riewe

Oconto, Wisconsin

Oconto County

140 cows

What crops do you raise, and how many acres each do you have? We plant 50 acres of soybeans, 135 acres of alfalfa and 175 acres of corn.

What kind of equipment maintenance and preparations do you do before spring fieldwork starts? We always try to look everything over early in the new year to make sure we can get parts ordered. Ever since 2020, some parts can take a long time to get, so having parts on hand is really a must.

What’s the most recent change you’ve made in seeding or field management practices? We added soybeans into our crop rotation recently. It is nice to give the soil a break from corn on corn. We also utilize a starter program for corn that stimulates root growth early on. It has really helped the corn continue to thrive during the long dry spells we always seem to encounter.

What is the most enjoyable aspect of spring fieldwork for you? The most enjoyable part of spring fieldwork is getting out in a tractor with just a t-shirt or sweatshirt on, Brewers game on the radio, and the smell of the earth as you open up the fields to start the growing season.

What are the latest and earliest dates you have started in the field? We always consider April 20 as an early seeding date for oats and alfalfa. Usually, there is a short window for this to work. If not, seeding can run right into getting things ready for corn and soybeans, which makes everything feel like a marathon. The latest date was in 1993, when everything was flooded, and we couldn’t get into the fields until June.

Tell us about a unique spring field work memory you have. A unique memory is picking rocks as a kid. We used to have a lot of cousins, friends, neighbors and kids from church come help us. It was a big deal to get the 2640 with a loader on it, as we used to load stones on a flat rack wagon, which also needed to be unloaded. Picking rocks used to be a 2-week-long process.

Tell us about your farm. Riewe Farms is a fourth-generation, family-owned and operated dairy farm. The farm was originally purchased by Adolph and Ida Riewe in 1915. In 1946, Clair and Delores Riewe assumed operations, followed by Richard and Diane Riewe in 1982. In 2024, the farm transitioned to the next generation, with brothers Charlie and Kenny taking over day-to-day operations. Today, the core team includes Charlie and Kenny, along with one full-time employee and three part-time employees. Over the years, the farm has grown to over 300 acres and currently milks 140 cows, twice daily, in a double-8 parallel parlor. Riewe Farms will be hosting the Oconto County Breakfast on the Farm June 14, 2026.