DECATUR, Ill. (DTN) -- This week, Chris Weaver was out walking, scouting and hovering over his crop like a new parent. Despite some early planting delays, the Finksburg, Maryland, farmer was able to put every seed to bed by May 10. Now comes the growing and tending.

Near Belgrade, Minnesota, Tyler Rath had also finished planting field corn this week. It's been cold and windy and the windows of opportunity have been narrow, but long work hours were getting the job done. With the last few spring calves about to drop, an underground irrigation line fixed and all the English peas drilled, farm "things" were beginning to sort themselves out enough to be able to take in his son's flag football game.

Weaver and Rath will report these kinds of farm experiences this season as part of DTN's feature called View From the Cab. The series explores agronomic conditions and rural attitudes from two growing regions.

Currently, the farmers are hyper focused on getting crops off to a good start. Both aggressive crop scouters, they watch for evidence of early stand issues, pest problems and additional nutrient needs.

"This is what we signed up for," Weaver said of the longer hours in the cab and the uncertainties a season can bring. "Farming is all about watching what nature is offering and doing your best to manage the variables. That is our profession."

Sometimes those stressors require looking for levity in the situation. Just for fun, DTN asked them the topic of how they keep themselves properly fueled during the planting season. Did you know "tractor cab sandwich Snapchat" was a thing?

TYLER RATH: BELGRADE, MINNESOTA

Weather is always a moving target in central Minnesota, but this year has been erratic. Frosty conditions kept Rath conservative about heading to the field too soon, but once rolling, conventional corn planting progressed quickly. Hybrids typically range from 93- to 101-day relative maturity here.

"We're a little behind what we might be normally with those plantings, but soil temperatures have warmed nicely and we had good conditions to plant into," he noted. On May 14, high winds caused dust advisories in the area and became a concern for travelers and farmers.

"This week I was in the field spraying until 10 p.m. to beat the wind. The next morning, I was up at 4 a.m. trying to get some spraying done and back out of the field again by 7 a.m. because of wind," Rath said. "I bought a bigger sprayer two years ago and I'm thankful for it because it seems like since I started farming (2018), our windows to execute are so much smaller."

Wind isn't the only weather extreme. Rath hesitated to say the four-letter word of hail. "We started planting kidney beans in 2019 and that first crop was completely hailed out at harvest. I'm not sure Dad ever had a hail claim in all his years of farming, but I've had one nearly every year."

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said Rath Farms can expect some warm weather this weekend followed by a pair of big systems rolling through on May 17-18.

"Both are forecast to produce a good amount of precipitation that should add up to between 1 to 2 inches and could be a bit more if we get some thunderstorms in there," Baranick said. Additional scattered showers are expected later in the week.

"Temperatures are also going on a rollercoaster ride. We got into the low 80s (F) last week and into the weekend, but temperatures behind this pair of systems will cause readings to drop into the 40s early this week and slowly climb back into the 70s by the weekend," he observed. "Temperatures may be very chilly on Wednesday morning, where we have some potential for frost. I can't believe I'm saying that about May 20."

English garden peas tend to be more cold-tolerant and have already been drilled on a 7.5-inch spacing at 211 pounds of seed per acre. If conditions allow, Rath will start planting navy beans next week, which is a new crop for the farm this year.

When temperatures stay consistently high enough, kidney beans will be planted with a 30-inch row corn planter at around 80,000 seeds per acre for conventional and 105,000 seeds per acre for an organic production system. Rath said planting depth is important for kidney beans since planting deeper than 1 inch risks the plant leafing out underground.

"It's a lot of seed to handle," he said of edible beans. "Planting is much slower than some other crops -- about 4.5 to 5 miles per hour, depending on seed size, which can vary," he explained. Edible beans are row-crop cultivated -- partially to aid in weed control but mostly to help create a ridge against the plant to aid in undercutting (known as rodding) the beans at harvest.

When it comes to his conventional corn crop, Rath will watch nutrient needs even closer this summer.

"We quit using liquid starter fertilizer on our planter this year. I had five years' worth of data proving that it added absolutely zero benefit for us, while being a huge hassle and cost," Rath said. "We didn't even put the tanks on the tractor this year.

"Our farm has a history of manure use. Maybe our soil fertility levels are high enough that starter wasn't giving the crop the bang it needed or that other people see when they use it," he said. "The definite reason for lack of response is still unknown."

To make sure his corn continues to have enough groceries, Rath will run a pass of ammonium sulfate (AMS) at the V4 to V5 growth stage. Tissue and nitrate sampling will then determine how much nitrogen the corn crop gets.

He will either variable-rate urea as a top dress or knife in anhydrous based on soil tests. This year, the high cost of fertilizer led to early spring purchases of anhydrous ammonia as the cost per pound of nitrogen was less than half that of urea. Tissue sampling is time consuming, but he feels it is an important tool to making sure nutrient needs are on the money.

Keeping his boots in the field is also critical to manage the farm's wide variety of crops. He does the scouting himself, yet also relies on conversations with neighbors and the Belgrade Co-op to learn what they are seeing.

"Right now, I want to see how that crop is coming out of the ground, especially with these cooler temperatures," he said. "I'm looking to see if some of the early planted crop is experiencing crusting and if needs to rotary hoed or if we need to consider watering it."

He watches seed shoots and growing points to see if they are losing moisture and would benefit from irrigation. Windy days can speed-dry soil and put newly emerged seedlings under stress.

With so many different crops and environments to monitor, Rath said there's seldom a calm day -- even if the wind isn't blowing. Good thing his personality tends towards high energy.

What he takes to the field to keep himself from getting hungry isn't so much a story. Two pieces of buttered bread with some turkey and cheese are standard fare.

"But a few years back I randomly started Snapchatting pictures of my tractor cab sandwiches and it was a big hit. Suddenly people are sending me pictures of their sandwiches.

"I get people asking if there's going to be a sandwich snap today ... Lately, I've been wondering if I need to up my game since this is starting to become something," he said.

CHRIS WEAVER: FINKSBURG, MARYLAND

Planting started for Weaver in mid-April, although cold weather (including some frosty nights) coupled with drought has been a concern. The U.S. Drought Monitor currently lists Carroll County, where he farms, in a D2 (severe drought).

"Still, we have everything in the ground by May 15 and I'm thrilled. We're a bit behind on GDUs (growing degree units), but there's heat coming," he noted.

Meteorologist Baranick sees a few chances of rain for the area early next week and then another front moving through on Wednesday or Thursday that could deliver amounts near half an inch.

"We should see temperature readings up into the 90s before that front comes through. They'll back off into the 70s afterward, though," Baranick noted.

Now the seed is in the ground, Weaver has turned his attention to sizing up the emerging crop.

"I'm evaluating plant populations and pulling some roots to look at root hairs. Right now, most of the corn is at the 3-leaf stage, so it's a little early to see development. But I'm also digging to look for slug and grub damage," he said.

Fields undergo a "flag test" where sections of rows are marked off and visited at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to mark each plant as it emerges. The goal is to have seeds within that row emerge within 24 hours. The first few days are vital to yield potential on both corn and soybeans and this is a simple and visual diagnostic tool, Weaver said.

He leans into several biological products to help boost microbial activity to help plants get that fast start. For example, every acre gets Carbon RX, Concept AgriTek's carbon-based soil, plant and microbe booster made with highly refined humic acid, organic carbon and amino acid. Another product called Sweet Success, a sugar source derived from blackstrap molasses, helps increase plant roots and make trace elements more accessible to the plants.

"Carbon and sugars are so important to achieving even plant emergence," Weaver said. "They heat soils up by a few degrees and that's especially important in our no-till planting system."

Field scouting can spot other scenarios, too. "I found a section in a field where I must have hit the wrong button and one side of the planter didn't plant for six rows," he said. Fortunately, he keeps a fully loaded John Deere 1750 6-row-planter that will help patch that problem.

Tissue sampling starts next week on early planted corn. Weaver is aggressive in his sampling protocols -- generally testing fields each week to discover nutrient needs or imbalances. This year he's using a real-time analysis from Picketa Systems, a Canadian company that has previously specialized in providing information to potato growers. Their portable device is designed to use leaf tissue to estimate the concentration of 13 macro and micronutrients in a matter of minutes.

In past years, it has not been unusual for the farm to spend between $6,000 to $10,000 running tissue samples each year. Weaver acknowledges that some farmers may flinch at that cost, but he sees it as a line-item expense.

"It's no different than having GPS or a yield monitor. Tissue testing is a great management tool. I justify it because we're feeding the crop what it needs when it needs it," he said.

Weaver is also putting AquaSpy probes -- continuous in-ground monitoring for nutrient efficiency -- to the test this year. And, a recent trip to Brazil has him contemplating plant sap analysis that extracts xylem and phloem fluid from plant tissue to measure active nutrient levels.

"I think we still need some baselines to know what it means," he said.

Technology can be terrific, but there's still need for instinct. "This year the ground was perfect for planting and yes, we had some concerns about the cold," he noted. "But when the ground's perfect for planting, I go.

"Sometimes it's a hard decision if you are worried that it is a cold rain coming," he said. Imbibitional chilling occurs when corn and soybean seeds absorb cold water (below 50 F) within 24 to 48 hours of planting, causing cellular membrane damage.

"We've been blessed that the last two rainstorms we've gotten have been warmer rains. We did have one cold rain, but we already had the seed in the ground. So, we'll just have to keep an eye on that planting and see what happens," he said.

Even if rain is coming, there's one place Weaver holds fast. "We plant between 3.4 to 3.8 miles per hour. We never increase that," he said.

He was hustling during the past few days to cut alfalfa and ted it while moisture was still present in the crop in order to preserve nutrient-rich leaves. Hay is baled in large round bales.

Weaver starts his days about 4:30 a.m. Even on those super long days, he heads to the field with the same thing in his lunch box: two ham sandwiches, four oranges and three thermoses filled with coffee.

"The food is usually gone within the first hour or two," he admitted. "I try to look at cab time as fasting time. Sometimes it works."

There's a diet complication in that a co-worker keeps his tractor stocked like a grocery store.

"It sometimes becomes tempting to give him a call and ask if I can swap tractors for a bit. I can hop in there and eat for days -- Goldfish, Swedish Fish, Doritos ...

"But my favorite thing is Cow Tales -- that caramel candy with the cream centers. I love those things," he said.

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More on DTN:

-- Find the profile of Chris Weaver's farm operation here: "Maryland Farmer Pushes Yields and Curbs Inputs," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

-- Find the profile of Tyler Rath's farm operation here:

"Minnesota Farmer Diversifies to Reduce Risk," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Pamela Smith can be reached at pamela.smith@dtn.com

Follow her on social platform X @PamSmithDTN

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