DECATUR, Ill. (DTN) -- Hold the phone. Chris Weaver summer helpers are heading back to school after a summer of working on the farm.

"Every morning, from 5:15 to 7:30, my kids are up working with their livestock projects," said Weaver, who farms near Finksburg, Maryland. "I'm not going to say that every moment is perfect -- they are 11 and 9, after all -- but the times we've spent together this summer have been so special."

Tyler Rath's three children (ages 9, 6 and 3) could share some chore notes. They've become good helpers this summer during irrigation inspections on the Belgrade, Minnesota, farm. Counting kernels around during corn yield checks is a great way to squeeze in a math lesson. Responsibility instills confidence and the farm is a nature place to pass that along, Rath said.

Crop seasons fly by as sure as days shorten and school bells ring. Timely rains prompted Weaver to do some late-season foliar feeding this week in the hopes of packing more dry matter into soybeans. Rath Farms was busy mowing double-crop German millet to be baled as forage. Kidney beans were being harvested and hauled to the processor.

These farmers report their farming activities as part of a diary-like feature called View From the Cab. This is the 22nd year DTN has tracked two farmers from different geographical regions.

Read on to learn more about what's happening on their farms this week.

TYLER RATH: BELGRADE, MINNESOTA

With 10 different kinds of crops and both traditional and organic production, Rath seldom has a slow day. This week, the kidney bean harvest cooked along nicely. Moving to two newer and larger combines, instead of four smaller older units, was paying off in harvesting efficiencies.

At the processing plant, graders watch closely for cracks in the bean seed coat. So, Rath periodically pulls what is called "skin check" tests. It involves soaking a sample of dry seeds in hot water for several minutes and inspecting the seed coats for tiny splits, hairline cracks or checks. Combine settings are adjusted to achieve the under 5% skin check scores needed to gain a premium.

This time of year, many farmers start to feel the harvest itch, but Rath's cropping mix lets him scratch that urge early. Pea harvest can begin as early as mid-to-late June, but corn harvest can stretch until the snow flies.

This week, he's checking corn to see if it has begun to black layer. Water uptake ceases in corn at black layer, but premature cutoff of irrigation can hurt yields significantly.

He has more kidney beans to harvest this week. The hot weather during July hurt both yield and bean size, Rath noted. He's been more pleased with the millet planted behind English peas. It was being mowed for forage after it began to show some lodging during the last irrigation pass.

Just as fall brings some seasons to a close, it opens up the need to evaluate inputs for the next year. Rath booked 10% of his future fertilizer needs during planting this year, which isn't when he typically shops, but the price was right. He's watching prices to lock in a bit more yet this fall. He's already locked in and taken delivery of 100% of his turkey litter needs at a discount for the coming year.

"I try to take advantage of discounts and volume buying, but I also don't always put all my eggs in one basket with regard to purchases," Rath said.

"Because of the variety of things being grown, we're projecting three to five years in advance and have a pretty good idea of what we're going to plant. Our needs for seed and other inputs are known well in advance," he added.

Less predictable is the weather. "We're violently dry," Rath stated. "Our crops have been living on irrigation water alone for weeks." Irrigation wells are permitted to allow so many inches of use per year and usage must be reported at the end of the year.

"I'm not worried about going over this year. We basically took the whole month of June off from irrigating because of rain and cool temperatures. But everything changed in July," he said. Pastures have burned up with the exception of a few thistles, he reported.

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said central Minnesota is beginning to make the turn toward fall.

"And we should stay in a milder pattern in Minnesota throughout the week. Models aren't quite sure how to handle the exact temperatures this week, but it should only be in the upper 70s to middle 80s (Fahrenheit) and overnight lows should be falling down into the 50s and we just might break below 50 on a night or maybe two," Baranick said.

"There will be a couple of chances for showers early and at the end of the week, but we're not looking at a whole lot of heavy rain potential," he added.

The Rath kids may be headed back to school soon, but every day is a three-day weekend when they do. They attend Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa (BBE) Public Schools, a rural district that has used a flexible learning calendar and a four-day student week since the fall of 2011. Students attend slightly longer hours on Tuesday through Friday.

The move has been echoed in other rural areas as districts try to preserve programs, while attempting to save money on utilities, food service and bus costs.

Rath's wife, Ashley, serves on the BBE school board. "My high school civics teacher used to tell us that if you don't vote, you can't complain," Rath said. "This is where we've chosen to raise our children and it's important to be involved."

CHRIS WEAVER: FINKSBURG, MARYLAND

Weaver hoped for rains he received this week, but he hasn't counted on them. Frequent tissue testing and plant analysis helped the crop to keep reaching for potential, despite some really dry periods, he said.

Strong storms and even a few tornadoes visited parts of the Northeast late in the week (Aug. 20), but they skirted Weaver's farming operation. Instead, he picked up a couple of half-inch showers that were just what he needed for further kernel and pod development.

Soybean harvest doesn't begin until October in this region. "I'm like a kid in a candy shop. If we can get a tenth here and a tenth there through the remainder of August, we're really going to finish this plant nicely," he said.

Baranick said things would be quiet early in the week for Weaver's area, but a front moving in midweek could keep showers around the area through the weekend.

"Those may turn out to be slow movers that could dump some heavy rain, so we'll have to watch out for that," Baranick said.

After tissue-sampling some soybeans this week, Weaver decided to make one more late foliar application of a boron-enriched, seaweed-based biostimulant to increase soybean pod retention and yield potential.

If he has a pet peeve, it is when farmers blame production on a season that was not "normal."

"In my life there's never been a normal growing season," Weaver said. "Either you're dry, or you are too wet or you didn't get rain on the day you wanted.

"We have to start learning how to mitigate more stress. We have to keep the plant healthier in periods of stress," he said. Building soil health and keeping microbes moving in the soil are another important part of that stress mitigation equation, he stated.

Weaver won the inaugural Maryland Soybean Yield Contest in 2025 by harvesting 156.73 bushels per acre from a no-till, non-irrigated plot. This week he was out assessing yield potential in the current crop by digging roots to look at nodulation. Above-ground scouting includes counting plant nodes and pod clusters.

"The good news is I have some of the best nodulation ever -- even though we lost the cotyledon early," he observed. "I'm seeing between five to seven clusters per node and I'm not seeing many one- to two-bean pods, either. Most of them have three to four beans per pod.

"Another thing we are focusing on this year is bean size," he added. Weaver's 2025 yield contest win came with a count of 1,300 beans per pound, compared to a standard pound of soybeans that contains 2,800 to 3,000 seeds.

Moving to real-time tissue sampling has been a game changer, Weaver said, noting that intense management should not be misconstrued as simply adding more product.

"Plants are not different than a human in that they can only metabolize so much at a given time. What we're doing differently is giving the plant smaller amounts of what it needs over time instead of shoving it all into it at once," he said.

Choosing the right product from the many choices available can be tricky. Weaver's experiences with yield contests and agronomic consulting opens doors. Constantly testing and being curious and wanting to learn keeps farming fun, he said.

His own children are throwing him additional challenges this week. He has inherited some of the responsibility of tending their sheep and swine exhibits at the Maryland State Fair since it overlaps with the start of school.

"And, I've been told there are some things I can't do with their animals unless they are around. We'll have to see about that," he joked.

Before the summer started, Weaver made it a policy to turn off his phone during those early morning hours working with the kids.

"There was a lot of joking and corny dad jokes. And yes, we occasionally argued because livestock and arguing go hand in hand. But there was something about not being tied to that phone that made me more present and made everything better," he said.

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

Follow her on social platform X @PamSmithDTN

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