DECATUR, Ill. (DTN) -- Crop seasons don't really have a beginning or an end. Minnesota farmer Tyler Rath has already applied turkey litter and placed some seed orders and started to decide where he'll plant crops into his complex rotations for 2027.

In Maryland, Chris Weaver is spreading lime and seeding more cover crops and reaching out to biological companies to inquire about testing more products in the coming year.

As the remaining few hundred acres of grain run through their respective combines, both farmers are gathering more than the fruits of their labors. Every kernel that hits the hopper sends a ricochet of thoughts about what worked this year and what didn't. What do they keep as a practice? What do they discard? Are there products and practices that still need to be explored? Did they sell enough? Will rising input costs require more production changes? Have they adequately balanced the demands of the farm with family demands?

And there's the realization that every season is special. Maximizing opportunities, rather than settling for the safe and routine, is always top of mind.

"Oh my gosh, the cab talk in my head right now is incredible," said Weaver. "I saw two coyotes standing by the side of the field today waiting for rabbits. I'm pretty sure those rabbits were running about as fast as my thoughts are this time of year."

Weaver and Rath have been reporting on the 2026 crop season since May as part of DTN's View From the Cab feature. In its 22nd year, the series follows two farmers from different geographical regions.

For readers, it is a chance to get a closer look at the many details required to manage a farm operation. It exposes the uncertainties that come in a business where weather enters the picture daily. And the series touches on some of the specific policies and rural issues that influence farm businesses.

This week wraps the series for the 2026 season. DTN thanks these farmers and their families for allowing us to tell their stories. Read on to get a glimpse into some of their current cab thoughts regarding this crop year and beyond.

CHRIS WEAVER: FINKSBURG, MARYLAND

When Chris Weaver began corresponding for this series in May, his eye was honed on breaking yield goals. While seeing what is possible with regard to reaching top-end yield is still enticing, his focus has shifted more to seeing how efficient nutrient use couples with those goals. He's also become even more intent on learning more about current biological offerings as the farm seeks to limit use of synthetic chemistry.

The fact that his farm fields sit in the ecologically sensitive and highly scrutinized Chesapeake Bay watershed contributes to these thoughts. Seeing benefits with the use of humic acids, sugars, amino acids and carbon-based inputs designed to stimulate soil biology is fueling the passion.

"I don't care if you call it regenerative or sustainable or being conservation minded. Those are just buzzwords or labels for things we're doing to try to push production while protecting resources. We've been no-till on this farm since 1986. We're deep into cover crops. We're trying to minimize herbicide and pesticide use in every way we can," Weaver said.

"I'm a firm believer that the answer to continuing to refine these efforts lies in the soil and restoring the health of it through building organic matter and microbial activity. That's not as easy as it sounds -- it requires a field-by-field approach that requires a lot of thought, testing and management."

"Keep the soil happy" is a message Weaver has been promoting as he speaks to groups wishing to have a say in how farmers farm. This summer he presented information at Climate Week NYC, sponsored by Climate Group, an international non-profit. The annual event was established to bring together decision-makers and experts shaping capital, policy and markets across sectors and regions.

That led to an invitation to attend The Climate Underground annual conference this past week. This annual conference about regenerative agriculture is hosted by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and chef Alice Waters on Gore's 400-acre family farm, named Caney Fork Farms, located in Carthage, Tennessee.

For Weaver, it was a time to think beyond politics and represent what he hopes are some practical realities of farming. "I got to network with a lot of farmers from around the country who are doing things differently. I was able to hear many sides of issues," he said.

"Everyone seems to agree that climate is a problem. And there are ideas that farmers should be involved in fixing the problems, but ask about solutions and those are more difficult to come by. Farmers need to be at the table in those discussions and telling their story.

"It's one of the reasons I agreed to do this View From the Cab project," he added. "I want people to understand that we are trying new things. They may not all work, but that's how we learn."

On Oct. 21, Weaver still had about 200 acres of corn and more than half of his soybeans to harvest. He is optimistic about yields but anticipates whole farm yields may be off slightly due to heat and lingering drought.

Reporting in from the combine, Weaver watched the soybean yield monitor bounce between 85 to 100 bushels per acre (bpa) on a parcel where he's spent years rebuilding soil that was once in long-term tillage. Rye was being sown immediately following the soybean harvest on 100 acres. Next summer the rye will be harvested and sold to a distillery, and the straw will feed the soil for the next crop.

"I know I've promoted how much stress mitigation I did this year in these articles. But Mother Nature still holds the cards. If I have a surprise from this year, it is how much stress mitigation we did and how much the heat still affected us," he said. Check strips have been showing yields of 12 bpa to 18 bpa less than on acres that received applications of bio-stimulants used for abiotic stress mitigation.

"It's late October and still 70 degrees. Yeah, it's 40 at night, but daytime temps are still hitting 70, and that's unheard of around here," Weaver said. "If there's anything I'd change about what I did this year, it is that I may have given up too soon on the crop when things got dry late in the season."

Another of Weaver's goals is to further limit his use of herbicides such as glyphosate and paraquat. He believes some of these products are causing enough metabolic stress and interference with micronutrients to cause some yield drag. Researching and finding more biological-based herbicides and fungicides is on the to-do list.

"If we're ever going to get to 200-bushel soybeans, it will require finding additional microbes to support the biology in the soil," he said. "Are there some fungi we've yet to learn about? Are there ways of mixing different packages of biologicals together? I want to understand all these products better than I do today."

Drone seeding a cover crop mix of buckwheat, oats, sun hemp and radishes into standing crop did not work well on the farm this year. Dry conditions didn't help germination. And while Maryland has some cost-share programs, the necessity to overseed those fields to get an acceptable stand was an expense Weaver would prefer to avoid.

At the same time, he's dealing with highly erodible soils and has some fields where a no-till drill results in too much soil disturbance when planting fall covers, Weaver said. In those cases, he's taken to broadcasting the cover crop and making a pass with a mechanical crimper typically used to kill cover crop in the spring. He believes crimping the residue helps stimulate microbial action in the winter through more stalk-to-soil contact. Stubble fields also receive sugars and carbon to stimulate residue breakdown.

"I know diesel is $6.25, but you're not using much fuel in these operational passes. If I can get soil biology moving and I can eliminate some other issues down the line, then it is worth it," he said.

A continued focus on better timing of nutrients is also on Weaver's want list for 2027. A win this year was using the pre-sidedress soil nitrate test (PSNT) to measure the amount of nitrogen that is naturally released, or mineralized, from the decomposition of organic materials in the soil. A liquid fertilizer additive was used to prevent phosphorus from locking up in the soil. Tissue sampling throughout the season showed no additional nitrogen was needed.

"I'm a firm believer that agriculture in general is using too much nitrogen, and this year we met our goal by using between 0.46 units to 0.5 units of nitrogen per bushel to produce our corn. We were able to produce some 350-bushel (per acre) yields at 0.5 units of bushel again this year."

Weaver admits that his ideas have changed since he started farming. Learning and evolving are important -- so is not digging your heels to resist change. He credits his father for convincing him that cover crops were important to compensate for the decreasing soil organic matter their soils were experiencing in the push for higher yields.

"Things started to change when we began looking beyond ordinary N, P and K," he adds. "We do a lot of small things to get big results."

Of all the topics Weaver highlighted this year, family ranks highest. Nothing charges him up more than a call from the kids to see if they can join him in the field. Discussions of show lambs and pigs and other kid projects pepper his discussions.

"During our time at The Climate Underground meeting, I overheard my wife explaining our farming practices to someone, and man ... that just made me so proud. That was the best part of the whole meeting," Weaver said.

Weaver plans to stop the combine this weekend to take the kids to pick pumpkins. "We talk a lot about soil health and farm health, but keeping the family happy and healthy ties into all of these discussions for me," he said.

As the next generation matures, Dad is occasionally finding himself in the buddy seat -- monitoring carefully as the legacy continues.

TYLER RATH: BELGRADE, MINNESOTA

How do you begin to size up a season that handed out almost every conceivable weather challenge and then turns in some of the best-ever irrigated corn yields? That question is occupying Tyler Rath's cab thoughts this week.

"We have about 400 acres of corn left to combine," he said on Oct. 21. "After the frustrating September weather, October has been beautiful, and we couldn't ask for better harvest weather for corn."

It's been a season of back and forth for Rath, who grows nearly a dozen different crops if you count the different variations of conventional, organic and non-GMO. The season started with near-perfect planting conditions, and that was followed by a month of rain. Multiple hail events, searing temperatures, and dry conditions and then wet again, made for a roller coaster of conditions and decisions.

In July, he went from watching English pea harvesters stuck in the field to experiencing a nearly $14,000 electric bill to run irrigators -- a record for the farm with regard to that expense.

Between the wild weather and microclimate conditions have come surprises. An early planting of oats planted for cover crops in mid-August resulted in enough growth to cut and bale it for forage -- a fall first for this farm.

"We actually irrigated that 80 acres twice because I wanted to make sure it would come up," Rath said. "Then we had a bunch of rain and so much heat. And we've not had a killing frost yet." Cover crops are usually planted on conventional corn ground or areas that don't need rocks picked in the spring.

The very nature of his farming operation means weather is likely to catch one crop or another sideways, he admitted. Juggling crops and conditions is just part of farming in this region where land values and rents dictate diversity and high-value specialty crops to stay competitive.

But those crops also require an investment in specialty equipment. And the season is a constant dance of planting and harvesting. From flaming weeds on organic acres to chasing irrigators to tagging calves and building fence, there's seldom a spare moment on Rath Farms.

"I guess it's always been that way since I started farming, so I don't think that much about it. But life is never boring, that's for sure," Rath said. "If you're going to be progressive and continue to grow and make the best use out of the value of your land, I feel like you have to be willing to manage these specialized crops. That's what our area gives us that others may not have."

Sugar beets are one crop he's looked at but never grown. It takes another level of investment with regard to equipment. Labor is a challenge. Sugar beet profitability has been down in recent years, he observed. That's freeing up shares, and he has pondered whether it might be a good time to buy in to the beet business.

One thing he dipped his toe into this year was navy beans. "Right now, I'm saying never again," Rath said. Part of the nightmare was logistics, and the rest boiled down to weather.

"Where I had those two fields were the two farthest from our operation. We'd get a half a day or so to combine at a time before getting rained out. It just became such a pain to go back and forth for three weeks," Rath said.

"Navy bean harvest also overlapped kidney bean harvest. It became difficult to stretch labor and manpower." He noted that navy beans also take a toll on the combine because the sickle must run close to the soil surface, which thrusts dirt through the machine.

Rath sees weed control as both one of his biggest challenges and successes this year. On organic corn acres, he depends on broadcast flaming corn at spike and again around V8 growth stage under the corn canopy. A cultivator follows directly behind the flamer in the opposite direction to help bury the weakened weeds. This year an investment in a camera-guided cultivator system proved to be a win.

At the same time, weed control is his largest concern in edible bean production going forward. Fomesafen isn't tackling waterhemp in kidney beans like it once was and is one of the only contact herbicides left to use in that crop.

"We did a good job keeping up with irrigation this year. And when we had a chance to go, our crew could really cover acres. I'm really proud of how we all pulled together this year," he said.

Until last week, he also listed no injuries on his success list. But that ended when his father, Dennis, had a three-point hitch arm fall onto his foot last week. He was wearing steel-toed boots, but it hit just beyond the protection and broke several bones. Since he's the main combine operator, it set up a scramble to cover the job.

"He's fit to be tied," Rath said. "But we're glad it wasn't worse, and we're getting the jobs done."

The biggest agronomic surprise of the season is that Rath has harvested corn under irrigated pivots yielding nearly 100 bpa better than 2025.

"Last year wasn't a good one for us, and 2026 was interesting. What it has taught me is Mother Nature has the final say no matter what you do," he said.

"I've talked with my seed rep about it, and we came down to that we had excellent mineralization of nitrogen. We had a beautiful, nice dry spring, then plenty of moisture and a lot of heat.

"This area historically has better yields when it is dry because we can control the water with irrigation," he added. What's causing him pause is plots that received fungicide and an additional 60 lbs. per acre of nitrogen experienced little to no yield increase.

"We have organic corn under irrigation yielding 220 to 240 (bpa), and all it gets is turkey manure. I think we got a lot of free nitrogen from nature this year." Rath pulls tissue samples throughout the season, and it was telling him no additional nitrogen was needed.

While he endured multiple hail events, the damage was spotty. With the farm spread over 40 miles, microclimates were obvious this year.

"We're a ways off from having farm averages on corn, but these yields have been a pleasant surprise -- although we've run out of storage, and some of the grain elevators are closed because they are full.

"My biggest concern for the coming year is input costs if they stay where they are," he added.

This summer, Rath's children started to become more involved in the farm. While safety is always a concern, he thinks it is important to find ways to include them in chores.

"I'm not sure how we could do all of this without extended family helping us. But this sharing of generations is also a big reason I came back to the farm. There's nothing quite like it," he said.

Pamela Smith can be reached at pameladsmith12@gmail.com

Follow her on social media platform X @PamSmithDTN

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