DECATUR, Ill. (DTN) -- Chris Weaver likes to sweat the small stuff. Rain, shine or heat wave, he's constantly scouting crops and tending to their agronomic needs. This week, though, the Finksburg, Maryland, farmer traveled to northern Ohio to speak at a field day and the topic of stress mitigation was steamily appropriate.

"The temperatures were blistering and the skies hazy with wildfire smoke, but we had a good crowd ready to learn about in-season situations that crop up in crops," he said.

Hot, sweaty and miserable weather defined a lot of Tyler Rath's week in Belgrade, Minnesota, too. There was also irony as he worked through his chore list. Rath was chasing pivots while, at the same time, some of the fields contain drowned out areas from earlier deluges.

Rath and Weaver are reporting on crop conditions and other rural topics as part of DTN's feature called View From the Cab. Find the previous report here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

For this second week in July, the farmers give a quick update on crop conditions, talk about testing new products and react about how they'd manage if glyphosate herbicide disappeared.

TYLER RATH: BELGRADE, MINNESOTA

Hot days have led to long days that have stretched well into the night for Rath this week. "I haven't been home before 10 p.m.," he said on July 15. "Our last rain was 1.3 inches on July 6. We've gone from too wet to spray and plant to leaves curling."

Rath has a complicated cropping scenario with nine different crops and a percentage of his acreage dedicated to organic production. Add weather delays, cattle and family to the scenario and it makes for a busy summer.

"I've had my boys helping me this week," he said. "They bring their baseball gloves along to play some catch when I'm working on one-man projects or on the phone."

Rath reported that most of his corn is starting to tassel. English pea harvest is complete. The processor missed the harvest window on a few acres, which left green plant residue to contend with before planting the acreage back to a second crop.

"We ended up having to run our Case 870 disc ripper across it. The high-speed disc would just plug with all the mud and ruts," he reported. "After that operation, we left it a day and then hit it with a high-speed disc before planting." He double-crops back with millet to be used for cattle feed or soybeans.

"It's a week later than I like to plant soybeans," he said. "Here's hoping these double-crop soybeans make at least 20 (bushels per acre)."

Meanwhile, green beans are currently at the first trifoliate. Kidney beans are in the reproductive stage with pods setting. Organic sweet corn is around V5 growth stage.

"Dad and the hay crew got a lot of the second crop cutting and baling done this week. I've been spraying fungicides on kidneys. And, I finally get to unhook the planter for the season," Rath said.

The timing for flame weeding and mechanically cultivating organic crops has ended. So those tools, along with the planter, will be getting cleaned up, repaired and tucked into storage.

One of the farm goals is to have field edges and road ditches mowed by July 4. All the early rain made this a challenge this year, but the goal was met and some roadsides were getting a second pass this week.

"Overall, the crop looks good under the pivot," he said, noting exceptions of drowned-out areas. "This heat is really pushing the crop and using water. This is probably now getting to a normal year for us. We were very blessed with all the rainfall up until the 6th."

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said the heatwave is coming to an end on Monday as a cold front pushes through and brings in some fresh Canadian air to Rath's region.

"Temperatures should be down into the low 80s for most of the week and humidity will be much more comfortable. Outside of the front bringing showers on Monday, there's only small chances for isolated showers throughout the week. They could still get hit, but most likely it will all miss them," Baranick said.

Tar spot is definitely on Rath's radar this season. The disease has already been positively identified a few counties south of him and still has plenty of time to develop into an economic problem.

While new disease pressure isn't desired, trying new things and evaluating how they perform and endure is important. Rath usually plants at least five varieties of corn each year and splits fields to compare them.

"I try different populations, planter speeds and do simple checks on yield data," he said. "There are all these products and companies out there saying and showing how much better a crop looks, but if the products are not adding profit at the end of the day, we have to question if it is worth it."

With glyphosate currently under fire in some courts, the question of whether farmers still "need" the product is a frequent topic. Rath admitted that he'd rather not lose the option of having it in the weed control arsenal.

"We have been living without it in edible food production here for decades," he said. "There are plenty of products we can use instead, just at a higher cost.

"We currently use glyphosate in corn and soybeans. We do not use it on any of our edible beans. In fact, it is not allowed to be used in kidneys with product shipping to Europe," he noted.

CHRIS WEAVER: FINKSBURG, MARYLAND

Weaver also prefers to keep glyphosate as a viable weed control tool. While he acknowledged the utility of the herbicide has been reduced by overuse, he still depends on it to clean up grassy weeds.

"We don't have great options to replace it," he said. "I am excited about some new biological weed control options that I've been hearing about and I'm looking forward to testing some of those for efficacy."

In addition to farming, Weaver and his family operate a retail outlet offering seed, chemical and fertilizer sales. He also offers agronomy consulting services.

Those advisory roles lead him to constantly put products to the test. One of the new things he's most excited about this year is real-time leaf tissue testing from Picketa Systems. The device stores the data from every scan throughout the season. All samples live in one place and he is able to build graphs and trend lines to compare fields, dates, growth stages and nutrients levels.

"Within minutes we have the answers we need to build out spray programs," Weaver said. Those tissue tests guide Weaver's decisions on what product he reaches for to remediate stress situations. It might be a sugar-based product or a foliar product that addresses boron levels that are necessary for kernel weight, nitrogen metabolism and protein formation.

Playing with new products is fun, but random experiments don't achieve much, he maintained. "We run everything through John Deere Operations Center," Weaver said. "It keeps track of all our plots -- what products have been used, amounts, etc. It allows us to overlay harvest data and analyze everything at the end of the year.

"One thing I always note is we don't make a decision on a product after one year. The reason we don't see a result could have been me -- maybe I applied it at R1 and it really should have be V3," he noted. "We're always leaving check strips, too."

Right now, a good rain would mitigate a lot of stress for people and crops in his area. Steamy weather has idled the farm's spray rigs more than once this season, but the farm team found enough cool hours to finally finish up spraying fungicides this week.

DTN's Baranick said this area of Maryland could experience some wildfire smoke this coming week, depending on surface wind direction and containment of fires in western Ontario.

"It may be hot, around 90 (Fahrenheit), to start the week, but a front will move through on Tuesday or Wednesday (July 21 and 22) and bring through some showers and falling temperatures. Highs in the middle 80s look more likely after that passes," Baranick said. "It should be drier, but there's a threat that the wildfire smoke could still fill the skies as upper-level winds will remain out of the northwest."

Rye harvest has started on the farm and Weaver has been pleasantly surprised at yields averaging around 93 bushels per acre.

"That's way better than I thought we might see. Those late frosts didn't hurt us nearly as bad in rye. It's coming out as good, clean samples. I'm thrilled." Weaver grows rye for Sagamore Spirits Distillery, a Baltimore Maryland based firm.

When rye harvest is complete, those acres and the stubble from previously harvested barley will be sprayed with clethodim and glufosinate to control weeds. The plan is to plant a cover crop mix soon after.

"Dad's been keeping busy with cattle in recent weeks as we've started hauling to local butcher shops," Weaver said. "The kids are busy learning life lessons through 4-H as the county fair approaches. Some of the pigs aren't gaining quite like we hoped, and that's a valuable reminder that, in agriculture, not everything is easy."

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

Follow her on social media @PamSmithDTN

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