Scotland Farmer’s Early Planted Soybeans ‘Look Fantastic’

May 21, 2025

Jeff Kloucek finished planting in early May. The Scotland, South Dakota farmer completed the first phase of the 2025 season with a few minor rain delays, having much of his soybean crop planted from mid-to-late April. Those earliest-planted soybeans, in Kloucek’s words, “look fantastic.”

“Everything that I’ve seen so far, the earlier-planted acres look way better than stuff that’s gotten planted from that May 2^nd through the 10^th,” said Kloucek. “Those fields are struggling a little bit just with the weather we’ve had.”

According to Kloucek, that weather turned hot and windy, but earlier-planted soybeans were already off to a good start, seeing the benefit of some well-timed showers.

“It turned out really well,” he said, referring to the beans planted earlier. “We caught some nice rains shortly after a lot of that April stuff got put in the ground to get the moisture to the seed if there was some planted in some dry pockets and get herbicides activated. So those stands came up really nice.”

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Video: A chain harrow is a game changer

Utilizing a rotational grazing method on our farmstead with our sheep helps to let the pasture/paddocks rest. We also just invested in a chain harrow to allow us to drag the paddocks our sheep just left to break up and spread their manure around, dethatch thicker grass areas, and to rough up bare dirt areas to all for a better seed to soil contact if we overseed that paddock. This was our first time really using the chain harrow besides initially testing it out. We are very impressed with the work it did and how and area that was majority dirt, could be roughed up before reseeding.

Did you know we also operate a small business on the homestead. We make homemade, handcrafted soaps, shampoo bars, hair and beard products in addition to offering our pasture raised pork, lamb, and 100% raw honey. You can find out more about our products and ingredients by visiting our website at www.mimiandpoppysplace.com. There you can shop our products and sign up for our monthly newsletter that highlights a soap or ingredient, gives monthly updates about the homestead, and also lists the markets, festivals, and events we’ll be attending that month.