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Minnesota farmer plants first oat crop amid new milling opportunity

Oat seeding is underway in south-central Minnesota.

Good Thunder area farmer Sam Ziegler tells Brownfield he used a high-speed disc on corn stubble last fall in preparation for his first year of growing oats.

“And it really set the ground up very well for just planting directly into it this spring. So we no-till drilled it and conditions were really well, it was dry enough on the top and firm enough because we didn’t do any sort of deep tillage. And seed went into moisture.”

With a new mill opening in the area later this year, he says it was time to add a third crop to his corn and soybean rotation.

“To try to figure out how to compete against these pests and diseases (that) have figured out how to lay dormant from one crop rotation to the next by being in just corn and soybeans.”

According to its website, farmer-owned Green Acres Milling is scheduled to be operational by this fall.

The $55 million oat plant in Albert Lea, Minnesota will process three million bushels of oats from regional farms annually.