Tri-State Neighbor: South Dakota Farm Newspaper

Mike Jaminet of Le Mars, Iowa, grew up on a farm near Remsen, Iowa, but did not settle on farming as a career until 1985.

After graduating high school in 1983, he attended Western Iowa Tech in Sioux City, Iowa, for electronic communications. He worked for about a year and a half before he switched to driving truck.

Then Jaminet worked at a feedmill. Then he worked for a farmer in the Le Mars area for a year before starting his own operation the following year.

“You had a feel of different occupations and basically farming was probably the best choice of all the occupations that you had the chance to experience before you started farming,” Jaminet said.

He married his wife, Karen, a Le Mars native, and had the opportunity to start farming south of town. They have two daughters, Amanda, who graduates this month from Gehlen Catholic School in Le Mars, and Brittany, a freshman at Gehlen Catholic School. Karen works for MJM Designs, an embroidery company in Le Mars.

Jaminet farms with his brother-in-law, Steve Breuer. He says that it has worked out well.

“It works, by sharing equipment, labor and time. It makes life a lot easier,” Jaminet said.

They grow corn, soybeans and hogs. They raise their hogs separately, but share farm equipment.

“I farm my ground. He farms his ground. We share the big field equipment and combine. We both have our own yard tractors,” he said. “He'll plant for a couple days, then I'll plant for a couple days. While he's planting, I'm getting my ground ready.”

This year, they are planting 50-50 corn and soybeans.

“We've been staying either 50-50 or 60-40, depends on if we have oats or not,” he said.

For the first time since he started farming, Jaminet will not plant oats this year. He says they do not need the straw anymore since they do not have outdoor hogs anymore.

Jaminet says they do a little fall tillage, but try to do as little tillage as possible.

“About 50 percent of our cornstalks we'll work. The other half we let stand,” he said. “Every other corn crop year on that piece of ground will get worked so each piece does not get worked every year.”

Jaminet says the biggest challenge so far this season has been getting the ground worked. They do not worry too much about getting started planting since they usually start getting corn in around April 28.

They started planting corn April 29 this year. He hoped to have all of their corn in by May 7, depending on how much rain they received May 2-4.

“Between Steve and I, we can plant all our corn in seven days. We'll take about a three or four day break and start putting on Treflan. Then we'll go right into beans,” he said.

Jaminet says the biggest challenge he sees for 2008 will be trying to figure out what the market is going to do.

“We've got quite a bit of grain sold already on the percentage-wise. The question is how soon do you start pulling the trigger on other crops before it's actually harvested,” Jaminet said. “You want to sell some in advance, but you don't want to get too many acres sold until you know where you've got weather.”

Jaminet stays active with the Le Mars Optimist Club, St. Joseph Catholic Church Knights of Columbus and Plymouth County Farm Bureau. He is finishing his term as Plymouth County Farm Bureau vice president.

“By being involved with the Farm Bureau, it keeps you in contact with local leaders and state leaders and helps keep you aware of what's happening politically on the farm scene,” Jaminet said.

Jaminet will serve as Tri-State Neighbor's Iowa crop watcher this season.