A Steeke family farm · Est. 1914
Nineteen14 Farms is a small family grain farm in Otter Tail County, Minnesota — rooted in dairy heritage, refined by modern agronomy. Mostly non-GMO corn, spring wheat, and food-grade beans, raised with cover crops and a clear push toward 100% non-GMO, glyphosate-free acres — decisions made from real data, with software we built ourselves watching the farm’s numbers around the clock.
Nothing here happens on a hunch. Every seed rate and every pound of fertilizer answers to the field’s own record — and underneath it all, one goal: soil that’s better next year than it was this one.
We’re not married to one practice. Cover crops, tillage, residue, banded fertility, humic acids, sugars, and biological tools all have a place when they help us grow healthy, nutrient-dense crops. The system has to work together.
Yield maps, SWAT zones, in-season soil and tissue testing, and variable-rate seed and fertilizer — the field’s own record sets every rate, on every pass.
Split nutrient applications, banding, soil and tissue testing, cover crops, and tillage when it earns its place. We’re not trying to farm by a label; we’re trying to keep the crop healthy and the whole system working.
Rotation years have also carried spring barley, field peas, soybeans, small red beans & cover-crop seed.
More than 90% of acres are non-GMO and glyphosate-free — and we’re working the rest that direction.
Spring around Perham doesn’t wait. When the frost is out, the planter rolls — into corn stubble and cover-crop residue, banding the first feeding right beside every seed, rates shifting zone by zone.
Watch a season’s work from the air, then dig into how each pass gets decided.
What We Do →
We built our own software to run the business side of the farm. Grain OS — our own grain-marketing desk, built right here — watches futures, tracks local bids, and checks every idea against hard farm rules before it ever becomes a recommendation.
When active, it turns market data, local bids, and farm rules into one disciplined recommendation for Michael to review. It never trades on its own — that’s the rule it can’t break.
Grain OS is the lead story because it does the highest-leverage office work: markets, bids, positions, and rules, every day. Other tools prove the same idea in the field — soil and tissue reports becoming spread-ready GIS prescription maps, seed maps built from yield history, and satellite scouting that keeps another set of eyes on every acre.
Inside the AI Farm Office → Proof card · Soil/tissue → GIS Lab-backed recs became spread-ready prescription maps. Next Level Ag Labs made the recommendation actionable. The AI Farm Office made the GIS work fast, checkable, and repeatable.AI recommends. The farmer decides. Always.
The farm writes as it goes — the long reads live here, the day-to-day lands on X. No inbox required, nothing for sale.
Latest note · July 2026
Does the Crop Have the Groceries for Protein?
Post-heading soil and tissue samples helped us judge late nitrogen, nutrient balance, and grain-protein potential.
It shouldn’t take a thousand acres to provide for a family. The goal here isn’t more ground — it’s a healthier, more productive system on the acres we already farm. We track WEOC, C:N ratio, organic matter, and soil respiration to see how the soil is cycling carbon and nutrients. That work has helped us cut nitrogen costs: split applications, banding, and soil and tissue tests have kept our recent corn crops near 0.5 pounds of N per bushel. Now we’re applying the same discipline to small grains and grain protein. Next chapter: the cows come back to graze the covers, the first animals on this ground since the dairy days.
What Soil Health Really Means →
