For some people, playing professional football might sound like a pipe dream come true. But former pro Chase Johnson was always drawn to farming. "All some people want to do is play professional football. I was a professional football player and all I wanted to do was farm," says Johnson. "My mom always said I'd never be happy until I got dirt under my nails again."

Johnson, who is 34 and stands 6-foot-8, was the second offensive tackle on the depth chart for the Minnesota Vikings for two seasons in 2007 and 2008.

He grew up on a farm near Hayes Center, Neb., and two years ago, after finding his way back to Nebraska, he planted his first corn and soybeans on his farm near York.

"My dad quit farming in '90 or '91, and we moved to Loveland, Colo. I watched my parents go through really hard times in the late 1980s," he says. "It was really about timing. I would have every reason not to want to farm after that."

But that didn't hinder his love for agriculture. He later studied agricultural economics and played football at the University of Wyoming, before graduating to the NFL. After practicing with the Vikings for two seasons and suiting up for one, Johnson was released from the team in August 2008.

"It was tough. I probably could have bounced around awhile as a free agent or played for a professional team in Canada, but I was tired of living out of a suitcase and not knowing where I was going to be in six months," he says.

His wife, Jamie, was studying at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., at the time, and Johnson saw it as an opportunity to return to his home state.

Now an independent agronomist and precision ag specialist at Wilbur-Ellis, Johnson came back to Nebraska to work as an agronomist with ServiTech before he started farming.

That first step into farming
And taking the first step was a challenge on par with playing pro football.

"It's a pretty expensive business to get into. Equipment is really expensive, and so is access to land. It’s a challenge. Any young farmer will tell you the same thing," Johnson says. "Those are the two major things: finding something to farm and something to farm it with."

Fortunately, he had the support of two local farmers — brothers Bob and John Romohr — who, despite having no previous ties to Johnson, mentored and helped him in his entrance into farming. The Romohrs also provided Johnson with access to equipment through equipment sharing and co-leased land they were renting to help him get started.

"They had a whole lifetime's worth of farming knowledge they shared with me — things that may seem trivial to people that grew up around it," Johnson says. "I was familiar with the agronomy side, but I was lacking in the ins and outs of things like equipment and marketing. My dad was a farmer, and I would have asked him about these things, but he passed away six years ago. I've been pretty fortunate to have someone to teach me the intricacies of row crop farming."

Working as an agronomist and precision ag specialist, Johnson also has access to insights from other producers he's worked with. "I've worked with a lot of really great farmers. Sometimes I was probably asking strange questions as an agronomist, but you learn what works and what doesn't. And it's not just tillage or fertilizer practices, but how they manage their farm," he says. "I was always paying attention to it, and it's given a unique perspective."

In the last two years, he's seen new challenges arise like controlling Palmer amaranth and adapting to weather extremes. But with these challenges comes a learning opportunity, and Johnson says he's tweaking his pest management and fertility programs with the help of precision ag data and strip trial research.

"I can do my own grid sampling, build my variable-rate recommendations, whether seed or fertilizer, and analyze yield data," he says, noting he's most recently trialed Bayer's Ilevo soybean seed treatment. "With the Ilevo seed treatment, we saw an 8- to 9-bushel gains, especially in a seed corn rotation with a lot of soybean cyst nematode. We're probably going to treat all our soybean seed with it next year. It's something we wouldn't have seen without yield map and data analytics."

Last year, Johnson reached a major milestone when he harvested his first crop. "Our first crop was a pretty amazing experience. I really wish my dad was around for it," he says. "Raising that first crop last year was a serious pinnacle in my life. I don't think you could have wiped the smile off my face if you wanted to."