By Mike Orso
Get to know Bruce Meier
1) Favorite sports team: Chicago Bears
2) Favorite place to eat in McHenry County: Crandall’s
3) Favorite crop I grow: Corn
4) What I listen to when I’m planting: Agricultural podcasts
5) If I wasn’t farming I’d be: In construction
McHenry County farm fields and rural roads buzzed with activity over the last month or so as this year’s planting season winds down. Despite the month of April that provided more than twice the normal rainfall in most areas of the county, early-to-mid-May provided a drier, albeit sometimes chillier window ahead of the most recent warm stretch for fruit, grain, oilseed and vegetable planting.
“Planting in spring of ’25 you could go out and plant every field wherever you go,” said Hebron-area farmer Bruce Meier, as he recently wrapped up corn and soybean seed sowing. “You didn’t have to make a plan. This year has been more of a challenge picking the right field to go to on the right day.”
That can translate into many long days and even nights with twists and turns dealing with items such as some intriguing soil conditions.
“When we have a high-water table, the water starts pushing out of the ground,” said Meier. “You’ll have a spot about as small as a coffee can or as large as a Volkswagen where water will just come up. It’ll be there one day and the next day it will be gone.”
Other planting season issues can include equipment breakdowns and uncooperative motorists, both that can quickly derail progress. About a decade ago, a young motorist tried to pass Meier on his tractor and planter in a no-pass zone as he tried to make a left turn into a farm field off Vanderkaar Rd. in the northern part of the county.
“I just caught the right side of her car with my front tire,” said Meier. “Fortunately, I saw her and I pulled my right tire back or I could’ve pushed her off into a tree.”
Another challenge that may continue beyond planting includes a lack of farm profitability, largely driven, Meier said, by higher costs for critical planting-related items. After adjusting for inflation, the USDA Economic Research Service recently projected net farm income to decrease by $4.1 billion (2.6 percent) in 2026 relative to 2025.
“Fertilizer and diesel fuel costs have spiked,” said Meier. “Those are probably the two biggest drivers right now.”
Longer-term, solar panel installations, data centers and urban sprawl continue to test several McHenry County and other Illinois farmers. Meier’s farm family know the consequences of urban sprawl well, having relocated three times over the last seven decades as a result. In the late 1950s, the family moved from their farm in Mt. Prospect to one on Golf Course Rd. on what then was the western edge of Crystal Lake. Many longtime residents of the city remember the farm for its fresh sweet corn, pumpkins and other fruits and vegetables.
“It started out as just a wagon out front,” said Meier. “Then we remodeled and remodeled and then put in a couple of coolers.”
Surrounded by subdivisions in the late 1980s, the family sold most of that farm and purchased another near Huntley. Then Lake in the Hills and Huntley rapidly expanded too, so the family sold it, the Crystal Lake homestead and relocated to one near Hebron in the late 1990s.
Meier, 61, graduated from Crystal Lake South in 1982 as part of the very first class to start as freshmen when the city added its second high school. He attended McHenry County College for two years and then achieved a degree in farm operations from Illinois State University. He believes variety is what makes farming enjoyable.
“Every day is different,” said Meier. “I mean, one morning we were in a tile trench fixing a broken tile. Then, I’m getting ready to start planting soybeans in the afternoon.”
He also serves as the only volunteer McHenry County Farm Bureau board member at present to have also once served as the organization’s president.
“We have a young board with lots of good ideas,” said Meier. “I like to see that. I like the direction it’s going in.”
Meier and his wife Patty enjoy spending time with their three adult children, their families and especially their first grandchild, who arrived over the last year. That hasn’t happened much in recent weeks since spending 12-14 hours a day planting and its related chores can consume many spring days.
“I’ve had a love of the soil my whole life,” he said. “I like planting a seed and watching it grow and nurturing it to fruition to harvest season. I enjoy that.”
Bruce Meier maneuvers a motorized seed tender as he loaded his planter with soybean seed on his farm near Hebron. “Farming is still a viable entity in McHenry County and a big economic driver,” he said.
Bruce Meier stands by one of the signs from his family’s former farms in Huntley and Crystal Lake. The Crystal Lake farm consisted of 200 acres of fruits and vegetables with a popular retail stand. “He started out originally as a Campbell Soup contract tomato grower,” said Meier, about his father Edwin.
Bruce Meier started planting corn in early May and finished it and soybean sowing before the end of the month. ‘We can go anywhere from 6 in the morning until 10 or 12 at night,” he said. “A lot of them we’ve been done by 8 o’clock at night. You go home, shower, eat and see the family.”