Farm Lease Gave Tenant Peaceable Possession Through Harvest Date of Crop Growing During Termination Year.

 The parties executed a cash rent farm lease with one-half due after wheat harvest of by July 15 and the other half due by December 15 annually.  The lease specified that it ran from May 2, 2006 to December 31, 2011.  In the spring of 2011, the surviving spouse landlord notified the tenant in writing that the lease was ending on December 31, 2011 and that no fall-seeded crop should be planted.  The written lease, however, contained language stating that the landlord gave the tenant "peaceable possession of any land upon which crops are growing in the year of termination through and including the harvest thereof...".  The tenant planted wheat in the fall of 2011 harvested the crop in June of 2012.  The landlord sued on the basis that the lease terminated at the end of 2011 and the tenant was on notice not to plant a fall crop.  Thus, the landlord argued that the landlord was entitled to the wheat crop.  The trial court agreed.  On further review, the appellate court (in an unpublished opinion) disagreed.  The court held that the lease clearly stated that the tenant had the discretion to plant whatever crops they wanted during the term of the lease ("Tenants... shall have the right to plant the leased land to any crop they determine advantages [sic]...") and be able to harvest those crops.  The evidence also was insufficient to support an extension of the lease.  Meairs v. Watson, No. 111, 114, 2015 Kan. App. Unpub. LEXIS 52 (Kan. Ct. App. Jan. 23, 2015).