Mower County authorities are dealing with another report of farm equipment theft, which the sheriff said joins a recent “rash” of the crime.

The most recent incident was reported Friday by a Rose Creek property owner. The equipment in question — a $450 mixer mill and a $850 corn planter — were allegedly stolen from a shed south of County Road 3, according to a sheriff’s department report.

The owner reportedly last saw the equipment several weeks ago.

Mower County Sheriff Terese Amazi said farm equipment theft doesn’t always pick up before spring planting season, but said the reports this spring have come in at a pretty high rate.

“We’ve always had sporadic ones,” Amazi said. “This has been a rash.”

The reported Rose Creek theft joins a report of a tractor stolen from Grand Meadow in late March, as well as another reported theft in Grand Meadow earlier this month.

In the more recent case, Anthony Orrin Bell, 63, has been charged with stealing a large tiller, valued at $1,500, and a baler, valued at $1,000, and trying to sell them at a LeRoy scrap yard.

Amazi said there is no evidence at this point linking any of the three reported thefts.