Content
Estate and Transition Planning Documents
When farm operations transition due to the retirement or passing of a landowner, having a clear and well-documented estate plan is essential to avoid legal complications, family disputes, and financial stress. Jessica Groskopf, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist emphasizes that several key documents form the backbone of a solid estate plan for agricultural families.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Just as it is extremely important to make a state and transition plans for your farm operation after you retire or pass away, the documentation will ensure that your wishes are carried out. On today's program, extension ag economist Jessica Groskoff details the documents you'll need for an estate plan.
[Jessica Groskopf, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
So an estate plan, you absolutely need a will, a power of attorney, a power of attorney for healthcare, and a healthcare directive, or a living will.
Those are the 4 documents.
These documents are relatively easy to put together, and they can be updated as long as you are competent anytime prior to your death.
I like to think of these as the safety net, right, of a more complicated plan.
But the base there are these 4 documents.
So let's go through what these documents do.
So will assign someone called the personal representative and what their job is to distribute your assets that pass through the will at your death.
That's their job, is to make sure that this goes to this person.
That's what a will does.
Okay?
Now, not all assets will pass through a will depending on how things are set up, but you absolutely need one, even if you have more complex estate planning tools like a trust.
Okay.
Now, the next 3 documents, the power of attorney, the power of attorney, for healthcare, and the living will or healthcare directive, I often like to think of as the documents for your sunset years.
Um, but really there any time that you cannot make a decision for yourself, if you are incapacitated in some way.
These documents will come into play.
So a power of attorney assigns an agent, and in the 1st case, that power of attorney will carry out business on your behalf.
Now, this can be very broad, or it can be very narrow, but a power of attorney is important to carry on business while you are unable to make those decisions for yourself.
A power of attorney for healthcare can only make decisions on your behalf when you are unable to make them for yourself and only for healthcare decisions.
And finally, the living will or healthcare directive is the document that says what kind of care you want.
Now, we have a few different people that we've named here.
We have a personal representative in the will.
We have an agent within our power of attorney for business, and we have an agent in our power of attorney for healthcare.
These can be the same person.
They do not have to be.
The one thing I will say about that is it's somewhat easier if the personal representative and your business power of attorney are the same because they are dealing with specifically the business until your death and then can carry on after your death.
Okay.
However, they do not have to be.
I do not like to see multiple people named to these positions.
I think you need a primary person, and if you want to name like a backup.
That's fine, but I don't want to see panels of people, right?
So if you have multiple children, I don't want to see them be co powers of attorney or co-personal representatives.
I think it's important to name one and then have a backup on there.
[Brad Mills, Host]
For more information and guidance on estate and transition planning, go to UNL Center for Ag Profitability website at cap.unl.edu. That's cap.unl.edu. For Nebraska Extension Almanac. I'm Brad Mills.
Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.
For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
Managing Burned Pastures After a Wildfire
After a wildfire, it’s natural for producers to worry about pasture loss. Nebraska Extension Range Management Specialists Jerry Volesky and Mitch Stephenson explain that most Nebraska rangeland is dominated by perennial grasses that are well adapted to fire and can recover with proper management.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Conditions in the state may have contributed to the recent wildfires that destroyed ag land, past years, and some communities. Extension specialist Jerry Valeski and Mitch Stevenson talk about how fire damage affects pasture land and subsequent grazing. Jerry begins the discussion by talking about grass types, and how that might help recovery in damaged past years.
[Jerry Volesky, Nebraska Extension Specialist]
When we have a wildfire and help strictly speaking about the Lust Canyons, We're dealing with an area that did have, in many of the places, quite a bit of cedar trees that burned as well.
But people have to keep in mind that these grasses are perennials, most of them are perennials, and they will come back, are key to this, course, is going to be adequate rainfall.
And we do see many times an increase of annual weeds after the fire, and this is really what fire is a disturbance to these range lands.
And so having some weeds in there can be pretty common, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Our key message I tell for producers is that one of the things that they do need to be careful with is the how heavy they are grazing.
So 1st of all, whether or not they graze this year is going to dependent on rainfall.
And in many cases, it shouldn't be a problem that they could turn out to these pastures in mid to late summer or this fall, if there's a specific need that they need to get out on some pasture.
But regardless, they should be at a bit of a lower stocking rate and leave a little bit of extra residue out there.
[Brad Mills, Host]
Mitch says some good spring rain will really help these damaged areas recover.
[Mitch Stephensen, Nebraska Extension Specialist]
You know, there's been a few fires there north of North Platte that we've monitored over the years.
One was the Betty's Wayfire that was in 2024, and that fire, especially, I think we got this really good precipitation that spring.
It was a dormant season fire.
And that spring got really good precipitation.
And I remember going out in, in late June, early July and and having a hard time finding the, even the burned line of where it had burned and not burned.
And so, you know, the recovery seemed to be fairly, fairly quick on some of those fires, if we get the precipitation, but, you know, as you mentioned, the totals acres burned, numbers that I have is of March 18th.
So I know more has burned since then, especially with those fires near Ashby and Hyannis.
The numbers I have are about 823,000 acres have burned this year and to kind of put that in context with the data that we have from the National Interagency Fire Center as well as the monitoring trends and burned severity website.
I mean, 1984 and 2025.
These are wildfires over a 1000 acres.
That amounted to about one. 1600000 acres.
And so over that, you know, roughly 40 year period.
And so really kind of unprecedented in what we've seen in terms of the size, especially without moral fire and moral garden, Arthur counties.
And so being out there on the burn pastures this last week, you know, it definitely is, does look bare out there.
There are a lot of choppy sands in that area.
But when you really think about it.
And as you walk through a lot of that area, What we don't see is just the tremendous root amounts that are just below the surface, right?
We've seen we see some of that sand moving on the top, but not very far below that.
Think about as much vegetation as it was above ground.
There's just as much or more below ground, and a lot of that's in the top foot or so of soil there.
And so there's there's a tremendous mat there that holds a lot of that soil together.
[Brad Mills, Host]
Stay tuned to future programs where Jerry and Mitch continue this topic of grazing on fire damage past years. To read the detailed article about how to graze after a wildfire, go to Nebraska Extension’s beef website at beef.unl.edu. For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills.
Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media, and Nebraska Extension.
For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
Nebraska’s Declining Ag Land Values effect on Cash Rental Rates
Declining agricultural land values in Nebraska are beginning to show up in cash rental rates, but not uniformly across all land types. Nebraska Extension Ag Economist Jim Jansen points out, rent agreements are shaped by several important factors beyond just land prices.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. A recent survey of Agland values in Nebraska revealed a decline for the second straight year. While there are numerous factors for this decline, extension ag economist Jim Jansen says cash rent has also several items that determine rates, such as location, usage, and responsibilities, between owner and tenant.
[Jim Jansen, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
Annually, the University of Nebraska Lincoln, with the center for agricultural profitability, annually surveys, individuals working in the land industry, on current trends in the market value of land, as well as cash rental rates across Nebraska.
Recent findings from the preliminary estimates as part of the real estate survey for the upcoming 2026 survey took a look at current trends and cash rental rates across Nebraska.
As part of this survey, the University of Nebraska Center for Agricultural Profitabilities preliminary estimates, summarizes changes across the 8 agricultural statistic districts for Nebraska are more commonly referred to as crop reporting districts on average for dry land craft land, gravity irrigated crop land, center pivot irrigated crop land, grazing land, or pasture on a per acre basis, as well as cow calf pairs on a month ly basis.
Now general trends across Nebraska indicated a slight decline for crop land, which is reflecting current trends or expectations related to profitability for crop land across Nebraska.
And we also seen a slight increase across the state or a slight to gradual increase for grazing land across Nebraska, which also reflects changes in the profitability for cow calf pairs or cattle prices that some might have for this upcoming fall when cattle are pulled off the pasture and some folks might be selling calves or maybe they were eight until after the 1st of the year with doing that.
Now, the average cash rental rates reported for gravity, irrigated, and center pivot irrigated crop land assume that the landowner owns the entire irrigation system.
A patent provides a component of that, especially on center pivot irrigated cropland where they might provide either the pivot, or the power unit, we might discount the cash rents to reflect the fact that the tenant is individual responsible for ensuring, repairing, or maintaining those improvements if they own those.
And we've seen discounts around $35 to $45 an acre when the tenant provides a pivot, and also some averages from a real estate survey from back in 2023 discounts of around 10 to maybe even $15 an acre in the event the tenant provides a pivot.
Now, they irrigated rental rates.
There's upkeep associated with that, and there's also upkeep associated with grazing land, whether it's control of noxious weeds, repair fencing materials, things of that nature.
Who is responsible for maintaining those things?
Well, I think generally speaking, tenants are have the expectation when they initially rent the property that's fairly well maintained, they have good equipment and things are kept up to speed or kept up in a state that are conducive to what they're trying to do out there.
Minor upkeep might be something that can be negotiated into the lease.
Major upgrades or major concerns, getting those addressed might be an expense that we have to dive a little bit deeper into, and maybe we would discount the cash rent for the upcoming year, years to reflect a large contribution, if a tenant has the type of equipment, maybe do dirt work or remove unwanted trees or brush with, say, a large excavator, for example.
All those things are negotiable elements of a lease and something that we need to be aware of when we're negotiating leases just beyond the cash rent or when there's a cash rent due, we need to be setting up a lease that accounts for both the contributions of both parties involved when it comes to setting a lease format that is conducive to the expectations of the upcoming year.
Drought, fire damage is definitely something else that we need to consider.
And I encourage everyone to exert flexibility when appropriate to account for these events that unfortunately have impacted us.
Find more information on the Nebraska farm market, real estate preliminary estimates, including land values and cash rental rates.
That is it, the Center for Ag Profitability website at cap.unl.edu slash real estate.
[Brad Mills, Host]
For Nebraska extension almanac. I'm Brad Mills. Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media, and Nebraska Extension. For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
Grazing Managing Following Wildfires
Rangeland and pasture recovery after wildfire often looks uncertain at first. Nebraska Extension Range Management Specialists Jerry Volesky and Mitch Stephenson say timely rainfall can make a big difference in how quickly those landscapes bounce back.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. On a recent almanac program, Nebraska Extension Specialist, Jerry Valeski, and Mitch Stevenson, discuss how pastures and range land could possibly recover from recent wildfires with some good precipitation. On today's show, Mitch starts the discussion by talking about recovering some of the dead litter on the ground, and how that helps in numerous ways.
[Mitch Stephensen, Nebraska Extension Specialist]
We oftentimes talk of a lot about the litter and standing dead plant material and how important that is in our system, not only as a cover, but also it shades the ground, it helps dissipate some of the rainfall that falls down, it helps hold that soil from wind erosion, those types of things.
And so, as we think about grazing the year after.
A lot of our research, it, for dormant season fires, especially would suggest that we'll get just as much growth on the, uh, of that current year's growth on a burn piece as we would on an unburnt.
Essentially, the tops burned off, but the grass below it, the roots, the what's going to push that growth early on is going to be the energy stored in the buds and the roots, and then precipitation sunlight, the growing conditions are going to drive that after that gets started.
And so, uh, it's probably not going to be too far off what the current year's production is, but you've lost quite a bit of plant material that was there to kind of help hold this oil and the surface and as well as offer a little bit of a buffer in in some of that grazing.
So the, the big thing is you want to go.
We're looking at one to 3 years, in terms of that signature, most of the time, it's within 2 years following a fire, you won't even be able to see those scars from that satellite.
The other thing that we can look at and measure is the amount of bare ground.
And so the bare ground does go up, as you would expect. Because there's not as much later covering that landscape.
And so, a lot of times, I think what Jerry and I both, we'll talk about is if you are going to graze out there that you make sure that you are leaving enough of that residual biomass to help build that cover up.
I think that's really the adaptive nature of grazing after a wildfire is to be responsive and make sure you're not over grazing it to the point that you're not leaving enough of that cover that's out there.
[Brad Mills, Host]
Jerry says one of the strengths of Nebraska range land. Is that plants develop strong root systems, which in turn will also help in a fast recovery.
[Jerry Volesky, Nebraska Extension Specialist]
We're very lucky, I guess, in terms of all of our native range lands that they have some pretty good root systems and particularly in the sand hills where they can prevent excessive amounts of sand, I guess, I should say, from blowing around.
You know, one of the things that, you know, probably contributed to some to this year's wildfires was the fact that last year, 2025, we had a really good growing season and our pasture production in most all of these areas was anywhere from 15 to 25% above our long term average production.
And so, you know, that just literally added more fuel to the fire.
For both cool and warm season grasses, you know, more so in late summer for the for the warm season grasses, which had a really good growing season in general, like I mentioned, but both cool and warm would have gone into the winter in most places in pretty good shape.
They would have had their energy or carbohydrate reserves built up pretty well.
And so even though it was dry over the winter, they were dormant, as we got into spring here, when the fires occur.
[Brad Mills, Host]
To read the detailed article about how to graze after a wildfire, go to Nebraska's extension beef website at beef.unl.edu. To hear the rest of this interview, you can download the Beefwatch podcast from Apple Podcast or Spotify. For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills.
Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.
For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
Considerations for Confinement Beef Cattle Breeding
Drought conditions combined with recent wildfires can significantly reduce pasture availability, and that has direct implications for herd management. Nebraska Extension Beef Cow/Calf Systems and Stocker Management Specialist Karla Wilke says producers may need to rethink both breeding and nutrition strategies when forage is limited.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
Dry conditions this fall and winter has led to some poor pasture conditions, and the unfortunate wildfires have damaged 1000s of acres. Some ranchers will be faced with the fact that breeding season might have to be done in confinement. Extension specialist Karla Wilkie says, there's a few key principles that might help you have a successful breeding season.
[Karla Wilke, Extension Specialist]
If we do have to do the breeding season in confinement.
I think one of the 1st things to think about is that it doesn't have to be in a feed lot.
It could be. On a fallow ground or a residue field or a pasture trap, something of that nature, just not out in the in normal pastures, large areas that we usually use, and we may be feeding them a confinement diet, and if that's the case, then that feeding space needs to be about 2 feet per cow, or bull, and then about a foot for the cavs that are in there with them.
This is especially true if we're trying to use kind of a nutrient dense. Diet so that we can limit, feed them a little bit and not go through so much feed.
So feeding space becomes very important so that we don't have lost cows and bulls pushing more timid ones around and those not getting enough feed and then maybe not cycling well because they're short on feed.
So, that's something to think about.
Minimum.
Square footage is usually around 500 square feet, prepare is recommended.
If you have a little more than that, it's great, but um, gets kind of tight if we go under that.
And then an area for calves where they can loaf and get away from the cow and bowl activity of breeding and um, that helps kind of reduce pathogen load exposure when they have a little area where they can kind of get away from everybody.
This may be some opportunity to provide shade or wind protection for the calves as well.
So housing considerations like that can be something to be thinking about if this is something we're going to have to do.
[Brad Mills, Host]
Typically, cattle have good feed options this time of year, but Dr. Wilkie points out that might need some nutrition management if in confinement.
[Karla Wilke, Extension Specialist]
So the lactating cow has a huge energy drain that the just gestating cow, you know, pregnant cow that doesn't have a baby already on her has a much lower need than that cow that's lactating.
That's a huge energy drain due to lactation.
And what happens to some producers is they, they just draw out the diet that they are feeding the cows during gestation, when the cows are already going into lactation because they don't have anywhere to go with them for green grass, and they, Understand that lactation requires more energy, and so maybe they up the fee a little bit, but they don't realize how much lactation increases that need.
And so the cow can begin to pull on her own body reserves of fat to mobilize enough energy to meet the lactation needs of that for that calf.
And then she begins to draw herself down and she doesn't cycle.
And so then I've had people tell me, well, breeding and confinement is just a disaster.
And that might be part of what they ran into, was just that lack of understanding of how much energy lactation requires.
And so, you know, UNL extension is is happy to help people develop those diets with the resources they have, but it's critically important that lush green grass quality is is what we're striving for to get in that cow in a diet that we're actually mixing for her.
And some of that's true for the bulls as well.
They're much bigger in size usually than the cows.
And so their maintenance requirement is more.
And then younger bulls are also growing.
And so again, when they're out on grass, they're maybe able to get that energy need, but if we are the ones that are having to provide it for them, then we have to make sure that the diet that we're mixing and feeding them meets their needs as well.
And then the intake of the calf is something to consider because normally, the calf would be grazing grass and getting their feed that's in addition to milk from that and now it would be on us to provide.
[Brad Mills, Host]
For more details on this topic, please visit the beefwatch website at beef.unl.edu. And to hear the entire interview, you can download it from Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For Nebraska Extension Almanac. I'm Brad Mills.
Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR media and Nebraska Extension. For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans. Go to extension.unl.edu