Content
Western Nebraska Irrigation Review and Update
Extreme drought continues to challenge producers in western Nebraska. Nebraska Extension Educator Gary Stone reviews current irrigation conditions, including water availability and capacity concerns at Lake McConaughy, and what producers need to know moving forward.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
Western Nebraska's face some difficult challenges with irrigation this season due to extended and extreme drought.
Nebraska extension educator, Gary Stone, starts off today's program with a look back at conditions, and some of the restrictions the districts had to deal with.
[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So the water came in uh, as expected.
The water districts, you know, the boards all voted to, uh, when to bring the water in for their given district, uh, they were limited to about 30 to 40 days, each district, uh, depending upon how much uh, storage they had up above in the reservoirs in Wyoming, uh, since then, the water has gone out of the ditches.
It'll end this week for all the major ditches, the smaller ditches with earlier water rights, with natural flow, they will keep flowing as long as there's water in the river.
Those irrigators that do have wells and pivots, they will do all right this summer, in spite of the water shortage for the surface waters.
But, uh, it's gonna be tough for those that they're relying on surface water from here on out.
It'll have to be up to Mother Nature to determine just how much water will get and if they'll make a full crop.
But it's been good that, since the water's gone out of the canals, Mother Nature has provided some pretty decent moisture.
It's been hit and miss, but it's been adequate amounts to keep the crop going.
The temperatures have cooled off, so that's been real good for ours, and hopefully, you know, we can keep getting some timely rains, be more widespread to cover to take care of the crops here in the valley.
So a typical year, a water run here in the valley, if we have adequate storage up in Wyoming would be between 70 and 90 days.
So typically, they would do a hay run early in the season.
Uh, May, early June, and then take the water out of the ditch, and then bring it in uh, 1st of June, July, and run it till, say, the middle of September.
That would be a full season.
But this year, they were limited to, like I said, 30 or 40 days, so it's roughly half of what they normally would have gotten.
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Gary talks about how farmers responded to some of the district restrictions, including prevent plant, no planting, or low water forage.
[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]
A lot of them did prevent plant if they were qualified for that.
Uh, some didn't plant anything at all.
They just let their fields go bare.
Others put in a forage grass of type, maybe some millet, a forage millet, and then hopefully they'll be able to chop that or bail it and sell it to the feed lots.
Now, out in the, out of the valley into the Banner County, Kimball, Cheyenne area, or even up north in Box Butte, in those areas where it's strictly dry land, it's been so dry, unless we get some real adequate moisture, they may not plan an actual wheat crop this fall.
Just because there's nothing there to germinate it or to get it up and even keep it going.
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Gary concludes today's program with a report on the capacity of Lake McConaughey.
[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So, as I understand it, Central Public Power owns the lake and the power plant and a series of power plants, that feed off of the river or off of the lake, they have a storage right, so they can store basically any time that there's not a call on the river for water in other places.
So, I know back in 2010 or whatever, uh, the lake was way down, and they said it'll never fill again, but it filled within two years, because we had adequate snow pack in the mountains, lots of water, uh, so it did fill the big lake, and, uh, yes, it'll eventually fill again.
We're Nebraska extension almanac.
I'm Brad Mills.
Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of, i.e. And our media, and Nebraska Extension.
For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
Home Canning
Home canning is a great way to preserve this year’s harvest. Nebraska Extension Educator Cindy Brison discusses the equipment needed to get started, the importance of using fresh, unblemished produce, and following safe food preservation practices.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
As the home garden harvest is wrapping up, some gardeners might be interested in preserving their crop for later consumption.
That's where home canning comes in, and on today's almanac, Nebraska extension educator Cindy Bryson discusses the equipment you'll need, and inspecting your produce before you start canning.
[Cindy Brison, Nebraska Extension Educator]
There's lots of different types of equipment you can use to can, and depending upon what you're canning, determines what you use.
So if you're canning, high acid foods like tomatoes, um, you know, salsa, spaghetti sauce, things like that, you're going to need a hot water bath, jams, jellies, um, so that means that you don't have to can with pressure, it only has to get to a certain temperature for a certain period of time for your product to be safe.
If you're canning low acid foods.
Um, if you're doing vegetables, you're doing meat, you're gonna need a pressure canner.
Um, a pressure canner actually um, builds up pressure and it cans at a much higher temperature, so it kills botulism.
It kills the bacteria that could make you sick.
Um there are steam canners out there that you can use.
You can hot water bath with.
They're just different a different form of a hot water bath.
Um, there are multi cookers out there like insta pots and things like that that say you can can in them. You cannot can in them.
They do they do not.
They've not been tested to the point where they keep the temperature constant and at the right temperature to make sure that your can goods are safe.
So um, it's really important.
You know whatever equipment you have make sure it works if you're using a pressure can or take it.
Take your lid to your local extension office once a year and have your um have your gauge tested to make sure that it works if your gauge is off your canning is going to be in safe.
So whatever you're using, make sure your equipment, you know when you're done when you're done with preserving this fall, make sure it's all clean and put away dry and put away so you can use it again next year.
But but well, whatever you use has to be clean, has to be sterilized.
Um, it, it has to, it has to be functional so, um, it's, it's one of those things that, um.
You know just make sure that you are um that that you are using it um correctly and that everything is okay.
Um when you're when you're choosing produce, you want things that don't have um non-marks in them.
For example, we have a woodchuck and and a lot of our tomatoes had had chew marks in them. You would not can with those.
You don't want anything that's been split or cracked or anything that might have any potential bacteria in it.
You wanna make sure that it's all fresh um that it's all you know is is unblemished.
There's no mix. There's no cuts in it.
Um, you wanna pick your produce and and then preserve it as fast as possible.
So um, you know, if you pick it in the morning, then preserve it the next day.
If you can't preserve it right away, like right now, you know, this is the end of the season for for tomatoes.
So I have a lot of tomatoes all at once and I don't have time to to can them right now so I'm going to wash them off of cold running water.
Dry them put them in bags and put them in the freezer until I can do something with them later.
So you know, make sure that you're using you're using good produce, you don't use frozen produce.
If you've had a frost, you should not be caning with that kind of produce.
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
The University of Nebraska food website has a wealth of information on food preservation and canning.
You can access these valuable tips by going to food.unl.edu slash tags slash canning.
That's food.unl.edu slash tags slash canning.
Stay tuned to future almanac programs for part two of Cindy's discussion on Canning.
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 Land Link
Passing the family farm to the next generation can be a complicated process. Nebraska Extension Educator Emeritus Alan Vyhnalek says Nebraska Land Link can help connect landowners and future operators—but success starts with having clear goals and the right documents in place.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
UNL Center for Ag Profitability has a resource that helps match aspiring producers with landowners who want to see their legacy continue.
It's called the Nebraska Landlink, and on today's program, Extension Educator Emeritus, Alan Benalik, talks about how owners should prioritize their goals, and their legal documents before any transition plans are put into place.
[Alan Vyhnalek, Nebraska Extension Educator Emeritus]
I want people to start thinking about what happens to their stuff when you pass, when you're gone.
Do you have plans or your plans in place?
Do you and your spouse, if you have one or have another partner, business partner, you have to get that set 1st before you could even consider thinking about getting into the whole landing program or interviewing someone for the landing program.
Next, what is your estate plan?
Do you have your end of life documents in place?
How old are they?
If they're more than 5 years old, you probably need to review them and maybe make some adjustments, make some amendments.
Do they need to be updated?
And when I talk about estate plans.
I'm talking about end of life documents, things like your healthcare power of attorney, your healthcare directive, and your business power of attorney or the or the durable power of attorney.
And then I'm also talking about your will or trust or LLC.
Are those in good shape?
But now we're going to talk about what happens to your ag operation?
Do you plan to have that I operation succeed and do you have the documents in place for that to happen properly?
If you're bringing a land seeker into your operation to help or work to work or hopefully take over, have all that kind of in place 1st before you think about this.
It's important that you think about what income you're going to need from your operation later in life.
If you're unable to contribute to the operation and you're no longer providing labor, maybe management, but no labor.
What income are you going to need to live off of?
Where do you plan to go?
Do you have aspirations to do trips?
Do you have aspirations to take vacations?
And how does that be adjusted given where we're at with these land seekers and what are we going to expect those land seekers to pay?
We can't put them under the bus in terms of them being able to pay or they're not going to want to stay with our operation very long.
Where do you expect that income to come from?
I don't know, there are a lot of people could just live off their social security, some people can.
But a lot of people don't necessarily.
And if you're no longer able to do the work, if you're no longer a part of your operation, where do you plan to live?
Do you still plan to live out on the farm?
Are you going to have home in-home healthcare?
How's that going to work if you become incapacitated?
What do you plan to do?
Let's have a plan for that.
Let's think about what those options might.
And how about to control the operation?
Uh, you know, the famous story is that a 65 year old said uh, to one of the farm succession people, uh, when is it appropriate to give control of your operation to your son?
And that farm succession counselor knew that this 65 year old had a 3540 year old on the farm.
And you said, well, you know, if your son's 35, 40 years old, been with you 10 or 15 years, start time to start giving up control.
And a 65 year old goes, no, I'm not talking about.
My son, I'm talking about my 90 year old father.
When's he going to give up control?
Because right now, my son and I get into the truck and we drive over to his place every morning to get directed.
So what we ought to do every day?
So there's that story and lies what's happening with a lot of the of our landowners and a lot of our old-time farmers, they never really want to retire and they always want to maintain control.
I'm not being critical of that, but you have to think about how you're going to handle that control.
And where would you plan to give that up?
And how are you going to give that up?
And if you plan to give it up, Yes, yes, good, fine.
But who are you going to give it up to?
Are you giving it up just to your children?
Are you giving up to this new land seeker?
How do you want your operation to go forward?
So think about those big picture goals.
What do I need from my operation for income?
What do I need for my operation, for where I'm going to live?
How do I get to transfer control?
How am I going to transfer my assets?
Who are my assets going to go to before you start this interview process with the land seeker, thinking about what you need to make sure you have in place?
And of course, be sure you communicate this with your children, if you have children involved, and absolutely be sure you are in agreement with your spouse.
Today's program was a portion of an interview taken from the Farmcast podcast offered by UNL Center for Ag Profitability to hear the entire program.
Go to cap.unl.edu or download 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.
Home Canning Safety
Home canning is a great way to preserve fresh produce, but food safety is essential. Nebraska Extension Educator Cindy Brison discusses the importance of sanitation and safe canning practices, along with tips on how long properly canned foods can be stored.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
In part one of a discussion of home canning, extension educator Cindy Bryson discussed the equipment you'll need, as well as inspecting your produce before you start canning.
On today's program, so go into detail about how long home canning will last, as well as a few safety tips.
[Cindy Brison, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Usually, um, the recommendations are that once you can something, it lasts about a year or a year and a half .
Um, once you, once you can something appropriately, take off the seal or take off the um, rings, and then store them someplace cool.
If you leave your rings on, you can't tell if the lid has popped off or not, and um, if people are canning inappropriately, uh, it's really interesting that um, those rings actually hold the seal on.
They don't it's not sealed, but they hold it on and the jar builds up pressure, especially if it's botulism.
Um and things like tomato products and salsa and the jars explode.
So we've we've seen pictures of people's ceilings being covered in tomatoes because because they've left their or their rings on so we don't recommend when you store your jars take your rings off.
One of the things I really like to talk about is making sure they're using correct recipes.
Um, when, when you're canning, you know, this can be a life or death situation, we have people that have canned green beans inappropriately, especially green beans, where they've ended up in the ICU on ventilators, so using a research based recipe and adjusting for your altitude is important, in the state of Nebraska, on, on our side of the state, on the, the eastern side of the state.
You know we're at a 1000 feet above uh sea level by the time you get to the other side of Nebraska you could be 68000 feet above sea level and that makes a big difference on your recipe and how long you have to to um cook it.
So making sure you're using a research based recipe, something from the center for a home, food preservation, for volcanic, any extension office web page, is is important because they've been tested in the lab and they're safe, and make sure you follow the recipe.
There's just a research study that had resurfaced um that said that 70% of the salsa recipes that were tested when they pulled off recipes off the Internet like Pinterest and you know grandma's recipe. 70% of them were unsafe.
So use a research based recipe that's been tested uh and if you don't if you have a favorite recipe that you've created great freezing.
Freezing is totally safe.
Um don't mess with the canyon part of it and you should be just fine.
Um if if it has been canned appropriately with a research based recipe and it it looks funny.
It looks foamy when you open it up.
Um it smells bad.
It looks like it has mold on the top, then sometimes things seal initially but maybe their seals start to start to come off.
You know, the biggest problem with canning is gonna be botulism and botulism can be deadly.
So it might smell fine taste fine and look fine and still make you sick.
So it's just important, start out initially, make sure everything's sanitary, you're using, your jars are sanitized, your area, you're preparing, things are clean.
You follow the recipe, you do it in a safe manner, you store them correctly.
It's not stored someplace it's hot.
You're not storing your can goods in your garage um where it might get too hot or too cold.
You want to make sure once you're done you're storing them appropriately too.
So then you're giving your can goods the best chance to be safe.
And and to last the longest.
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
The University of Nebraska food website has a wealth of information on food preservation and canning.
You can access these valuable tips by going to food.unl.edu slash tags slash canning for Nebraska extension almanac.
I am Brad Mills.
Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IE&R Media, and Nebraska Extension.
For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
Weaning Calves Under Stress
Weaning calves can be especially challenging when forage and feed supplies are limited. Nebraska Extension Veterinarian and Beef Educator Lindsay Waechter-Mead discusses strategies to help calves get the nutrition they need and get off to a healthy start at weaning.
View Transcript
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
Dry conditions across the state have caused some stressful conditions for calves during weaning.
With hay and forage shortages, the weaning process presents some unique challenges.
Extension beef educator Lindsay Wacker Meade talks about getting calves set up for success during stressful conditions.
[Lindsay Waechter-Mead, Nebraska Extension Beef Educator]
Stress is going to come from a lot of different areas.
If these calves are coming off of really dry pastures, in, especially if they're going into like dusty lot conditions, those are things that are going to be really affect their immune system and how well they're going to respond to things like vaccinations and or pathogens or bugs that might make them sick.
So, what can you control in that situation is how I like to look at it.
And so, you know, the 1st thing would be, is, let's just talk about the condition that they're going into.
So if you are weaning calves and they're coming into a dry lot.
You've read a lot of things about how you can maybe water down, you know, the dust or try to prevent that dust from happening, but also just offering opportunities to kind of take those calves' minds off of the fact that they've just been taken from mom and kind of look at something else.
And so when I think about how curious a calf is, I kind of think about how I can maybe interact in that, that relationship to get them to kind of take their mind off of that.
And so one way would be to kind of walk through those cabs.
So I'm a big firm believer of getting into the pen once or twice a day and just getting those calves attention and we aren't going to, this isn't anything, you know, you're not loud, you're not fast.
You're just slow and quiet and kind of walking with them.
And you'll kind of get them to look at you and then pretty soon you'll notice that they're wanting to maybe pay more attention to you than they are to bawling.
And so that's that's the 1st step.
I think is to, how can we kind of change their mindset to kind of help to lower that stress and give them something else to think about.
If you have the facilities, everything that we talk about, obviously, is going to depend on what you have for labor and facilities.
But if you have the ability to be able to supplement, you know, some sort of creep or complete ration protein, you know, pellet out in the pasture setting, that will kind of teach them.
It's, you know, it's just like we're teaching toddler children or babies on how to eat.
And so they'll start to see that, something that's highly palatable.
They really like the way it tastes, and then they start to get curious, and so if they've seen it before, they leave moms.
So before they're really stressed, then that will be something that's familiar.
And if they can see that familiar object when they get into the lot, that will really help them to keep maintain that appetite and want to eat.
Because again, the immune system is directly related to nutrition.
And so if these cabs, you know, we want to get them to eat as soon as possible so that they can try to maintain that immunity and stay healthy.
So, highly palatable, palated feed or something that you have available, even if they've potentially, like in my situation, I know a lot of guys that have fed distillers during the calving.
So if these calves may have already been exposed to something like that.
So even just having dry distillers out, um, that they might remember that and to be able to want to go to the bunk line for that.
But then also it's really important to have some sort of roughage.
And so, whether that's a bail, whether you're grinding hay.
I also really like, this kind of goes back to, to um, changing their mindset if they are pacing that, that fence line where you can put bales, kind of put them perpendicular to the fence line where they actually kind of run into that and they might stop and take a bite, um, that they have to walk around it.
And so, you know, just having ample opportunity for them to be able to eat something that they, that they have seen before and or they, you know, they're interested in and it's going to taste good for them.
[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion of an interview taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension to hear the entire program, go to beef.unl.edu, or download 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.