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Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

As we work our way through spring, many small grains are maturing fast and nearing harvest windows. Are you ready to make the most out of these forage options?

Producers seeking hay should consider the animal being fed and feeding method before harvesting.  For young growing cattle, small grain hay should be cut in the boot stage or as soon as possible following heading to ensure higher protein and energy content. Mature cow and feedlot managers may consider delaying their forage harvest until the hard dough development stage to increase forage quantity; since these cattle can utilize lower quality forage than younger beef animals. Small grains with awns like rye, triticale, and wheat can be a concern at later maturities.  Grinding the hay, feeding in ration with additional moisture, or using an awnless (beardless) variety can reduce this risk.

No matter how you harvest, delaying can mean higher productivity. Nebraska studies have shown an 8 ton as harvested feed per acre increase between harvest at boot stage and soft dough on irrigated fields. The trade-off for delaying forage harvest was an 8% drop in crude protein content.

Another concern for silage harvesters is proper moisture when packing.  A statewide study looking at 17 Nebraska producers found the biggest loss of small grain silage quality was packing too wet despite almost all producers having wilted the crop before packing. Silage packed too wet had almost 3 times the energy loss that those packed at proper moisture content Shoot for 70-72% moisture for proper packing. Study survey data showed producers who harvested at boot, heading, or pollination stage and wilted for 16 to 24 hours appeared more likely to achieve target moisture levels. 

With today’s Pasture & Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Grasslands are the number one use of land in Nebraska, and cover almost half the state, but transitions away from maintaining our state's grasslands are leading to many problems for farmers and ranchers. Dirac Twidwell, a professor in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture at UNL describes his research on the benefits, grasslands have on human well-being, and his work with grassland owners across the Great Plains to combat these problems.

[Dirac Twidwell, UNL Agronomy & Horticulture Professor]
We specialize in, uh, grassland conservation, uh, their management at large scales, so we do a lot in the state, working with ranchers, industry, a number of stakeholders on it.

I think for a lot of people, grasslands are often talked about it.

They're the least conserved, often most underfunded, least appreciated.

And so it's one of those, uh, that a lot of Nebraskans don't know it's our number one land use in the state.

Covers over half the state.

And it's vital to a number of our ecosystem services, both for agricultural productivity, preventing major issues associated with, like, natural disasters like wildfire.

They're surprising disease vectors, when we lose grasslands, things like woody encroachment.

So our lab really focuses on how grasslands are important to human well being, not just to a producer on a ranch, not just for, say, like, wildlife conservation, but to the entire state.

Our grasslands, because they're overwhelmingly privately owned in the state.

One of the important things that we started doing several years ago is working with teams and collaborations of rancher communities.

And so we've been able to scale up from instead of just working on individual experiment or place, collaborating at, you know, hundreds of thousands of acres across multiple communities in the state, spanning areas like southwest Nebraska, less canyons, sandhills, southeast, northeast, up in the Pine Ridge.

And that's helped us align local needs and rancher needs, too, a lot of supporting groups.

So grasslands, there's that entity that brings all these groups with their individual values together, spanning wildlife water production.

And we slide into that, kind of that classical land gram mission of where research and that technical expertise fits into how we support this privately owned resource that, historically and still today, is the majority of our state.

When we're looking at grasslands today and the opportunity going forward, I mean, we're all really specialized in what we know with our jobs, and that is where the next level and nexus is.

If we, you know, which areas today are contributing the most to our rangeland productivity, which obviously is a key cornerstone of our beef industry here in the state.

But there's also areas that are disproportionately important for bird conservation, which are the fastest group of declining species, or grassland birds.

So, then, if we knew where water is critical, and things like woody encroachment pose those risks across all three of those sectors, that's where we're able to start teasing apart different specializations of, like, what's our hydraulology team know well?

And building that over with, like, our avian conservation, with, like, people in animal science, with our beef industry and sector?

And that's what ranchers and a lot of these groups that work in grasslands are dealing with all the time.

They're not managing just one thing.

They're managing the ecosystem.

And so when we do that, and, you know, the growing wildfire issue in the state, like, that's where I want to see things be able to grow, is we're having teams of people across all units.

And we're getting a lot of interest from other universities on that, as well, because that's a common shared pool of questions that every land grant institution has here in the Great Plains.

So that's what I think is next.

Like, not only getting our land grants more collaborative on these big questions in space.

And what we're seeing on the back end is that's directly fueling those conservation partners, like the USDA and our state wildlife agencies.

It makes that science more actionable.

And that really goes back to really helping one group, and that's the ranchers that own those land.

They're not just profitable because of what they're doing on the ground.

They're managing for our water resources, our biodiversity, these other things we care about, that we often take for granted that's on their shoulders, because they're the key decision maker.

[Brad Mills, Program 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.
 

Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. On a recent program, UNL Ag Economics Professor Jay Parsons talked about writing down your personal values and using that to establish a vision or mission statement for your farmer ranch. On today's almanac, he details the actual process of writing your mission statement.

[Jay Parsons, UNL Ag Econ Professor]
So how do you go about writing these statements?

Okay.

And, um, as with anything, it's the process that's most important because it makes you think through some of this stuff. Okay?

It's not, you want to finish product, of course, to look good, but you'll get 2 or 3 times out of just the process doing it, as you will, with the actual product that comes out.

This is the best advice I can give.

If you're going to sit there and think about what is important to you, how to articulate what the vision or the mission of this operation, farmer ranch operation is or any business for that matter, think of the 5 things.

You want people to see or know about your farm, you know, but when they talk about you and your farm or ranch operation, what are the main or the top 5 things you want them to say about you once they get to know you and once they look at what you're doing in your operation?

If there's more than one person involved, Each of you should do this on your own 1st and then compare notes and bring those together.

Okay, normally these are very short, 2 or 3 sentences would be nice.

You'll see some that are up on the internet that are quite, quite long, but what you are trying to do is come up with a concise statement of why you exist.

Why do you want to be a farmer or a rancher or run this operation?

What is it that you hope to achieve and a little bit about your philosophy, of how you go about achieving that?

And then last piece is how do you serve those that are affected by your work, that includes people within your organization, how you treat your employees or if your organization is made up of primarily a family members, how you treat your family members within there, and then also how you interact with the public in general, and those that buy your products.

So here's some examples of a farm vision statement.

This is one out of that's being used in a lot of agribusiness, uh, um, classes around the country.

Um, and I used it in one that I taught uh, years ago, but uh, basically it's a Cornelius Farms vision statement.

It's to be a farm business that farms and or manages land, to best satisfy the landowner.

So right away, they're articulating that they rent a lot of their land, and they view their landowners as one of their primary customers.

They wanted to be one of the very best farmers and farm managers in a region.

How they want people to view them.

To rent farmland by striving to obtain maximum income per acre, thus creating maximum profits for the landlord intended, through the use of distinguished management of the land.

So, they want to basically maximize those net returns for both them and the landlord.

So that's part of their objectives, right?

That's a value that they have in place.

Theyre in business to make money.

And they want more the better.

Um, but they want to do it by having good management of the land.

So they want to take care of the land.

We also have the model that appearances everything that goes for equipment and your land.

We make every effort to ensure that the landowner's land is virtually weed free and well kept.

So the last sentence kind of provides a vision of it, but the key piece there is taking care of the land is one of their core values.

You start this by getting uh, taking some time to identify your core values.

And if there's other family members involved in that operation with you.

Have them identify theirs and have a frank and honest conversation and come to a consensus on the core values that are going to drive this family farmer ranch down the path into the into the future vision that uh, that you hope to achieve.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
You can find more information on planning your future and writing a mission statement by going to UNL Center for Ag Profitability’s 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.
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

The 2026 rangeland grasshopper risk map from the USDA indicates there may be increased grasshopper activity in the eastern panhandle and southwestern Nebraska. Keeping an eye on fields this spring and summer can help mitigate economic loss from grasshopper feeding. 

Grasshoppers tend to thrive in dry, hot conditions while outbreaks can be severely limited by cool, wet spring weather; however, it is still recommended that producers throughout the state scout their fields while grasshoppers are in the nymph stage and therefore easier to control. Degree-day models estimate that current grasshopper populations are still in the early nymph stage, making this the best time to scout pastures including field margins.

One of the best ways to scout for grasshoppers is to use the square foot method. Randomly select an area several feet away and visualize a one square-foot area around that spot. Walk toward this spot and count the number of grasshoppers you see in or jumping out of this area. Repeat this procedure 18 times and divide the total number of grasshoppers by two. This will give you the number of grasshoppers per square yard. Economic thresholds for grasshoppers range from 8 to 40 grasshoppers per square yard, depending on a variety of factors. Keep in mind that control is generally recommended before grasshoppers reach maturity.

For current insecticide recommendations for controlling grasshoppers in rangeland, forages, alfalfa, and other crops, please contact your county extension office.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Crops & Water Educator, Samantha Daniel.

NicoleWasteManagement26 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Waste products like manure and food waste make up a large portion of the agricultural production in Nebraska. Dr. Nicole Buan, professor of biochemistry at the university, discusses her team's research in engineering methane producing Archaea, and the benefits they provide in waste management and our bioeconomy.

[Nicole Buan, UNL Professor of Biochemistry]
So what we do is we engineer these tiny organisms called methano archaea.

So what they are great at is taking waste products like manure, food waste, um, all the stuff we can't eat.

It's not food vinegar.

And they turn it into methane energy.

So it's really um, a huge opportunity for Nebraska because we have so much of that waste, uh, biomass from all the different ag processing that we do.

And these organisms can turn that straight into energy.

And actually, even for Nebraska.

I think, I think it's like per capita, Nebraskans use more energy than any other state in the country because we use that to make food.

Um, so if we can generate more energy using methanoarchia, it really does a ton for our bioeconomy.

And the fun thing that we do in this lab is we're really taking DNA from other extreme microbes or even from plants or other sources, and we're putting them into our methano archaea.

So we're giving them new traits and we're also making them go faster and be better.

So the 1st thing is we grow them in these anaerobic culture tubes called bulch tubes.

So we're controlling the atmosphere that they can grow in.

And then we have incubators where we control the temperature.

But what we do, a lot of work with some methanoarchia is in our anaerobic chamber system.

We actually have catalysts that remove every last speck of oxygen.

Uh, and that allows our methanoarchia microbes to grow better.

Um, and so we're controlling um, not just the temperature, but also the atmosphere.

And so that's what this anerobic chamber system lets us do.

Um, and, uh, this is actually one of the, um, uh, premier kind of systems in this country.

There's there's companies that have much larger ones, of course, but for a university setup, we can do everything that we would want to do with our methano Archaea to engineer them in the system here.

So to us, that really means taking a big shot, um, going all in, going all the way forward, um, and being really fearless about the research that we're doing.

So we're not going to be, you know, intimidated about being in a smaller university or, you know, in a smaller program.

We're going to swing for the fences.

And in fact, that's what we've been able to do.

We've developed several really innovative new technologies, things that other people hadn't even thought about or didn't even think was possible with Methano Archaea.

And we were really able to do that because of that go big red spirit.

We actually have a fantastic tech transfer office and new tech ventures here at UNL.

So I, along with another colleague, Paul Blum and another department, actually form the company molecular trait evolution.

And my previous grad student is now the CEO of that company.

So we're really taking, um, interesting, um, enzymes and traits from extremophilic microbes and, um, that company is really, uh, brand new startup and it's doing really well so far.

And we're hoping to use those enzymes to decrease the water use for ethanol production, and to capture as much sugar as we can, from corn or soybeans or even waste biomass, like switch grass or something like that.

So we think, you know, really that's a UNL innovation, uh, in inter disciplinary collaborative project that we were able to do with uh, some seed funding that we have here at the university, uh, and we're launching that company and hopefully it'll, it'll take off.

[Brad Mills, Program 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.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. With so much day to day activity on any farm or ranch, it can be difficult to plan ahead or simply understand basic goals and preparations for the future of the operation. UNL Ag Economics Professor Jay Parsons says, having a mission or vision statement is critical to setting goals, making good decisions, and the very future of the operation. He says that starts with determining what your values are.

[Jay Parsons, UNL Ag Econ Professor]
Let's start with a short discussion on values and what they are.

Values are standards, beliefs, or qualities that you consider worth upholding or pursuing.

Values are the way you think things should be.

So they're an ideal picture of how you think people should communicate and treat each other and how they should interact with the environment around them.

Values are what you stand for.

They're things that you don't compromise on.

If one of your values is honesty, you don't just lie when it's convenient for you.

Values can be on different levels.

Values can be personal.

I mentioned honesty, spirituality would be another one.

Things that you typically put in the bucket of being family values.

It can also be economic values.

What kind of lifestyle do you want to live?

Values of saving money up for retirement and such.

Values can be operational, the way you do things, the way you grow your crops.

Maybe it's a, basically the quality that you produce or how you go about producing that in terms of being organic or non-organic, different things like that can be a part of your value system.

And in that same bucket, there's environmental values out there, basically uh, maintaining the soil and the environment around you, water quality issues and stuff like that can enter into and be a core value of the way you do things and the way you think, think things through.

And then there's community values, which is, you know, just communication with those around you, the way you treat each other, uh, general respect for each other and helping each other out.

Those values need to get conglomerated into either a mission or a vision statement, and either one of these is a statement of the purpose of the operation, and that they explain a little bit about what the business organization is, the products and services that they actually put out.

Um, the direction of that business.

The reason it is in business, and in the case of a vision statement, uh, in particular, it could be, it should be more of a long run focus of the operation.

Matter of fact, that's one of the distinguishing features a little bit between a mission and a vision statement.

As the vision is looking out a little bit more in a futuristic sense.

The statement should also explain the uniqueness of the business.

Okay?

They should incorporate those values, the uniqueness of the people involved, and the combination of products and services that that business is providing.

So I mentioned vision or mission, and as I said earlier, there is a subtle difference with them between them and that division is more broad and more future oriented.

It's like a goal out there on horizon, 10, 20, 30 years down the road.

More of an idealistic view of where you would like to be, a little more general in nature.

A mission statement is more focused and it's on how you will get to that horizon.

When you see these statements put out by businesses, whether the farm business or any business for that matter, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the 2 and it sometimes it's very hard to find a business that actually puts out both of these.

So I'm not advocating that you need to have both a vision and a mission statement, but you should certainly take the time to put together one or the other.

And both of them should be foundationally based on your value system.

What is it that's important to you?

So you take those things that you think are important?

You provide some to direction and the way you would like to go with those, and state some very clear objectives, like I would like to increase the quality of the soil on my operation or something like that, and you want to incorporate that, then in your vision and your mission statement.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned to future almanac programs where Jay continues to stress how important a mission statement can be for any operation 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.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Farmers and ranchers here in Nebraska have had to deal with wildfires and severe drought in some places, and the damage that they cause can be a tricky problem when it comes to taxes. On a recent almanac, Nebraska farm business director, Tina Barrett, discuss how being prepared before these unfortunate events take place to make a significant difference on your taxes.  She continues that discussion today by focusing on lost forage from drought or wildfire, and how ranchers might need to make some decisions about their livestock.

[Tina Barrett, Director – Nebraska Farm Business]
So we have 2 options.

And really even if it's the wildfire impact, we're really going to rely on the drought, which caused the wildfires as probably the deferral options with the livestock.

So we're really talking about those drought deferral options either way.

So we have 2 options with that.

One of them is a one year deferral, and any livestock counts for that.

So feeding, breeding, all of it.

And so that gives us a kind of a flexibility, but what that does in a kind of real short terms is allows you to defer your excess sales to the next year.

So we need to look back at the number of head that you sold the last 3 years, compare that to the number of head that you sold this year, and then take a per head average and carry that forward.

So it's not as simple as if you sold your calf crop in January.

And then sold the next year's crop in December instead of holding it till January.

It's not like, we can't just take that December check and roll it to January.

We need to do some calculations, but, you know, that one, again, works for any kind of livestock, but we do have to make that calculation by type.

So we would look at the calves and the number of excess.

We would look at the cows and the number of excess, and we look at the bulls and the number of excess.

And that just moves that into the following year.

So it works really well, especially with feeding livestock to kind of keep it on a similar half as what your history is.

You do have to have be in an area that was eligible for federal assistance.

If we would get a FEMA, you know, presidential declaration for that area, which could be coming with the wildfires, that's an automatic guaranteed.

But I think we can also look at some of the other things that come from federal assistance outside of FEMA as justification for that.

And the drought monitor is a great resource to show that there's definitely a drought happening and and those kinds of things.

But any sort of documentation that you can keep to show that the sale was due to a due to the drought or other weather related conditions is going to be real important for you.

The other option is a, starts as a two-year deferral.

This is only good for draft dairy and breeding animals.

So not the feeding livestock.

I mean, not the calves.

And this gives us up to 2 years to replace that livestock.

The one year deferral just moves the money and you tax it later.

This one you have to replace it.

If you don't replace the animals, then you have to come back to the air of sale and amend your tax return.

So again, kind of still have to have that weather related conditions doesn't have to be eligible for federal assistance to get that 2 year deferral.

So that's kind of nice, gives us a little bit more flexibility in that one.

But 2 year becomes a 4 year if there is federal assistance granted.

So if we would get some of that sort of designation in your area, we can make that a 4 year deferral, and then it can actually get extended one year at a time if those drought conditions continue.

So, I know we have a lot of counties in Nebraska where we are past that 4 year period, um, and we could continue to defer, and that's maybe good, maybe bad, but, um, it is an option to continue that as long as the drought continues.

The general rule with, with that replacement is that it has to be replaced with light kind, though, so beef cows for beef cows, dairy cows for dairy cows.

And if we get to that 4 year period, then they lift that restriction.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program is a portion of an interview taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension. To hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or 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.
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Oats, spring triticale or barley planted early this spring will soon be ready for grazing.  The potential seems great, but you may be disappointed if you don’t graze it right.

Oat pastures have increased in popularity in recent years.  They can reduce problems from drought and provide fast, early grazing.  Oat pastures can be very productive and last through early summer, but they also disappoint sometimes.  While we don’t know all we need to know, here are a few grazing recommendations that will help you succeed.

Oats grows rapidly.  Once it gets five or six inches tall, it quickly can shoot up to a foot tall in almost no time.  As nice as this sounds, if initial oat growth gets that tall it may not stool out, tiller, and regrow after grazing very well.  So it’s important to start grazing early and to graze hard enough to keep your oats vegetative and leafy, thereby stimulating it to constantly form new tillers.

So how early is early?  That’s hard to say, but if your animals start to first graze when oats get six to eight inches tall and they remove just half the growth it should recover rapidly and tiller well.  You probably will need to give your oats a couple weeks to regrow after this first grazing, though, before grazing again.

After this first grazing stimulates tillering, keep oat regrowth between six and sixteen inches tall using either continuous or rotational stocking.  Begin with a light stocking rate, maybe about one animal every two or three acres.  Then adjust animal numbers as growth changes.  Don’t worry if a few plants head out.  But if many plants get tall and approach the boot stage, either stock heavily for one last hard graze-out grazing or consider cutting for hay.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Range and Forage Specialist, Jerry Volesky

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

As spring temperatures rise across Nebraska, now’s the time to plan your first alfalfa cutting. Getting that first cut right is more important than many realize—it sets the pace for the entire season.

Waiting too long to harvest can lead to lower forage quality and delayed regrowth. That pushes your second cutting later into the summer, when heat and drought stress can limit yield. It can also throw off your third or even fourth cuttings, shortening the season and reducing total tons per acre.

On the flip side, cutting too early—before late bud stage—can hurt stand vigor and root reserves, especially in younger fields.

A good rule of thumb? Aim for 750 growing degree days from green-up and target the late bud to early bloom stage. Depending on the quality you are shooting for, this typically falls between late-May and early-June. Check field conditions closely, including weevil activity and stand health, and plan around weather windows to avoid rain damage.

Poor timing in May can cost you in July and August. Start planning now. Sharpen blades, check and service equipment, and communicate with custom harvesters early. A timely first cut sets the tone for the rest of your hay season.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman. 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. Nebraska has had a share of natural disasters like tornadoes, hail damage, floods, and more recently drought conditions and wildfires. Nebraska farm business director Tina Barrett talks about some critical tax strategies that might make a significant financial difference in dealing with these issues on the farm.

[Tina Barrett, Nebraska Farm Business Director]

You know, anytime we have a, a, really a casualty loss is what, what the term is, it often impacts a lot of different assets.

So whether it's a wildfire or a tornado or anything like that, when it's multiple assets that are being damaged or destroyed like we're seeing, we have to look from a tax standpoint at each of those assets individually.

And so it's going to be really important that you keep track of what has been damaged.

So take pictures, if you compare that with pictures from before, that's great documentation, but definitely take pictures of anything that was destroyed, or document the fact that it's not there anymore.

Make sure that you're tracking the insurance records and stuff, what's coming in for insurance by asset, and that gets to be really complicated, especially if they're giving you a specific percentage up front.

And then the remainder when you repair or replace it.

Sometimes each asset could have multiple payments.

Sometimes those payments get spread over 2 years.

So all the kinds of things just get to be extra complicated.

The other part that complicates this is some of the assets are business assets, and some of the assets are personal assets, and that has a different tax treatment, and how we handle those.

And so making sure that we're keeping track of how much insurance is for personal things, you know, the house and the vehicles and those kinds of things versus your business assets is also going to be really important.

So, yeah, it just becomes a real record keeping kind of nightmare and really tracking through all that.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Tina says keeping in close contact with your tax advisor, with specific information on your issues is key to making good tax decisions.

[Tina Barrett, Nebraska Farm Business Director]

You know, the earlier, at least for me, the earlier I could get the data with the insurance, the items that were damaged, all of those things, if I can do those kind of calculations when it's not tax season, it's a lot easier to make sure that those things get done, right?

And then you've got decisions to make.

Are you going to replace?

Are you going to repair?

Are you gonna switch to, you know, a different enterprise altogether?

All of those kinds of things have different tax effects.

So I'm a big proponent of not doing things for tax reasons, but making sure that you don't do things without understanding the tax consequences either.

Yeah.

So anything that's that's destroyed from an event that's out of your control.

So that's when we get to the casualty losses.

And so what really, again, it's a little bit complicated in the, in the, um, calculations of that.

But essentially what we do is say that any gain from the insurance can be kind of deferred into the year when it was replaced, so those offset, and we don't have to like have a sale in one year in a purchase in another year.

But it's calculations based off of how much basis was remaining, how much insurance, money you got, and how much you spent to repair or replace.

And so all of those kinds of things will go into that.

From the personal side, we need to know what you paid for those items, how much insurance reimbursed you for it, and then there's some limited deductions we can take if you have losses beyond that.

And so, again, the calculations are different and kind of all those things get fairly complicated, but making sure that you know what you paid for the asset.

If you've taken depreciation on it and how much insurance was provided for that asset, it's going to be the important pieces for your tax preparer to make those calculations.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Stay tuned for future programs where Tina discusses your tax options, when disaster strikes on the farm, 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.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

For over 45 years, the Nebraska lead program has been developing leaders in the ag industry in helping them stay ahead of the changing landscape of policy, marketing, economics, and technology. Nebraska lead director, Kurtis Harms says a new class is forming for the upcoming year and encourages anyone in the ag industry to enroll for a great experience.

[Kurtis Harms, Nebraska LEAD Program Director]

The Nebraska lead program is a two-year leadership development program for farmers, ranchers, and agribusiness professionals.

It is 18 months of in-state seminars exploring different agricultural systems, exploring state government, exploring agricultural policy, also followed up by a national seminar and an international seminar, truly designed to shape and develop those leaders in agriculture into the future.

We are currently actively looking for Nebraska lead Class 45.

We have 2 cohorts that are going on at the same time, and lead class 45 will start in the fall of 2026.

Our application deadline is June 15th.

So this really is that time that people that may have heard of the program, or maybe this is the 1st time that they're hearing about the program, should request information and to investigate whether or not they feel like this would be a good program for them.

We are looking, like I mentioned, for those individuals in agriculture, that are passionate about making a difference, passionate about serving in some sort of leadership capacity, whether that's at the local level.

You know, you're looking at school boards, church boards, community boards, those kinds of things, and in agriculture, commodity boards, you know, the cornboard, corn association, soybean board, all of the commodities have their their own groups.

But even in state governments, we have a US senator, that's a lead lead fellow.

And so we're really proud of our network and our alum that are serving in all aspects of leadership and we're looking for those people to continue on that legacy.

We are actively working with our fellows that are involved in the Nebraska lead program by exposing them to leaders in a variety of settings.

We are looking at those local issues.

We're exploring local agricultural policy.

We're exploring local community issues.

We're exploring our statewide issues.

And then at the end of year one, our fellows will take part in a 10 day national seminar where they will travel to Kansas City, Washington, DC and Chicago, where they'll start to look at more of the broader scope, looking at those regional agricultural systems, looking at our federal policy, looking at our national associations that are advocating on our behalf.

Then year two, they'll take part in additional seminars across the state of Nebraska and conclude that with a two-week international experience as well.

And these experience is typically involve 2 or 3 different countries where our fellows will explore what's going on across the globe.

We'll engage with different cultures, learning about our different customers or our different competitors that exist around the world, will understand leadership at a global perspective, understand issues like international trade, international agricultural policy, international ag systems, and conducting interviews with different farmers and ranchers across the world.

And this really opens our eyes of our fellows and gets them outside of their comfort zone, gets them outside of their own individual bubble that they may be used to.

You know, I can speak from experience.

You know, when I I came from a small town and before I started traveling a lot, I really was maybe a little bit narrow-minded.

You know, I had a good leadership foundation, but then once you start being exposed to other issues that you may not have thought of, putting yourself in other individual shoes, looking at things from the lens of someone else, you really are able to be a better leader, that's not to necessarily say that, you know, your, your, your, opinions or your, your values are going to change much, but you're able to work with people that maybe think differently than you a lot easier and you're able to compromise and you're able to find that common ground to help push the, the, the, needle and push the industry forward.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

For more information on the Nebraska lead program and to enroll in the upcoming class, go to lead.unl.edu. That's lead.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.

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Spring is busy getting crops in the ground, but if much needed moisture keeps you from the field, take some time to maintain your haying equipment and prevent costly downtime later.

First, inspect, lubricate, and service all power-driven areas such as belts, bearings, chains, and gears.  Set tension on belts and chains.  For sicklebar headers, check, sharpen, or replace cutterbar sections and adjust wear plates, hold-down clips, and guards.  Make sure your cutterbar has proper knife register. On disc mowers, replace knives and rotate or replace worn turtles over the knives.

Conditioning rollers often are overlooked.  Look for uneven wear and adjust the roll gap, roll timing, and roll pressure for your crop.

On round balers, inspect belts, chains, and slats or rollers frequently for wear.  Trim frayed edges and repair belts as needed to maintain uniform tension.  When not in use, keep belts clean and release belt tension.

Check plunger knife clearance and plunger alignment on square balers and inspect the tying mechanism and adjust as needed.  Pick-up teeth on balers and on rakes frequently are broken or bent.  Replace defective teeth and adjust height if necessary.

Also, be sure you have replacement parts on hand for frequently broken or replaced items.  And most important of all, review your owner's manual to identify recommended maintenance procedures and proper settings.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. Farmers and ranchers have always had a reputation for toughness and resiliency.Being able to survive environmental problems, volatile markets and sticking through all kinds of tough circumstances, has been the hallmarks of the ag industry. So asking for help carries a bit of stigma that is difficult to talk about. Extension educator Glennis McClure wants to change that and help farmers understand that everyone has stress, and there are healthy ways to deal with it.

[Glennis McClure, Nebraska Extension Educator]

Well, I think there has been a stigma in that, you know, I'm tough.

I'm going to get through it.

You know, I'm going to do it on my own kind of thing.

And I think that we've started to break down some of those barriers, though.

And because I just think back to a few years ago with the pandemic and how and how we saw a lot of different stresses during that time, and I think that we started to hear a lot more about resources and help available for folks that, um, you know, that are really experiencing stress.

But, so, and I, and I, you know, I think some of the messaging that Nebraska Extension has put out is that, you know, Nebraska really needs you, and it is really important to reach out.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Glennis says the university and extension offer resources to help farm families cope with stressful situations.

[Glennis McClure, Nebraska Extension Educator]

Recently, our Nebraska extension has, um, um, you know, I guess, brought up a disaster, uh, website disaster education website, and there's mental health and well-being information on that website now.

Um, and, you know, you mentioned the Nebraska rural response hotline.

That is really a great resource here in Nebraska.

In that, I like to always say that they do have vouchers for folks to seek some mental health counseling if needed.

So, because I know if, like, finances are really kind of tough and and we don't feel like we can afford to, you know, seek that help, they actually will provide some vouchers for folks to be able to visit with a mental health counselor.

And we shouldn't be afraid to do that.

Again.

Um, you know, it's really important to take care of ourselves and that's one of the things.

But also they also have provided some financial assistance.

And so that's a great resource, Nebraska rural response hotline.

Um, so you can call them and, you know, sort of get on their schedule if, if that's something that, um, sounds appealing.

You know, we do mention some of our other partners that university extension works with, and there's other universities that have put out, a lot of great information, but AgraSafe, has put out some information.

Um, there is some, um, some suicide, um, prevention trainings, and being able to recognize when someone's up against, you know, maybe maybe they've mentioned or thought about the suicide thing, and you mentioned that 988 number is really, really important, that if we ever know of anybody, or even ourselves, if we're thinking about that, you know, just talking with someone that's, you know, well prepared, that understands all of that, can help you through that, that 988 number is important.

But I want to mention that AgraSafe has provided, there's a program called QPR.

And so I mentioned that here in the article, and they've done some online trainings for folks.

And then there are other trainings that are available in the communities.

We have an extension educator that's trained a train facilitator in that.

So you can just kind of watch for when some of those programs are available and folks can learn more about how they can, you know, sort of help themselves, but also help others in their area and recognize some of those signs and symptoms of potential suicide.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Today's program was a portion of an interview taken from a recent farmcast podcast offered by UNL Center for Ag Profitability. To read the detailed article or download the entire interview, go to cap.unl.edu, 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.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. Farming and ranching can be a quite stressful enterprise.

That is especially true during drought and wildfire damage that our state has recently experienced. Extension educator Glennis McClure talks about recognizing stress on today's almanac.

[Glennis McClure, Nebraska Extension Almanac]

Every so often, um, we see things, you know, out and about in the rural area of Nebraska of, you know, some things that are going on that can lend lend itself to stress.

And especially this year, we think about the wildfires and all that folks are dealing with with that.

In some cases, I can't imagine.

And also, we, you know, we're seeing this drought just kind of continue.

So much of Nebraska is under a drought.

And also, we knew going into 2026 that our input cost on crop production.

We a little higher.

We're going to be higher.

Commodity prices are low. At, you know, and they fluctuate, yes, of course, and it's a market we need to watch.

But we have now, fertilizer costs have jumped up.

We're seeing some of the pesticide costs coming up and fuel.

So there's just been a lot of things happening and some uncertainty.

You know, we have folks that are, you know, maybe financial, starting to see some finances and struggling with a bit of that too.

So, so anyway, we just want to be, um, try to be helpful with information on resources that can, uh, uh, we can provide to folks, um, put as much of a positive twist and some, um, suggestions out for people to pay attention to.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Stress has a number of causes, some sudden like weather events like hail or flooding. Another source can slowly build up over time. When it says it's important to recognize what's happening, so you can find ways to deal with it.

[Glennis McClure, Nebraska Extension Educator]

I think in ourselves, There's sometimes different indicators, and we all deal with stress in a different way, really.

Sometimes we're affected more physically, you know, we might have, like, let's say our blood pressure goes up.

We might get sweaty palms, we might be more fatigued.

We might have nausea happening, shortness of breath.

So these are things that are physical, but then we also have our thoughts and our feelings.

Sometimes we just become angry.

Maybe we're feeling more depressed than, you know, than ever.

We just don't feel like doing what we've always done, kind of, and, you know, we don't have the energy, perhaps, to get out and to do the work that we need to do.

Maybe we're really nervous.

We might be overeating.

We might be undreating.

We might be, you know, interested in drinking more.

Maybe our sleep is affected.

So there's a lot of different things that can happen to us and that, so as we recognize that in ourselves.

But also, I think, you know, in a family, we can also kind of pay attention to those around us.

And, you know, do we see someone that's really struggling to sleep.

Do we see someone that seems to be very depressed?

Um, you know, just paying attention, watching for those signals, I think is really important.

And that's one of some of the things that we teach when we are talking about mending the stress fence or communicating with farmers under stress.

And part of it is too, trying to pay attention and really being a good listener, you might pick up different things.

And from folks.

And you can ask them, you know, how we are in passing a lot of times, how are you today?

And you might say, oh, I'm just fine.

I'm just fine, you know?

And so we just kind of shrug it off, you know, and I'm like here to say, you know, if you're struggling with anything.

Don't hesitate to talk with someone about that.

And also on the flip side, hopefully we can be a good listener and we can pick up on some of those cues that people might be providing about sort of what's going on in their life.

And it's good to ask some questions, not those yes, no questions, but more of those.

Really, how are you doing?

Can you tell me what's going on, you know, in your life right now?

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Stay tuned to future programs where Glennis talks about healthy ways to deal with stressful situations on the farm. Today's program was a portion of an interview taken from a recent farmcast podcast offered by UNL Center for Ag Profitability. To read the detailed article, or download the entire interview, go to cap.unl.edu, 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.

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

It is close to the ideal time to plant a summer annual grass, maybe to replenish your hay supply or have some extra grazing.  Which one will you plant? 

Choosing a summer forage can be confusing because there are about seven different types of major summer annual forage grasses.  These include: sudangrass, sorghum-sudan hybrids, forage sorghum (which we often call cane or sorgo), foxtail millet, pearl millet, Japanese millet, and teff.  Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses.  So, base your choice primarily on how you plan to use it.

For example, do you want pasture?  Then use sudangrass or pearl millet.  Both are leafy, they regrow rapidly, and they contain less danger from prussic acid poisoning than other annual grasses.

What if you want hay or green chop?  Then select sorghum-sudan hybrids or pearl millet because they yield well and they have good feed value when cut two or three times.  On sandy soils, or when conditions are dry, foxtail millet may be a better choice for summer hay.  It dries fast, doesn't regrow after cutting, and handles dry soils well. Cane hay is grown in many areas and produces high tonnage, but it’s lower in feed value and dries more slowly after cutting than the hybrids or millets.  Japanese millet can either be cut for hay or grazed and is a plant that can tolerate heavy, wet soils.  Choose teff if you are looking for a really soft, leafy, high quality horse hay.

Maybe you plan to chop silage.  Then choose the forage sorghums, especially hybrids with high grain production. They can't be beat for tonnage or for feed value.

While there are several choices of summer annual forages, simply select the one that is best adapted to the way you plan to use it.  And, of course, hope for rain since even these grasses won’t grow without some moisture.  For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Range and Forage Specialist, Jerry Volesky.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. It might be common knowledge that methane production and livestock is a major contributor to greenhouse gases.Scientists have studied the question of reducing methane production in our cattle for some time, but that isn't an easy question to answer. UNL Rumen microbiologist Samoda Fernando talks about what happens in the gut of a cow that causes methane and why that is an important energy process in their diet.

[Samodha Fernando, UNL Rumen Microbiologist]

So, ruminants are unique because if you think about a monocastric animal like a pig or even humans, actually the microbes are in the hind gut.

So the host enzymes actually break down the substrates and whatever leftover undigested is what microbes use.

But if you think about ruminant animal, you are actually feeding the microbes.

So the rumen, which is one of the unique features that ruminants have, actually have 1000000000s of microbes, and these microbes are not just bacteria, you have bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozua, and even viruses in their microbi.

We call them the room and microbiome because it's a mix of different microbes in there.

Bacteria obviously dominate this microbiome, but then fungi actually gain access to feed particles.

They borrow in so that bacteria can go in and break down these complex carbohydrates.

Then protozoa actually can also metabolize certain um, substrate, complex substrate, but they actually feed on microbes and actually help control some of these microbial populations.

The viruses do the same thing.

They actually can feed operated on these bacterial population, so they help control.

So together, this microbiome, which is made off of these complex pro-karyote, and you karyote microbes, so 2 different kingdoms of different microbes actually work together as a whole group to maintain efficiency and function within the room.

The other group that I didn't talk so far is the AKEA.

AKEA are the ones that actually produce methane and majority of the AKEA inside the room and R metanogens.

So those are the ones that actually produce methane inside the room, but they have other metabolic functions.

They can break down carbohydrates and other substrates as well, or at least intermediates of these complex carbohydrates.

And as a byproduct, they produce methane.

And part of our discussion today is going to focus on these methanogens, a subpopulation, only about 3%, 3 to 10% of the total microbiome, but they play a big role in terms of methane production.

These methanogens have actually co-evolved with the host.

So as long as we've seen cattle, they've actually always had these methadogens because they play an important role in increasing the efficiency of the Roman as well.

So, for example, if you think about the Roman, Roman is free of oxygen. It's anaerobic.

So the Roman being anaerobic, when a complex carbohydrate is broken down inside the Roman, it produces these energy dense intermediate products called volatile fatty acids.

So when you don't have oxygen, these intermediates are the ones that are absorbed by the host animal and the host animal gets energy.

So the room and microbiome can actually provide up to about 70% of the energy of the host animal just by microbial fermentation.

[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 read the in-depth series on methane production, or to download the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu, 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.

[Brad Mills, Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. Dry weather this fall and winter may have some consequences in your home landscape this spring. Your trees, young and old, will need some extra attention, and that means getting some good water on them to help them thrive this spring. Nebraska extension instructor Dana Freeman talks about proper methods to get your trees, the water they need, on today's almanac.

[Dana Freeman, Nebraska Extension Instructor]

So we've had a dry fall and winter, and even though we might be getting some water this spring, our trees are still showing signs of drought stress.

That can look like trees that are slow to leaf out.

Trees with leaves that are smaller than usual, or even show some tip die back.

So there are still some things that you can do to help your trees bite this drought stress.

That will include supplemental watering and mulching.

But before we get the hose out, it's important to think about and determine how much water our trees really need.

Because overwatering is just as problematic as underwatering.

So to check the soil moisture, we'll use a long screwdriver or a soil probe, and what we want to do is stick that soil probe into the ground, 6 to 9 inches, because that's where most of the absorbing roots are.

If we pull that out, kind of like sticking a toothpick and a cake batter, and the soil is moist, then it's probably okay and we don't need to water.

But if we stick that soil probe in there, and we either can get the soil probe down 69 inches, or it's dry and dusty, then we probably need to add some supplemental watering.

So, will water new and young trees a little bit differently than our mature trees?

When we're watering our young trees, what we want to do is think about establishing deeper roots.

And that will look like potentially using a 5 gallon bucket with a quarter inch hole in the bottom.

You can estimate how much water a tree needs by using 10 gallons of water for each inch of trunk diameter.

That means a two inch diameter tree would need about 20 gallons of water.

So if you're using your five gallon bucket, That's four or five gallon buckets.

As we think about watering our mature trees, even though they have larger roots, they still need help when it's this dry outside.

So what we want to do is, instead of using the five gallon bucket, we'll use a soaker hose.

And we can spiral that in a pattern, kind of nearer the tree's canopy.

Then what you do is turn on your water, and kind of let it run for an hour, and then come back and recheck using your soil probe.

You may need to keep going in water just until you get until that top 6 to 9 inches of soil is moist.

Another thing, you can't just rely on water alone.

Mulching is something that we can do that's pretty easy, and that can really help our landscapes.

So adding two to four inches of an organic woodchip mulch is a great way to support your trees during periods of drought.

A common mistake that we often see is that folks rely on their lawn irrigation systems to provide water and think that's enough for their trees.

But watering deeply for turf is only 4 to 6 inches, wherein that's not enough for our tree roots, as we've talked about.

Prioritizing watering your woody trees is a great way to keep your landscape healthy and sustainable, even during these periods of drought and challenging growing conditions.

For more information, check out your local extension office, and they'd be happy to help you out.

Remember, your trees have vastly different water needs than your turf.

Just because your grass is green doesn't mean your trees have had enough water.

So take a look at your trees this weekend and followed these tips to make sure they're getting the water they need.

[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. 

[Brad Mills, Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. Our past years and ranges are becoming increasingly threatened with the spread of eastern red cedar trees.Nebraska extension educator Bethany Johnston says, this encroachment goes beyond just a change in scenery.

[Bethany Johnson, Nebraska Extension Educator]

Cedar trees are out competing grasses, reduce forage options for grazing, and can increase the risk of wildfires.

The most important predictor of where cedar trees are going to start encroaching.

It's not necessarily your soil type or the fact that you did a good job with your grazing management or your range management, but it's how close your unmarred prairie is to a Eastern red cedar seed source.

We planted these wind breaks and the cedar trees.

There's male and female trees.

But once they're mature, kind of those big ones you like to have in your shelter belts, those female trees can put out one. 150000000 berries every year.

So if you start running the numbers.

So if you just assume every other tree is a female, you can measure, like I've done it on Google Maps.

I'll measure my shelter belts, I'll count how many rows, and then figure out how far apart they've been planted, and I can get a tree count, and then if I divide that number by 2, that gives me how many females, and then I can take that times 1000000 or one. 1500000 and figure out how many seeds are coming out of that shelter belt every year.

And we have just kind of a 3 row cedar belt that goes around our calving pasture and it's not a very big area.

It's maybe, I think, 2030 acres.

But there was one hillside out in the pasture.

I always have to cut and I would get 20 or 30 little cedar trees off there and I can remember thinking, gosh, I can't believe I'm cutting all these trees.

And then I figured how many berries were coming out of that shelter belt and it's like half a 1000000000 berries every year or seeds every year.

And so when I cut that hill now, I'm thinking, well, at least I'm not cutting like half a 1000000000, right?

But the thing is, is we just, once they've kind of hopped the fence, right?

So we fence out our shelter belts.

Once you see a cedar tree, that you haven't planted outside in your grassland, that's when you need to start doing management on it.

And the nice thing about cedar seeds or cedar berries, the professionals call them cones because they're actually a conifer, but they're not going to, you know, float through the wind, anything like that.

So birds are actually the ones that spread them.

So most of your encroachment is going to happen within that 200 yards of that seed source because the birds are going to eat the seeds and then they're going to fly away and poop out the seeds.

And so usually you can kind of draw a 200 yard circle around and then that's where maybe you start hand pruning them.

Other people, they have such big shelter belts and they just can't physically keep up by using pruners or mechanical means.

And so they're actually just doing like little tiny prescribed burns next to their shelter belts because then it cleans out those little cedars and it's just a little bit easier to to manage.

And probably, you know, 20 years ago.

We used to tell people, well, if you cut a cedar tree once, you don't have to go back and do maintenance.

And that's partially true because if you cut a cedar tree below their bottom branch, they're not going to resprout.

So if you think of things like sumac or wild plump, like we can cut those, and it almost makes them more aggressive and they send out rhizomes and they come back, right?

But cedar trees, you can cut them off at the base and they're not going to resprout.

But the problem is that seed source.

So unless you're willing to take out that entire seed source.

And if you do that, then you're going to have to put up some kind of, you know, metal wind break or something to break the wind for you.

But unless you remove the seeds, it's going to be maintenance, right?

We're going to do cedar control every year, whether that's cutting or using chemicals or using fire or maybe a combination of all of those.

[Brad Mills, 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 interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts. 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.

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Grazing winter annuals such rye, winter wheat, or triticale commonly begins in April.  All three of these forages can be very high in quality and reduce the need for feeding expensive hay while allowing additional time for spring growth of our perennial summer pastures. 

Timing grazing should depend plant growth, not a specific date.  Begin grazing when the plants are about 5 to 6 inches tall and manage to keep the maximum height at 8 to 10 inches.  A good starting point is about 0.5 cow or 1 stocker calf per acre in early spring and increasing from there.  Rotational grazing with higher stocking densities can assist with keeping the plant maturity more uniform and reduce selective grazing. Look ahead 1 or 2 pastures and move based on how the plants are recovering in those pastures. These forages grow and recover from grazing fast. 

The most common mistake when grazing spring small cereals is letting the grass get ahead of the cattle.  It is important to increase stocking density as the spring progresses to ensure grazing can keep up with the rapid forage growth. This can be achieved by either adding more cattle or reducing the number of acres being grazed. 

Like most cool-season grasses in early spring, small cereal forages are also high in potassium. This means there is a need to provide supplemental magnesium as potassium interferes with magnesium availability to the animal. A free choice mineral with a targeted 4 oz per day intake should contain at least 10% magnesium to prevent grass tetany in lactating cows and 5% magnesium to increase gains in stocker calves.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman. 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. Recent studies at Montana State has revealed some interesting data on the impact of salt in cattle diets. Montana State Extension beef specialist, Sam Weiffels, talks about how increasing salt intake affects digestion and room and fermentation on today's almanac.

[Sam Weiffels, Montana State Beef Specialist]

We started this study.

We just happened to use a pelleted 25% salt limited, you know, to limit intake of that protein supplement, and we recorded all those animals intake in real time, and what really stemmed a lot of our salt work is one animal in that, in that study, came up to that supplement feeder one day and ate £20 of supplement.

At one at one time.

And we kind of thought about that, and we did the math, that math there, and that came out to £5 of salt that that animal consumed in that one day.

And that, it all just stemmed from that one animal in that one instance, you're like, holy cow, if that happens, what are the implications of, of salt, because we know what happens when we eat too much salt, right?

You gotta go drink a bunch of water.

And so we, that's really what stemmed it all.

And so we, we've actually had several studies looking at different factors with salt supplements, our salt limited supplements to test all that, but it really all stemmed from that one, the very 1st time we stuck that trailer out there and measured intake in that one animal, it stemmed a lot of questions.

Like, how can that animal eat that much salt?

And so the 1st study that we did, um, we actually took a, uh, that same salt limited pellet and we had it in 2 forms.

We had it one as a pellet, and then we had, um, the company manufactured the same supplement for us in a loose meal type, both had 25% salt.

And so we were wondering, you know, was it the pelletine?

That allowed that animal to not receive that negative impact right away or what was going on there.

And, uh, it turns out that that's what we think happened is, uh, we found that, um, when it was on a loose meal and the animals had to lick it up and the contact of that salt to those animals taste bud and sensory receptors on the tongue, um, has an impact of how much supplement.

They're willing to consume, especially when we're looking at like a salt limited supplement.

And so, That was interesting.

At the end of the day, even though with the masking of the salt a little bit with that, um, pelleted supplement, they still consumed rate at target intake, so I don't know that it has a, you know, for us, it wasn't enough for us to go, hey, we're not going to use this pellet anymore per se because they're consuming exactly the amount we want them to consume, but it is interesting from a research standpoint to know that the same supplement, whether it's pelleted or form, can have an impact on how much that animal is going to eat.

The other study that we jumped into, and that's one that you've been referring to is, so if an animal does consume a bunch of salt like that, what happens?

We know just, you know, in our own human nutrition, things like that, that when we consume a bunch of salt, it obviously, you know, has an impact on us.

We want to drink more water, you know, retain moisture or some, you know, people will swell up a little bit, things like that.

Um, and then when you think about the role that salt can have on being anti-microbial for food preservation and storage like that, like, what's that doing in that room and of the cow?

And so we developed a digestibility study as well to go along with the, um, the grazing study I just talked about.

And we looked at digestive kinetics, uh, intake digestibility.

We even measured water intake of those animals and just looked at how salt impacts overall digestibility and how those animals perform at different varying levels of salt in terms of, um, digestive kinetics.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Today's program was a portion taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension. To hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts. 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.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. On today's almanac, extension educator Glenis McClure discusses how net farm income affects the total net growth of a farm operation. There are a myriad of considerations when it comes to income versus growth and net worth of any farm business, and Glennis focuses on the important accounting details that farmers need to be aware of.

[Glennis McClure, Nebraska Extension Educator]

I think it's really important farmer ranch business should know what their actual or true net income is, or in other words, their profitability.

And this takes figuring beyond what the Schedule F tax form shows us.

So, net farm income generated from the business should be adequate to cover family living, cover annual taxes that are due, and the remainder is what's available to reinvest back into your operation.

Most farm and ranch businesses are cash bases, accounting folks, rather than a cruel basis.

And that's generally for text purposes.

So we need to take the time and make a cruel adjustments to get to our actual, or what I call true profit amount.

And so there is a relationship between the true farm income or profitability that is on the bottom line, figure off of a profit and loss or income statement, to the change in net worth from beginning of the year to the next.

And it relates back to what is being invested into the operation from net farm income.

So again, if we take net farm income and, you know, we have to pay income taxes, if we have a positive, we generally want to have some kind of living from our, um, from our business, you know, there is off farm income that can help, though, of course, in many cases.

But then the residual is what you have to reinvest.

Or in other words, like pay down debt and that type of thing.

So that, so we, you know, most businesses want to grow their net worth over time.

And this is definitely an important figure to look at.

Really, what is their true profitability?

So, well, an accrual adjustment.

With that, we're trying to get a clear picture, again, of the value of production for the accounting year and the actual expenses that relate to that production.

So it could be, you know, cattle production, crop production, any of that.

So, because there's so much that we have to put into those crops, so much that we have to put into those livestock.

And so we're growing and we're producing through that year.

So at the end of the year, we may not have sold all that year's production.

So oftentimes we do have inventory.

So at the end of the year, I still may have those calves that were, you know, born and raised, and I still haven't sold them as of, let's say, January one.

Same way with my crops.

Oftentimes I carry those over watching the market, you know, getting ready to sell when that market opportunity is there.

So in our records for the year, we may not have sold or we end up carrying over those that crop or that livestock from the prior year as well.

So I can look at the end of the year and say, yeah, I still have some of this year's production left.

Even a year ago, I had something from the prior year.

So what we're trying to do with these, um, accrual adjustments is to really get a real picture of what happened for a particular year.

So, and again, prepaid expenses come into play.

Um, so, um, you know, like our seed or our feed and those kinds of things.

So those are the kinds of adjustments that income statement worksheet, you know, really is for.

So truer actual net farm income or profitability, again, not the bottom line figure from the schedule F must be positive enough to cover our personal withdrawals or family living expenses unless there's off farm income, enough to pay income taxes owed based on the farm's income generation for the year, and then to reinvest or pay down debt.

So if we see positive net worth change or growth from the beginning cost basis balance sheet to the end of the year balance sheet, then we know we've adequately covered those three factors, and the operation was profitable.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Today's program was a portion taken from a recent farmcast podcast offered by UNL Center for Ag Profitability. To hear the entire interview, go to CAP.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcast. 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.

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

As spring green-up begins, producers may feel the urge to turn animals out to pasture. But the right time to start grazing often comes later than we might think. Before turnout, we need to answer two key questions: when should we start grazing, and which pastures should be grazed first?

The amount of grass growth by a given date varies from year to year depending on spring temperatures and precipitation. That is why basing turnout on a calendar date rarely works well. Initial spring growth comes from energy reserves stored in the roots and crowns of the grass plant. Grazing too soon can deplete those reserves and reduce production because not enough leaf area is present to fully support photosynthesis and regrowth. To give plants time to recover, wait until cool-season grasses reach at least the 3- to 4-leaf stage before grazing begins, whether in mixed pastures or straight cool-season stands.

This year, with a warmer-than-average spring and dry conditions since last fall, delaying turnout, if possible, is recommended. This will allow grass plants to maximize growth given current soil moisture conditions and result in greater season-long production.

Which pastures are grazed first matters too. Changing the grazing sequence from year to year helps improve plant vigor by avoiding repeated stress at the same time each year. This is especially critical for native range or mixed pastures. Introduced grasses like crested wheatgrass and smooth brome can handle early-season grazing pressure better, so grazing them first is often a good strategy. This allows more time before turnout on native pastures.

This spring, patience at turnout may be one of the best ways to protect pasture health and make the most of the grass you have.

With today’s Pasture & Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman.

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

There are many producers looking at looking at ways to grow more forage for hay or pasture.  Double cropping annual forages on irrigated cropland can be an option.  With timely and adequate moisture, this can also be successful dryland as well.

Successful double cropping of annual forages requires good planning and timely operations.  A common combination includes a cool-season winter annual like rye, triticale, or wheat that is currently being grazed or will be hayed in May or June followed by the planting of a warm-season annual forage.  Similarly, something like oats that was planted this spring is followed by a warm-season annual.

If grazing is planned as the primary use of the warm-season annual, then sudangrass or pearl millets are good choices.  With adequate moisture, the summer annual grass will be ready to graze in forty-five to fifty days and may last through September.

Another strategy is to plant the warm-season annual grasses first in mid- to late May.  Graze portions of them out in August, then plant oats or turnips or both for late fall and winter grazing.  When planting oats or any other cool-season for fall forage, remember that production will be reduced if planting is delayed into later August or early September.

Of course, adequate moisture or irrigation is needed for these options to produce both double crops.  Thus, it is wise to have a nearby pasture where animals can be placed and fed temporarily if extra time is needed to grow sufficient forage for grazing.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Range and Forage Specialist, Jerry Volesky.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac. Obviously, water's a critical component of agriculture, and UNL irrigation engineer Derek Heeren, talks about the importance of conservation, and some pitfalls with irrigation on today's almanac.

[Derek Heeren, UNL Irrigation Engineer]

Yeah, water conservation is really critical both at the level of an individual farm as well as at a state level.

And obviously, our water resources are limited, and so we want to use them in the best way as possible to get the most production, some specific things.

You mentioned the drought, and that's a big part of it, and some natural resources, it's really important to not only reduce the use of water for irrigation, but also reduce the consumptive use, and that's the crop water use in particular.

In a lot of places, the level of nitrates is also a concern.

So if we're overusing water for irrigation, we're much more likely to have excess water moving from the root zone, down to the aquifer, and that often takes nitrates with it.

So those are two of the big reasons.

It does seem like droughts are getting more frequent than they used to, as well as large rainfall events, and so more and more, the timing of the rain doesn't match what we would like it to be, and good water management helps us adapt to that as best we can.

So a couple of common mistakes for watering.

One would be, it's really easy to put on extra water.

It's kind of like a cheap insurance policy, and it takes some effort to really be thoughtful and apply the amount that's crop water needs. A lot easier to put on a little extra.

However, in that case, we're using more water than necessary and more energy than necessary, as well, to continue putting water on.

So a little bit of effort, censored data is really helpful, or crop water use data, but being confident to make the decision that we need this water.

I'm going to water it to avoid stress, but I'm not going to put on extra water.

Soil water sensors are really helpful for irrigation scheduling.

And I think over time, they're becoming more useful. More reliable.

Some of the changes are that now there are services where industry will install the sensor for you, provide data on the cloud.

And so it's a lot easier than it used to be.

And, yeah, less likely to have problems with a poor installation, a lot easier to access the data remotely and make decisions remotely and control your irrigation remotely.

Of course there's some cost with that.

But producer's time is really valuable.

So those types of products have become really popular, in terms of potential savings.

You know, it'd be pretty realistic to expect you might reduce your irrigation by, you know, one revolution of the pivot to three revolutions of the pivot, by having that soil water sensor data to give you more confidence on when to irrigate.

From there, it's a question of the energy costs associated with when you do a revolution.

In terms of suggestions for this summer, like the past couple winters were really dry, going into the growing season, and so that's something to keep an eye on.

If you have a center pivot irrigation system, you might have the opportunity to use that to help with emergence, right after planting.

Most years, that's not necessary, but this might be one of the years when it is.

If you have other types of irrigation systems that might not be practical, but it could be an option to think about.

But my suggestion would be to think about one particular step you can make, to improve water management this year.

So, if you haven't tried the soil water sensors, perhaps invest in one of those, and just find out what they're capable of, and see how it works for your operation.

Another possible thing to look at would be to check into some of these industry products, that are becoming easier to use and help with recommending when to irrigate, or another possible thing to look at for improving water management.

I would recommend the Nebraska Extension website has a lot of resources on irrigation.

So they have different resources on soil water sensors, also what's called an ET gauge, which is a gauge you can install in your field that measures the amount of water that's used in the gauge, but it's designed so that it's the same as the water used by the crop, but there are several different tools like that that you could check into and consider implementing this season.

[Brad Mills, Program 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.

BenHayQuality226 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. On our previous program, extension educator Ben Beckman talked about how storage conditions play a huge part on the quality and shelf life of hay. He says exposure to weather, heat, and water can quickly spoil Hay's nutritional quality. On today's program, he begins by talking about how certain factors affect the aging and protein content of stored hay.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So if you weigh a bail at the same moisture, you know, that's always the critical point here and difficult to do, but if you weigh a bail, the same moisture content that you had initially when you harvested it.

And then if you left it outside for a season or a year and had it at the exact same moisture content and waited again, it's going to weigh less because that decomposition process released some of that energy as gas.

And so it's or leached it out through moisture or things like that.

And so we actually have less bail, we have lower energy content that is pretty typical across the board.

Now, when we look at things like crude protein content, things get a little bit more interesting, we should say.

Crude protein doesn't behave in exactly the same way.

Usually the biggest loss that we see in that is through leeching or through physical loss.

So like if we've gotten alfalfa bale, you know, leaf shatter, the leaves hold a lot of the protein content, and alfalfa, and so if we're moving those bales around, you know, we get that dust of of the leafs that have been pretty much pulverized, and that leads to a loss of protein content.

So we can lose some in that way.

But however, crude protein, as we measure it is a percent of the total amount of that bail.

And we just said that as a bale decomposes or weathers, it actually shrinks and we get, you know, less dry matter.

And so we can actually run into circumstances where we have less protein loss than we lose dry matter from the bail, and we can actually sometimes increase crude protein content, just because the total percentage of protein in that, and it's kind of counterintuitive, but the total percentage of protein hasn't really dropped that much compared to how much we've lost in dry matter and energy and things like that.

So crude protein can be a little bit different and interesting.

The one really big caveat to that is sometimes we can have heating.

So when that bail gets warm either through microbial activity or fungi or things like that, as it's decomposing, those proteins can be denatured.

And so we can run into a point where we basically get a browning reaction and the protein no longer is going to be able to be useful to the animal, but it's still there.

It's just in a different shape and form.

And so our typical protein test will pick it up and still count it as protein, but we have to do a heat damage protein test, basically, to show, yeah, they're here, but they're not usable for the animal to actually have during digestion and be useful to the animal.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
And says farmers should be aware of any problems like mold before feeding the cattle.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
You know, when we think about how we use these bales, again, testing them is always going to be the best way to kind of determine quality.

If we've got something that's really well weathered, We do have a potential for having things like mold. You know, there's bacteria, a lot of fungi that are gonna be in the outer layer of those bales, just from the decomposition part.

And so need to keep an eye out.

You know, a lot of times we don't have things like mycotoxins or stuff show up, but if we do get some weird colors, always something to run a test for or have something that you're a little bit questionable about.

But a lot of times animals aren't going to really enjoy that hay, they might have some refusal from it, especially if we give them a chance to sort if we're feeding it by rolling that bailout or putting it into a feeder or something like that.

And so there's some trade-offs.

Yeah, they're not going to consume as much, but they're going to get the more high quality parts of it and actually utilize the better part of the veil.

So just how we feed that can be an important thing.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
To read the detailed article about this topic, go to extensions beef website at beef.unl.edu or download the entire interview on 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.
 

As pastures green up this spring, there may be an opportunity for producers to get some early forage and manage weeds, flash grazing. This can be particularly beneficial for early weeds like cheatgrass or downy brome. Especially problematic in the western parts of the state, cheatgrass greens up early, outcompete native species, and create fine fuels that increase wildfire risk.

Targeted flash grazing—short-duration, high-intensity grazing—can suppress cheatgrass if timed right. The best window is during the elongation phase, just before seed set. This is when animals prefer it, nutritional value is fairly high, before it robs your pastures of moisture and nutrients, and most importantly, before it reseeds itself for the next year.

Flash grazing doesn’t have to be limited to cheatgrass. In eastern Nebraska, pastures hit by drought last year can expect a flush of spring and summer weeds. Flash grazing offers a chance to control those weeds while providing valuable early forage—especially if you're delaying full pasture turnout to allow for regrowth.

Similarly in native pastures being invaded by cool season introduced species like smooth brome and Kentucky bluegrass, flash grazing can be a useful tool. Turn out early, before warm season species begin their growth (before late-May) and graze hard.  The cool season grasses will be targeted, and warm season natives will have a chance to better compete for resources later. 

Strategic spring grazing won’t solve every weed problem, but it can jump-start your pasture’s productivity. 

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman. 

JeffRoundupReplace26 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. A popular, yet controversial, non selective herbicide glyphosate has been associated with the brand name roundup. Recently, the roundup brand has changed its formulation that is glyphosate free and all of its horticultural products. UNL director of landscape services, Jeff Culbertson, talks about how roundup has a new formulation with different ingredients.

[Jeff Culbertson, UNL Director of Landscape Services]
One of the products, roundup, historically, has been really synonymous with the chemical glyphosate.

So maybe in years gone past, people would have said, get some roundup and spray that weed with roundup, and they were talking about using glyphosate.

Currently, round up, that brand round up now is really made up of several different chemicals.

So it can be many different products, so it's really when you pick up a bottle that says round up on it, that you look at the label closely, and look at the plants or pests that it may control to make sure that you're getting the right product, because no longer is glyphosate in the recipe for roundup products.

And again, so it's important to look at that label, look at some of the restrictions that those many different chemicals now will have when you're using some of these combination products that round up now produces.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Jeff says there are other products that contain non selective herbicides that are a replacement for the traditional glyphosate roundup.

[Jeff Culbertson, UNL Director of Landscape Services]
There are, however, other versions of non selective herbicides out there.

And again, there's, when you go to the, to the nursery and look at your products, there's really a lot of things to choose from.

There's some that may be advertising that it's a more natural product that may contain certain salts or oils, and certain products like that.

So again, while they may sound very friendly to us, and they may be.

Again, it's really important to look at the label, look at some of the restrictions, make sure that you're applying it to the right plant, and that it works well for your particular situation.

So, again, there's products out there that are easy for us to use.

They come in ready to use format, which is very convenient.

And there are just really a lot of variety of parties out there on the shelf today.

So it's important to look at the labels carefully and not just look at the brand of it.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Finally, Jeff talks about how using common yard tools to control weeds is also very effective.

[Jeff Culbertson, UNL Director of Landscape Services]
And then, you know, never forget that, uh, like, Terry likes to promote the use of a weed knife, that's really your simplest, safest way to get rid of weeds, and sometimes it may seem a little much to go out and dig up a bunch of dandelions, but I can tell you, once you've spent 15 or 20 minutes, you'd be surprised how many dandelions you can dig up and get them out of there, and you won't have to worry about them again.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
The best way to ensure you are using the right product is to first identify the weed pest that needs controlling. Second step is to understand what active ingredients are in the product you want to use. Making sure it is applicable to your yard and garden.  And finally, if you are going to use chemical products on your lawn garden, make sure you thoroughly read and follow the label instructions for specific application techniques and guidelines. You can ask your garden center professional or local extension educator for help when it comes to these products. 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.
 

ConnorCattleMarkets26 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
The cattle market has been hitting historic highs recently, but is also facing a few serious issues this season, including a smaller herd, input costs, and feed shortages. Extension assistant educator Connor Beeler talks about these issues, and now producers can stay profitable.

[Connor Biehler, Extension Assistant Educator]
We currently have the lowest cattle numbers that we've had since the 1950s.

So with that, we've actually improved our technologies and genetics, so we can produce more beef per animal, but we still have tight supplies.

Um, you know, the drought hasn't really improved on the planes, and so the retention that we thought we were going to see.

We necessarily haven't seen quite as much of.

And I think with these fibers and the lack of forage out in Western Nebraska and parts of Kansas.

I think that's going to continue to increase these prices, you know.

We're not getting cattle across the Mexican border currently, which that's over a 1000000 head per year that we put on feed.

And so uh, feed lot space is uh, getting hard to fill and uh, trying to find those margins and uh, get those cattle at an affordable price to where you can put some uh, uh, some cost-effective gains on them.

I think converting traditional row crop acres into annual forges is a good risk management and profitability strategy.

It sounds like nitrogen still hard to come by.

And so these annual forges, they use about a 3rd of the nitrogen that traditional corn plants would probably use.

And so it's a good way to decrease your input costs and uh, taking a look at, you know, is there another way that we can put some gain on cattle or could we do a grazing lease if we're not particularly the cattle owners?

Um, several years ago, uh, the corn, when corn was up around $7, uh, we saw a lot of fields with uh, nice fences around them start to get tilled up and I think this year in particular with uh, maybe weaker corn prices than we've seen traditionally and improved prices of beef.

This could be a good way to increase your profits on a whole farm profitability scale.

I think the most important thing is taking a pencil, the paper, and looking at what your input costs for both systems could be, be that row crop production or forge production, and then pencil out your expected outputs as well.

And just kind of figure on a per acre basis where you can get more profit.

And also another thing to take a look at there would be the amount of time that you're going to be spending.

One thing a lot of producers don't do is they don't pay themselves for their time.

They just look at the bottom line of the actual input costs.

So if this system is less expensive, and it requires less input of labor.

I think it's definitely a valuable thing to take into consideration.

The best time to plant this forge is going to be mid-May to early June, that time frame.

And then so you're looking at about 30 to 45 days to where it's actually established enough to where you can graze it on the sorghum sedan varieties, you're going to want to wait until they're at least 18 inches tall.

Prior to that, there's going to be some prussic acid that can cause some toxicities to the cattle.

Other varieties that are going to produce less forage, such as a pearl millet maybe.

You can start grazing those at about a 12 to 18 inch range.

One thing I would say the producers should consider in these current times is that these high costs, reward, low input costs.

So, uh, if you can reduce that cost again and reduce your feeding of harvested or stored feeds, I think that's a good way to get ahead of this curve and put lower uh, costs again on these cattle.

[Brad Mills, Program 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.
 

Were you expecting more from last year’s alfalfa yields? Did your plants get enough time to winterize in the fall? Do you have concerns about stand winter kill? Evaluating your alfalfa stand in the spring is key to planning management and setting expectations for this year.

As stands begin greening up, alfalfa stand assessment can be completed using a hay square as a quick and easy way to look at the overall stand health. While we call it a hay square, square or circle shapes work equally well.  A 17 x 17 inch square or 19 inch in diameter circle are the size needed.

Next, determine what to count. There are two options when evaluating your stand: 1) by the number of plants per square foot (typically recommended for new stands, planted last fall) and 2) by the number of stems for established stands. Stem count will more accurately predict yield compared to plant number. However, either method will provide information for making management decisions. 

Randomly select 4 to 5 areas in your field to sample. Then count the plants or stems that would be harvested, typically anything over 6 inches, to determine your count. Then divide those numbers by 2 to get stems or plants per square foot. For established stands, having 4 to 5 healthy plants per square foot or 55 stems per square foot would warrant a productive and healthy stand. Fields with stem counts below 55 see a significant decrease in dry matter production.

For stands planted last fall, you will see more plants per square foot compared to stems. Remember, a good rule of thumb is, for every pound of seed planted, expect 3 to 5 plants. New plantings that contain fewer than 12 plants per square foot may need to be reseeded.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman.    

BenHayQuality26 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Is older, stored hay, poor quality than more recently harvested hay? Maybe, but it's not the age that is the question here, but the storage conditions, according to extension educator Ben Beckman. He says proper storage can help maintain feed quality of hay for an extended period of time.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Is when we start to really dive into the studies that have been done looking at hay quality and looking at impact of storage on, hey, it's not the age of the hay, it's the weathering, and basically the decomposition of the hay that's really affecting the quality.

When we're putting up hay, we are essentially trying to stop the clock on decomposition.

Whenever we're putting up a forage, you know, whether that's silage, you know, in that case, we're putting into an amaerobic state, and stopping microbes from decomposing, when we do hay, we're drying it out, getting it to a point where the moisture content is solo, that microbes are no longer going to be decomposing it like they would if we just let that grass or alfalfa or whatever we have in that bale out in the natural environment and just left it spread out.

And so how we have those microbes continued to be stopping, whether we get moisture back onto that bail and they start to decompose again, or whether we have that bail in a totally, you know, dry and isolated condition, really makes a difference when it comes to what the quality of that is versus exactly how long that bail's been there for.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Ben says there are different storage techniques that will help hay remain viable and nutritious for quite some time.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
We're trying to get the hay to a dry point so microbes can no longer be decomposing.

And so the best and ultimately top storage method when we're looking at ways to store haze to, you know, put it inside under under a roof and keep it from getting any moisture on it at all.

And you can see that, you know, if you know anybody that puts up really high quality alfalfa hay a lot of times, you know, they do have a storage shed and, you know, they're keeping it a fair distance so they can get airflow through that and keep those bales, you know, and humid conditions dried out still, you know, they're basically regulating the moisture around those hay bales.

The type of bale that we have makes a big difference.

Our large squares really need to be protected a lot more, say like a round bail would be because those squares don't have that outer covering and the way that they're put together, moisture penetrates into them a lot easier than they do in a round bail.

And even when we're looking at round bales, the difference between grass hay and alfalfa hay and round bale is different as well, and how that sheds water and keeps precipitation from coming into it.

So basically, the big thing is how can we keep precipitation or moisture or anything from getting into that bail, whether it's putting it under storage, putting a tarp over it and keeping it dry that way, and then also keeping it up off the ground, if we can do that as well, so we don't get moisture wicking up into the bail from the bottom.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
One of the biggest spoilers of baled hay is moisture. Ben says bales exposed to weathering will quickly lose quality.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Um, so there's a lot of different things that tend to happen.

The 1st thing that we usually look at is TDN or measure of energy.

And that really has to do with the soluble carbohydrates that are locked in those plants.

And when the animal eats that and it's either going through the gutter, the rumen, you know, depending on what sort of animal's eating it, that's where a lot of those energy compounds are getting released from.

But that's also what the microbes are using for energy as well as, as, you know, they're growing and basically decomposing that bail.

And so TDN is usually where we see pretty steady drop when we have a bale that's exposed to weathering.

So as soon as we get moisture in their microbes, fungi, those sorts of things start to become active again and they start to use those soluble carbohydrates as energy sources, and so that energy level in those bales starts to drop.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned to future almanac programs where Ben continues this discussion about, hey, quality, to read the detailed article about this topic, go to extension's beef website at beef.unl.edu, or download the entire interview on 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.
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Fertilizing cool-season grass pastures or hayfields is something producers do each year while accounting for forage needs, the value of the forage, and fertilizer costs.  With high fertilizer costs this year, many producers are reconsidering this practice or reducing the amount that is applied.  Very important to remember is that adequate precipitation is needed to realize the grass response to the fertilizer. 

Fertilization of smooth bromegrass pastures should occur in spring through early May. If the nitrogen is a single application, usually between 80 to 100 lbs of actual N per acre is suggested for eastern Nebraska.  The recommended application rate declines westward across the state with about 30 to 40 lbs N per acre suggested for the Panhandle. 

If doing split applications, usually it's 2/3 in the spring and 1/3 in the fall when growth resumes on the cool season grasses. With fertilized pasture, be sure to include a rotational grazing plan that will effectively harvest the extra forage and provide the greatest return on the fertilizer investment.  Also remember that adequate moisture is needed with fertilizer applications.  

Soil tests could also be conducted to determine more exact amounts needed, particularly for any phosphorus, potassium or sulfur that could be applied.

Research conducted in Eastern Nebraska has shown a 30% increase in forage yield with fertilization and the economic optimum rate is between 80 to 120 lbs per acre. A crude protein increase from 16 to 20% was seen with fertilizer applications up to 160 lbs. That is a lot of fertilizer, but it did increase crude protein and organic matter digestibility while decreasing NDF or neutral detergent fiber. Always be aware when applying fertilizer, especially in pastures and fields near water sources such as ponds. 

Brome pastures are hardy, and we can and do graze them hard in Nebraska. Haying or grazing operations can benefit if managed correctly with fertilizer. 

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Range and Forage Specialist, Jerry Volesky.
 

CarolinaSoilHealth Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Soil health management has many key components, and Nebraska farmers are taking an interest in making sure their soil continues to be strong and healthy for generations to come. UNL statewide soil health specialists, Carolina Cordova talks about why soil health is so important.

[Carolina Cordova, UNL Specialist]
It is so important when we are managing a few, we are not like managing for like one or 2 years, we are actually trying to manage for like a long term.

And also we are considering passing these land to the next generation.

So when having that in mind, we definitely need to consider how we are protecting our soil, how we trying to reduce erosion and increase fertility.

So with that, uh, with that in mind, definitely we are thinking about like building organic matter, considering into like investing in the health of that system.

So in the future can can still like maintain its functionality and its productivity.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
The university offers farmers lots of opportunities to test their soil. And Carolina says farmers should take advantage of that.

[Carolina Cordova, UNL Specialist]
So, from our side, we're trying to engage with producers through different opportunities, and one of those is to help them assess the sole health of their system, trying to evaluate the functionality of their system, if the, that field, it can infiltrate enough water and storage below ground, is, is it like accruing organic matter or not?

So, we are offering opportunities to partner with them and assess their fields and and work with them in evaluating the soil health level of their fields.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
The natural resources and conservation service has a program designed to help farmers build up their soil health.

[Carolina Cordova, UNL Specialist]
NRCAs just recently release a new initiative, a co-shared program, uh, and it's called the regenerative uh, pilot program.

Who has uh, now uh, 58 people uh, have been selected, the ones that have applied.

It was, it was, uh, very surprising that in a social, uh, short, um, notice around more than 100 farmers from Nebraska applied to this program, and now 58 are going to get the funds to implement a new regenerative practice.

Along with that, it comes with a monitoring of the changes in sole health from the adoption of this practice.

So for us, it's very important to partner with NRCS, to train the people that are going to help farmers to do these evaluations of so-health, that is that they need to uh, uh, monitor and use the guidelines of the CEMA 216.

So it will greatly benefit us.

And I'm happy to hear that they're close to 60 producers are going to be implementing new practices, and we are able to help them to monitor in the next 3 and 5 years of these programs.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Carolina stresses the importance of soil health and testing regularly.

[Carolina Cordova, UNL Specialist]
So I will say that it is important for us to think about not only about self fertility, but about soul health, because that's the living, that's the capacity of the soul to function as a living ecosystem, not only to produce healthy food, but also to have a healthy community supporting a healthy, healthy animals.

So we should be definitely working on like protecting our soil from erosion, for the big droughts, and and have that vision, that long-term vision of protecting our system, for or future generations.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion of a feature taken from the Market Journal television program. You can watch Market Journal each Saturday morning on Nebraska public media, or at the Market Journal YouTube channel, 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.
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Fresh spring growth is a welcome sight for producers looking for animal forage.  However, lush spring growth may be the perfect condition for a case of grass tetany.  While turn out may be a ways off, mitigating this risk starts now.

Grass tetany is the result of low levels of magnesium in an animal’s blood stream.  Low magnesium levels in lush, newly growing grass are often a main cause. In lactating animals, low dietary magnesium paired with a drain on calcium from milk production increases risk even more. Calcium aids in magnesium absorption. This means, high milk producing and older animals are most at risk for developing tetany.

To prevent tetany problems this spring, it’s best to wait till grass in pastures has grown to at least 6 inches high before grazing.  Legumes like alfalfa or clover, are a good source of magnesium, so grazing mixed grass and legume pastures can help balance mineral demands.

While cultural practices can reduce risk, providing correct and adequate mineral supplementation may be the most certain remedy.  Cattle should be consuming 3-4 ounces daily of mineral containing supplemental calcium and 10-13% magnesium oxide. This should start at least 30 days before grazing begins, to ensure proper intake has been established.  

Most high magnesium minerals utilize magnesium oxide, which is bitter tasting and can reduce animal consumption.  Mix magnesium fortified mineral with salt into a complete package or feed with a highly palatable protein or energy supplement to improve intake

High magnesium mineral should be provided for animals until cool season grasses slow down growth and the levels of lush, fresh forage are reduced, around mid-May.  

Dealing with grass tetany in the spring doesn’t have to negatively impact your herd. Plan now to adjust grazing management or mineral supplementation for a tetany-free spring.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman.
 

[Brad Mills, program host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. On a recent program extension ag economist, Jessica Groskoff detailed a few issues for producers to consider when it comes to rebuilding or replacing their fences lost in the wildfires. On today's program, she continues to discuss key legal issues for fence building. She says, in the case of an absent landowner, written notification of fence repairs required, and encourages farmers to understand the law.

[Jessica Groskopf, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
So once you have provided that written notice, then when you go onto the property, I think the most important thing is that you are not allowed to remove trees, buildings, personal property, or other obstacles without the neighbor's permission, or a court order.

The other piece about this is there may be disputes of where the property line actually is, and we highly encourage you to have that property line surveyed in order to make sure that we've put the fence in the right location.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Jessica talks about some of the government programs and cost sharing available to help landowners with the cost of rebuilding fences.

[Jessica Groskopf, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
So when we're talking about replacing fence in particular, we're talking about the emergency conservation program, and this program provides between 75% and 90% cost share, for farmers and ranchers, but this cannot exceed half a $1000000 or 50% of the agricultural value of the affected land.

So this program is important and is something that we need to be looking at.

So there will be a sign up period.

It will be for 30 to 60 days.

So work with your local FSA office to make sure that you enroll during the sign up period.

And I think one of the most important parts of this is there is a needs assessment that must be completed by FSA, or in our CS, and you cannot start work on your fencing until that plan or that needs assessment has been completed in order to get the cost share.

So, as much as I think we want to go out and start working on these projects if you are looking for reimbursement from something like the emergency conservation program, we really do need to make sure that we're going through the process of applying and getting the needs assessment prior to beginning work.

Otherwise, we might disqualify ourselves from that reimbursement.

So as we think about this process, I really want you to come up with a strategy of how you're going to apply for these dollars.

It's likely that USDA will not be able to reinverse everyone for the replacement of their fences.

So as we talk about these perimeter fences, you know, starting the conversations now with your neighbors, regarding how that fence is going to be, number one, rebuilt, but number two, how we're going to apply for reimbursement for it, really thinking through some of those interior fences about whether or not they need to be rebuilt or whether we can use new technology or set up our operation a little bit differently to be more efficient.

So all of the articles from UNL extension related to wildfire can be found on our website at disaster.UNL.edu, and that will include this article about rebuilding fences after disaster.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Today's program was a portion taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension. To hear the entire interview and read the detailed article, 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.
 

[Brad Mills, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. In part one of this discussion of early spring irrigation extension educator Steve Melvin talked about specific reasons to get some water on the ground before planting.On today's program, he focuses in on key irrigation points after the seed has gone into the ground.

[Steve Melvin, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Yeah, so after we plant, I think it's always a good option to think about turning the center pivot on when we pull out of the field.

Um, you know, we always want to think about the costs associated with that.

You know, if we've got a particularly a water allocation, you know, we can't replace that water, you know, money, I guess we can spend a little more on irrigation if we need to, but keep the costs in mind.

And the other thing is, we've got the dry land corners and a lot of fields in Nebraska, particularly in eastern half of the state.

We plant the corners to the same crop that we do on the same pass, where we're going to irrigate.

And so that certainly implies that we need to get a good stand there as well.

So I'd rather put the seed just a little deeper in the ground, if that's what it takes to get good seed to soil contact and good moisture, maybe even use the fur openers and push a little dry soil out of the way ahead of time.

But we're really trying to make sure that we get good seed to soil contact and very good uniform moisture around the seed, particularly with corn.

Ideally, we'd have every plant come up within a few hours of each other with corn.

And so it's very important to have good uniform seed to soil contact and moisture around our plants.

The other thing to keep in mind is a half inch water can incorporate herbicides and some nitrogen that we might put out there as well.

But the logistics of that get to be a little more complicated.

You know, we want to get that moisture on the corn seed right away, but a lot of times it takes a few days to get the herbicide and fertilizer out there.

So then one needs to decide, you know, if you're going to water to get good uniformity of the seed, or if we're going to delay a little bit, think on our seed is simply good enough.

But again, if we do that, we want to make darn sure we get moisture all the way down to moisture soil down below.

We don't want to have, you know, maybe at 4 or 5 inch depth, the really dry layer of soil that our little seedling roots just can't grow through.

So we want to make sure we get enough water on to get clear down into that, you know, so we don't stall out the root system any.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Steve says if current drought conditions continue, encourages producers to pay special attention to precipitation this spring and have an idea of what moisture is already present in their fields.

[Steve Melvin, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Yeah, so after we get the crop established, the seedlings emerged and growing, then really what we want to kind of keep in mind is that with irrigation in Nebraska, we always want to consider it, even on dry years and even in a Western part of the state, that our irrigation is a supplement to our rainfall.

And, you know, we all know that sometimes in April and May and June, you know, we might get 3 or 4 weeks without any moisture, that certainly happens, but we always want to plan on having some good moisture, particularly in May and June.

That's our high rainfall months in Nebraska, and typically we get some during that time.

So, really, what we want to do is base it on them out of sole water, that we have stored in our profile.

So get your soul water monitoring equipment out there early and then keep an eye on it and irrigate accordingly.

We certainly, if we're not going to put soul water monitoring out there, take your soul probe out and see what's out there.

But a lot of times we've got more water than we think for.

And we really need to, you know, focus on trying to keep the right amount of water, but not too much, because we're probably going to get some more, and we don't want to overfill the profile, and deep percolate water, which, of course, that time of year, we're going to take some nitrogen with it.

Sandy soils are particularly problematic because they can maybe only hold two or three inches of water.

And if our crops early, and may aren't using very much water.

So if we keep that soil pretty wet, then we can end up in a situation where, you know, if we catch a nice inch or two of rain, we might deep percolate some water and take some nitrogen pretty easy with that.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Today's program was a portion taken from a recent market journal program. You can watch Market Journal every Saturday morning on Nebraska public media or anytime on the Market Journal YouTube channel. 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.
 

[Brad Mills, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Understanding the principles of vaccination are critical when choosing what product to use, when to use them, and how to ensure the animals get the most benefit. Extension beef educator Lindsay Waechter Mead talks about factors to consider when establishing vaccination protocols for cattle on today's almanac.

[Lindsay Waechter Mead, Extension Beef Educator]
The 1st thing to do would be to have a conversation with your veterinarian, and I think that that's crucial for any plan.

I mean, I'm always gonna promote that for sure, but especially when you're talking about vaccinations.

Because it's really important to remember that vaccines are not one size fits all and the protocol that maybe your cousin has, you know, in a different state or even your neighbor that's like 5 miles down the road may not fit what you need.

And so, starting out before you even think about what vaccines to use.

Um, you know, talk to your veterinarian and discuss some issues that maybe you've had in the past.

Are there certain diseases or conditions that you're really trying to prevent against?

Like have you had problems before?

And even year to year is different.

And so, maybe you had something last year that was new or maybe you've been vaccinating for something that you haven't seen in a long time.

And so, I mean, that could be because of the vaccinations, but again, it may be because the risk isn't quite as high.

And so starting that out with having that valid veterinary client patient relationship is going to really get you started on the right foot.

So, I like to refer to vaccination, like an insurance policy.

So a vaccine is used to reduce risk of disease.

So just like we buy insurance to protect from a tornado or, you know, hail for our house.

A vaccine is going to help to try to prevent any sort of risk that that animal might be exposed to.

So it's not, it's important to remember, it doesn't 100% prevent disease.

And it's, and not necessarily even just like in your herd.

There are animals that will react differently to a vaccination.

So each animal might create a different immune response across your entire herd.

So, remembering that, I think is good, just to kind of give you an upfront.

Now, vaccinations, they go through, you know, research trials and they're going to see how well they are, how, how effective they work and how long the duration works and what type of immunity response those animals get.

And so that also helps lead us in, you know, which vaccine we're going to use.

And there's lots of different options.

I'm not even just talking about brands, but just, you know, maybe route of giving the vaccine or um, what type of pathogen that's inside of it and and what kind of reaction are we going to get in our animals?

So keeping that in mind is going to be good to kind of help you assess on the protocol that you get started to go with.

And then also, the way that the immune system works.

So you think about you get the vaccination and the body recognizes that as something that's not normal.

And so the immune system will start to look at that and say, okay, I need to kind of replicate this and create protection for the next time that I see it.

And so you want to make sure that that immune system is ready to go.

So there's some things that might affect how well the immune system will work, and one of those would be illness.

So if your body is already fighting off something.

So just like if we, If we were sick and we had a fever, maybe we were fighting off influenza, it probably wouldn't be the best time to get an influenza vaccination because your body is already fighting pretty hard to protect itself from what's going on.

And then if you add on another vaccine on top of it.

That might be where you're not going to get the reaction that you would want.

So it's think about your immune system is already kind of preoccupied with the current issue and so you want to make sure that you're vaccinating healthy animals.

So that's really important, especially when we talk about, I mean, at branding time for sure, you know, if you would have somebody that's really sick with scours or you've got maybe an early respiratory thing, you might want to hold off on vaccinating that cap at that time.

And obviously a big time would be like during weaning when we have high stress events, we want to try and decrease the amount of that stress because that also will affect how well the immune system reacts.

So it's just like we want to make sure that the animal is nice and calm and healthy so that it can get the best reaction from that vaccination.

[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.

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Spring is a time when we might be considering seeding some grass for pasture, hay or just to establish permanent plant cover for wildlife habitat.  In some cases, this may involve attempting to improve or renovate an existing stand or establishing grass on former cropland or a disturbed site. 

To be successful, there are several important decisions that need to be made and guidelines to be followed.  The first of these is deciding the type and species of grass that would be best suited for the site and match the intended use.  General categories of grass include cool- or warm-season and native or introduced species.  For example, cool-season grasses like wheatgrasses, smooth bromegrass, and orchardgrass are excellent choices for pasture and/or hay.  For summer pasture or wildlife habitat, warm-season grasses such as switchgrass, indiangrass, the bluestems and gramas can work well.  Additionally, there may be choices of legumes or forbs that could be included with the grasses.  The soil type and average rainfall in your area would also affect the grass species you might select.

Important factors for successful grass establishment include proper seedbed preparation, method of seeding, weed control, and management of the newly emerged stand.  In many cases, it is useful to get a soil test to determine any fertilization needs for the site.  The ideal seeding rate and time of seeding will also vary depending on the grass species or mixture. 

Make sure the details of your grass seeding plans are complete.  For more information on this topic, search UNL Extension for ‘establishing dryland forage grasses.’  For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Range and Forage Specialist, Jerry Volesky.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. The recent wildfires in Nebraska have damaged over 900,000 acres of rural land, and some of that damage was done to infrastructure like fences. It might seem like a simple task to reinstall destroyed fences. 
But extension Ag Economist Jessica Groskoff says there are some key issues to consider before rebuilding.

[Jessica Groskopf, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
As we think about fencing in particular, I think we have to really go back to Nebraska State statute and look through what it specifically says about fencing.

So Nebraska livestock owners are liable for any damage that their livestock cause when they're trespassing.

If the owner does not use reasonable care to prevent that trespass.

So again, the law does not specifically require livestock owners to fence livestock in, but that's often the most reasonable and practical way for us to prevent them from trespassing on others' property.

So in Nebraska, we kind of go by what we call the right hand rule.

So if I have a neighboring property.

What would happen is each owner would walk to the center of the fence and you would be responsible for the fence to the right of you.

So we call that their right hand rule.

And so that's really what dictates maintenance and rebuilding offenses as we think about this.

However, we know that sometimes, one landowner is more proactive.

So, Just because we're responsible for maintaining and repairing that fence doesn't mean we can't repair the entire fence, but we can ask for reimbursement from our neighbor if we do that.

And I think this is really important as we think about wildfire damage is the fact that we're rebuilding entire fences.

And so we need to understand what type of fence can be built and how we go about building that fence when we have a neighboring property.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Jessica talks about the legal standards for replacing fences after something like a wildfire is damaged or destroyed the previous fence.

[Jessica Groskopf, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
So the 1st thing I want to say is that if you don't agree, that's only when these standards apply.

So if you and a neighbor agree to different standards, You can go through those different standards.

If you and your neighbor don't agree.

Nebraska state statute steps in and it says that the fence must be at least 4 wires.

It must be nine, number 9 fencing wire attached to posts, no more than 16.5 feet apart, with a post or a stake between every 2 posts, and the fence must be at least 4.5 feet high, with no more than one foot between the wires measured from the top.

So again, that's in the statute.

That's the minimum fence, according to the statute.

However, if you and your neighbor agree to a different type of fence, you are welcome to build that other type of fence.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Jessica says there are specific steps to take when dealing with an absent landowner when the fence needs to be fixed.

[Jessica Groskopf, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
So you must formally serve written notice that you are going to build, maintain, or repair that bordering fence.

If your landowner is an absentee landowner, you must serve that notice to whoever lives on the property or the owner's agent, which is typically their tenant.

And we encourage you to do this probably via registered mail so that you have documentation of that notice.

And then after the written notice has been served, only then can you begin to construct or maintain that fence?

[Brad Mills, program host]
Stay tuned to future almanac programs where Jessica discusses other key legal issues when it comes to rebuilding fences. Today's program was a portion taken from a recent Beefwatch podcast offered by Nebraska Extension. To hear the entire interview, 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 and Nebraska Extension. For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Current dry conditions across most of the state might make crop producers want to get busy irrigating. Extension educator Steve Melvin says, producers will always need to be ready to start irrigating, but encourages them to be cautious. He says the ground might seem hard and dry, but could be holding water from last fall that goes deeper than the surface.

[Steve Melvin, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Well, I think it's always important to have the center pivot ready to go early in the spring. You know, this time of year, make sure it's ready to go.

We hope not to use it, but if we do need it, it's a great option to have.

Pre-irrigation is something that is not really recommended in Nebraska.

Because of the fact that, you know, even in Western part of the state, we get a couple inches of rain on average in April and probably over 3 inches in eastern part of the state.

Some places have got a little better rain now, and we hope it continues.

But we certainly need to also keep in mind that any field that was reasonably well irrigated last year, probably is watter than you might think.

The top 6 inches or a foot might be really dry, but typically we leave some water out there in the fall.

We don't like pre irrigation all that well because of the fat that we get so much surface evaporation from the, you know, there isn't any crop growing out there.

So we get a lot more than we might think.

[Brad Mills, Host]
Steve says there are specific reasons to start getting water on the field, preplanting. He says hard planting conditions or helping and hydrous ammonia applications, or irrigating cover crops might warrant some spring irrigation.

[Steve Melvin, Nebraska Extension Educator]
The main reason I would consider doing some pre-irrigation is if I just simply can't get my planter to work correctly.

You know, maybe I can't get it to go on the ground is too hard or I can't get the seed V closed or something, then it'd be a good plan to pull out of the field and run the pivot and then come back in a few days when we get, you know, a little better condition.

Another circumstance might be if I put on an anhydrous ammonia application, and haven't gotten a couple inches of rain, since we applied that, ammonia, and particularly if it's a higher rate, like maybe 180 pounds, it probably would be a good idea to put some irrigation water on to help prevent any seed burning, seedling burned back.

Also, if you're got alfalfa or wheat or cover crop or something, you're irrigating.

That's not really pre-irrigation anymore now, but with weight, that you're going to harvest for grain this time of year, just kind of keep it moving along well.

You know, we need to keep it really well watered when we get into the boot stage and grain fill.

And with our alfalfa, it's a little different animal.

It's one that we, if we have it established for more than a year.

We've probably used up all of the soil moisture out there last year, and we couldn't really take this time in April and May to refill the profile, some, and get some water out there before we get into the high water use in the summer.

Also, with cover crops or even weed, if we're growing them for a forage, we probably want to keep them well watered during the vegetative stage to grow the maximum amount of forage.

[Brad Mills, program host]
Steve summarized pre-planting irrigation concerns on today's program. Stay tuned to future almanac programs to hear his irrigation advice for spring post-planting. The entire interview can be watched on the Market Journal program, which can be seen every Saturday morning on Nebraska public media or by watching the Market Journal YouTube channel. 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.
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Wheat, triticale, and rye can all be used as dual-purpose crops for both forage and grain. But after the historic Nebraska rangeland wildfires this year, many producers are looking at them strictly as forage options. 

Traditionally, grazing begins once these cereals reach about 5 to 6 inches in height, usually in early April, and can continue into early May. If grain harvest is still the goal, cattle need to come off before jointing, or the hollow stem stage, to avoid reducing grain yield. If the plan is to graze out the crop entirely, though, the challenge becomes keeping plants vegetative and maintaining quality. Ideally, plants should stay under 10 inches when grazed, which can be difficult with rapid spring growth. Quick rotations and moving cattle before stubble drops below 3 to 4 inches can help maintain a vegetative stand when moisture is adequate.
 

Of the common cereal grains, rye tends to grow earlier because it handles cool spring conditions best. Triticale, on the other hand, may remain productive longer into June. Hay or silage can also be good options, especially if harvest is timed well. Awnless wheat and rye varieties are generally preferred for this use, although awned varieties can still work if harvested just before heading. After graze-out or forage harvest, those same acres may still be available for summer annuals like sorghum, sudangrass, or millet.
 

In the end, the best option will depend on forage needs, economics, available fencing and water, and how quickly you need those acres back into the next crop. With today’s Pasture & Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension’s Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman.
 

[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

Here’s Today’s pasture and forage minute:

In Nebraska, alfalfa weevil scouting is generally recommended once 200 growing degree days have accumulated. Due to the warm temperatures, we have been experiencing across the state, degree day accumulations have already reached over 300 in the east and over 600 in the southwest. These conditions mean scouting for alfalfa weevil is more important than ever.

Alfalfa weevils are beetles that overwinter primarily as adults and emerge as temperatures warm and begin to lay eggs. Plant injury from feeding damage initially appears as pinholes in the terminal leaves, with leaves becoming skeletonized as feeding severity increases. 

To scout, randomly select 5 sites across the field and collect 10 stems at each site, cutting the stems at ground level. Beat the stems into a deep sided white bucket and count the number of larvae to determine the average number per stem. First instar larvae are 1.5mm long and grow to 9mm long at the final instar, or growth stage. They have a black head, wrinkled green body, and a white stripe running lengthwise along the top. Scouting is best done when larvae are most active, in the morning or on overcast days. A threshold table that includes alfalfa as short as 4 inches can be found on the Iowa State Extension website.

While there are several insecticides labeled for alfalfa weevil management, some Nebraska weevil populations may be losing susceptibility to the pyrethroid lambda-cyhalothrin. Therefore, if you believe you have an infestation above threshold, contact your county Extension Office for further guidance.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Crops & Water Educator, Samantha Daniel

[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. 
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

I’ve had several producers ask what to do when talking about drought conditions. While watching trigger dates and rainfall is important, it’s just as critical to plan ahead for potential forage shortfalls. A forage budget helps match what your pasture can produce with what your livestock need to consume think of it like balancing a checkbook, but with grass.

Step 1: Estimate Forage Availability
A good rule of thumb is that one inch of forage across an acre yields about 200 pounds of dry matter. So, if you have six inches of good-quality forage, that’s roughly 1,200 pounds per acre. Keep in mind that drought stress can reduce both yield and grazing efficiency, so conservative estimates are helpful.

Step 2: Calculate Herd Requirements
A 1,200-pound cow consumes about 2.5% of her body weight daily, or roughly 30 pounds of dry matter. For a herd of 100 cows, that’s about 3,000 pounds per day.

Step 3: Compare Supply and Demand
Divide your available forage by daily herd demand to estimate how many grazing days you have. If a gap shows up, that’s your signal to act early whether that means adjusting stocking rates, supplementing feed, securing hay, or exploring alternative forage options.

Example:
If you’re short 30 days at 3,000 pounds per day, that’s a 90,000-pound forage deficit. At $100 per ton for hay in today’s market, you would need about 45 tons, adding roughly $4,500 in feed costs.

Bottom line:
A forage budget turns uncertainty into a plan. Knowing your numbers allows you to make timely, cost-effective decisions that protect both your pasture and your bottom line.

Make your grass work for you know your forage budget.

For today’s pasture and forage minute I am Nebraska Extension Ag Economist Shannon Sand

[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.
 

[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.
 

[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.
 

Here’s todays pasture and forage minute:

Last fall, some pastures across Nebraska were hit hard by armyworms. This spring, those acres may be noticeably slower to green up and recover. If that is the case on your operation, the biggest thing right now is patience.

Armyworms can remove a lot of leaf area in a short amount of time. Even when stands remain intact, that late-season feeding can leave grasses stressed and force them to use up energy reserves before winter, rather than going into dormancy with a full tank. As a result, plants entered winter already run down.

That matters this spring. Early growth depends heavily on stored carbohydrate reserves. If those reserves were reduced last fall, growth can be slower, weaker, and less uniform. Add in dry conditions, cool weather, or heavy early grazing pressure, and recovery can lag even more.

So what can producers do? First, avoid the temptation to graze those acres too early. Turning out before plants have a chance to rebuild leaf area can slow recovery even further. Second, scout those pastures closely. If you find thin spots or weak areas, decide whether they simply need more rest or whether some overseeding or reseeding may be needed. Third, if fertility has been marginal, proper nutrient management may help support recovery, but time and rest are still the main tools.

Pastures damaged by armyworms last fall may just need a little extra grace this spring. Give them a chance to recover before making big decisions.

With today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator Ben Beckman.

[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.
 

JayStratPlanning23 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

The volatile nature of the ag industry can make strategic planning for any operation a headache. Nebraska extension ranch management specialist Jay Parsons says successful operations have a solid foundation of planning, as well as good decision making under pressure, on today's almanac, he talks about how strategic planning can help producers chart a plan to success.

[Jay Parsons, Nebraska Extension Ranch Management Specialist]
Well, surprisingly, a lot of the stuff hasn't been done in the U.S. As far as studying producers implementing strategic planning and whether or not they're doing it successfully.

So at least the studies I was able to find were pretty much overseas or up in Canada.

So Peter Nuttall out of New Zealand's done quite a bit of work looking at managerial abilities of ag producers and different aspects of that.

And his survey, he was asking producers to rank, different attributes, that they think are important for management.

And surprisingly, having a clear vision of their missions and objectives and goals, uh, ranked, kind of in the middle of pack. Who's about 6 on their list of 15.

I think that they ended up ranking.

But things that were at the top were things that we'd expect to be there.

Like the ability to basically read the tea leaves, right?

See where the markets are going, see what's happening out there and reacting accordingly, where the type of things that made the top five.

And then there were some out of UK.

And, um, there was a study there on just general small businesses, small family uh, businesses in rural areas, um, and then uh, one that they looked at the actual uh, farmers themselves and uh, things that they uh, ranked up there.

It pretty much, you know, comes down to goals and objectives, right?

It's kind of the take-home point of things that they pointed out in there.

Um, you know, other things that you could do, like SWAT analysis, you know, strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and stuff like that kind of kind of weigh in there a little bit, but a lot of producers don't get to that level of it.

But they at least, I think one of the studies, there was 3 quarters and the other one, maybe 2 thirds, that actually said that they had a clear understanding of their goals and objectives.

Surprisingly, well, maybe not surprisingly.

Very few actually had them written down.

So it's more like 10 or 15%.

Just general planning tools, right?

So, so, you know, you think of crop farmers or crop rotations, you know, where they're going to put their crops in what years and how those rotations might work, same thing on the on the livestock side with grazing management plans and stuff like that.

That we might think of more traditional production planning tools.

Those are also part of your strategic plan, right?

Because a lot of times it has to do with basically machinery replacement decisions or machinery purchases, land, management decisions and so on.

So all of those are part of an overall strategic plan.

But then certainly cash flow projections and things like that, the financial side of it weighs in there too.

For the most part, people, you know, and Agar try to build their financial positions or their equity position.

So having good, you know, financial statements produced on a regular basis and just kind of goals of different metrics that you're trying to reach each year is important.

Farmers or ranchers spend a lot of time producing, right?

So they're sometimes they're on tractors, sometimes they're out on a horse or at a pickup or whatever.

And they think about things that they want to accomplish on their operation virtually every day, you know, several times a day.

Um, just take some time to think about some timelines.

You know, what is it?

How would I measure progress towards these things I want to accomplish?

And then take, you know, some time to write some stuff down.

You got to start someplace.

So you never really know what the key metrics are until you start thinking them through, right?

What is the right way to measure that I'm actually growing my business in the direction that I want it to go, reaching, uh, if you're wanting the next generation to take over, what kind of planning goes into that in terms of of getting those uh, young folks involved in the operation and finding a place for them to uh, operate and function and grow as a manager within the operation.

Lots of different things like that that you can think through and where you want your operation to be in five, 10, 15 years, and then just, you know, lay out some things that you would use to measure that you actually make in progress.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion taken from a recent farmcast podcast offered by the University of Nebraska Center for Ag Profitability to hear the entire interview, go to cap.unl.edu or download from Apple iTunes. 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.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac

For the second year in a row, Nebraska's Ag land value has declined according to extension Ag economists, Jim Janssen. Those values reflect differently according to location and how the land is used. He talks about some of the key factors. Affecting AG real estate values. So in the state of Nebraska, the University of Nebraska Lincoln annually surveys land industry professionals across the state to evaluate changes in land values as well as cash rental rates.

[Jim Jansen, Nebraska Extension Ag Economist]
As part of recent findings from the University of Nebraska Lincoln Center for Agricultural Profitability. Farm real estate market survey and report findings indicated that the overall market value of land decreased approximately 1% to an average of $3,905 an acre, which is about 1% lower than the prior year.

With that being said, the market value of land is composed of two, uh, land classes you might call. One land class is a crop land side, whether irrigated or dry land, crop land. The other type of land is, uh, grazing land and hay land roughly half, a little over half the state is in grazing land or hay land.

The other half is cropland. Now what was reported and some of the trends indicated is the trends in the market value of land are actually reporting the profitability or the profitability expectations surrounding crop land versus grazing land. For example, the average market value of crop land declined slightly one to 2% for dry land cropland with or without irrigation potential, and maybe even a little bit more than that for the irrigated, for center pivot or, or, um.

Gravity irrigated cropland, which those declined about two to 3%. Now, for grazing land, which the profitability is a little bit different for the cow calf folks, or at least the expectation is that prices are fairly high and expectation. We might see fairly favorable prices for the fall of 2026 when one might consider selling cattle, or maybe after the first of the year if you choose to hold them that long.

We've seen an increase anywhere from five to 7%. Now that reflects a lot of a difference in the market value of land. So it's important when we're talking about the market value of land, what type of land are we reporting on, and also what area of the state are you in? Differences in the presence of livestock, even on the crop land side, when folks are having a good year on the, um, cattle side of, uh, cow calf peas.

Or if you're in the feedlot business, you might see some of those values get reflected in. Potential buyers buying land or evaluating land purchases in an area. So for the upcoming year, things to be keeping an eye on is where interest rates headed. That influences the cost of long-term borrowing, where input expenses headed seed, fertilizer, chemical on the cropland side, fuels also in consideration even for the cow calf folks.

And herbicide, yes, on if you raise hay or. Got, uh, grazing land, you might use various, uh, types of herbicides for things like that. And also the price of seed if you're on the cropland side, where, where's profitability headed. So we have to keep an eye on that. And obviously we're having a lot of challenges right now related to fire damages on, uh, some of the acreage that was unfortunately, uh, burned in the western part of the state.

What does recovery look like for that? And also what does profitability look like for the cow calf folks? So there's a lot of things to be keeping an eye on and unfortunately it looks like this year might be a dry year, and hopefully I'm wrong in saying that. And we start getting adequate moisture. I think everybody is short moisture to some degree, and, uh, small rainfall of any amount at this point would definitely help some of those folks in their recovery efforts.

Or even if you're on the grazing land side, uh, helping get some of that spring vegetation started growing. That'd be very useful. So to find more information on the Nebraska Farm Real Estate Market Survey and Report, visit the Center for Agricultural Profitability website at cap.unl.edu/realestate, no space real estate in one word for Nebraska Extension Almanac.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills, Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media Nebraska Extension. For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans. Go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Recent wildfires in Nebraska have taken their toll on farmland, rural communities as well as livestock. On today's program, 2 veterinarians from Kansas, who've had experience in helping cattle and other livestock recover from problems from wildfires, discuss key factors to recovery. To start the show, Dr. Randall Spare talks about how wildfire damage is different for every farm operation.

I think the thing that we have to understand is it's a complex issue and no operation is the same.

[Dr. Randall Spare, Kansas Veterinarian]
Each operation is going to handle this differently.

Some need more help than others, but as we assess the cattle, end up, it's an ongoing assessment, but, Obviously, there's those cattle that succumb to it, to the fire and they're dead.

There's cattle that have been hurt, but still walking around, and uh, Than those cattle that happen to be in a location where they weren't hurt.

Major damages that would occur that with cattle still alive or burnt hides and more importantly, probably the feet that have gotten so hot.

And uh, initially there may not, may not be any separation at the coronary band that's obvious.

But those are issues that can occur either from two, three, four, five, 6 days after the fire, they appear to be normal, but then they're start to become lame and they, they might be not able to get around and then if you look down and look at their feet, there's a separation at the cornel band.

Also, the udders are a problem.

Those cows that have been burnt, but they're walking around, they're udders.

I don't know any other way, but you just got to almost feel each one of those to see if they're being damaged.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Dr. Travis McCarty focuses on how experience can be critical to understanding what cattle are going through and have the ability to help them recover.

[Dr. Travis McCarty, Kansas Veterinarian]
You know, the beginning, you're just triaging through an emergency, right?

Like you said, there's those dead cows that succumb, unfortunately.

Then you got then you got a welfare situation.

And depending on how large the herd is, that could be an issue of trying to find ammunition to be able to put those animals down.

And once you get through that, then like Dr. Stewart is talking about, you need to examine feet and others are your biggest things.

Eyes would be maybe tertiary, beyond that, but, you know, one of the things, you mentioned the Anderson Creek fire and the Starbucks fire, we learned some pretty good lessons in my opinion, Doc.

We tried some animals and maybe we thought, oh, maybe we'll be okay.

And and those were maybe some mistakes.

And the mistakes I'm talking about is like those cornery bands.

They may look fine today.

Here you are a week out from your fire, but they may look fine today.

But they may not be.

So, so getting getting a look at them and you're right.

Sometimes our facilities burnt down.

So how can we actually physically get them done?

And that's where working with your neighbors, finding people that have, you know, maybe get you like a wheel corrals or something where you can handle those cow and get a good look at them today.

This is a good time right now to get a good look at those animals.

And finally, you know, everyone gets really worried about smoke inhalation.

And I'm not going to downplay smoke inhalation.

You know, that respiratory track does a pretty good job of, uh, of clearance of that smoke, and I've been pretty amazed by the, just how infrequent, uh, smoke inhalation is a, my, my order as a list of a problem, so to speak.

And it's not as bad as these burns we're talking about.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned to Extension Almanac for future updates on farm and community recovery after the wildfires. 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.
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute.

As temperatures begin to rise, don’t’ forget to take a bit of time to assess alfalfa stand health going into this year’s growing season. Snow cover over the winter helped insulate plants from extreme temperatures, but exposed plants, older stands, or late harvested alfalfa still have a potential for winter kill. 

Even before plants begin to green up, individual plant assessments can be done.  While assessment before green-up occurs may seem a bit preemptive, pre-scouting now can focus scouting efforts to problem areas later on when time becomes precious during spring planting. 

Dig up 4-5 random plants per 20 acres, being sure to get the crown and a good portion of the tap root (around 6 inches at least).  Split the root and crown open. A healthy plant will be white and firm while winter damaged taproots will be yellow to brown in color and stringy. Yield will begin to be impacted when damage is greater than 30% of the total root/crown area.

Look for alive, in-tact basal buds at the crown of the plant.  Buds formed last fall will start growth sooner and boost first cutting yields.  A lack of basal buds doesn’t mean that the plant won’t recover, but first cuttings may be smaller.

If plants have begun growth, look at where it is occurring on the crown.  Healthy plants will have growth fully throughout the crown while damaged plants will often have asymmetrical growth with more stems on one side than the other.

If more than 30% of the plants assessed have significant damage, yield for the upcoming year may be impacted. Options like interseeding perennial grasses, seeding a warm season forage crop after the first harvest, or terminating the stand may need to be considered.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman. 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Wildfires need fuel to keep burning, and according to extension educator Jenny Burhel, there might be some differences between pasture land and row crop land. She says every fire is different, and every land condition and environment is different, but there might be an opportunity to stay ahead, even if your land has been damaged.

[Jenny Brhel, Nebraska Extension Educator]
When it comes to wildfires and when they burn residue, what we know is the questions we're getting right now, with the high input prices, the low commodity prices, how much nutrients have we lost?

And we say that basically, the nitrogen, the sulfur, the carbon that was all in that residue was gone.

Um, but some good things are based on the research from, it was South Dakota State, and then there was some other Western states that did this to Wisconsin and others.

They showed that it actually, because you're changing that carbon and nitrogen ratio on the soil surface, it allows for more mineralization of nutrients.

So, They, in their studies, never felt like they had to supplement with more nitrogen as a result of wildfires and residue.

The biggest concern I have is, when you have a wildfire, the waxy oils from the plants get moved onto the soil surface and it creates a hydrophobic surface, meaning it doesn't allow for water to infiltrate very well.

So what I've been recommending to producers and what we've done in the past, I just recommend getting something drilled in there right away, like oats.

I've been telling everyone, just get in there with some oats right now, and that could be a great opportunity for guys who have cattle too.

Put in oats, put in oats and peas, get some forge growing, and maybe they consider, in a year like this, I've been pushing really hard, looking at putting annual forges on crop ground versus corn and soybeans because of the economics.

And this may be an opportunity for some of those growers to, um, utilize annual forges too.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Jenny talks about how wildfires have different effects on land that is used for pasture or crops.

[Jenny Brhel, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Every fire is different and how fast it burns across the field, how much residue is burned, how much soil is blowing, what the crop rotation was.

Like there's so many factors, what the soil moisture was before the fire.

All of that makes a difference on mineralization, on any kind of other surface, um, minerals lost.

The thing I would mention about the cover crops, the reason why I keep pushing that is every wild fire situation I've had experience with, what we have seen is where we were able to get a cover crop established in a field versus not.

We were actually able to have a crop that yielded afterwards because it helps heal that soil so much faster.

If we don't get something in the soil and get that soil trying to heal itself.

It just takes longer on those effects.

The cover, they can either use it for forage or they can plant their soybeans or corn green into it.

The 2nd thing, I would say, is we have a bunch of resources at our cropwatch.unl.edu website as well as I know the beef team does as well.

And if they search for wildfire, they will get all that and it'll be on the front page too.

And the 3rd thing is don't don't be afraid to reach out for help because there is a lot of emotion, stress, grief, loss in this, and we all need each other.

We were meant to live in community.

And so there are resources to help the real response hotline and just keep checking in with each other.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Be sure to stay tuned to Extension Almanac for more updates on recovering from the recent wildfires. 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.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Dry conditions this fallen winner have contributed to the recent wildfires in Nebraska.
Extension educator Todd Whitney has been on the ground around the cottonwood fire, looking at the devastations the fires have done. He described some of the damage he's seen around farmland and local communities.

[Todd Whitney, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Pastures are still brown.

We've had some encroachment of eastern red cedar that's come in there.

It's posed a big problem for those that are trying to fight the fires because that cedar, uh, when it burns, is is burning eyes.

It's been hard for them to breathe as well.

And so it's been a big factor that way.

Uh, We have had some, some cases where people have been hesitant about whether they should do some cover crops. Have had a lot of ride that's been used in the area.

We've seen some, uh, switching to some other rotations with some lead in the rotations to.

This is proving out to have a green barrier helps.

And so, uh, we've had a case like the village of Farnham, where, uh, they had some green cover that was there.

The fire came up, basically stopped at the cover crops and then kind of went around, probably saved the town because it was in desperate need of support.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Because of recent past wildfires, experts have a little better understanding of what might recover, and what conditions are optimal for quicker recovery of pastures and prairie.
[Todd Whitney, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Every fire is different.

I mean, if we can start getting some rains that will definitely help.

I think we'll see recovery if the rains come.

Uh, you know, delaying uh, turnout will help.

Uh, we are hopeful that we will see some of those rains coming and that things will be helpful reducing stocking rates, some of those normal things.

But if the rains don't come, it's going to be really tough.

We've had people that virtually have all their grass is has been burnt up.

And so they've got to have to wait for recovery.

Even if the rains come, it's probably going to be 45 days before they can start doing some degree of grazing.

We've had some that thought, well, they had an open winter.

They sold off half of their, their hay, and now, they don't have, and now, we've had cases, I've heard of 500 bales being burned here, 300 round bales over here, takes for 200 cow herd, it takes 3 bales a day, if they're gone, now are they going to be able to buy, it is so widespread.

It's like, it's just not like next door, you can go buy some more for each because there's been so many acres that's been impacted.

So be a lot of trucking, people are trying to make decisions.

What are they going to do?

And we've had some people step up and say, well, they would allow, uh, others to come have their cows over, uh, and calve out in their area.

We have a lot of calves on the ground.

We don't know how many are gone.

You know, mostly the cows weren't turned out because it was dry, and so they were dry lauding.

And so that was a blessing that way, but it's still not known yet, you know, because we don't know what the range is going to.

Last year, we started getting rains, we had twice as much rain as normal last year, coming about mid May that came in and turned things around.

Uh, this year we didn't have a lot of uh, subsoil moisture in the moral area we're concerned about uh, how deep some of those hot fires impacted.

There's already been some movement, but the sands moving around and the heat impact.

And so some of the dunes have kind of moved around, which is, we're not sure what the full impact's going to be, but there will be some change on, on some of the grasses that come back because that's short grass prairie where we're kind of intermediate in that, uh, cottonwood area.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned to future almanac programs that will continue this discussion of the recent wildfires and efforts to recover from it. 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.
 

Here’s today’s pasture and forage minute:

Whether it is the possibility of drought or loss of pasture because of wildfire, some producers are considering using irrigated annual forages to bolster their grazing or hay supplies.

For spring or cool-season annual forages, we are in the planting period of late March to early April.  Soil temperatures this year are currently well above the recommended 42 to 45 degree range. Oats is probably the most common cool-season annual forage planted in Nebraska.  However, spring triticale or spring barley are two other small grain options that have been found to perform similarly to oats in terms of forage yield and quality. 

Also similar is the number of days until ready to begin grazing or hay; so, the different species could be mixed if desired.  One could look at seed cost of the different species before making a decision.   With the early spring planting date of the cool-season annuals, grazing can typically begin around the 3rd or 4th week of May and last into early July.  Haying usually take place around the 3rd week of June.

Following the cool-season forage, a warm-season annual such as sudangrass, sorghum-sudan hybrids, forage sorghum (which we often call cane or sorgo), foxtail millet, or pearl millet could be planted.  Systems can also be put together where different acres of cool- and warm-season annuals are planted to create the continuous availability of grazable forage from late spring though fall.

Remember to consider the herbicides that may have been used on a field the previous year.  Some herbicides may have long residuals that could hinder establishment even into this spring.  For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Range and Forage Specialist, Jerry Volesky.

This spring has already been a historic one for wildfires in Nebraska. Our thoughts are with the producers impacted, and our thanks go out to the fire crews and first responders who have put in long hours protecting lives, livestock, and property. As producers are able to assess damage and plan next steps, grazing management will be an important part of pasture recovery.

While the aftermath of a wildfire can look severe, perennial pasture grasses are often more resilient than they first appear. With many still dormant early in the season, growing points and root systems are largely protected, and recovery is possible. But with this spring also looking dry, recovery may be slower, and our management decisions carry more weight than they would in a normal year.

One of the biggest concerns after a fire, especially on sandy soils, is the loss of residue and litter on the soil surface. That cover helps reduce erosion and conserve soil moisture as grasses begin regrowth.

Because of that, one of the most important grazing decisions after a wildfire is to delay turnout. In some cases, that may mean waiting longer than normal to let grasses regrow and rebuild before grazing pressure is added.

Stocking rates may also need to be reduced. If moisture stays limited, plants simply will not recover as quickly, so leaving adequate residue becomes even more important. Rainfall through May and June should guide turnout and stocking decisions.

Also be sure to assess fence damage before turnout. In partially burned pastures, expect cattle to concentrate grazing on the burned areas first, so temporary fence or adjustments in grazing timing and pasture use may be needed. If you’re making fencing or grazing changes after a fire, be sure to coordinate with FSA and NRCS ahead of time so needed documentation and program eligibility are not affected.

Recovery is coming, but this year it’s going to need some patience and a little rain.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Forage Systems Educator, Ben Beckman.

With recent wildfires affecting parts of Nebraska, many producers are feeling overwhelmed and wondering what the first steps are after everything settles. Once everyone is safe and accounted for, there are two important steps to take right away.​

First, take clear, date- and time-stamped photos and videos of any pasture, livestock, or infrastructure losses as soon as it’s safe to do so. This documentation is critical for insurance claims and for any government disaster assistance programs that may become available, and while it can be difficult after an already devastating event, thorough records will make recovering losses significantly easier.

Second, review your insurance policy carefully so you understand what is covered in the event of fire or smoke damage. Remember that some animals may not show visible signs of injury right away; smoke inhalation and other health effects can appear days after the fire, so monitor livestock closely in the days and weeks that follow and keep records of any veterinary visits or animal losses.

If you have questions about forage loss assessment, grazing recovery, or financial assistance options, contact your local Farm Service Agency office or your local Nebraska Extension educator.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I am Nebraska Agricultural Economics Extension educator Shannon Sand.

The incredibly mild winter we’ve experienced this year has accelerated the accumulation of growing degree days for one of our most significant forage pests: the alfalfa weevil. For example, areas in southwestern Nebraska have accumulated an average of 318 growing degree days compared to 134 at this time last year. In addition, Kansas State University recently announced that weevils are already active in Kansas. These factors indicate that early scouting for alfalfa weevil is critical this year.

In Nebraska, alfalfa weevil scouting is generally recommended once 200 growing degree days have accumulated. The western half of the state west of U.S. Highway 281 is at or well beyond this mark and the eastern half of the state isn’t far behind. Alfalfa producers are urged to begin scouting now, especially in fields that have broken dormancy. For fields that are still fully dormant, feeding damage from alfalfa weevil is less of a concern because they require green, growing foliage to thrive.

While there are several insecticides labeled for alfalfa weevil management, in Nebraska there have been reports of some products not performing as well as expected and resistant alfalfa weevil populations have been reported in several western states. Therefore, if you believe you have a significant early season infestation, contact your county Extension Office for further guidance.

For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Crops & Water Educator, Samantha Daniel

With a new growing season just around the corner, it is time to finalize the coming spring and summer’s grazing and forage plans.  Last fall and this winter has been dry leaving most parts of the state in some level of drought.  While we do not know for certain how much moisture lies ahead; long-term forecasts into this spring and summer suggest the possibility of drier than normal conditions.

With the possibility of droughty conditions for the coming season, an important first step is to develop or adjust a good forage and grazing drought plan for your operation. Some components of this might include things like stocking rates, turnout dates to summer pastures, purchasing any supplemental hay or feed, securing additional pasture, fertilizer decisions on introduced grass pastures, or seeding of any annual forages.

For spring or cool-season annual forages, the recommended planting period of late March to early April will be here soon.  Forages would include things like oats, spring barley, spring triticale, and field peas.  With that planting date, these would provide grazing beginning in late May through early July.

For the summer annual forages, the planting period is typically late May and on into the summer months.  This would include things like forage sorghum, sudangrass, sorghum-sudan hybrids, pearl millet, and foxtail millet.  Additionally, other species or legumes that are typical of some cover crop mixes could be part of the package as well.  With a late-May or early-June planting of a summer annual, grazing should be available in July.

Planning ahead can help make your forage season run smoothly.  For today’s Pasture and Forage Minute, I’m Nebraska Extension Range and Forage Specialist, Jerry Volesky.