Climate, Weather and Drought

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

This past summer was brutally dry, particularly in Western Nebraska, and continuing our examination of feeding baled corn residue, Nebraska extension beef systems specialist, Mary Dronowski, returns to talk about how that drought may have affected the quality of corn residue bailed for feed.

She says there might be a slight risk of nitrates in the stems.

[Mary Drewnoski, Nebraska Extension Beef Systems Specialist]
Failed corn.

For instance, uh, in terms of digestibility might actually be better than typical corn residue, just so you know.

But there is that risk of them being high in nitrates.

So a few things to remember about nitrates.

The number one thing, as opposed to prussic acid, nitrates are going to be higher in the stem, and in particular the lower part of the stem.

So, if you're going to grind up that material and feed it, of course, that means that you are grinding up the, the stem which could have that higher nitrate and thus you're going to be feeding something that's potentially higher nitrate.

So getting it tested is probably the 1st step.

The benefit is if you are going to grind it up, hopefully you're going to feed it with some other feeds and in the world of nitrates, dilution is a solution to pollution.

Joking a little bit, but, you know, if you can dilute it out, you might still be able to use even a high nitrate, fail, assuming, again, that you are grinding it up and you are mixing it so that you don't have hot spots.

Now, without being said, what if you're going to do what we've been talking about, which is, I'm going to stick it around bell feeder and let the cows eat it.

The thing I would point out there again is if you are allowing them to be selective, and they're eating the husk in the leaf, the likelihood that those are high in nitrates pretty low. Again, you could test it.

Um, just to make sure you might go through and select, say the husk and the leaf, and maybe even test the upper part of the stem and see what, what's my risk here in this particular scenario.

And if you are a little bit worried about it, making sure you aren't forcing them to eat all of that material, even the stuff that they normally would, uh, so that you aren't forcing them into eating stem might be of benefit.

But I will say, I don't get as nervous about nitrates in corn residue, as some people do, because I think you can manage it to where you are allowing the cattle to select the stuff that is the best quality, and it's usually the stuff that is the lower nitrate.

Now, with that being said, there's a couple other things you can do to reduce risk.

I said dilution is usually helpful, so giving them other feeds will reduce risk, of course.

Energy is your friend.

And actually, that's probably where corn residue, in general, is kind of lacking, is that often it's not very high in energy, and for the microbes that use the nitrite, which is being produced from the nitrate, and that's the toxic compound, it's actually nitrite.

There are bacteria that can use it, but they need energy to do it.

And so if they don't have energy, then you have that nitrite build up and that's what gets into the blood and that's what causes our toxicity issue.

So, One of the things that we want to think about is, do I have enough energy for those microbes, if I am feeding more nitrates?

Because if I don't, then you're going to run into problem.

So rate of intake matters.

And of course, the amount of energy matters here in this particular scenario.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska Extension.

To read the detailed article on this topic, or 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 I.E. And our 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.

Corn residue has become a staple of cattle feed, and on today's program, extension beef system specialist, Mary Dronowski, talks about the quality and nutrient content of bailed corn residue, what producers should know about how it affects performance.

[Mary Drewnoski, Nebraska Extension Beef Systems Specialist]
Well, I think I'd be remissive.

I didn't start the conversation with the idea that if you can graze it, that's always the best.

But if for some reason you can't graze it, you know, bailing is another way to make use of it.

And the same principles sort of apply, right?

So when we think about corn residue, one of the key things that people need to understand is that the husk is the best part, right?

It has the highest digestibility, in fact, it is better than the best hay that you possibly have in terms of how much energy it would provide to a cow.

And then you have the leaf, which is kind of the next best, and it's probably like medium quality hay in terms of its energy value.

And then you have the stock, which is very lowly digestible, and the cob, which is also fairly lowly digestible, in fact, carbon stalker, probably about equal in terms of the energy value.

So, When we think about bailing it now, if we think about this grouping of material, right?

It's not all the same.

And so depending on your management, you can change the composition of that bail.

And so one method that has been used in the past, and instead of raking and bailing, and getting all that stock, and into that bail.

Essentially, they were just saying, just turn off the spreader and then just bail the window behind the combine.

Now that reduces the amount of material that you bail from the field, really by about half.

So in, in some of our studies, when we did kind of a conventional rake and bail, we would pick up about 77% of the residue in the field.

And if we did the combine tailing method or the easy bail method, we get about 34%.

So, you know, basically we reduce it by about half.

But what you're collecting is the better material in terms of the energy value for the cattle.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Mary says different parts of the corn plant delivered different amounts of energy.

She says because of those differences, it's difficult to determine overall quality level.

[Mary Drewnoski, Nebraska Extension Beef Systems Specialist]
There's kind of 2 things to understand.

One is that how you are going to feed it does affect how you would actually view the quality, so to speak.

So if you're thinking about like grinding and and feeding like in a TMR, um, then what is currently present in the bail is the true, uh, quote unquote quality of the bail.

Usually when we think about conventional bales, we can run anywhere from about 40 TDN to about at most 45 TDN, so just really good quality would be essentially equivalent to wheat straw.

So thinking about that, you know, it's not the highest quality stuff in the world.

So conventionally bailed.

Usually like, if I'm going to use a number, I usually use 42 as my guess.

The challenge with corn residue is that because it is this grouping of a bunch of different plant parts, it is impossible, really, to get a good estimate, just using normal lab analysis, because a lot of labs will use the fiber content, in particular, what we call the acid detergent fiber, to say how much energy or how digestible that feed stuff is.

And unfortunately, when we think about corn residue, the husk has just as much ADF as the stock.

So they are wildly different in terms of their digestibility and thus energy, but yet if you just do a normal lab analysis, you couldn't tell the difference between them on the ADF scale.

So, I would say, you know, we really don't have a great way to get a good number in most cases, but 42 is kind of the number I usually use if it's conventionally bailed.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
We'll hear more from Mary on this topic of bailed corn residue on a future almanac program.

For Nebraska, extension almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IE&R Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

UNL celebrated the completion of 35 new state of the art Nebraska Mezzanette weather stations, funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Nebraska Mezzanette manager, Reuben Binky, shares how the value of weather data is increasing significantly, and how more industries are using this data as AI becomes more popular.

[Rueben Behnke, Nebraska Mesonet Manager]
The value of weather data is increasing significantly.

And especially with the use of AI, more industries are using this data.

Everything from, we have industries that range from crop insurance to the weather service, to FEMA, you name it.

They all use weather data in some aspect, and there's always a demand for more data and better data, more reliable, accurate data that normal weather stations normal hobby, weather stations do not provide.

So we have air temperature, humidity, rainfall, uh, we have snow depth, we have pressure, we have some extra sensors on here.

We have snow, temperature and moisture, soil, temperature and moisture down to one meter at 7 different depths.

We have fuel moisture for wildfire risk.

We have leaf wetness for crop disease risk.

We have sensors at 10 meters for the weather service because they require a higher height for their sensors.

We are, we have cameras so we can look, we want to, we have a whole plan with the cameras with AI.

We want to do early warning systems for wildfire, for severe weather, and for vegetation greenness, which means hopefully we can get an early drought warning system in place by looking at the vegetation greenness.

National drought mitigation centers.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Marks Vobota speaks on how this network's data is vital to agriculture, natural resource management, emergency management, and fire containment.

[Mark Svoboda, UNL National Drought Mitigation Center]
These things are incredibly valuable.

We use data from all over the country, but the stations they've installed here through this effort are the Rolls-Royce of stations, and we really can use that data to improve accuracy of things like the U.S. Draw monitor.

The weather service.

I think you can see a dual purpose in these stations.

They're not just for, say, drought in my world, flash flooding in the National Weather Service.

Flooding is really important.

So understanding the saturation of the soil.

What's going to run off?

So I think it's critical there for improving forecasting accuracy.

For us, we use it to validate the data that's coming from satellites and models to know if we trust those satellites or models.

This data at location really helps us validate it.

We're really trying to fill in those gaps in those black holes in data coverage, not only here in Nebraska, but in the entire upper Missouri River basin.

This is just a super unique effort that's a once in a lifetime sort of thing that I've seen a build out like this at this level of 540 stations.

And Nebraska's really capitalized and putting in some sparse data sparse areas and, say, the sandhills are the panhandle.

This is going to be critical for filling in gaps to help us do a better job and improve accuracy of our products.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Vice Chancellor of UNL's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Tiffany Hang Moss, says that Nebraska Mezzanet is important to not only getting information to producers in Nebraska to help with decision making, but to communities across Nebraska, when severe weather threatens their area.

[Tiffany Heng-Moss, IANR Vice Chancellor]
We are really excited to have the Mezzanette be a part of the Institute of Agg and Natural Resources.

It's a wonderful statewide platform, and it does so much good for the state, whether we're talking about giving producers information that they need to make decisions to working with communities, on severe weather alerts, right?

And then just the massive amount of data that it provides, um, to really help with decision making in a lot of different areas that are important to the state.

I want to give a big shout out to Reuben, who really leads this effort around the mezzanet and that it's all about partnerships.

Infusion of resources, right?

And commitment to the mezzanet has left to build out new sites.

And it moves us closer to Reuben.

We have a goal of we want to mezzanet within 12 miles of every Nebraskan, and this gets us closer to that goal.

So it's all about partnerships and I really just want to do a big shout out to all of those partners that have been instrumental in helping to secure the funding, right, and really elevate the importance of the mezzanet around the state.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
For Nebraska Extension Almanac?

I'm Mike Straub.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of i.e. In our media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

With farming and ranching, comes busy schedules.

Disasters we may face every day are not always front of mind.

Statewide disaster education coordinator for Nebraska Extension, Sawny Cochran, talks about the importance of being prepared for the many disasters producers in Nebraska face, affecting their land, livestocks, and families.

[Soni Cochran, Nebraska Extension Disaster Education Coordinator]
We're talking about being prepared, so planning, preparing and then steps you could take to protect your family, your livestock, and your community.

So we're doing all hazards.

And, yeah, there's been a lot of fires, but it's almost been statewide as well.

So we had some fires early on in Eastern Nebraska, and we're getting into harvest season.

We're gonna want to think about fires and preparedness with our equipment as we get into the fields, as well.

You have equipment that might get hot as you're going down the rows, and sometimes we have leaves, and stalks get up into those combines, and other pieces of equipment.

You know, it could be that you're in an ATV or UTV, and you accidentally happened to drive across really dry grass.

And just because we've had some rain doesn't mean we're still at risk for fires.

So one thing people can do, as well, is when you are, you know, you have a trailer, you have a truck.

Make sure those chains are up, so they're not gonna spark along the concrete or asphalt, and accidentally catch fire as you go along roadways.

Having communications equipment with you, Having a plan, or a map of your farm, or ranch, or acreage.

So first responders know where to go, and that map is located in a place when they enter the property, that they know where the gates are.

They know where the wrists are.

They know where the chemicals are, the fuel is.

You know that bull.

Where is that bull that might be on your property?

So we have a lot of resources we can help people with and talk through.

And, you know, if you're living in a small town, maybe you have a farmer ranch and, you know, your parents are out there.

You're out there, but your parents are in town.

You know, talk about those things as well.

Do you have a quick go bag you can grab?

That's what we're talking about here?

Do you have an emergency kit if there's a flood or tornado, and you've got to be in place for a few days because first responders can't get to you?

Do you have a weather radio?

Do you have, you know, your phones charged?

Do you have that list of, who you can call, and write that down, that number, all our cell phones, have that in our phones as, My son is like, Ben.

Well, that doesn't help me know what his phone number is if my cell phone isn't working.

So it's really important to have all those pieces, no matter where you live.

So I think one of the things that's really helpful is learn about your community, okay?

And check on your neighbors, take care of your neighbors.

I mean, even if it's really hot.

Not today, hot, cold, whatever it might be, you can also, you know, take classes.

So find out where there's a CPR class that you can take, so you can protect your family compute.

You can volunteer.

There's different organizations whether it's, you know, community emergency response teams.

If you get involved with scouting, if you get involved with your American Legion or VFW, whatever it might be, to try and make sure the entire community has those resources, again.

Those first responsors, responders, your emergency manager, your volunteer fire department, they're gonna be busy responding to that, and at the same time, you can take steps to protect your family, check in on neighbors, and think about the emergency plans.

What are the emergency plan for your local school?

Your local faith based group.

Is it your church?

What is their emergency plan?

Where are the shelters in your community?

Figure out all those things ahead of time, and then get engaged with those your emergency managers say, What else can I do to help?

Your county officials, your mayor, you know, they may already have some meetings that the community can join in to all come together to learn how they can better protect their community.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Mike Straub.

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.

We've been focusing on promoting Pheasant Habitats recently in our program.

On a previous show, extension specialist Andy Little, discuss what factors make up a good habitat for these game birds to nest, reproduce, and have adequate protection.

On today's program, Andy focuses on the issues that have caused decline in pheasant populations in the state.

[Andy Little, Nebraska Extension Habitat Management Specialist]
So in general, you know, we've been losing habitat on the landscape since about the 1960s, uh, particularly, you know, obviously, as we have, you know, moved more towards corn soybean, um, fields, kind of more monocultural based crops.

Um, and I, and well, I talked to a lot of farmers out there, especially ones who remember the 60s and uh, time frame and they would say, man, we used to be able to go out in the back 40 and harvest a limit of pheasants.

Well, that back 40 does not look like the back 40 today.

And so the, essentially, a lot of those areas we obviously have with increased mechanization, you know, and a lot of other technologies, we now have the ability to not have smaller fields, we can have larger fields.

Well, pheasants love those smaller fields because you usually would have a lot of little hedgerows, and areas where they could take them, have a diversity of cover types for nesting, brooder, and fall winter cover, and they could move about the landscape, kind of like think about stepping stones from one point to another.

And then you get in some places now, you don't really have a lot of connectivity of those patches of cover, and so that makes it harder for them to get from point A to point B. But on the flip side of that is, you know, we were my lab, and when we do an applied wildlife ecology and spatial movement lab, or because that long, long name, we have an acronym of awesome labs, we have the awesome people work for us.

Um, within our lab, we're really focused on how do we take in, uh, work with our landowners to find innovative solutions, whether that's using precision ag, precision conservation technologies, to help them optimize their operation from a production standpoint.

And then from a habitat standpoint, and benefiting pheasants, or and then also benefiting other byproducts.

So soil health, water quality.

You know, I think a lot of folks are very familiar with those challenges we have in the state.

And so it's an opportunity, and what we really have kind of pride ourselves on in our lab is finding these innovative solutions to help optimize the overall profitability of your operation.

So kind of take it from where it's currently at and find new stackable enterprises that can help you diversify, doing it in a simplistic way, so it's not overly complicated, and then helping you actually make more money on the land.

So now you start seeing all those benefits.

Andy says the same techniques you used to promote pheasant habitat will also help a wide variety of other game birds.

There could be some little differences, but one of the things that, um, we always talk about, and actually the the project, um, that we developed in collaboration, the rest game parts commission, uh, in my lab, it was folks on identifying prioritizing areas for conservation delivery.

And the point is, is how do we identify and prioritize focus areas when you have limited people, limited money, and you got limited time.

You can't be everywhere in all places, that's just totally unrealistic.

And so, part of that conversation is I've had people ask that same exact question.

Can you, as you're thinking about habitat enrollment, and thinking about some of these innovative stackable enterprises benefit other species?

The answer is absolutely you can.

Every species is going to be a little bit different.

But what I always say is meet medium with the landowners developing the objectives of what they're most interested in and addressing.

You know, obviously they're not going to be able to address everything under the sun, and that would be anything else in life.

You know, you kind of find 2 or 3 really key objectives that are most critical to them.

And like from a, you know, pheasant standpoint or a turkey standpoint or quail.

You can say, hey, you know, um, what are you interested in, you know, game birds?

Okay, which ones?

And then we can start customizing things that best fit, what their interests are?

And again, you have groups like pheasants forever, and quail forever out there, and everybody's game parts commission, private lands division, all those different organizations who actually have private lands, folks, and can meet with you as an individual and talk through what your potential options are in your land.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
On a future program, Andy takes a look at some of the financial considerations for farmers that might help convince them that preserving pheasants and game birds could be another line of revenue for their operations.

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.

Western Nebraska's face some difficult challenges with irrigation this season due to extended and extreme drought.

Nebraska extension educator, Gary Stone, starts off today's program with a look back at conditions, and some of the restrictions the districts had to deal with.

[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So the water came in uh, as expected.

The water districts, you know, the boards all voted to, uh, when to bring the water in for their given district, uh, they were limited to about 30 to 40 days, each district, uh, depending upon how much uh, storage they had up above in the reservoirs in Wyoming, uh, since then, the water has gone out of the ditches.

It'll end this week for all the major ditches, the smaller ditches with earlier water rights, with natural flow, they will keep flowing as long as there's water in the river.

Those irrigators that do have wells and pivots, they will do all right this summer, in spite of the water shortage for the surface waters.

But, uh, it's gonna be tough for those that they're relying on surface water from here on out.

It'll have to be up to Mother Nature to determine just how much water will get and if they'll make a full crop.

But it's been good that, since the water's gone out of the canals, Mother Nature has provided some pretty decent moisture.

It's been hit and miss, but it's been adequate amounts to keep the crop going.

The temperatures have cooled off, so that's been real good for ours, and hopefully, you know, we can keep getting some timely rains, be more widespread to cover to take care of the crops here in the valley.

So a typical year, a water run here in the valley, if we have adequate storage up in Wyoming would be between 70 and 90 days.

So typically, they would do a hay run early in the season.

Uh, May, early June, and then take the water out of the ditch, and then bring it in uh, 1st of June, July, and run it till, say, the middle of September.

That would be a full season.

But this year, they were limited to, like I said, 30 or 40 days, so it's roughly half of what they normally would have gotten.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Gary talks about how farmers responded to some of the district restrictions, including prevent plant, no planting, or low water forage.

[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]
A lot of them did prevent plant if they were qualified for that.

Uh, some didn't plant anything at all.

They just let their fields go bare.

Others put in a forage grass of type, maybe some millet, a forage millet, and then hopefully they'll be able to chop that or bail it and sell it to the feed lots.

Now, out in the, out of the valley into the Banner County, Kimball, Cheyenne area, or even up north in Box Butte, in those areas where it's strictly dry land, it's been so dry, unless we get some real adequate moisture, they may not plan an actual wheat crop this fall.

Just because there's nothing there to germinate it or to get it up and even keep it going.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Gary concludes today's program with a report on the capacity of Lake McConaughey.

[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So, as I understand it, Central Public Power owns the lake and the power plant and a series of power plants, that feed off of the river or off of the lake, they have a storage right, so they can store basically any time that there's not a call on the river for water in other places.

So, I know back in 2010 or whatever, uh, the lake was way down, and they said it'll never fill again, but it filled within two years, because we had adequate snow pack in the mountains, lots of water, uh, so it did fill the big lake, and, uh, yes, it'll eventually fill again.

We're Nebraska extension almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of, i.e. And our media, and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Rainfall is in the forecast for late summer and fall in Nebraska, and that could mean some decent growth for our rangeland grasses.

On a recent almanac program, extension range management specialist Mitch Stevenson said, that would really help rangeland grasses make a comeback from severe drought conditions.

On today's program, Mitch talks about how prolonged hot and dry conditions are invitations for weeds to take root.

[Mitch Stephenson, Nebraska Extension Range Management Specialist]
You know, when we think about drought in our annual Forbes, especially if they're native annual Forbes, typically that's that's a mechanism that they have, there's a trigger that that would say that, you know, the grasses have been the kind of stressed and and so then we get rain the following year that this is our year to go, right?

And oftentimes following a drought, even though our range lines are typically low nitrogen systems that's out there.

If the grasses are limited in their growth from the previous year, their tends to be somewhat build up of some of those nitrates, even though it's fairly low, right?

So I think some of our annual Forbes take advantage of that. And take advantage of that moisture and take advantage of that opened up area.

So most of the time, if you have a healthy plant community, a healthy grass community, that only lasts for a year, maybe 2 after drought, and can somewhat be cyclical.

And we're talking, you know, some of our sunflowers, uh, Mayor's Tale, and some of these other species that we see out there that, that may, may look a little rough after drought, but more often than not, if you, if you manage it right, keep an eye on it, uh, it'll pull through out of that, and, and as the grass gains more bigger, you'll see less and less of those species.

For our annual invasive grasses, cheat grass primarily, in the past, we've always had some growth.

We look at that earlier in the year, in that late April period, early May period, is really starting to take off and grow.

You know, the last 2 years, that really hasn't been optimal growth conditions for the cheat grass, you know, in fact, this year, we went out to a lot of our plots and plots that had pretty substantial amounts of annual invasive grasses that had 0 annual invasive grasses on our cover as well as our biomass samples.

And so it really is going to be interesting to see how annual invasive grasses respond to this kind of a drought.

You know, I think we need to keep an eye out for them.

You know, we need to map out areas that they might be more prevalent.

We need to keep an eye on our perennial grasses and how they're coming back with that as well, as if there are some options that we can, we can spray for some of those annual invasive grasses.

But going into the fall, if we do get some of this precipitation, I think it's going to be really important that we get out there and and really map and see where those annual invasive grasses are.

Or if they're drought like this will set them back.

And so, you know, typically speaking, the annual invasives in the Western grade planes have this, this boom bust cycle, you know, where they'll, you'll see a lot of annual evasive grasses and then they'll, they'll drop down because of weather conditions and other things, and then they'll come back.

And in a lot of our counties, we've seen that steadily increase.

So the cover has gone up and then down up and down, but generally speaking, it's, it's, it's on an upward trajectory.

And so, that's where I do think it is really important to, the best defense, I think there is against annual invasive, is a healthy perennial grass plant community, right?

And it's it's not going to be 100%.

Annual invasives do a very good job.

Grasses do a very good job of coming into those interspaces that are just common in our plant communities.

And so there are some things we can think about targeted grazing.

We think about herbicide applications and those types of things.

But really, you know, maintaining that perennial grass community is just the most important.

[Brad Mills, Program Ho]
There is much more to this topic as Mitch talks about important issues with recovering range lands after severe drought conditions.

To listen to the entire interview or read the detailed article on this topic, go to UNL's beef website, at beef.unl.edu, or download the podcast from Apple Podcasts or Spotify, for Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IE&R Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.UNL.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Current pasture conditions across Nebraska are better than they were earlier this spring, but there are still some challenges.

Late rains have green things up, but according to extension range management specialist Mitch Stevenson, that doesn't automatically mean grass is ever covered from the spring extreme drought conditions.

Rain is in the forecast for the fall, and Mitch talks about what that might mean for range managers moving forward.

[Mitch Stephenson, Nebraska Extension Range Management Specialist]
As we think about the bimodal pattern of growth of cool season grass is, you know, most of their growth is going to be late April to mid-June, and that they put most of their growth on.

But a lot of our research would show that that fall period can be really important for growth as well.

And so already a stress plant.

If we do get the precipitation, that plant's going to, going to put leaf area on, it's going to have that photosynthesis that's going to try to store those carbohydrates.

And that's gonna be really important to next year's growth.

And so as we consider that, if we do get some good rain, it starts to green up on those cool season grasses.

I know a lot of folks are going to want to get out and graze, right?

And but I do think that we need to be careful that we're not over grazing that because it's really a drought stress plant that needs to build up strength and bigger again.

And then those fall rains can really help with that, especially if it stays warmer later into the fall with the rains.

And so, so I really need to think that if checking your pastures, you know, considering, uh, if you can defer that and continue to not raise those going into next year, that could be really important with the hope that we get the rainfall next year.

Or grazing it at a level that you're leaving substantial amounts of biomass behind.

Now, if you are in areas that are predominantly warm season, really, you know, you might see a little bit of green up.

It could have a little bit of growth, but we're kind of hitting the tail end of the optimal time for warm season grass growth.

And so as it gets later into the fall, You know, we're not seeing as much growth on those warm season species.

And so even if it's screening up, it's likely not putting on a lot of additional biomass on those warm season species.

But still, it is important that they get that rainfall and they continue to grow.

And and so the more opportunities we can give them to recover from this drought stress, the better they are going to pull out of it next year and when those rains and precipitation come back.

So at the Goodman's and Santiels lab, just to give some numbers on this as well.

We have a crew out there now that are that are clipping our August biomass data collection.

So typically we try to get mid mid-August period and then we also get a mid-June period where we sample biomass at the Goodmanson Sandhills lab, which is in the central sandhills.

And so, When we sampled in mid-June and collected that data, our cool season grasses were only at 20% of what we would expect in an average year.

And we've collected this data since 2007 there.

And, uh, you know, when we looked at total biomass production, we were still only about 30% of of our average that we had out there.

So that's cool season warm season 4 of shrubs, everything.

And current year's growth on shrubs is all that we sample.

And so, so we clip a number of these quadrats at the ranch and uh, and, and we, we, we try to uh, link that with some of our precipitation data.

And this this year is definitely giving us a point that is is somewhat unique in terms of just the low level of precipitation we've had other.

The closest one that we've had would have been 2012.

We don't have data at Goodmanson, but 2002 would probably be another year that would be somewhat similar to this as well, or that period, right?

It's droughts oftentimes aren't just in a year.

They carry over into multiple years.

And that's that's something that we need to consider.

And so, you know, when we sampled in mid-June, most of those cool season grasses had probably reached their optimal time of growth there in mid-June.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned for part 2 of this discussion on drought recovery.

With some possible precipitation this fall.

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.

Historic fires this past spring in Western Nebraska have slowly been making a recovery in range land and past years.

Four major fires destroyed over 800,000 acres of Sandhill property.

On past almanac programs, we've discussed how these fires have become more frequent due to drier conditions out west in the fall and winter months.

On today's almanac, Nebraska extension educator, Gary Stone, talks about what happened and how Rangeland Prairie grasses and plants are making a comeback.

He begins the interview by recapping what happened this past March.

[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]

Okay, so from mid late March, uh, we had what we call the moral fire, predominantly in Garden County.

It covered over 640,000 acres.

It was pretty bad, burned a lot of the prairie, grass to where nothing was left, but just the sand hills.

So the damage was pretty extensive.

Some fences were lost.

Some water sources were covered, so, yes, and some livestock was lost also.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Gary talks about a possible timeline when this range lands might recover.

He says, despite drought conditions in the sand hills and low precipitation, prairie plants have shown some resilience.

[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]

Okay, so the recovery has already started.

They've had some fairly decent rains in spite of the drought that we've had, the grass is starting to come back very well. Things are starting to green up.

The native plants are showing a real good job of being able to bounce back with such a fire that took place.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Gary says Mother Nature has a way to make things come back in unexpected ways.

He says there isn't much we can do to accelerate that process.

[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]

So for now, mostly it's just a wait and see issue.

So from where I see it, this is something that Mother Nature has to do for us.

The sandhills are such a sensitive area, they are sandhills for that reason, of pure sand.

So the native grasses, Forbes, and everything, just need time to come back, get some decent moisture, and they should spring back.

And hopefully, this time next year, things will bounce back, look like they used to be.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

As previously mentioned, severe drought conditions out West haven't really helped in the recovery process.

Gary says, despite all that, range lands and pasture have already started to green up.

But there isn't really any way to put a timeline on when things will be back to normal.

[Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator]

Uh, in uh, places, the rain, uh, if it's been uh, uh, uh, down, gullet washer, yes, it has washed, but uh, I've traveled through there a couple of times after the rains, and I don't see that much evidence of it washing.

So things are bouncing back pretty good.

It's just good to see the native grasses come back, see the wildflowers, see the other plants pop back, and, you know, if you just saw it after the fire, you would have thought nothing's ever going to come back, but things look really nice, really green.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Wildfires in Nebraska aren't anything new, and the recovery process will have to rely mostly on Mother Nature.

But as Gary said, it's been surprising that despite low precipitation and a streak of extremely hot weather, the range land is making a comeback.

Stay tuned for future updates on this topic.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IE&R Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

As drought conditions persist, cattle producers should consider feed resources that can complement low quality forage.

Brandon Smith, assistant professor at Auburn University, talks about how soybean holes should be a consideration for producers.

[Brandon Smith, Auburn University Assistant Professor]
So soy holes in particular fit that system because at the time, very affordable, and, you know, feed markets go up and down over the year.

So, if we listen to this podcast next year, then this, this may be totally out of the realm of possibility, but that as we go away, so this byproduct feeds, what I really like about soy holes is you get a moderate level of protein.

So the protein, you know, we're not talking about the type of protein that's going to be a soybean meal, of course.

You know, we're not taking the end of sperm out of that.

We're dealing with the outer seed coat.

So I would call it moderate protein, but you're also getting digestible fiber.

And the combination of those 2 mean that you're really not shifting a nutrition program away from that forage and fiber-based system.

And that's where sometimes in our supplementation of feeding programs we can get in trouble when you take something that's very dense and starch or very dense and protein, you shift the Roman ecology over and it's almost a shock to the system.

Soy hills in particular, and I would put those in the same category as something like the stiller's grains or some of the cotton bike products, really work in that system because they don't shift that room in ecology away from its natural state.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Brandon explains what soy holes are and where they come from.

[Brandon Smith, Auburn University Assistant Professor]
So the soy hole itself is going to be the outer layer, the the, um, seed coat or almost shell, if you will, of the soy bean.

So it's not the shell as in the pod, just the outer coating of the bean itself.

And we get this from processing soy beans for oil.

So the main product out of the soybean is going to be the soybean oil, from that we have soybean meal, which is the dry remaining portions.

The hull.

So seat code is going to come from that, and then the amount of soy hulls that are generated are going to depend on what type of soybean meal was being produced.

So you can adjust the standardized protein and soybean meal by how much hull is added back into that system.

Um, soy hulls themselves then come off, you can have them loose or in the past 10 years or so.

I've seen more use of them as pelleted.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Brandon also points out what kind of energy is being supplied by the soy halls.

[Brandon Smith, Auburn University Assistant Professor]
On a TDM base, the soy holes were going to be in that 70 to 75% range somewhere thereabouts.

So to put that in perspective, we generally look at, hey, now this, of course, hey, is going to be all over the board, but hey, we generally think of as that 50 to 55% range being the floor of what you need for maintenance.

So we're looking at something that I would call halfway between a forage, so hay versus a concentrate, like if you were feeding cracked corn or something like that.

You know, not even that, but as we look at these soy holes, you know, all fiber is not created equal, if they're on a pasture-based system or hay system, they're getting plenty of the physically effective fiber, you know, the scratch factor, long stem type fiber, soy holes offer us that unique aspect of digestible fiber.

So it's chemical fiber, it, as chemically makes up fiber, but the digestibility is higher, which is where you get that higher TDN.

That's what really benefits the system and where you were going with the using a fiber-based energy source over something like a starch base.

It meshes very well.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion of an interview taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension to hear the entire program.

Go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills, Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR media, and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans.

Go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Just like all livestock, cattle need available water to stay hydrated during the hot summer months.

Extension educator Troy Wall says, water needs for cattle can vary.

[Troy Walz, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So cattle, just like any other mammal, have a requirement for water, and it depends on the class of livestock, and it depends on what the temperature the ambient temperature is.

So, of course, the hotter it's getting or the warmer it's getting, the higher the water requirement is going to be for cows and also, depending on their stage of production and class of livestock.

But as a general rule of thumb, let's just say for when it gets to be about 90 degrees Fahrenheit, growing cattle, and lactating cattle, cows are going to have a requirement of 2 gallons of water, for every 100 pounds of body weight, and a non-lactating cow or bowl will need one gallon of water per £100 of body weight.

And when we think about these lactating cows having a water requirement, We cannot forget that they also have a calf outside, and those calves also have a water requirement, and those calves are going to need anywhere from 5 to 10 gallons of water per day.

So when we think about spring calving cows and we get to this 90 degree temperature, that's what we're going to be seeing with these lactating cows.

So these lactating cows are producing milk, of course, and milk is 87% water.

So for every gallon of milk that a cow is producing that is increasing her water requirements.

So on our spring calving cows.

Say if we have a £1200 cow, she is going to need probably 24 gallons of water when we get this to this 90 degrees plus another 5 to 10 gallons of water for her calf.

So when I talked about a cattle having a calf at her side and that calf has a water requirement as well.

Some of that water requirement will come from the milk that that calf is getting from that dam.

And also some of the water requirements for the cow herself.

She can get from grazing lush forage if there's lush forage or whatever ration she is receiving if it's high in moisture.

So water quality is another important aspect for cattle intake of water.

So cattle are going to drink, good quality water, and they are going to drink low quality water, and we need to get our water tested so we know what we are, if we have any problems with our water.

So some problems we could see with our water could be high nitrates.

We know we have some nitrate issues in some areas of the state so we could get that tested.

We want our nitrates in our water to be 100 parts per 1000000 or less of nitrate nitrogen, that 100 is kind of that upper level we would be looking at.

Then we also have to think about sulfate, some areas in the state have sulfate or sulfur in the water, for our growing cattle.

We want those to be less than 500 parts per 1000000 and for mature cattle, we want that to be less than 1000 parts per 1000000.

And in order to know these things, we have to get this tested.

So just, you can take a water sample into any of the certified labs here in the state of Nebraska.

When cattle are drinking out of ponds or if they've been standing in it all day, they're increasing the nutrient load from manure and nitrogen, and that can cause algal blooms or algae to grow, and some of these algaes that we see, such as blue green algae, can be toxic to cattle, and we'll see blue green algae growing in stagna, water, lakes, and ponds.

And with that toxicity, we need to be.

Considerate of that, that could be tested as well.

And we, sometimes this time of year, we start hearing about some of the bodies of water in the state that have toxic blue green algae in there.

And some of the symptoms in cattle would be diarrhea, lack of coordination, labor breathing, and could possibly even have death with those.

[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.

Mitigating heat stress in cattle can greatly affect their performance in a positive way.

A.J.

Tarpoff from Kansas State has some recent research data that looks at limited feed and how shade will help cattle cope with severe heat events on today's almanac.

[AJ Tarpoff, Kansas State Extension Educator]
Animal comfort has always been a big focus of mine.

You know, I've always been a big believer that, you know, when we focus and we invest in animal comfort.

It pays dividends economically, okay?

And so when we take care of those animals for the best of our ability, uh, the outcomes are, you know, just that much greater.

Now, that being said, it always comes at a cost.

Right?

So what are some of those parameters?

And uh, before this study began, a lot of the conversations that I was having, folks both internally and and trying to get this project funded, it was, okay.

Let's start looking at shade as an investment long term.

And what kind of parameter should we look at?

And that's where I, I said, you know, We, we have some data at the feed line and it's very, you know, regionally dependent.

However, in the Midwest and and eastern Kansas, the Midwest.

We, you know, I, I believe we've got a growing backgrounder segment.

And in some of the conversations that I had with folks, that there was kind of confusion and almost arguments that growing cattle don't have heat strip.

And right away, I said, well, we do because we see it, and we, we, but we don't always measure what those effects are.

So in that growing segment, there, it's such a vast differences and diets, and housing, you know, so how do we put all this stuff together?

And that's really where this, this idea came to be is, you know, one, let, let's analyze and let's really dig down into shade usage here in the Midwest and eastern Kansas, uh, specifically, but that environment can match pretty well with a lot of our Midwestern states.

So we wanted to look at shade, but we also wanted to utilize, kind of digging into the physiology a little bit, is how we feed cattle.

Can that be a determining factor with what type of heat load these cattle can can sustain.

So the idea was, let's look at our limit feeding, we've been, uh, Dr. Dale Blasi here in Kansas State's been doing a lot of limit feeding work with a high co-product, corn co product diet, that's limit fed for a, you know, for a 2.2% uh, body weight.

But we wanted to look at the physiology of it.

When we feed a higher digestible feed stuff.

There's less heated digestion that's actually produced.

So if we think about this logically.

It's like, well, if we feed a more digestible ration to these growing cattle, rather than a high rubbage, that's, you know, takes more bacteria, more time, more room and churning to be able to digest, if we do that, does that have a determining factor on heat stress?

So, we kind of pulled those 2 ideas, both nutritionally and kind of environment with the shade, uh, to try to see if these were additive, or if the physiology, you know, idea of data fermentation, if it's real, do we see some of those impacts?

So that's kind of the basis of what we wanted to look at.

You know, I I see it a couple of different ways.

One, uh, utilizing this information to show some of the, uh, you know, the increase in efficiencies and increasing gains, uh, that we can see from shade, and then penciling that into their own operation, right?

So looking at shade, not as a one time, you know, one time fee is, so to speak, but of a long-term investment that's going to pay out over a number of years.

So I, I, I think that's, that's one piece, and then the limit feeding.

You know, limit feeding has a number of different positive attributes.

One of the basic needs of limit feeding is having access to a cornco product.

Whether it's corn gluten feed, whether it's distiller grains, something along those lines that we can feed it at, you know, 40% within the ration.

But if we have access to that, utilizing that that limit feeding program can really help out with, you know, changes in commodity, uh, commodity prices, fluctuations and drought, temperature.

So, you know, you know, one of the big, big problems.

Sometimes we have issues of just availability of forages to be able to feed some of these background, you know, by utilizing some of the limit feeding programs, we can get some of those those forage needs down to about 13% of their rations.

[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.

Hot summer days are now upon us, and severe heat can seriously affect cattle performance.

Nebraska extension educator Alfredo Deaconstanzo talks about some good strategies to help livestock cope with brutally hot days.

[Alfredo Diconstanzo, Nebraska Extension Educator]
You know, we always talk about heat stress and from the standpoint of education.

Maybe my plan to look at this is to break it down in a manner that makes sense to the individual when they read it or listen to this message.

And in very the simple way to break this down for a feed lot animal is that they are going to be get large and heavy and finished, and we use high energy diets to get that accomplished, and we do this in an environment that obviously is out in outside, which can create its own challenges.

So if we simply separate animal diet and facilities, then that's an easy way to perhaps address these things and be ready to prepare ahead of time.

So the 1st one to me is to make sure that cattle that can handle stress are in pens have the higher propensity to have heat stress developed in them, right?

And it's not a best case scenario, but if you happen to have some light colored cattle, cattle that are starting out in the feeding process, maybe they should be in some of the more challenging pens.

For example.

In addition, we make these cattle fairly heavy.

And so for some of them that we know are probably going to be with us another 30 to 45 days.

It's a time for some of them to start thinking of them going sooner rather than later, and we know there's an incentive to keep them around longer, for making good profit on some of these cattle and pounds count.

But they count if their lives.

So the question is, are you better off extending that show list to include pens that are, that you were going to keep them 30 to 45 days longer because you wanted more weight on them.

And maybe you're changing your your plan because the heat is coming and you go, well, maybe I'll try and sell them too.

You know, that's another way to do that.

So, so that keeps marketing current to avoid having excessively heavy cattle on the facilities, particularly if it happens to be a yard that has challenges, with facilities and keeping heat stress away.

The 1st things that come to mind, and because of the range, that particularly in the eastern portion of the state, the growth explosion, both on trees and grasses and weeds and so forth, creating tremendous wind breaks out there, and maybe we haven't even removed the wind breaks themselves that we put up as bales.

And so the very 1st thing to do, and I was at a yard recently that still had the wind breaks up, it's time to take them down as fast as you can do that to permit the wind to blow through those pens as soon as you can.

So in a sense, this is the time to look at facilities and remind ourselves where the most stressful pens are and try to get whatever we can to make them a nicer facility, cut down some of the weeds, uh, grass, whatever around those pens, if we have only a limited amount of shade, portable shade, that's the place where they're probably going to be placed.

Maybe one could potentially, if it's a smaller yard set up, in essence, uh, you know, uh, garden hose, uh, type sprinkler system that can help get these cattle wet when the time comes.

This is what I would call for facilities, the midterm, mid to close term preparations to a heat event, and that's the types of things that a manager and owner need to be looking at.

Is this the time perhaps to loosen up the stocking density in some of those pens so that they're not so close together?

[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.
 

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Recent high temperatures and high humidity have caused concern for cattle producers.

Nebraska extension specialist, Galen Erickson, talks about strategies for producers to employ when summer heat is affecting cattle performance.

[Galen Erickson, Nebraska Extension Feedlot Specialist]
Yeah, really, heat stress is a culmination of multiple things that have to happen.

One is usually hot days, which everybody recognizes, we use a temperature humidity index, somewhat like what we do in humans.

There's also adjusted temperature in index, which account for, essentially, sunlight, so solar radiation, obviously hot temperatures.

Uh, humidity is a contributing factor, wind speed.

Okay?

So if there's less wind, bigger challenge.

And then actually, interestingly, some of the work from Terry Mader, who studied heat stress was the temperatures the night before, so low time temperatures the evening prior are all good indicators that that producers should watch.

In addition, there are a couple of tools online, um, here in Nebraska, and so you can search the, uh, for cattle climate index in the cattle, uh, Mezzanet, uh, network, and those tools can be used also for prediction of days when it's going to have heat stress related activ- uh, problems.

So the strategies that producers can use are really things to keep cattle more comfortable.

And so how do we do that?

Well, can't control the weather, but you can try and control their environment.

So sprinkling, uh, sprinkling the pen is a good approach because it cools down the pen surface.

Pen temperatures on the surface can get quite warm, uh, up to 140, 6, 140 or 50, 60 degrees Fahrenheit in some of these real hot days with a lot of sunlight.

So cooling the pen.

Sometimes people think we should sprinkle the cattle, but actually the data show that sprinkling the pen surface is better.

If it's really humid and the wind, some have suggested that that's not always the best approach.

Uh, because it increases humidity locally.

Second option is you can, uh, provide shade, right?

And many feed yards have have implemented that, um, management strategy.

Third is plenty of access to water.

So, one of the key things that feed yard should be monitoring is how much water trough space access the cattle have.

The old rule thumb is one inch of water, trough space per head in the pen.

So if it's a 100 head pen, and you measure the length of the opening on your water, obviously it's got to be at least 100 inches.

If you increase that to two, 3 or 4 inches.

Those are benefits and heat stress events.

And now, how do you increase your water trough space because you got a water in the pen?

Most producers would do that by delivering extra water tanks in the pen, either filling those or siphoning into those.

Um, and then lastly, cattle will eat less, and so, uh, that's one way they take the heat that they're producing from consuming feed off of their body.

So you can also help that sometimes with diet changes.

One is to actually feed a less energy dense diet, so interestingly, feeding more forage can help.

In severe cases, but all those changes should really be assessed with your nutritionists.

And then, lastly, some have explored additives that claim to help and some of those may have value, some may not.

[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. 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.