Crops

[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.

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.
 

[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. 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.
 

[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.