Crops

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Nebraska researchers have developed a wide array of digital tools that aid producers in managing nutrient application, improving animal welfare, mitigating spray drift, conserving water, and much more.

These tools are tested on Nebraska's research sites across the state or through Nebraska on farm research network.

Interim, digital AgHub director Guillermo Balboa speaks on the importance of this research.

[Guillermo Balboa, UNL Interim Digital AgHub Director]
So yeah, we just recently launched the dealery culture have at the University of Nebraska.

The goal of these hobbies to bring together university capacities in resource, teaching, and extension, and partnering with growers and ranchers across the state, and industry that we basically around challenges that we have in terms of digital agriculture, adoption.

One of the main challenges that we identify in one of the surveys that we run across the state is that growers really don't know for some of the tools, what is the real value, how many dollars per acre, they can improve if they implement it, or what is the real problem they are trying to tackle.

So one of the objectives of the hobbies to test these tools and to really show what is the real value of them.

And then giving the chance to the grower to say, yeah, this is something that can be used in my operations or not?

But also, the habit is meant to help to co develop those.

So we are trying to get growers and ranchers involve early in the stage of tools that are being developed here or could be developed for industry.

So they have a, the developer has an insight directly from the end user, and then the development process is more efficient at the end.

Nebraska growers, I would say, early adopters of a lot of these practices, and you can tell that, but the involvement that they have in different programs from the university, like the Nebraska confound research network.

They're always asking questions about, hey, is this work?

I have this problem, I can use this tool.

Um, so the, the, the, Nebraska is very culture, have the idea is to bring together and and to help to catalyze those processes are already happening, to take them to the next level, right?

To have more growers involved, to have more ranchers involved, to have more industries collaborating with university, in the development of those tools.

So, in some cases, we will be involved only in the testing of that tool, and then the idea is to try to scale the use of those tools.

Not forgetting that we also need to train the next generation of people that needs to use these tools, right?

The workforce was identified as one of the limitations for implementation of these practices, right?

We need people that is trained on how to use these tools along with the growers and farmers.

We recently launched how we are working hard on different aspects to start rolling in the ball.

One of them is having some conversations with some particular industries to start working on our agreements to test some of these practices.

We're also revising all, uh, some of the students, curriculum for undergrad and graduate programs to make sure that we're incorporating all that content related to digital culture.

And we're also submitting, you know, different proposals for funding to continue expanding the research component, and we support, as well, for example, to grad students.

So a lot of work in the different aspects of they have in order to get the support, to continue with the mission of the hub.

Particularly in environmental landscape today, where we have, you know, whether uncertainty, economic, uh, ups and downs, I think all the implementation of these agricultural tools and processes can help growers to be more efficient, right?

To try to adjust all the inputs and all the labors that they are doing, to be able to address all these challenges that they have.

So these agricultural tools is another tool in the toolbox in order to address these challenges.

So the hub has 3 main pillars.

We say, one is the one related to the resource component where UNA has a strong history, as I mentioned, more than 40 teams working in livestock production, robotics, AI, precision nutrient management, how to manage landscape, resources, natural resources.

The 2nd is basically extension, and workforce development, where we are having, or thinking about providing these lighted culture budges in order to get training for students beside the regular training that we are offering, but also for stakeholders, and certify crop advisors, for example.

And the 3rd one is related to entrepreneurship, trying to support internally and externally at UNL, all the teams that are looking to develop new tools, particularly for growers and ranchers across the state.

[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.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

With wet weather already complicating Nebraska's harvest, lodged corn can add another challenge for growers, caused by disease, drought, wind, or severe weather, down stocks can slow harvest, increase grain loss, and place additional demands on operators and equipment.

Extension educator, Amy Timmerman explains how adjusting harvesting practices, and combine settings can help growers recover more of their crop.

[Amy Timmermimmerman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So, we know with logic corn, we want to harvest it as soon as possible because it's going to continue to go down.

And as we go down, then we're reducing our yields as a whole, and that's an economic hit to us, but then we're going to look at the other complications that come with large corn.

We're going to have all those ears in that field.

And so then we're looking at lots of volunteer corn potential for next year, and that can be a challenge in itself, depending on what your rotation is, um, what herbicide programs you're doing, different components like that.

Or you can look at it at the flip side, I'm going to bring cattle in there and I'm going to graze it.

I need to make sure I have my carrying capacity on my cattle at the same level of the amount of greenness out there.

So I don't run into secondary impacts of bloat and different components that can cost a major animal health issues in the long run.

And so we got to find that happy balance.

We want to pick it up as best as we can.

Now how we set that combine, even though we have to go slower, changes a little bit.

So we're gonna look at, depending on how it's down, what is the angle of our head.

So if it's down against the row, so our rows are going north and south and it's falling down east and west, we're going to put that head more straight.

As low as we can go so we can pick it up.

Now, if the corn is down with the row, we're gonna try to go against the tip, but we're actually gonna increase that angle, so our snouts are down lower, and then we're able to pick it up, we'll feed right into the combine.

We may have to make adjustments on how wide things are to allow more plant material in because of the way it's laying.

That's going to change how the combine's going to thrash that at the end, which means we may have to adjust fan speeds associated with it so we can blow out that low quality seed, our grain, but also get the material through.

And so the grain isn't dirty.

And I know that's one of the biggest fears everybody has.

They don't want dirty grain and I get it.

So we have to just rotor speeds and fan speeds.

We may also have to look at our chains.

Making the change in our in our sprockets and our chain placements, so it grabs the corn harder, those stocks that could be a little flimsy because we may have stock rots in there, and bringing it into that feeder head to assure that it's going to go through and it's going to thrash.

At the same time, going at a speed that's allowing that ear that might be hanging a little down like this, is actually feeding into the feeder head.

Versus, I'm taking the stock in, but I knock the ear off.

So whatever you're doing, the other big thing when we're looking at large corn is going out, looking at your harvest loss assessments.

So how many ears are actually getting dropped off by accident.

Or the other component is, as we're thrashing it through, maybe fan speed or rotor speed, we're not shattering it, and we're getting a lot of corn coming out the back end with the trash where we don't want it.

So once again, we're losing that yield.

But we have to stop and look at it and make those adjustments.

So my one last thing I will comment on, as we looked at lodge corn, if you had a major issue with lodging this year.

Make sure you take the time to make those notes in your field records, really recommend you to talk to your craft consultant, reach out, to extension.

And let's figure out why did we have that issue?

Um, was it a crown route?

Was it a stock route?

Was it just bad luck with weather that came and blew your corn down?

If it's a crown rot or stock rot, what are options we can do in the 27 growing season, maybe it might be a change in looking at disease ratings, on our corn varieties that we're selecting, um, maybe it's looking at different management forfolio diseases that we might be seeing in corn.

There's a lot of parameters, but definitely take those notes.

Definitely reach out this winter to your experts to figure out, what are ways to help mitigate that for next year?

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

I 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.

Sustainability, soil health, and water quality are key components to every farm and ranch operation.

Extension habitat management specialist, Andy Little, says conservation and sustainability can include areas on the operation that promote wildlife and game bird habitats.

He encourages farmers to look into taking unused or difficult to farm areas, and try making these habitats which may lead to a future revenue stream.

Well, I can say personally my passion. Is around how do we help landowners optimize their operation.

And so I'm, my driving force every day I wake up is how can we, with this research and extension, because I'm also an extension specialist at university.

Um, how can we take this information, get it into the hands of landowners so that it actually is helping them make more informed decisions on their operations?

And particularly, as I alluded to earlier, the Stackable Enterprise arena.

That is where we're, I'm very invested because we, what we are seeing in the state of Nebraska and many other states, as we're seeing obviously sole health issues.

Um, we've seen water quality issues in particular across the state of Nebraska, you look at Iowa's and other illustration.

Um, a lot of challenges there.

And so every farmer that I've met with is insure it wants to ensure the long-term sustainability of their operation.

And so I come back and say, okay, if these, what are the friction points, if you want to say, for you and your operation, how can we make that easier and finding ways to adopt some of these practices and usually what I hear, especially on some of the conservation programs is, hey, it just doesn't pencil out financially.

So then I can't really, in my role, I can't change conservation programs, but I can totally find other ways to help them, think about other alternative opportunities beyond maybe a conservation program.

And maybe it's a conservation program plus something else, like a hunting lease or plus something else in your operation where you have a little diversity.

And it's not asking to convert massive amounts of acreage.

It can just be small amounts of your property where, and that's one of the things always also tell people a lot about is just try something small.

Just take, say you have just a couple acres and you're like, hey, let's just try this out and see how it works. Know, do a little experimentation.

We have the one farm research network at university.

It's another great opportunity to collaborate with them, um, and test out some ideas as well.

And then you get some of these folks will help you out and designing something research project around your questions and be able to implement that.

And so really, the the value to me is, I'm looking at the future legacy and what we're leaving and how can we take and leave that lasting legacy to our kids or grandkids in one down the line by establishing these holistic operations where we're balancing out conservation and production.

And there is really no cookie cutter approach, and now you're going to get it done. Everybody's going to be different.

But finding innovative ways that we can help landowners optimizer operation from that profitability side.

Because if we can't do that, it's going to be a little harder to, you know, look at, hey, I'm putting taking land out of production to your earlier and put it into something else.

Well, we need to say if it pays, it stays.

That's just the reality of it.

So if it pays economically for you by diversifying, um, through stackable enterprises, that's part of what my lab's doing right now or helping to address those risks and helping to develop basically pathways so that landowners can actually, they're, again, reducing these friction points so that they can say, oh, okay, I have somebody can kind of help me along this trajectory to diversify and look at something a little differently on my operation.

[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.

We've recently had several programs discussing wildlife and game bird habitat creation and promotion on our program.

Extension habitat management specialist Andy Little, returns to talk about a research program at UNL that has been studying wildlife habitat, and says it's a critical part of conservation, as well as something farmers should consider to pursue another line of revenue on their operation.

[Andy Little, Nebraska Extension Habitat Management Specialist]
The research started back in 2021.

And so that project was designed to start targeting, basically, areas within the rainwater basin, so kind of like Grand Island East to Lincoln, the other study areas in northeast Nebraska and about like 8 or 9 counties up there.

And so in each of those sites, we went in and we generated a bunch of, we call them crow count points.

And so basically what that means is there are a bunch of generated points, randomized points in a landscape, and then we send out teams of our students, biologists, et cetera, um, to go out to those points and they're listening for about 3 minutes at each of those points throughout basically the, um, uh, breeding season for pheasants.

So kind of that, I would say basically like the 1st week April, um, uh, into basically early part of June, essentially is kind of the sampling time frame.

And so our team will go to each of those points 3 times and during that window of time, and they would basically listen for 3 minutes and record down, hey, how many birds, how many pheasants am I hearing crowing?

We use all that data on the back end to then start combining that with satellite imagery, of land cover out there in a landscape.

And then we combine all of this stuff together.

And basically a modeling platform, uh, which then allows us to be able to identify and prioritize these folkwareas.

So listeners may be aware of like the focus on pheasant areas, the Nebraska and Parks Commission is established across the state, and that's essentially is kind of further refining them and being able to start building out those, like I mentioned earlier, stepping stones, if you want to say, of saying, hey, you know, are there ways that we can work together with the neighboring landowners, to start building out connectivity to some of these other existing patches, because what happens, and I've had people say this, like, you know, um, you, I put in a practice and I'm not seeing necessarily the return on investment that I expected.

And then you zoom out from the property and you say, well, there's really no connection of other types of, say, grassland and Ford communities that are really scaled out around that.

And so you kind of get what I like to say is an island.

And that island is it's hard and you could have an island and still be productive, but if it's a pretty small island, you know, eventually the birds, you know, you're not going to have a lot of birds moving into and out of that area because they, you know, especially when the crops are off in the fall and winter, because they're a higher risk of predation. And other sorts of mortality as we're going out, say, through an open cornfield.

Obviously in the summer, they can totally move around and about, you know, those fields and stuff.

Um, but one of the things today is, you know, there's not a lot of incentive for a lot of birds to move out into the middle of a field because there's not usually a lot of diversity of insects that are out there or other types of uh, plant communities because usually it's the crop and then the soil.

And so they usually spend a lot of time around the peripheries of those fields.

Ultimately, a couple of the big things come out of that is we basically have identified that strategic targeting of habitat is really, really critical, especially in highly fragmented landscape so we see today.

And that's no different than when we kind of go back into the 60s.

And we say, well, pheasants, they don't they don't need a big, huge block of cover necessarily.

They need mixtures of different cover types on the landscape.

So they do need crop fields, kind of interspersed with those grassland patches.

But those grassland patches can't necessarily be just a thick, you know, uh, or thick dense cover to the point where it doesn't provide any of that brood ring cover that I alluded to earlier because that's where you, that's one of the limitations.

You got to think about kind of the what they need biologically throughout the season.

And so with all of that, it gives us opportunity to start saying, okay, how can we be more strategic with those investments and getting out and meeting with landowners and really engaging to build those kind of complexes, if you want to say out.

[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.

Some farmers might be hesitant to seemingly take away valuable crop land to uses wildlife habitat.

Nebraska Extension Habitat management specialist Andy Little says, there are good financial reasons to protect and promote wildlife habitat.

On today's almanac.

Andy talks about why protecting game birds and other wildlife could be profitable.

[Andy Little, Nebraska Extension Habitat Management Specialist]
So in general, what you hear a lot is, well, if I put in, especially, and I'll use Eastern Nebraska's good illustration.

We have fairly high soul rental rates in this part of the state compared to Western Nebraska.

So if you look in general, across the state, you tend to see more CRP conservation reserve program, uh, lands enrolled out in western Nebraska, southwest and western panhandle, because it's, you know, basically the, there's an opportunity there, this whole rental rates are substantially less than a lot of cases.

And so then it makes sense financially to put those practices in.

Here in eastern Nebraska.

It's a little harder and it's harder for folks to justify with current prices, commodity prices.

And so, um, to answer original question, yes, there's an opportunity there.

And that's really what we're looking at is, is you can build in not only having your main, you know, kind of breadwinner, you know, say corn soy beans, but you can take and strategically target marginal acres where you're consistently losing money by using things like yield monitor data.

So everybody, you know, who's driving a combine in the fall, they get the, you'll monitor data right in the combine.

And so they're seeing those areas that are consistently low yielding.

We can take those areas out of production, put them into alternative practices, and it doesn't have to be necessarily like CRP, because there's only so much money in that bucket, and that's something we're working on right now is actually some, you know, kind of additional stackable enterprises.

Could be grazing acres, it could be hunting lease, could be a, you know, hey, you want to put an apiary out there?

You want to get some bees.

Um, you, really the, the, the sky's a limit on your creativity, but the ultimate goal that we're trying to get at is how do we help people diversify, especially when you're in current situations like with the stuff going on and over in the Middle East, where nitrogen prices now have been really skyrocketed.

Um, and then you have other costs for the farm really skyrocketing.

And so how can we strategically work on diversifying your financial portfolio so that when you do have bad times come in, which inherently it's going to happen at some point or another, whether it's weather, you know, whatever, and there's going to always be challenges like that.

You do have some other streams of income that can help and diversify in your operation, help pay those bills.

So.

One good way for farmers to profit off these techniques is a hunting lease.

Andy says, using problematic areas on the farm, could be a good opportunity to make money from a hunting lease.

So there's there's a couple of different ways that people have done hunting leases.

So one is, um, right now they, the Rescue Parts Commission has the open fields and waters program, and so they basically that program was specifically designed to help open up access, um, across the state, for people who are wanting to be able to hunt, to recreate, hunt, fish, et cetera.

Um, and so people can obviously go learn more about that at their website and there's, they can contact with their local areas.

But the point is, is that yeah, that, um, there, that's an opportunity.

The other opportunity is, um, just simply, hey, I'm, you know, have, if outside of the open fields of water, I just want to take and have a component of my property that I'm not really making much money on, and I can take and put that into conservation program or something else, habitat wise, and I got people want to deer hunt or pheasant hunt or whatever, and then people will pay for it.

You know, we're talking 1000s upon 1000s of dollars, people paid either have a hunting lease, a hunting operation, that they want to be able to come and hunt their recreationally every year.

I see it all the time.

They're actually kind of like the, there's different platforms now.

Some of them are more like the Airbnb experience, if you want to say.

Um, and you kind of say, hey, I want to come hunt these couple of days.

And then, yeah, you're basically paying a landowner for access to hunt their property.

And so, yeah, there's definitely a market.

There's absolutely a big market.

There are lots of money in hunting industry.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned for future programs where Andy talks about deeznuts program at the university that is studying this issue and using it to help game birds thrive again in this state.

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.
 

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Palmer Amaranth, a fast growing superweed is known for the destructive threat it poses to sugar beet production.

Until recently, the plant did not have a major presence in Western Nebraska, but early this decade, Nevin Lawrence, a scientist working at the University of Nebraska Lincoln's Panhandle Research Extension and Education Center in Scott's Bluff, began pointing to the possible threat.

[Nevin Lawrence, UNL Scientist]
There's a number of weed scientists within the state, and I'm the one out here in the panhandle, and the reason I'm here is because we have a lot of crops that are more common or uncommon, even in eastern Nebraska.

So I work in corn.

I do a little bit with soybeans, but I also work in alfalfa, potatoes, dry beans, sugar beets, sunflowers, sometimes peas, sometimes black eyed peas, and a few other things as well.

Top three weeds that we face out here, number one in irrigated crops is Palmer Amaranth.

That's a new one since about 2020, is when we started seeing it out here in Western Nebraska.

The big problem we have with Palmer Amaranth is, if you compare our Palmer to the Palmer in Eastern Nebraska, we do not have as many cases of herbicide resistance.

So our Palmer is really only resistant to the ALS inhibiting herbicides and glyphosate at this point.

Which sounds like not that bad if you're a farmer in eastern Nebraska.

But unfortunately, in our sugar beet crop, and also our dry, edible bean crop.

Those two types of resistance means we have zero post emergent herbicide options.

And so if the polymer amaranth emerges late in the year, or if it escapes a pre application, you have no herbicide options for the remainder of the year to control that.

You're going to be stuck with things like cultivation and hand weeding, which gets very expensive very quickly.

Research indicates that if left uncontrolled, Palmer Amaranth can potentially lead to an average yield loss succeeding 70%.

In the face of this threat, Lawrence's pioneering work provided a scientific contribution of direct value to the industry.

I, I, uh, like to explain my research is, um, I I make mistakes so farmers don't have to.

So I do as much as I can.

We are looking into, um, novel herbicides, which may or may not be registered, both in sugar beets and dry beans.

We try to, um, look to see if there's something that might have been missed, or that we can move over from similar crops.

That's ongoing.

We also do a lot of what I, well, my job title, integrated weed management specialists.

So integrated approaches.

I've done research into cover crops, we've done research into different tillage things.

We also look at cropping systems as well.

So, we do have a lot of options to manage polymer amaranth and kosha in our corn crop.

And if you're a dry bean or sugar meat producer, You also grow corn.

And so using that rotational crop to help out is really important.

We're also starting to get into some more futuristic precision technologies as well.

We've been looking at what's called an eco robotic sprayer the last few years.

And that's a sprayer, which can identify just the weed or just the crop, and only apply to just the weed or just the crop.

And so we've been experimenting with that, both in dry beans and sugar beets, where we're using some contact herbicides, which can avoid the crop, and potentially control those weeds, if there are escapes from the pre emerging herbicides.

Agriculture in Western Nebraska is distinctive regarding the environment, the crops grown, and agricultural practices.

That is why the university places major ag research and extension there, to tailor assistance to local needs.

[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.

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.

As the growing season winds down, soybean producers should be wary of disease pressure showing up in their fields.

Nebraska extension plant pathologist Dylan Manjel explains there are more than one disease problems that are popping up in soybean fields this time of year.

He talks about what's been reported and gives a few tips on what producers should do about it.

[Dylan Mangel, Nebraska Extension Plant Pathologist]
Well, it's the peak of fungicide application season.

I just drove across the state last week and there's tons of planes out there.

There's a lot of drones spraying.

So people are thinking, what should I spray on these crops?

And corn should be front of mine, especially with, with, um, disease in the rotations.

Uh, we have fewer foliar problems in soybean, but if you have a history of things like white mold.

Definitely be considering that, be scouting those crops and deciding if it looks like you have the right environment that's gonna cause disease.

Now, we're not always gonna have that.

And a lot of the state, it's been warmer, it's been drier, so we're not really in a high risk environment.

The only exception to that is irrigated soybeans that have a history of wide mold.

So be aware definitely in those areas.

Think about protecting those plants before they get infected with that.

You can't really do anything after they start to serve symptoms.

So think about white mold.

Now, after white mold as we approach the fall, we're gonna get into later season diseases.

So things that we don't see right now looking out into green fields, but maybe those plants had root infections earlier on, their root systems aren't as strong, and as they get more stress and later season onto them, they're gonna start to show foliar symptoms.

Now, it's important to remember that that's not a foliar fungus, you can go apply a fungicide for.

Most of those are underground, and those are gonna cause that symptom regardless.

So don't invest in a fungicide application in those situations, but identify what's causing that disease.

Oftentimes it's gonna be sudden death syndrome.

That's pretty common across the state last year, and I'm guessing it's gonna be the same way.

This year, based on the early season moisture that we had.

But take the time to actually identify what exactly that is, because your management for those are gonna be seed treatments going in the next rotation of soybean in that field.

But you've got to be prepared for that one or two years from now when you go back into those beans.

[Brad Mills Program Host]
Nebraska's had a number of extremely hot days recently.

Dylan says producers should be wary of applying fungicides during high temperatures, as they could damage their crops.

[Dylan Mangel, Nebraska Extension Plant Pathologist Nerd]
Yeah, if you got high temperatures, you want to make sure you're not rushing out at the peak of that day with a tryazol fungicide, you can get tryazol toxicity or tryazol burn on those leaves, which looks really similar to sudden death syndrome.

So if you think you have that, that's another thing to check off your list and make sure it is or is not sudden death syndrome.

But, yeah, don't, the plants are stressed at that, don't put more stress on them at the peak of the day, specifically with those tries off on your side.

[Brad Mills Program Host]
Dylan also encourages farmers to keep good notes and scout their fields on a regular basis to hunt for any of these disease issues.

[Dylan Mangel, Nebraska Extension Plant Pathologist]
Take good notes with soybeans.

A lot of the management is preseason.

You're not going to go back into beans maybe for 2 years, so take good notes.

So when you're flip picking a variety 2 years from now, you're picking one that's gonna do well in that field.

The best way to scout, I think, is get out into that row and walk down the road and spread that canopy open so you can look at the base of those plants.

Most problems will see on the bottom 1st and it'll work its way up.

Uh, so get down there, see what's going on, especially with white mold. Not going to see it on top.

Look down at the base of that and see if you start to see that.

It could be showing up here in the next two or so weeks.

[Brad Mills Program Holster]
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, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

On today's almanac, extension plant pathologist Tamra Jackson Zeems gives us an update on current disease issues with corn in Nebraska.

She says Southern Rust has been reported in the eastern half of the state, and it might not be as prevalent as last season, but it is still a concern for farmers to consider.

[Tamra Jackson-Ziems, Nebraska Extension Plant Pathologist]

In the last few days, we have confirmed southern rust again here in Nebraska, in at least a dozen different counties in the eastern half of the state.

And as you might think back, southern rust is not rare, it's not a surprise for us to see some southern rust.

And it's rarely as bad as what you might remember last year in 2025.

To put some of that in perspective, we've confirmed Southern Rust in the last 20 out of 21 years where, since I've been here in the state, in Nebraska right now, we're not seeing widespread southern rust.

It's still very patchy and seemingly not severe in any of these fields.

This is a warning for us to get out and tell us it's time to start scouting, more intensively, to monitor for this disease because our corn is still young enough that it could potentially be impacted.

We need to watch the weather conditions very closely because weather conditions, and some of the field conditions we have could help make disease worse, and that goes for not only southern rust, but also tar spot.

It doesn't mean that we need to treat automatically.

So keep in mind, if you've already made a fungicide application.

It's most likely that you won't need to do so again.

If you haven't and you're kind of waiting to see what happens, then you might want to be sure and scout, and also be mindful of several of the factors that impact southern risk development, and whether or not you are likely to get a return on the investment with a fungicide application.

For example, keep in mind, there are some high risk factors.

If your field is pivot irrigated, we're adding moisture to that canopy, it does increase the chance of more disease, whether that southern rust or tar spot.

Many of the fields now and keep in mind our conditions are quite different right now than what we've seen in the past.

Warmer temperatures will favor southern rust, the cooler temperatures, including nighttime temperatures could favor tar spot development, and we often see tar spot development increase at the end of the season.

If you're thinking about making a fungicide application.

Consider the stage of the crop.

Applications made between early tasseling and the milk stage or R3 have tended to be the ones that are the most effective at controlling disease as well as most likely to give you a return on the investment.

But it does, of course, depend on a lot of other factors.

If you'd like some guidance on what those factors are, I encourage you to visit the crop protection network, the new return on investment tool or ROI tool, check that out, and walk through those steps, and it'll help you determine whether or not you're likely to get a return on the investment and even can type in some of the products for comparison.

And if you're not sure which products might work the best for disease control, consider what you've got in your fields, and whether you've had a history yet of tar spot.

Uh, that one will overwinter, southern rust cannot overwinter from last year.

So it doesn't matter if you had southern rust last year or not.

In addition to irrigated fields, you might also consider any fields that were planted late or had to be replanted, so they're much further behind in their development.

Those are more likely to be impacted if diseases begin to develop more strongly as we approach the end of the season.

If you want more information on these or other diseases, check out cropwatch.unl.edu or the crop protection network, where you can also compare the disease efficacy ratings for the fungicides, and those data are from the land great universities across the country.

And so if you need more information, or if you need help identifying a disease on the sample, please reach out to us in Nebraska extension, or bring a sample to the UNL Plant and Pest Diagnostic Clinic, or check in with your local county extension professionals.

[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.

Healthy soil start with knowing exactly what's happening below the surface.

The UNL soil health team is hosting a soil health assessment training workshop coming up Thursday, August 20th at the Rogers Memorial Farm in Lincoln.

Program coordinator, Miranda Mueller, talks about what attendees will experience at the workshop.

[Miranda Mueller, UNL Soil Health Program Coordinator]

Yeah, so this training will serve as a general starting point for folks that are interested in serving as qualified individuals for NRCS CMA 216s.

Um, and so, at the training, we'll cover, we'll have NRCS professionals come in and cover CMA 216 background information, kind of the requirements for the soil tests, needed, and then like the labs that those can be sent off to, and then RUNL staff will go over soil sample plan design, uh, using the shape app, conducting on-site soil health assessments, and soil sampling using CMA 216, And technical note 450 guidelines.

We'll go over recording and organizing field data, preparing soil samples for lab analysis, calculating and interpreting soil health indicators, and connecting them with field observations, and then applying these results to inform conservation planning and management decisions.

So a portion of this day will be kind of in the classroom listening lecture style to the background on SEMA 216 and some of the, um, of the sampling details, but will also get out in the field and actually complete a soil sample.

So we'll go out, find a location and go over the proper sampling techniques.

So, SEMA 216 is a conservation evaluation and monitoring activity, as deemed by the NRCS.

It's something that landowners can apply for where they get funds from NRCS to put certain practices into place on their operation.

And then along with the CEMA 216 is it's a requirement to have a QI or a qualified individual, to collect soil samples at the beginning before any conservation changes are made.

And then um, afterwards.

So at the end, to kind of see how soils are changed over time.

Um, this is, I guess, kind of a starting point for QIs, like I said, um, there's a lot of confusion around QIs, you know, who can be qualified, um, and kind of what their role is as part of the CMA 216 process.

And so coming to the event for people who maybe want updated or additional training, they can come and get the latest and greatest up to date information on soil testing here in Nebraska using NRCS guidelines.

And so it can kind of serve as a way for them to get fully up to date and confident that they'll be able to go out to landowners who have seen on 216s and be able to properly test their soil, know what to test for and where to send it as well.

So, again, this training is August 20th at Rogers Memorial Farm in Lincoln, Nebraska, from 9 AM to 2 PM.

To register, you can go to go.unl.edu slash soil health and Crop Watch has an article with more detailed information.

The training is free, but is limited to 25 participants, and you will also get a soil health kit to take home with you valued at $100 if you attend.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Once again, the 2026 Soil Health Assessment training workshop will be held August 20th at the Rogers Memorial Farm in Lincoln.

Registration is free, and those interested are encouraged to registered by August 10th.

Attendance is limited to 25 participants.

To register, go to go.unl.edu slash soilhealth or crapwatch.unl.edu.

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. Nebraska farmers have had to deal with hail damage for most of their lives. Recent hail damage has affected crops, and extension instructor Talon Muse says, a dose of patience goes a long way when dealing with hail damage.

[Talon Muse, Nebraska Extension Instructor]
After a hailstorm or some other kind of large storm that's going to impact your crop, things can often look worse right after that storm hail occurs.

And really, so the patience is important because we want to see what that damage is really actually going to look like when that plant starts to regrow.

Um, and so patience is important, especially if it's cool and wet.

Those plants are gonna recover a lot slower.

Um, because a lot of times we see a lot of, um, damage to leaves and those kinds of things, but those aren't necessarily the most critical parts of that plant for sustaining um, growth.

Um, And so when we when we see a lot of that damage on the leaves and those kinds of things, they're maybe not as critical, especially here early in the season.

Um, and so seeing how those plants recover is gonna be really critical, especially when making uh, financial decisions. That could be really impactful to a farming operation.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Talon says this early in the season, hail events could trigger some disease issues with corn and soybeans.

[Talon Muse, Nebraska Extension Instructor]
I would say with corn, the main 2 that you're probably going to be looking for our bacterial leaf streak, um, which is a bacterial disease that can get in through wounds.

It occurs a lot in normally with corn.

Uh, and it's really not a huge factor when it comes to end of the season yield.

We have not really been able to show that bacterial leaf streak is causing severe yield loss or anything like that.

Um, so that will show up.

It'll make your plants look kind of clarotic kind of yellow, and it'll be in nice wavy streaks on your leaves.

Um, The other more of a concern is Goss's wilt, uh, and leaf blight.

And so this disease has 2 different kind of separate phases.

More commonly, we see the leaf blight symptoms that require wounds or entry points on those plants.

And so after hail, it is very common to see that more than you would on a normal year.

Um, and so what that happens is that it takes up a lot of that photosynthetic area of the plant, um, but more severely, if it happens early on in the season, it can move into the stock and become systemic.

And so we get a systemic wilt, um, that impacts the whole plant, which will really impact the grain fill stages, reproductive stages, um, that contribute to yield.

And so that's why it's important to be on the lookout for the Goss's wilt.

It appears as necrosis along injury wounds where it shows up.

Um, it will kind of appear almost kind of shiny as it's a bacteria that exudes uh, bacterial cells onto the leaf surface, and it'll occasionally have freckles.

So black freckling um, in kind of those brownish necrotic spots, uh, along leaves.

And then if you're seeing, obviously, any wilt symptoms, you can cut those stems or stalks of that corn in half and you'll even be able to see some of that necrosis in, um, maybe even some potential bacterial like exudation, um, from those if you're seeing wilt symptoms, uh, because it will move into the stalk and cause other severe issues there.

For soybeans, we don't have near as many issues with bacterial diseases.

Um, there are some diseases like uh, bacterial blight, those kinds of things will move into those wounded tissues, and those kinds of things.

Um, There may be some bacterial stem, uh, diseases, but nothing that's gonna really, that we found that really significantly contributes to yield loss, uh, down the road.

[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. The University of Nebraska's plant and pest diagnostic clinic provides diagnostic support for all sorts of agricultural and horticultural plants. Extension plant diagnostician, Kyle Broderick says, they receive numerous samples of anything from corn to trees to turf.

[Kyle Broderick, Nebraska Extension Plant Diagnostician]
So the plant and pest diagnostic clinic is available to all producers of plants, not only in the state of Nebraska, but also across the entire United States and the region.

We accept all sorts of plant samples, corn, soybeans, field peas, trees, turf, random mushrooms, flowers.

You name it as long as it's not a mammal?

Normally those things come to us.

We also do insect ID.

We, um, weed and plant ID as well.

And in addition to it, providing those that identification, we also try to provide as accurate and up to date management recommendations as we can.

We are a fee-based clinic, um, but we try to um, try to make things as cheap as we can for for the clientele.

Right now, our standard fee is $20 per sample.

And for most producers, that is all that ends up being charged.

Um, if we, if there is additional testing that needs to be done, maybe some virus testing or, it's a, uh, something that we really don't see very often.

Then there may be additional fees associated with that.

But for the most part, that $20 fee tends to cover it all.

And really, how can producers utilize us?

By sending us samples?

You know, there are a lot of things that look similar in the field, and we all have a computer in our pocket, and we can Google anything.

And find pictures that look similar to what we're seeing in the field.

But until you really get something underneath a microscope, it can be really difficult to tell.

Is this bacterial?

Is this fungal?

If it is fungal, which fungus is it?

Because again, not knowing what pathogen you're actually attacking or trying to control, you're going to have a really hard time selecting the right, um, the right chemistries to control that.

Our turnaround time, it's very dependent on the time of year.

Right now, it's not, um, we're not having, not having a ton of samples come in, but the samples that are coming in.

Again, a lot of those seedling diseases, they require us to actually culture the, that pathogen out, to get it to grow onto a plate, and sometimes that can take upwards of upwards of 5 to 6 days.

And so most samples we have have turned around within 4 to 54 to 5 business days, but on occasion, there will be, um, it will take longer than that.

But I do try to communicate that as much as possible.

So one of the best things is to make sure that you have a Ziploc bag, or some sort of plastic, seal, sealable bag.

We do not want our samples to dry out.

So, um, please don't send in a sample like you would for a tissue analysis, we really don't want them in a, in a paper, um, in a paper bag that will dry out because at, in the 3 to 4 days that it may take for that sample to go through the mail to get to me.

It can change quite a bit in that time.

If you keep it in a plastic bag with a dry paper towel, or if not, if you don't have a paper towel, even just a clean piece of newspaper or any paper, really, to put in there to help absorb any of that moisture really, really helps.

Other thing that is really bad to do.

You collect this sample, you throw it in your truck, and then you forget about it in the cab for a couple of days.

And not only will whatever fungus is causing the problem be growing, but every other fungus that's on this plant is going to start growing as well, and it's going to be a moldy mess, and by the time I get it, I might have to ask you to submit another sample.

[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. The 2026 weed management field day is coming up Wednesday, June 24th at the South Central Ag Lab at Clay Center. Extension weed management specialists submit Jala says, attendees will see on-site demonstrations of new technologies, and hear about the latest research in weed control. There are 2 tours during the day, and it says the 1st tour will focus on weed management and soybeans, sorghum, and popcorn.

[Amit Jhala, Nebraska Extension Weed Management Specialist]
We have a number of projects to demonstrate, and that was the whole idea about conducting this extension field that I have been doing for the last 14 years is just to show the actual results of a number of studies that we conduct in for wind management, in soybean, corn, popcorn, and sorghum.

So the field day will start with demonstration of some of our weed management projects in soybean, particularly the focus is on how best you can utilize different herbicide programs for management of herbicide resistant weeds, including some non-chemical controlled method options such as how best you can utilize cover crops.

For example, cereal dry and heritage, or the cover crops for the focus of this year's field day.

And in addition, we will have some other projects in corn and also in sorghum, because now fertilizers are getting expensive.

So we have a project, how best we can utilize heritage, which is a legume cover crop, which has ability to fix the nitrogen in the soil and it can be readily available by the grass crop species.

For example, sorghum and popcorn.

So our idea here is how best we can reduce the fertilizer input and we can utilize this natural resource of nitrogen in collaboration with some other management practices and how best we can control these herbisa resistant weeds in sorghum and popcorn.

Both are very important crops in Nebraska.

Right.

So this will be something interesting and something new this year in the past.

We have done some studies with John Deere and Green Eye technology to test their system about Target weed management.

So this year, we are going to work with ecorobotics, ARA, it is an Israel, it is a Switzerland-based company, and now they are entering into the US market, particularly focusing on how best this precision sprayer can be used for target weed management, in soy bin, and how much chemical we can save just by target application compared with broadcast applications that we have been applying all the herbic right now, just with broadcast applications.

So that is the whole idea and the actual ecorobotics ARA machine will be here and we will do a live demonstration.

So this will be really interesting for anybody interested in agriculture, weed management, environment and saving chemicals.

In addition to weed management and soybean, sorghum, and popcorn.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Amit says there's an additional tour that primarily looks at weed control in corn.

[Amit Jhala, Nebraska Extension Weed Management Specialist]
The 2nd tour will focus more on how best we can utilize and integrate cover crops with existing herbicide programs.

So we can cut the herbicide applications and we can utilize cover crops, particularly early in the season.

So our idea is to terminate heritage at different growth stages of sorghum and popcorn.

Just we want to see how best it can suppress the weeds and it can reduce the soil erosion and it can also improve the soil health by improving soil organic matter.

To get more details and to register for the event, go to agronomy.unl.edu slash field day. Once again, that's agronomy.unl.edu slash field day 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.
 

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. 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.