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Crops barely holding on in drought-stricken Northeast Nebraska

Nebraska crop conditions declined last week from extreme heat and severe weather damage.

Northeast Nebraska farmer Debbie Borg says her corn and soybeans are barely holding on. “After last week’s brutal heat, it was pretty hard, and the corn started firing.  We did get some spotty rains over the weekend.”

The USDA says corn condition is rated 57 percent good-to-excellent with 21 percent in the dough stage.

Soybeans are rated 54 percent is good-to-excellent with 50 percent setting pods.

Borg’s area is in exceptional drought and she tells Brownfield more moisture will be needed to help get soybeans across the finish line. “Another half-an-inch or even an inch would be a billion dollar rain, carry us a lot further into the heat that’s coming in August.”

She says her crops are still showing some signs of heat stress after last week’s severe heat wave.

Pasture and range conditions are 44 percent good-to-excellent.

Topsoil moisture is 49 percent adequate-to-surplus and subsoil is 40 percent adequate-to-surplus.

Borg spoke with Brownfield at an ethanol roundtable on Monday in Lincoln, NE.