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Drought deepens in the Western Corn Belt as ranchers wait for spring moisture

An ag meteorologist says cattle producers in parts of the Western Corn Belt are in desperate need of drought relief.   

Eric Snodgrass with Nutrien Ag Solutions says there hasn’t been much winter moisture, and it could be April or May before significant improvement occurs. “If you look historically and if you average the last six years. They did. They got storms. They got moisture.”

He tells Brownfield, “The problem is that their over winter drought, I’ve got some locations in Nebraska that have their driest December 1 to February 27 on record. As a result of that, we have not had any good spring pasture growth even though we’ve been warm. It’s just been too warm dry.”

And, Snodgrass says, the conditions extend into the Southern Plains. “If you go back 10 days ago, there were massive fires in Kansas and Oklahoma. That’s just very telling at how dry things are there.”

The latest U.S. Drought monitor shows that severe drought has developed in parts of the region over the last several weeks.