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Eastern Nebraska farmers get rain, finally

Widespread rainfall this week has brought much-needed relief to on-going drought conditions for some farmers in eastern Nebraska.

Lukas Fricke of Ulysses, 90 minutes west of Omaha, says he received more than an inch of rain. “I cannot even describe it. It is so significantly dry. We’ve had to move a ton of soil to plant seed corn in to get something into moisture.  It’s just been stupid dry.”

Quentin Connealy farms about an hour north of Omaha along the Missouri River and says the moisture deficient is slowly improving. “We’re probably 6 to 10 inches behind, but we caught up with about 2 to 4 inches here in the area.”

Kurt Ohnoutka raises corn and soybeans near Valparaiso, and says his crops had poor emergence and considered replanting. “We had some early planted beans, then we put in some corn and then later planted beans. Right now, everything looks good.”

Storms moved across the state on Sunday and Monday evenings, bringing anywhere from 1.5 to 5 inches of rain with some severe weather.