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Nebraska farmers say rain brings much-needed relief

Recent rainfall across parts of Nebraska will help improve drought conditions.

Andy Jobman of Gothenburg says he’s wrapped up planting after an incredibility difficult start. “Planting conditions were really tough. Conditions were really dry. We were running pivots ahead of the planter and then turning around and running them after we got a field planted too just to keep the seed from drying out, but we finally caught a rain a couple of days ago.”

He says compaction was an issue and it could impact emergence for corn and soybeans. “They were as hard as concrete and trying to run a strip tiller through that all you got in return in were big clods out of the back of the strip triller that would never have planted very well. We had to run pivots to get machinery in the ground.”

Schuyler farmer Matt Bailey says he’s received more than two inches since Friday. “There was some wind and weird stuff, but overall, it was a nice rain. Emergence is pretty good aside from some crusting that was going on. Some guys were running pivots in the last week or so.”

He says there was also some freeze damage to early-planted soybeans a few weeks ago. “But not a lot and it did create some replanting for some seed here and there.”

The USDA says 82 percent of the corn crop is planted and 42 percent has emerged. Soybeans are 81 percent planted with 33 percent are up. Pasture and range conditions are 5 percent good, zero percent excellent with 83 percent poor-to-very poor.