Rain improves drought in Nebraska as planting draws to a close

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Rain improves drought in Nebraska as planting draws to a close

Mother Nature continued to bring relief to an on-going drought in parts of Nebraska last week.

Farmer Don Batie of Lexington says he was able to wrap up planting between rain events. “We’ve gotten some rainfall, 2 to 3 inches over the last couple of weeks. We’re not horrible, but we’re still behind.”

The latest crop progress and condition report from USDA says topsoil moisture is 62 percent adequate-to-surplus with subsoil moisture 46 percent adequate-to-surplus.

Ninety-five percent of corn has been planted with 73 percent of the crop emerged and that’s eight percent behind last year’s pace. And, 87 percent of soybeans are in, six percent behind last year.

Batie tells Brownfield his area will need more moisture to get the crops back on schedule. “We definitely need more rain on a consistent basis to get our subsoil up.  Our streams are still very low and dry.  We need moisture in the system to get things going.”

Winter wheat condition is rated at 29 percent good-to-excellent with half of the crop headed.

Pasture and range conditions are rated at 20 percent good-to-excellent.

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