Nebraska Extension Blog by Jenny Brhel
Drought: While it’s sometimes difficult to write a column each week, the record of information on my blog through the years has been of help to me. I was thinking about this spring…how the rye and pastures weren’t growing, and now how the rye and wheat went to head in non-irrigated ground weeks earlier than normal. Why are they heading so early this year? I think it’s because we’ve had such warm soil temperatures coupled with low surface and subsoil moisture in non-irrigated fields. I think the plants are stressed and went into reproductive mode.
I’m concerned that pastures will also be short, and head out early too. It’s good to be prepared in the event that livestock producers need additional forage. In mid-April, a Drought Preparation Webinar was held, and the recording can be found here: https://go.unl.edu/2025_drought_prep_webinar. There’s also a recent CropWatch article by Aaron Berger, Livestock Educator, sharing the economic tradeoffs of grazing wheat vs. taking it for grain for those with non-irrigated acres that are drought-stressed or dealing with virus diseases. You can find the full article here: https://go.unl.edu/mrny.
I know irrigating crops like what is occurring is reminiscent of 2023 in watering crops up and activating herbicide. No one wants the irrigation season to start this early. For curiosity, I pulled the Drought Monitor maps from this week in 2023, 2024, and 2025. 2023 is the year I think of most closely to 2025 so far, even though the drought monitor map in 2023 was much more severe than what 2025 shows. For a planting season, 2025 reminds me more of 2012 with how early everything went into the ground with a warm growing season and no cold snaps. The drought monitor map for the area of the state I serve is similar to 2024, but we also know that mid- to late-May rains changed conditions from dry to too wet in areas north and east of here. Curious as to what year(s) any of you would compare this year to?
Ultimately, we’re not in control of the weather. For the livestock producers in particular, it may be wise to have a forage plan in place in the event that forage resources run short for your operation.
Seed Swap: On a lighter note, we have some interesting on-farm research projects this year! One, we’re calling a Seed Swap. This will be my 10th year with the York Co. Corn Grower plot. Any extra seed that we vacuum out of planter boxes is mixed together and planted out. While it’s not a part of the official plot, that area has always beaten the highest-yielding number in the plot by 5-10 bu/ac. And, it may not always work this way, but a handful of others also commented they’ve seen something similar. One farmer who had hosted the plot in the past had the idea of trying this via on-farm research. A group of farmers also liked the idea and they all decided on a “seed swap” where they each contributed a hybrid to be mixed together. The mix is compared to each farmer’s hybrid(s) of choice. So in 2025, we’ll have non-GMO and GMO seed swap studies. There’s also a grower who wanted to try this with soybeans, so he has a study combining different maturity groups.
A 2009 study in Ohio compared five hybrids vs. mixes of the hybrids. “No significant difference was seen when comparing the yield of a mixed hybrid stand to the average of the two hybrids that were used in the mixed planting. However, there was an observed tendency for the mixed hybrid treatments to out yield their single hybrid counterparts by an average of 4.2 bushel per acre.”
I realize the concept perhaps goes against what many are trying to do with increasing uniformity in fields. My hypothesis, based on what we’ve seen in the corn grower plot, is that the range of maturities (110-120 days) allowed to catch any stragglers for pollination, there was increased diversity in disease/insect packages in combination with more defensive and racehorse hybrids. For those interested in soil health, I also think there’s something to the diversity of root structures, resulting in more sharing of nutrients and different microbial associations with roots. Those are just hypotheses, and we’ll share what we see for results next winter!
