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Good planting progress last week in Nebraska

Nebraska corn growers made good progress on planting last week. Corn planting jumped from three percent to 17 percent, six points better than the five-year average.

Soybean planting was also underway and stood at four percent as of Sunday.

Winter wheat condition rated 54 percent good to excellent, 37 percent fair and 9 percent poor to very poor.

The start of planting is still two to three weeks away for farmer Kent Lorens of Stratton in far southwest Nebraska. But Lorens says with their higher elevation of nearly 3,000 feet, that’s a normal start for them.

“We’re still dropping into the 30’s at night,” Lorens says, “and, of course, the wheat stubble shades the ground so well that the sunlight can’t hit as directly. So it just takes longer for it to warm up.”

Lorenz grows dryland corn and wheat and also runs a cow-calf operation. He says they had a good calving season.

“It went fairly well. The weather was actually really good this year, warmer and drier than normal in March.  So it was a good year.”

The weekly livestock report from the ag statistics service rates Nebraska’s cattle and calf death loss at 34 percent light and 65 percent average.

AUDIO: Kent Lorens