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Nebraska corn, soybeans make improvements in condition ratings last week

Nebraska’s corn and soybean conditions made slight improvements last week despite areas of severe weather and drought.

The USDA says corn condition is rated 78 percent good-to-excellent with 54 percent of the corn silking – on percent behind last year.

Gothenburg farmer Andy Jobman tells Brownfield his crop is starting to pollinate. “Some of it’s just wrapping up on the first-planted corn and the last-planted corn is just starting to shoot tassels,” Jobman says.  “Two weeks ago we had two different storm events that caused some wind damage across all of corn acres to varying degrees.  A lot of lodged corn, a lot of leaning corn and unfortunately some green snap.”

Seventy-four percent of soybeans have bloomed – two percent ahead of last year and 12 percent ahead of the five-year average. Soybeans are rated 81 percent good-to-excellent.

Jobman says his soybeans look great.“They’re canopied and have been blooming now for about 10 days and you can start to see some early pods being set on the lower-half of the plant,” he says. “They look really good.”

Pasture and range conditions are rated 86 percent fair-to-excellent.

Winter Wheat harvest is 15 percent behind last year with 60 percent of the crop harvested.

Eighty-three percent of sorghum is rated in good-to-excellent condition.

Thirty-nine percent of oats have been harvested with 54 percent of the crop rated in good-to-excellent condition.

Dry edible bean conditions are rated 73 percent good-to-excellent.

Topsoil moisture is 67 percent adequate and 2 percent surplus.  Subsoil moisture is 58 percent adequate and 1 percent surplus.