Happy Spring! Special thank you to all who helped make the Seward County Ag Banquet so successful! It’s a very special night celebrating agriculture, the farm family, farm business, and scholarship award winners! For this week’s column, I’ll share on a number of different resources.

Preliminary farm real estate numbers were released last week at: https://cap.unl.edu/realestate. All Center for Ag Profitability webinars can be found at:  https://cap.unl.edu/webinars. Last week’s Virtual Landlord/Tenant Cash Rent workshop for Eastern and Western NE should be posted soon on that site.

Soil Temperatures can be found at:  https://cropwatch.unl.edu/soiltemperature. This is helpful for knowing when to plant vegetables, when to plant crops, and what the soil temp is when applying fertilizer to fields. It’s also helpful for homeowners to wait to apply crabgrass preventer for lawns until soil temps are at least 50-55F for 5-7 days straight.

CropWatch at cropwatch.unl.edu is still our one-stop shop for all crop-related information from Nebraska Extension. In case you missed it, this week’s edition covered a number of nutrient-management related topics including a comparison showing the importance of residual soil nitrogen and the dollar savings for this year’s crop and calculating the value of nutrients in manure for crop fields.

On-Farm Research Results Book: PDF version can be viewed at: https://on-farm-research.unl.edu/results-pdfs/2022research-results.pdf. Different protocols can be viewed at: https://on-farm-research.unl.edu/protocols. You can also contact your local Extension educator directly to develop protocols that fit your needs.  

Vegetable Planting Guide for the area can be found at: https://go.unl.edu/pgwk.

Gardening Workshop: Sarah Browning, Extension Educator, did a fabulous job at the Project Grow gardening workshop several weeks ago. Whether you were able to attend or not, the full slide presentation is posted at: https://www.upperbigblue.org/sites/default/files/images/Events/veg-gardening-handout.pdf. If you’re interested in gardening but don’t have room at your home, there is a community garden with Project Grow; please contact the UBBNRD if you’re interested in learning more.

Lawn Calendars:

• Kentucky Bluegrass Lawn Calendar: https://go.unl.edu/r7ay
• Tall Fescue Lawn Calendar: https://go.unl.edu/frkp
• Buffalograss Lawn Calendar: https://go.unl.edu/6xgu

Lawn Care: Kelly Feehan shares, “Lawn care that can be done in March or early April, once conditions allow, is removal of debris that collected over winter, raking leaves that were not removed last fall, and mowing. However, wait to mow until after turfgrass has started to grow. Some people mow dormant turf very low in hopes of stimulating growth. It is best to allow turfgrass to come out of dormancy on its own. If new growth has not started, there is no need to mow. Low mowing is usually not good for lawns. Ideally, leave turfgrass the same height all season. For Kentucky bluegrass and tall fescue, this is about three to three and a half inches. If you wish to mow low in spring, do not mow any lower than 2.5 inches. With some snow cover this year, vole damage may be seen. This damage appears as two-inch wide tracks in lawns where grass has been chewed close to the ground. These areas fill in once new growth begins and are not a concern.” Overseeding of thin turf areas can also be done now.