Grateful to see some widespread rain this weekend! For fun, there’s a number of tales for predicting rain, including seeing snakes on/crossing the road. Some growers have shared specific numbers with me such as needing to see seven or five snakes on the road. I saw a post on X from the Western Colorado/Wyoming/Panhandle of Nebraska that had a number of replies regarding seeing snakes on the road and many chiming in regarding how many they’d seen last week. There were some who commented about turtles too (of which I also saw one crossing the road last week). And while farmers haven’t mentioned this one to me, it appears that there’s science behind these low-flying, at times kamikaze birds flying so low recently. Air pressure changes before a rain push the insects lower to the ground making the birds to fly lower to eat them. Regardless of what all is truth, it is interesting to me to hear what people observe and to consider how God’s creation knows weather events before we do.

Most of my questions this past week were on the lack of forage with cool-season pastures being so short, mostly in this area of the state. I continue to receive calls from the wildfire and severe drought impacted areas of western Nebraska too. We’re trying to help people with forage resources for grazing and also for drylot space get matched with those who need it at either: https://www.pasturematch.com/ or https://nebraskagrazingexchange.com/.

For people looking for hay and forage in the form of round or square bales, or for those who have bales to sell, a resource is the Nebraska hay and forage hotline at: https://nda.nebraska.gov/promotion/hay.

Received a number of calls about pastures, wheat, and alfalfa going backwards due to drought. We’ll need to watch how the rain changes things, but last week, I was recommending growers have crop insurance look at wheat and then consider getting it grazed or hayed for forage. It still may be a good option considering the need for forage many have.

Much of the alfalfa I’ve been looking at is in the bud stage nearing bloom but is often only 6-8” tall in non-irrigated fields and quit growing. My colleague Ben Beckman and I wrote an article for this week’s CropWatch (https://go.unl.edu/kmcg) where we figured that first cutting alfalfa would need to yield 0.5 ton to pay for the cost of fuel and cutting, raking, and baling. Other universities suggested no cutting of alfalfa if it was less than 10” tall. Quality is maintained in drought-stressed alfalfa, so if you do harvest, waiting for full bloom (vs. 1/10 bloom like we normally recommend) will help drought-stressed crowns recover better. With the recent rains, we’ll have to watch how the alfalfa regrows as it comes out of dormancy.

Grazing alfalfa is an option I’ve recommended to several in this situation instead, if there’s opportunity for fence and water. Waiting till the alfalfa blooms reduces any chance of bloat and waiting till full bloom helps the alfalfa recover better after grazing. Other things to consider when grazing alfalfa are: don’t turn animals out hungry, provide some free choice hay, and avoid turning animals out when there’s dew or recent rain on the leaves (allow the leaves to dry first).

If you can’t graze and can’t justify cutting hay, it’s probably best to just leave it alone. Shredding or haying will give you a cleaner, higher quality hay once your alfalfa does receive enough rain for regrowth. While removing dormant growth may slightly speed regrowth, plants will recover following sufficient rainfall even without cutting. In most cases, it’s not worth the cost and time involved to shred, clip or harvest low-yielding hay.