Each spring, as the planting season approaches, brings fresh questions about irrigation water:
How much water will the mountain snowpack provide to the North Platte Valley? What’s the state of the irrigation infrastructure in the valley? What have we learned about the system in the past year? How does the complex system of dams, diversions, checks and canals work? Will groundwater irrigation regulations stay the same as last year?
Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator Water and Cropping Systems
This the first in a six-part series of articles covering basic water law in the United States, predominately in the western part of the country, and how it affects this finite resource.
Water law has a long history. It can be traced back to Roman times and also has roots in English common law. Across the United States, it varies from state to state, and from East to West.
When conflicts arise the courts usually determine the outcome, unless there are state or federal laws or previous case studies to resolve the issue. Exceptions to the law can arise from differences in each state’s water laws.
The next session of “Know Your Numbers, Know Your Options,” Nebraska Extension’s four-part record-keeping course, will be held virtually on Thursday from 10:00 a.m. - Noon CT March 4, 11, 18, and 25, 2021.
Participants should plan on attending each of the four workshop dates. The course requires participants to have an internet connection.
The second annual Panhandle Soil Health Workshop sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Panhandle Research, Extension and Education Center will be an online event for ag producers, consultants, and others in the region.
The workshop will take place on March 5, 2021 from 8 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. on the Zoom cloud meeting platform. Registration is needed and can be done online.
Speakers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS), and the University of Wyoming, as well as producers, will present soil health, soil health programs, and management practices that affect soil health in the region.
The Animal Manure Management team has opted to change the format of live Land Application Training events this year. In February and March, the team will host a series of three 1.5-hour long zoom sessions that will serve as the first portion of initial land application training. Recertification training and the last segment of initial training will be held at a later date, hopefully in-person. Anyone is welcome to participate in the zoom sessions, but participation at each session will be limited to keep them interactive and informative.
Twenty-seven percent of respondents to the 2023 Nebraska Rural Poll indicated they are worse off than they were five years ago, up from 21% last year and 11% in 2021.
In Nebraska, ag land values are up about 14 percent over last year, mirroring a nationwide rise in ag real estate prices. Click through to watch Jim Jansen, an agricultural systems economist with Nebraska Extension, talk with RFD-TV about the impact of valuations.