Let us look back at 2021 University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Water & Integrated Cropping Systems Extension Programming in Saline, Jefferson, and Gage counties. As result of Extension efforts in the area, farmers and their Ag service providers improved profitability and sustainability of farm operations, reduced environmental risks, improved natural resource stewardship, enhanced resiliency of cropping systems to climate-variability, and expanded consumer awareness of crop production. It was my pleasure to serve Nebraskans in Saline, Jefferson, and Gage counties during my second year.
In 2021, numerous hours of service were provided by our county support staff to farmers and Ag industry professionals on topics like cash rent, hay prices, trainings, and other important items. Beyond that, I worked one-on-one with clients on their 600 additional requests for over 170 hours. Of those 600 assists, approximately 34% of clients requested assistance related to winter wheat and small grains, 26% on pasture, grass, and alfalfa, and 10% on pesticides. Other prominent topics included nutrient management, corn and soybean production, and cover crops (figure above). Those 600 requests were mostly from Saline, Jefferson, and Gage counties, but included requests from 34 Nebraska counties (figure below), six states, and three countries.
Over the past year, I wrote 26 bi-weekly articles like this one that were distributed to five newspapers covering Saline, Jefferson, and Gage counties. I also shared those articles on my Crop Tech Cafe website, through my MailChimp email list, on Twitter, and on three Facebook pages resulting in over 12,000 digital opens from 42 states that expanded public awareness of crop production and extension programs in our area. The Crop Tech Cafe website fed people agronomic information for their farms in southeast Nebraska and beyond with 2,750 users from Nebraska and Kansas in 2021. In 2022, I hope you bookmark croptechcafe.org on your computer and phone, signup to receive emails at go.unl.edu/croptechcafeweekly, follow @croptechcafe on Twitter, save my cell phone number (402-821-1722) and email address at .
As an educator, I contributed to 42 in-person or live-streamed educational opportunities including the Nebraska Cover Crop & Soil Health Conference, Southeast Nebraska Alfalfa & Wheat Expo, Precision Nitrogen Wheat Management Field Day, Youth Earth Festival, and other programs leading to a total of 3,000 attendees. I completed 38 crop progress reports that helped USDA more accurately share weekly conditions. I provided boots-on-the-ground reports to the U.S. Drought Monitor authors leading to a change in weekly maps. We now have an expanded tool set farmers can freely borrow in all three counties including a hay probe, soil probe, insect sweep net, and spray tip flow meter. The new UNL Mesonet weather station west of Wilber is nearly operational and some hourly and daily data is now available online at mesonet.unl.edu.
Happy New Year and I look forward to creating more positive change with you in 2022. Feel free to contact me with questions at or 402-821-1722. Know your crop, know your tech, know your bottom line at croptechcafe.org.
