DTN Staff

OMAHA (DTN) -- The NASS data shows continual drought issues of the pasture and range areas in the 48 contiguous states, especially when comparing the numbers to last year.

Currently, 33% of the states have very-poor-to-poor pasture and range conditions compared to 19% in 2024. On the good-to-excellent side, 42% of pastures are currently in that state, while 51% were for the previous year.

If we break that down into the top 10 beef cow states -- Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Montana, Kentucky, Florida and North Dakota -- 23.4% of pasture and range in these states are in very-poor-to-poor conditions, while 47.9% are in the good-to-excellent category.

The major concerns for drought in these states are in Nebraska and Montana with 56% and 53%, respectively, with pasture and range in very-poor-to-poor conditions. This is also reflected on the good-to-excellent side with Nebraska having 20% and Montana having 19% in this category.

The positive of the top 10 states are in Missouri and Kentucky. Missouri has seen considerable moisture, which has made its pasture and range conditions decline to 2% considered very poor to poor, while 87% are very good to excellent. Kentucky has also seen ample rain leading to 6% in the very-poor-to-poor category and 73% for good to excellent.

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said many areas of the country have seen moisture during the past week leading to large-scale drought reduction in many areas of the Plains, Upper Midwest and East Coast.

The areas missing the moisture remain in drought and Baranick said an overall hotter and drier summer forecast remains in place across a lot of the country, with some exceptions. (See https://www.dtnpf.com/…)Even with that forecast, he said systems will move through that will produce rainfall or bring temperatures down for periods of time. "That could be critical for some areas of the region that unfortunately could not bank on the moisture sticking around into June, needing summer rainfall to ward away the impacts of drought as best it can," Baranick added.

See the accompanying maps for more on the changes in various states.

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