Brylee Mickey (right) keeps her eyes locked on the judge as she participates in 4-H Junior Showmanship at the State Fair in Grand Island Saturday afternoon. Mickey received blue ribbons on both showmanship and breeding ewe. She is the daughter of Clint and Barbie Mickey of Aurora.

Participants in the Nebraska Soil Health Coalition’s (NSHC) first ever Soil Health Celebration of Learning near Bladen work on answering a questionnaire during the opening session of the event last Wednesday. The event brought together a diverse group of individuals from various sectors of the ag economy to celebrate the progress made by NSHC over the 20 months of its existence.

The Troester-Olsen farm located southwest of Hampton was recently honored by the Aksarben Foundation and the Nebraska Farm Bureau as a Pioneer Farm in Nebraska. The land was purchased from the Union Pacific Railroad by Jacob Troester in 1888.

Three generations of the Marsh family were on hand to receive the Arsarben Pioneer Farm award presented by Hamilton County Ag Society president Justin Hermanson (right). From left are Matthew Marsh, his father Gayle (who currently operates the farm) and Gayle’s father, Ivan. Also pictured (back right) is Ag Society board member Jeremy Brandt.

Macy Miller smiles at the judge as she shows her grand champion Hamilton County-raised market steer, Naveen, at last week’s county fair. Just moments earlier Miller’s younger brother, Noah, who was participating in the same event, had lost his shoe in the arena and the judge handed it back to him.

With narrow passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill Act” through both chambers of Congress in dramatic fashion, most of the media attention has gone to language over taxes, border security and Medicaid, but agriculture has a big stake in the law as well.

Ray Archuleta, center, conducts a demonstration Saturday at Grain Place Foods comparing how water moves through soil based on the amount of aggregates in the top few inches, which he said is improved if the ground is tilled less frequently and if cover crops are used.

The Nebraska Soil Health Coalition Board is forming Hubs across Nebraska to focus on soil health. The components of each Hub include a producer-to-producer learning community, a demonstration-education site and a stakeholder visioning group (SVG) to create outcomes including soil health benchmarks, improved economics, community growth and success stories.

The National Drought Monitor map shows a marked improvement in Nebraska soil moisture conditions over the past two weeks. However, Hamilton County still remains about 4 inches behind normal precip for this point in the year.

Hampton ag teacher Joel Miller (right) poses for a picture with some of his students at a recent land judging competition. Miller has served as the state coordinator for land judging since 2016.