Pasture Conditions Continue To Dry Nationwide

As we get ready to say goodbye to the month of June, pasture and rangeland conditions across the country look good.

"Just 43% of the nation's pastures and rangelands in good to excellent condition," said USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey. "At the same time the number for very poor to poor ratings is 25%. And the 43% is down 2 percentage points from last week; very poor to poor ratings up three percentage points."

"In fact that trend has happened over the last several weeks and we currently see U.S. rangeland and pasture conditions at their lowest lever for this time of year (mid to late June) since 2012," Rippey continued. "So that's quite a while going back to the historic draught of 2012."

The overall condition numbers are still higher than in 2012.

"The greatest concerns at this point are in the nation's southwestern quadrant. We do see some very stressed rangeland and pastures there."

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