REDFIELD, Iowa (DTN) -- Several beef states that have suffered from the worst drought conditions saw rain over the past week to help improve pasture and range conditions.

Colorado and Nebraska saw improvements in the worst pasture and range conditions, according to USDA's weekly Crop Progress report released Monday. Colorado had an 8-percentage-point improvement in very-poor-to-poor pasture conditions to bring the total to 64%. Nebraska had a 9-percentage-point improvement to move to 64% of pasture and range in very-poor-to-poor conditions. Very little change, however, was seen on the good-to-excellent side in these states.

DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick said last week's showers spread across the Plains states, especially in Nebraska and some adjacent areas in South Dakota and Kansas. "Even Oklahoma had some rain late last week, but conditions have gotten really bad there and they need a lot more. We'll have some additional chances for rain this week as a front sweeps down through the Plains through Thursday," he said.

The Southern Plains states have continued to suffer from extended summer high temperatures and drought-type conditions, as seen in pasture conditions. Oklahoma and Texas have an ongoing shift of quality pastures. Oklahoma had a 6-percentage-point decrease in good-to-excellent pasture, bringing the total to 11% in this category. Texas had a 5-percentage-point decrease to have 16% of pastures here. On the very-poor-to-poor side, Oklahoma had a 7-percentage-point increase to bring 58% of pastures here. Texas had a 4-percentage-point increase to see 50% of its pastures in the very-poor-to-poor slot.

Baranick said some scattered showers will help to build a little more soil moisture for some areas, but more rain is still needed for the worst areas. "Another front late this week and weekend should get more shower opportunities into some of cattle country going into next week as well," he said. "While northern areas will continue to be fairly mild, with some limited heat between systems, southern areas are likely to stay quite hot, especially in Oklahoma and Texas. A front moving down there later this week will probably stop some areas from getting above 100 F, but that heat is likely to return this weekend anyway, so it would be only a brief break and not much of a break at that."

The Southwest continues to suffer from drought, which is seen through the pasture and range conditions. Arizona had a 16-percentage-point increase of very-poor-to-poor pastures to bring the total to 72%, while New Mexico had a 3-percentage-point increase to bring the total to 61%. Both states also saw a decrease on the good-to-excellent side, showing the ongoing drought continues to affect cattle producers.

Overall, pasture conditions are much worse currently than they were a year ago. Very poor and poor conditions are currently at 22% and 28%, respectively, compared to 11% and 11% in 2025. That was seen in the good-to-excellent category, with current conditions at 18% good and 3% excellent, while a year ago those numbers were 28% and 9%.

	Very poor	Poor	Fair	Good	Excellent
48 States	22	28	29	18	3
Previous week	22	26	29	20	3
Previous year	11	21	31	28	9

Jennifer Carrico can be reached at jennifer.carrico@dtn.com

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