{"id":424667,"date":"2026-04-30T05:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T05:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/424667\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T05:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T05:57:18","slug":"us-wheat-crops-wither-herds-thin-as-spring-drought-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/424667\/","title":{"rendered":"US wheat crops wither, herds thin as spring drought deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The drought is further dimming prospects for rebuilding the US cattle herd, which has already shrunk to a 75-year low as farmers opt to sell animals for slaughter instead of keeping them for breeding. Stock Image: Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/c1d9c55e-3ac6-427c-ab5f-206638a011d6.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">The drought is further dimming prospects for rebuilding the US cattle herd, which has already shrunk to a 75-year low as farmers opt to sell animals for slaughter instead of keeping them for breeding. Stock Image: Getty<\/p>\n<p>Lauren Rosenthal, Erin Ailworth and Ilena Peng<\/p>\n<p>BloombergYesterday at 07:14<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Farmers across the Great Plains are confronting an intense drought that threatens winter wheat harvests and is pushing cattle producers toward costly feed purchases, prompting some to abandon plans to expand their herds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The dryness is expected to persist through spring after weeks of scant rainfall and a late-winter heat spell that fueled massive pasture fires across the nation&#8217;s breadbasket. Drought now covers nearly 90% of Nebraska and Oklahoma, with more than half of Nebraska in &#8216;extreme&#8217; drought. Such conditions have historically driven cattle producers to sell off animals and forced farmers to drill new irrigation wells as rivers run dry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The drought is further dimming prospects for rebuilding the US cattle herd, which has already shrunk to a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-424667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}