Nebraska history and facts. Nebraska history tells of farmers settling the land to grow sugar beets, corn, beans, and alfalfa. The first settlers in Nebraska were basically traders. They traded with the...
The first settlers in Nebraska were basically traders. They traded with the immigrants who were going through, and then they started raising gardens when they found out how fertile soil was. Nebraska was settled when they started giving away the land to farmers.
We are a big corn state, as most people know, but some more unusual things we grow are sugar beets. You may think of a beet as being a small red thing, but these weigh 20-25 lbs. and are anywhere from 9-18% sugar. We process the sugar beets to make sugar just like cane sugar. A lot of people who travel through Nebraska mistake sugar beet fields for tobacco. Another crop we do is beans. We're one of the largest producers of dry edible beans like pintos and navy beans. We ship those all over the world. Alfalfa and potatoes are also pretty common crops, but corn, beets, and beans are found all over the valley because we're irrigated.
Another interesting fact is that we don't get much precipitation here. We only get 12-15 inches per year, so in order to raise crops we have to irrigate through gravity irrigation. We store water in Wyoming and let it down gradually throughout the summer. Only a small part of the country irrigates the way that we do.
