Retiring High Plains Ag Lab farm manager Nightingale reflects on career

The High Plains Ag Lab north of Sidney, operated by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, will turn 45 this year.

For nearly 40 of those years, Tom Nightingale has managed the farming operations there, overseeing work in the research plots where scientists try to improve the productivity, profitability and sustainability of dryland agriculture in the High Plains region.

Nightingale will retire at the end of the month. But in nearly four decades, he has seen a lot of changes in dryland farming methods and in personnel at the research facility.

The...