- Good morning everyone.

I'm Lyndall Stout and we have another great show for you lined up today on Sunup, running the numbers on running Your Cattle.

The popular series continues on how much it really costs to raise a cow.

While we're talking cattle, have the markets settled it all after several weeks of instability?

And a winter crop update as planting winds down and cold weather arrives, grab that hot cup of coffee because an all new Sunup starts right now.

We're talking now with Josh Bouchon, our OSU extension agronomist for the West District of Oklahoma.

And, and Josh, we kind of wanna kick things off talking about, about wheat in general and kind of where the crop is now that we're, we're fast forward into December.

- Yes, it's finally December, so hopefully we'll start to get closer to dormancy.

The freezes finally hit, we had a very open November, very warm November for many.

And so our lot of guys, especially northwest, developed a lot of wheat pasture.

So we've had a little good growing conditions early, even some later.

So wheat has been able to take off.

So for the most part, northwest has been great.

Southwest, maybe a little different story, little warmer plus drier, kind of a one-two punch.

We've had some wheat struggling down Southwest for the most part.

Not too many pest.

We've had a few issues early on in the growing season with some army worms and stuff like that where we had a spray and resow.

So we've had some miscommunications about seed treatments, whether or not those are a benefit to those army worms.

But depending on what seed treatment you're using, they're not all the same, depending on what active ingredient.

But we do have some options out there for the lapid ature, the army worms and cut worms and stuff like that, which held off really well.

So it gave us a good, a few weeks start to get that crop off and going to get that pasture.

But like I said, we're starting to see some stalkers out.

We got good growth, more stalkers in.

At first I was, I was worried we weren't getting too many out there, but we're starting to see this past week more turned out.

I don't know where they're coming from.

I'm just the agronomist, but they're, they're starting to show up, like I said, Southwest, a little different story, a little more struggles, starting to see a few mites, A few mite reports haven't confirmed yet, but, so some guys are spraying for mites.

We'll see if those are hit thresholds, but for the most part, not too bad on insects.

Throughout Western Oklahoma, - We have heard that there might be more canola acres than we've seen in the last 5, 6, 7 years.

What are you, what are you seeing and and what are you hearing?

- Well, same here.

There's been a lot of talk from what I've been driving around.

I've seen a lot talking to some of our organizations like the O Sea Commission, Great Plains Canola Association, stuff like that.

Looking at seed sales, we might have doubled our acres.

So the interest has been there last few years.

Like you said, we haven't had the perfect planting window.

Canola's a pretty tight planting window, only 30 days to get the crop off for insurance purposes.

But this year's been excellent.

Some early stone canola, but a lot of it was thrown a little bit later, just like our wheat to avoid some of those armyworm issues.

Canola's been growing good, so those warm conditions that we saw in November definitely helped the canola, even though some of the later planted canola really get established and canola, we wanna see some good growth on it before winter to get that hardiness for winter.

So we wanna see, you know, four, six leaves a good tap root under it, maybe the size of your pinky or a pencil at least.

And so the wheat and canola both have been looking great.

We've had great stands for the most part, very few pest, but we are starting to see some weeds in both crops.

- Talk a little bit about the economic benefits of canola right now and and the agronomic benefits too for, for people who may not be as familiar.

- So going to back to maybe why we saw an up increase or increase in canola acres this past fall.

Just 'cause of the bleak outlook, market outlook on the wheat.

So small grains prices are down just like most of our other commodities, but canola was an option that oil seeds maybe bring a little slightly more of a premium than the cereal grains, but also those agronomic benefits that we suit that crop rotation.

Canola being a broadleaf crop, a winter broadleaf crop benefits our winter wheat very well in the Southern Great plains in Oklahoma.

So we get a lot of benefits from the crop rotation.

We put or get a break in the pest cycles from the insects and diseases.

But also we get options to control all those grasses.

So weed management, pest management, soil fertility.

We're able to mine some of those deeper nutrients than we are with the fibrous grass crop.

So there's a lot of agronomic and economic benefits to canola.

There's a little bit more risk to it.

We do have issues, more issues with canola than we do our small grains like wheat, but for the most part we're able have higher potential for economic benefit for that rotation for the crop itself, canola, but also we see that increase in the rotation on the wheat after canola so we get fewer weeds in the wheat, but also see a 10, 20% increase in wheat yields.

So that rotation, it's a, a investment for multiple years, not just that one year on the canola itself.

- Last but not least, some new, some new faces.

You have some colleagues joining you and as area agronomists.

- Yep.

So we did get some new hires.

The Southwest area agronomist has been refilled.

It's gonna be Graden Sherry.

He's been a postdoc under Dr.

Brian Arnell, so he's no stranger to Western Oklahoma from Western Oklahoma.

He's gonna be stationed there at Chickache.

So we look forward to having him.

Like I said, he is been with OSU for the grad student program.

His has been finished with his postdoc for a while or his doctorate.

The other one, Northeast Oklahoma.

We hired Roy Grant.

He's gonna be starting the same time as Rayon both December 22nd.

So we'll have some new faces there.

The previous agronomist, Brian Pugh, has now moved towards campus and is state specialist for forage.

So we didn't lose him from extension, but he is gonna be focusing on fours statewide now instead of just north East Oklahoma and Eastern Oklahoma.

- And we're taking notes 'cause we want all those new folks on Sunup sometime soon.

Yep.

So - Josh, we'll be available.

- Very good news and we hope to talk to you again soon.

Thanks for the updates.

- We just wanna let you know about OSU extension's, upcoming statewide pesticide zoom, December 10th from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM This event is a great opportunity to hear from extension specialists on insect pests management for wheat, cotton and corn, as well as drone applications and logistics.

Attendees also have the opportunity to earn CEUs for each session.

If you're interested in taking part in this zoom, contact your local county extension office for details.

- Talking cattle now as we wrap up our popular series today with Dr.

Dave Lalman, talking about just how much it takes to raise a cow.

Here's son of Kurtis Hair with Dr.

Lalman.

- We're joined now by Dr.

Dave Lalman and we're wrapping up his series on how much it costs to raise a cow.

And Dave, over the past few weeks, we've talked about the historical, you know, price changes, you know, from the past like 16 years.

We've talked nutrition and how that impacts things.

But EPDs are also something, you know, long term that producers can think about of how to, you know, measure cost cutting.

- Yeah, I mean the, the genetic potential of the cow herd comes through the sires that are purchased or maybe the, you know, the semen that's purchased and used through artificial insemination and so on.

And that, you know, so long-term controlling cow cost really is, I mean that's your opportunity to influence that over time.

- And there's a lot of research too.

You know, we have a lot of research applications out here that's been telling you a lot and there's some things that you have some really interesting findings and, and a lot of cattle producers know that if you have two cows, you know, two heifers, they're gonna be eating maybe the same thing but gaining in different, you know, one's gaining a lot and one's gaining nothing after off.

- I mean, every contemporary group of either heifers or cows that we've, we test, and we've talked about this on Sunup in the past, but every contemporary group we test, we find big differences in how much they'll eat.

You know, in a cow 20 to 40 pounds, some cows eating 20, some eating 40 heifers, maybe 12 pounds up to 25 pounds of difference.

So yeah, that, that is, and then, and then as you mentioned, also tremendous difference in their ability to perform.

In other words, if we're thinking about a replacement heifer performed just means weight gain on a strict forage diet with mineral, which is how we are testing our cattle here.

- So talk a little bit about some of the findings that you have and you actually have an interesting graphic that you can kinda show those, the different, you know, just the differences of what could happen in an operation.

- Yeah, I'll, we'll share a couple of different ones, but you know, the one that is really exciting to me and makes that point very clearly, in 2024 we tested a contemporary group of heifers and we had, so let's, so on, on the Y axis in this graph, you've got average daily gain.

Again, nothing but hay and mineral.

Okay?

And on the X axis or the bottom axis there is their feed intake.

And these two heifers that we're gonna point out have radical differences in their weight gain.

One heifer's gaining 1.4 pounds a day, one heifer is losing weight.

And the incredible thing is that over that nearly 90 day experimental period, those heifers are eating almost exactly the same amount on average.

So tremendous opportunity there.

I mean it is just, it's just one example, but it, but tremendous variation in their ability to perform on that strict forage diet, which is where a cow is expected to make her living.

Secondly, in this other, other graph, you know, there's another thing to point out and that is the same, same setup here.

We've got average of the gain on the Y axis, we've got intake on the, on the X axis in every contemporary group there's this set of heifers at the bottom that are just basically telling us that they have no business becoming a cow because they cannot perform on a strict forage - Diet.

And a lot of that just goes back to genetics, right?

- Right.

Well we think so.

We think so, and we're trying to, to get to the point where we can find those cattle more practically because the producer's not gonna be able, not gonna be able to do this kind of research that we are doing.

- And there are a lot of resources available when in regards to EPDs, Dr.

Johnson has spent many of cow-calf corners talking about EPDs, right?

- Oh yeah.

And, and our data also points out that those EPDs are working, working pretty well.

We think the combination of that dry matter intake EPD and and the mature cow weight EPD in combination is a powerful tool to control cow costs over - Time.

Alrightyy, thanks Dave.

Dr.

Dave Lawman, OSU extension beef cattle specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- Good morning everyone.

This is state climatologist Gary McManus with your Mesonet weather Report.

Well, since winter is upon us, we've had some sleet snow, freezing rain, freezing drizzle.

I thought it'd be a good chance to take a look back at climatological fall, which runs from September 1st through November 30th.

However, let's start with the latest drought monitor map and see where we are.

Well, same basic picture.

We did have a little bit of that rain over the last week or so.

Actually it's going back about two weeks now and we did see a few minor improvements, but we still have the same basic pattern across the state.

So really across the southwestern corridor down into south central Oklahoma, some severe to extreme drought, those darker browns and reds.

But we do have basically the, the southern half of the state covered with at least abnormally dry conditions, a few exceptions here or there, and also a little bit extending up into north central Oklahoma.

So really just the same basic picture.

Now when we look at the rainfall over that same timeframe, we do see down in southwestern up into West Central Oklahoma, some pretty dry conditions where they generally had less than three inches of rainfall.

But those areas of drier than normal conditions also extend over into central Oklahoma to the south and southeast of Oklahoma City metro area.

We can see that on the departure from normal rainfall map.

And what this amounted to was the 39th driest fall at about two and a half inches below normal.

But you can see a large area of the state from about two inches below normal to all the way up to seven inches below normal.

So those are the hardest hit areas and also where you saw those extreme and and severe drought areas.

Now for temperatures it was the sixth warmest fall, about three and a half degrees above normal.

Here you can see the average temperature.

Now this would be highs and lows all average together for the the fall itself about in the low sixties to mid sixties across the state.

But when you see the departure from normal average air temperature over the fall, it is generally three degrees.

But we do know that it was about three and a half degrees above normal over that timeframe where we see for temperature equal chances of above, below or near normal conditions.

So no real clear signal there.

But for the precipitation, we do see increased odds of below normal precipitation over nearly the entire state, except for far southeastern Oklahoma.

That would not be good news for the drought concerns we currently have.

So the drought outlook going from those maps, we do see that drought across the southern half of the state expected to persist and maybe even some development as we get down into South Central and southwestern Oklahoma.

- Southwestern Oklahoma where that drought doesn't currently exist.

So that would also be not very good news.

A little bit closer to our current timeframe.

However, the eight to 14 day temperature outlook, this is for mid-December, we do see increased odds of above normal temperatures across the entire state, but unfortunately, once again, increased odds of below normal precipitation.

So not a good time for drought in Oklahoma.

Hopefully we get some rainfall soon, as we've seen recently though, we'll take rainfall snowfall, hopefully not ice, but we need anything we can get.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet weather report.

- We are joined now by Dr.

Darryl Peele, our livestock marketing specialist, to talk about the cattle markets and, and Darryl, how are markets looking as we're kind of thinking about closing out the year?

- Well, you know, fourth quarter's been challenging for the cattle markets this year.

We've had a lot of external influence on the market, and so as we go into December here, I think markets are trying to kind of stabilize.

We're, we're certainly, you know, in a, a little different situation than we had for much of the year last year.

So some challenges as we finish out the year.

- You mentioned these challenges, prices are quite a bit lower than they were even, even six weeks ago.

What are you kind of keeping an eye on and analyzing for folks?

- Yeah, you know, I, I do think this is a correction in the market was precipitated by external things, a lot of political attention on the market, but that gave the outside investors an opportunity really.

They'd been looking forward to sort of pull some profits out of the market and so on.

But it's a reset I think.

And so the, you know, we are, as we go forward, we're gonna be looking at sort of coming back to the market fundamentals.

We've sort of ignored them now for a month or so, and so the fundamentals will take place and the fundamentals have not changed in this market and that's something that it's important for people to keep in mind.

- Do you think there will be the, a recovery and if so, what would the timeline be?

- Yeah, I do expect a recovery.

I do think this is a correction that's a bit overdone, which is not surprising.

It's kind of the way markets work now, the timing is a little bit trickier because we are at the end of the year.

It's not clear, of course, it's not clear that the political rhetoric will die down, but if it tames down a little bit, then you know, I do expect the market to recover.

We could see some recovery here in December, but it's also possible that people are gonna kind of just, you know, tread water here through the end of the year.

We might not see as much recovery as we would in any other time of the year until we get after the first of the year.

And then I think we'll come out and we'll take a hard look at what the next year brings and the market will reset as we get into the new year - As we're into December.

Now, what's your general outlook for 2026 and, and hopefully there's some optimism in there for folks.

- Oh, I think there's quite a lot of optimism because again, the market fundamentals have not changed.

So, you know, whatever sort of volatility we have in the market and that is an issue and it's a negative factor that folks have to deal with.

But the underlying fundamentals would say that we're gonna move even higher in 2026.

You know, we're continuing to tighten up.

Beef production fell in 2025 and it's gonna continue to fall in 2026, which means that, you know, cattle prices are likely to be higher on average in 2026.

I don't for consumers see any real relief in beef prices, which is, you know, again, part of the political focus.

There's just nothing that can be done to change that.

And in fact, it's gonna get tighter before it gets better.

So, but in general for cattle producers, you know, we're back on track I think as we get into 2026.

- All right, Darrell, lots of great information and of course lots of lots to talk about in the year ahead.

As usual.

You bet.

Thanks a lot.

A pause now to tell our sunup viewers just how important you are to us and to the people who care about you.

Stress on the farm and ranch is always present and some days you feel its impact much more than other days.

Stress, emotional wellbeing, resilience, finances, and farm transition planning are among the topics covered through OSU extensions Farm Stress Resources collection.

We have a link for you at the sunup website, sunup.OKstate.edu.

And you can also scan this QR code or reach out to your local county extension office with questions.

And remember, if you or someone you know is in crisis, dial 988 anytime to talk immediately with a trained professional who can help.

- I am Mark Turner Wildlife extension specialist at OSU, and today we're gonna be talking about what bucks are doing after the breeding season here in Oklahoma.

Typically, the breeding season in Oklahoma for Whitetailed deer happens during the month of November, although there are some does that come into estrous during October and then some that, that still come into estrous here in December.

But generally most of the breeding occurs around the middle of November with some occurring before and after that.

Once we get into December, a lot of bucks are trying to rebuild their body fat because during the breeding season, they've spent a lot of the time moving around.

Typically their movement rates are greatest during that time of the year, and so they, they will have lost up to 20 to 30% of their body weight during the breeding season.

And so obviously that's gonna take a lot of toll on them and they're gonna have to eat a lot of food in order to rebuild their body condition going into the winter.

So it's not uncommon to see a lot of bucks spending a lot of time in food plots and in agricultural fields trying to rebuild their body condition during this time of year.

And that can be a great place to look at if you're looking to either, either view deer or potentially to harvest a buck.

Another factor that influences deer movements during this time of the year is the hunting season.

Gun season is, is going on right now in Oklahoma.

And so there's a lot of people that are out there trying to harvest deer during this time.

And of course that's a great thing if you're looking to hunt.

But the deer very quickly become aware of folks on the landscape and they tend to change their patterns during that time.

So although those bucks are trying to use food sources that may be relatively open, they also are trying to to avoid hunters.

And so you'll also see deer using heavy cover.

The wild card that can come into play also during the month of December for deer is the fact that some fawns reach about 70 to 80 pounds during the month of December.

And when they do that, they become mature enough to come into estrous.

And so what some hunters might call the second rut is generally just bucks that are chasing fawns that are, that are reaching their first estrous during the month of December.

They typically don't reach that body mass during the month of November, but once they hit it in December, they can become sexually mature and you may see some bucks chasing does and especially doe fawns during the month of December.

So keep an eye out for that as well.

So in summary, if you still have a buck tag that's burning a hole in your pocket during the month of December, you might consider hunting areas around heavy cover where bucks are looking for escaping hunting pressure.

You also might consider food sources because again, they're trying to rebuild their body condition during this time of the year.

And then finally, keep an eye out for, for does and especially doe fawns that might be coming into estrus during the ti this time of the year.

For more information on Deer Management and Whitetailed Deer in Oklahoma, check out some of the resources on the sunup website.

- Good morning, Oklahoma, and welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

Hope you're all underway with your holiday shopping.

This week we continue our build back better replacement heifer series actually talking about how we make better genotypes.

In the last few weeks, we've talked about breeding objectives, where to apply selection pressure, and really breaking down all the components of our production system to identify what those should be.

But how do we actually build better genotypes?

We wanna think about the performance level, our cattle relative to the basic equation that phenotype is equal to the genotype of the animals relative to the production environment they're in.

We can think of that genotype as the underlying genetic potential of our cattle to achieve a level of performance.

Important thing to remember, genotype has two components and they're impacted by selection and mating in different ways.

First component of genotype is additive genetic merit, or what we think of as breeding value.

Breeding value for a specific trait, if we want to use weaning weight as an example, would be the sum total of all the additive genes impacting weaning weight in some way or another across the entire genome of the animal.

We can change additive genetic potential through selection by using EPDs that are available for reproductive traits, growth traits, and carcass traits.

We can improve the additive genetic merit in selected populations.

The nice thing about this, it's cumulative and permanent change 'cause additive genetic merit can be transferred one generation to the next 'cause it's based on the impact of individual genes.

The other component that we get into is gene combination value, or what we often refer to as the non additive component of the genotype.

A great example of this is if we make the decision to use an Angus bull on our Hereford cow herd, we are creating gene combination value.

Doing this specifically to get heterosis or hybrid vigor.

Hybrid vigor could be thought of as the advantage of the crossbred offsprings performance over the average level of performance of the pure bred parents.

Or we could think about that if two pure bred lines have got a certain degree of additive genetic merit.

When we cross those and think about that average, think about heterosis or hybrid vigor being expressed as an additional percentage of a level of performance, we would get on top of the average performance of those parents.

Important thing to remember about gene combination value, it does not replace additive genetic merit.

It builds off of it.

So cross-breeding systems based on mating decisions are to impact or create hybrid vigor among other things.

So in short, we wanna build better genotypes and take home messages.

We wanna select cattle to incorporate into our production system based on outstanding genetic merit or breeding value.

We can take a look at EPDs in order to do that.

Mating decisions made to build gene combination value involving things like cross-breeding can be used as a big boost to us, but we wanna be intentional.

There needs to be deliberate decisions made to accomplish specific things in terms of making that better genotype that is gonna coincide with profit potential for us long term.

Next week, we'll take a look more at how we go about this relative to specific traits that we might wanna improve upon in building those better genotypes.

As always, thanks for joining us this week on Cow-Calf Corner.

- That'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder that you can see sunup anytime at our website.

Follow us on social media and stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

We leave you today with a few beautiful shots of drone footage captured by our own Elizabeth Hokit at OSU North Range.

We hope you have a great week everyone, and we'll see you next time at Sunup.