(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

I'm Kurtis Hair, and welcome to SUNUP.

Avian Influenza is spreading across the country in backyard chickens and commercial operations.

And we're joined now by Dr. Rosslyn Biggs, our extension veterinarian, and Roslyn, has there been any cases popped up in Oklahoma yet?

- We've not had any in Oklahoma, however there have been cases of high path Avian Influenza in Kansas and Missouri.

- What are some things that producers can do to you know, limit that exposure?

- The basic primary thing is biosecurity in all types of flocks, whether those are in commercial flocks or backyard flocks, that we're takin' those biosecurity measures, keeping the separation and the isolation present for those birds, and making sure we're keeping the wild, in particular waterfowl not having some intermingling between our domestic poultry and those wild birds.

- So, there are just to start off with, some measures like actual, physical measures that they can take to separate those from the wild fowl.

- Sure, absolutely.

You know, one of the main things we've seen, because again, we see it in our waterfowl, we wanna make sure that our backyard birds are not sharing common water sources where we might have ducks or geese, in particular, in the pastures or that sort of thing.

We also wanna think about our own clothing.

If we are, we don't wanna be bringing the virus to our birds themselves.

And so, we wanna think about you know, do we have separate footwear?

Do we have separate attire that we're taking care of our birds and then you know, changing if necessary, if we're dealing with other birds or separate flocks.

We also want to think about just keeping the separation.

We've got a coop behind us, right, making sure that we don't have fecal matter from wild birds that can enter that space, particularly if it's an open to type coop or housing type area, that those interactions again, the interface between wild birds and our domestic poultry is not happening.

- So, is this virus, is it zoonotic at all?

Does there need to be any concerns there?

- In very rare cases, and usually that is really direct contact between birds with high path Avian Influenza and humans, we can see some transmission there.

So that's one of the primary reasons why our animal health officials as well as our human health officials, are concerned about this virus.

- In regards to you know the possibility that I might be zoonotic, but our eggs and chicken, is that safe to eat?

- Yeah, we have again, the safest and most portable food supply in the United States, but in this particular case all eggs, all poultry products, et cetera, are safe to eat.

- How do you know if one of your birds are sick?

- This is a very significant virus, particularly for our poultry species.

We can see it in other types of birds, wild birds in particular, as we've talked about, waterfowl.

They may not show clinical signs, our wild species.

But, in our backyard poultry and in our commercial poultry one of the hallmark signs is actually sudden death, unfortunately.

These are birds that are healthy and thriving one day and deceased the next.

And so, with any influenza we want to see you know, are there changes in egg production?

Are there changes in appetite?

Do we have any you know, nasal secretions, discharge, coughing, those kinda things may be a early indicator that we have this going on.

And we want to encourage producers, wherever you are in the state of Oklahoma, to if you see signs that are concerning for you, to call the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture.

You can call your extension educator as well.

They have all those resources.

We want to report those concerning signs in our bird species and have someone come out and take a look, because we have great producers here in Oklahoma and we wanna make sure we do a good job to keep people in business.

- So, you know, going forward, like we said, it's not in Oklahoma yet.

It could be.

What are some you know, kind of final thoughts that you wanna get out there, like you know, it is a stressful time, but is there anything that you could offer that, you know, there are things that you can do to help stop this.

- Absolutely, whether you are a commercial producer or whether you're a backyard producer, we need to focus on biosecurity.

We've got some great extension resources, in particular, our online course, that people can take.

But also take a look at our fact sheets as well, as well as what's being put out by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Agriculture on specific measures that make the most sense for your operation.

- Dr. Rosslyn Biggs, Extension Veterinarian here at Oklahoma State University.

And if you'd like a link to those extension resources that she mentioned, go to our website, sunup.okstate.edu.

- Hi, Wes Lee with this week's Mesonet Weather Report.

Spring officially arrived this past week, and it came to us roaring like a lion.

With strong winds, wildfires, a tornado, and finally a statewide rainfall event we have been waiting on.

- [Wes] Here is a two-day rainfall map from earlier this week as the storms move through the state.

For the first time in a long time, all 120 of the Mesonet sites received rainfall.

While we would've liked to see more in the drought-stricken west, every little bit helps.

Strong winds, often the case ahead of a cold front like this one, kicked off several wildfires.

Low relative humidity shown here in red along with sustained 30 mile an hour south winds created a scary situation.

Large fires often show up as hotspots when looking at an infrared satellite image Like these spots shown here at 5:00 PM on Sunday afternoon.

The rainfall will help squelch wildfires for a while but they will likely continue to be an issue until Greenup is completed.

Winds continued after this storm, is shown here on this wind gust map on Tuesday morning.

Winds are always something we deal with in the spring.

This map is a long term average wind speed by month, showing peak winds usually occur in March and April.

Now here's Gary with finally an improving drought picture.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, finally we had our first big rainfall since early last fall.

Let's see what it did to the new drought monitor map.

- [Gary] Well, we can see definite relief across much of the western two thirds of the state.

Still have plenty of that extreme to exceptional drought.

The red to the dark red colors across Northwestern down through Southwestern Oklahoma, across West central Oklahoma.

also much of the Oklahoma Panhandle.

But we also have lots more of that moderate to severe drought.

I know that doesn't sound great, but it's certainly better than the widespread extreme to exceptional drought that we had for the last couple of weeks.

And really for the last few months if we take a look at the 30-day rainfall, and this is really dominated by that last storm system we can start to see where the better places are and also the places that didn't get quite enough.

So really if you take a look at this 30-day rainfall map from the Mesonet the darker greens, the yellows, the oranges, those are the places that got the best rainfall.

Now we look at those trouble areas.

We still see down across the southwestern quarter of the state, and also much of the Oklahoma Panhandle safer about the Eastern one six of the Panhandle.

Those of the areas that are still lacking in good moisture and they really need a good dose or they're going to continue to accelerate drought impacts in the near future.

That shows up even better than the percent of normal rainfall map for the same timeframe.

Again, those oranges, those reds, even those yellows, those are places that didn't see the really good rainfall over the last 30 days.

And again, much of that is due to the last storm system.

So all those greens you see on there, those are the places that really saw the good drought relief and that's pretty significant part of the state.

If we take a look at the temperature and precipitation outlooks for the April through June timeframe from the climate prediction center, we'll see how important that last storm system was.

Really, we see increased odds of above normal temperatures across the entire state, but especially across the Western half or so of Oklahoma, and below normal precipitation, but especially across the Western one third and the Oklahoma Panhandle.

So again, that's the area that really much of it didn't see great relief this last storm system.

So it's not looking good At least only the long term outlooks for further relief, but we just need a couple of more storm systems and we'll start to blow that drought out of that area as well.

So we just need Mother Nature to keep those storms coming.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet weather report (upbeat music) - With us today is Derrell Peel OSU extension Livestock Marketing Specialist.

Derrell, the war in Ukraine is a continuing situation.

What impacts have you noticed for cattle markets?

- In terms of cattle and beef, the impacts we've seen are really more indirect than direct in terms of global beef trade.

It's really not an issue with respect to Russia or Ukraine.

Russia is a minor importer of beef.

And the US hasn't traded any beef or pork or poultry, frankly, for a number of years with Russia.

So, those kind of direct effects are not there at least not at this point in time.

Obviously the grain markets situation has big implications in terms of feed markets and the cattle markets have reacted to that.

And then of course, broad based, the energy prices affects everybody.

And so it's affecting us on the production side as well as raising concerns on the consumer side.

- Are there any additional impacts we might see?

- Well, obviously we don't know how this thing's gonna play out.

So there's lots of unknowns and uncertainty, but the impacts we mentioned will continue there for a while.

So the feed market impacts are gonna continue to be there the energy markets, and on the energy side, one of the things we're watching for would be more impacts on the consumer part, in terms of the impacts on beef demand high gas prices takes money out of consumers pockets and - [Derrell] And the beef demand is pretty susceptible to impact.

So we haven't really seen that yet, at least not that we can be sure of, but that's something we'll have to watch for going forward.

- What do you expect for cattle markets in the coming months?

- You know, we're still on track for higher cattle prices this year.

The trend is up.

We've got a lot of optimism on the price side built into this market, and I don't think anything's gonna change that.

Cattle numbers are tighter.

The overall situation on that side hasn't changed, and so the things we're talking about are impacts on the input side, and so the question of profitability is certainly more up in the air, but from a price standpoint, we're looking for higher prices, probably the highest prices of the year for most classes of cattle will occur in the last part of the year.

- What can consumers expect for beef prices as we move towards grilling season?

- You know, we've had a lot of talk about high beef prices.

They've been going up for several months, and there is a limit, we watch that, although we haven't really seen a lot of obvious pushback at this point.

Growing season will seasonally put some additional upward pressure on those prices.

I don't think we're gonna see beef prices come down very much for all of the reasons we've talked about.

Beef production is expected to fall as we go through the year, so supplies will get tighter, even if there is kind of a limit.

So, beef prices may not go up as fast as they have in recent months.

I don't think they're gonna come down very much.

- And finally, tell us about the Eastern Oklahoma Cattle Summit that's coming up in April.

- Yeah.

I wanted to mention that April 14 in McAlester, Oklahoma, the Eastern Oklahoma Beef Cattle Summit will be happening.

It's an all-day program.

It will be at the Southeast Oklahoma Expo Center, just outside of McAlester.

And so it's a good program, all-day program.

There'll be a number of speakers there.

I will be there as part of that.

And the theme of that day is gonna be how to manage through these high input costs.

- Thank you, Derrell, we'll see you again next time.

- Okay.

(upbeat music) - So canola in the state of Oklahoma is kind of been a mixed bag over the last couple years, and we see that with the drop of acres.

This year we've had some really good prices, and really good potential.

We see the fall didn't do us really well.

We didn't have the greatest conditions to establish a crop, but a crop that did get established has looked good all the way through the fall into the spring.

Because we were dry kinda going into the wintering months, we did lose on a lot of these fields a significant amount of tissue, and depending on how dry you were, and what the conditions were going in, this field behind me was very dry going in, it's a sandier soil, so it doesn't hold a whole lotta moisture, and we see because of that it lost a whole lot of that leaf tissue we developed in the fall, was not able to overwinter and come with the spring.

So, what we're doing now in the spring is we're having to develop a lot of that leaf tissue back.

And before we go reproductive, we need that leaf material, that green plant material, to be able to conduct that photosynthesis, and get us through the rest of the season.

These recent rains, and these nice temperatures, has allowed the crop to kinda almost wake up.

Just a couple of the big things that we have to worry about when we do go reproductive, and we do go through that bolting stage, a lot of our herbicides that we typically have available to us during vegetative stage, they do go out.

So, growers that have canola that are in this stage, that are starting to see a lot of green leaves come up, we need to start thinking about herbicides, trying to get those three, to four, to five good-looking days that have good temperatures go out and make an herbicide application.

It's also time to start thinking about nitrogen.

Nitrogen is very high.

So, have a very good examination of what you think your yield potential of your crop is, and maybe adjust your nitrogen rates accordingly.

A 30-bushel canola crop that went through this winter might not be a 30-bushel canola crop anymore, and we might have to vary, or change, our expectations to kinda meet that, and therefore be able to adjust our nitrogen rates accordingly.

The other thing is we do have a pretty significant amount of blackleg that I've seen here and there, at least throughout some of our locations.

It is one thing to need to look out for.

And as always, the spring comes with insects, and especially if we have a lot of green material, if we do start getting more timely rains and warming up, and a lot of green vegetation starts showing up, we will wanna start kinda looking at the worms, aphids, various other species like that.

That's a couple of just key things to be thinking about if you do have canola out in the field, some things to be thinking about in the next weeks to months, to kinda make sure that we can get this crop where it is now to the end of the season.

- Well, Oklahoma finally got some very much needed rain.

So Kim, how's that gonna impact farmers?

- Well, it's gonna let them sleep at night for one thing.

They finally will probably have some commodities to sell.

Now they'll need a follow up of rain.

It's both good for the wheat producer and then a producer's waiting to put that corn the ground, it's gonna give 'em some moisture to do, plant the corn, the grain sorghum, maybe soybeans, cotton in a little later if we can get some more rain down in Southwest Oklahoma.

But it's sure gonna let 'em sleep.

- All right, so let's just jump right into the prices.

What's going on with wheat?

- Well, if you look at wheat prices, we can go back to early February.

Prices were around $7.50.

Before the war started, they got up to just above $8, after the war, they went from eight to 11.50, and then they came back down to near nine and back up.

And they seem to be stabilizing right above $10 a bushel.

Now on wheat, you also had a change in the basis.

Now these are the harvest prices, not the nearby prices.

This is for what they can sell '22 wheat for.

That basis was 25 cents off the July contract price.

After we got into the war, about a week into it, that basis dropped from a -25 down to a -85.

In other words, took 60 cents off of that price.

It's now gained up to about a -65, picked up about 20 cents.

But the elevators are taking risk protection with the wheat prices.

- So what about corn and soybean prices?

- Well, corn prices, that basis has been a steady 25.

Now this is for the harvest '22 prices.

You look at the price coming in from early February to February the 21st, oh, a small increase in corn prices there.

Since the 21st of February, we picked up corn prices from about $5.75 forward contract for harvest delivery up to $6.40.

Looks like it's still trying to go up and maybe stabilizing around this this area.

You look at soybeans, again that base has stayed 75 under that November contract.

You had a big increase from about $13.60 up to $14 before February the 21st, when the war started, and that's because the Brazilian crop, the estimates kept going down.

Since then, we dropped off right after the the war started, then we came back up.

It seems to have stabled right around 14, 13.50 to 14 there, but not much impact from the war.

- And we can't forget about cotton.

So what's going on there?

- Well, I don't think the cotton's being impacted any at all by what's going on in Ukraine.

Early February, $102 a hundred weight there.

Dropped off to a hundred.

It's up to around 109 now.

And I think that's just a pure world demand for cotton, a phenomena that's wanting cotton all the way out into harvest.

- And you know, the big question that you're just hearing around the state is when are prices gonna break?

- That's the question producers, and nobody knows.

Again, I think the prices are finding a location and an area that they're stable and and comfortable with.

But as you know, things can change relatively fast.

Now next week, the USDA's gonna release the Seedings Report.

One analyst released some early estimates.

They had wheat, total wheat planted acres at 47.5 million acres.

Those are what the market's expecting.

It could cause some changes but I think the major factor's what's going on over in Europe and Ukraine - All righty, thanks, Kim.

Kim Anderson, grain marketing special list here at Oklahoma State University.

- Good morning, Oklahoma.

Thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf corner.

This week, we talk about part two of the impact of bull selection.

Last week, we posed the question to you at the conclusion.

We'd taken a look at our mature cow herd.

We had figured out we had 1,400-pound cows.

85% of 'em were getting bread.

82% of 'em were weaning off a calf.

Those calves were weighing 500 pounds.

That equated out to about 410 pounds of weened calf per exposed female.

It identified some areas that we wanted to to make improvement in.

And we started working through the steps to figure out how to apply EPDs to making that improvement.

We said we had been using five bulls that were responsible for that cow herd, the average EPDs of those highlighted on that bottom line, and we considered Bull One or Bull Two, knowing that Bull One wasn't gonna do much to change the direct weening growth of the calves but was gonna give us a bump in fertility, with a six-pound advantage in heifer pregnancy.

Weren't gonna go anywhere in milk.

He was gonna take off about 20 pounds of mature cow weight.

Bull Two was gonna give us 30 more pounds of weening weight without changing fertility or milk level.

And we were gonna get about an extra 34 pounds of mature cow weight with him.

The question became, which of those bulls adds more profit potential.

And that's where we tie in.

If we put Bull One to work for us and we fast-forward five, six years, and think about those daughters we're gonna keep out of each of those bulls, and where are we gonna be, Bull number one - In taking 20 pounds off our mature cow weight, we're gonna have a set of females running around that are weighing about 1,380.

With that 6% advantage in his heifer pregnancy EPD, we're gonna bump that pregnancy rate up from 85 to 91, and accordingly, we're gonna see our percent calf crop weened per exposed female bump up from 82 to 88.

Now we've still got 500 pound weights on those calves we're weaning, but because we're seeing more of our cows wean off a calf, we actually drive up pounds of weened calf per exposed female to 440 pounds.

What happens if we use bull two?

Our expected consequence of that, again, fast forwarding five, six years down the road, that 34 pound increase in mature cow weight now means we've got 1,434 pound cows.

Still at an 85% pregnancy rate.

Still have an 82% of those cows weaning off a calf.

That 30 pound increase in weaning weight equates to calves weaning off at 530, but we do the math and take the percentage of cows that are actually weaning off a 530 pound calf, we see we bump pounds of weened calf up to about 434.6 pounds per exposed female.

So take it a step further.

Let's just imagine this is a 100 cow operation.

We got a 20% keeper rate on heifer calves that we're gonna develop to be our next set of cows.

By the next generation, if we use herd bull two, each year we expect to be weaning off about 74 calves.

41 of those are gonna be steers.

33 of 'em are gonna be heifers.

They're gonna be at a 530 pound pay weight when we sell 'em.

Those 74 calves at that weight are gonna result in 39,220 pounds of pay weight at weening.

If we use bull one, as a result of improved fertility in the cow herd long term, we're actually gonna be weaning off 79 calves, 44 of which will be steers, 35 of which will be heifers.

At that 500 pound actual weening weight, we do the math.

Those 79 calves at 500 pounds result in 39,500 pounds of pay weight at weaning that we've got to take to market.

So bull one, more as a direct result of improved fertility, generates about 280 more pounds of pay weight in our next generation of cows.

And final thoughts on this that we haven't considered yet.

Those lighter weight calves are actually gonna be worth more per pound when we think about beef industry price structure, and those 1,380 pound cows are gonna eat less and cost less to maintain than 1,400 or 1,434 pound cows.

So bull number one, bottom line, adds more profit potential for us as we think next generation.

Final thoughts on these topics as we address bull buying season.

Each bull you consider using should be evaluated relative to your own unique operation and the genetic values that that bull has to offer to improve your bottom line.

Genetic change is a cumulative and permanent thing.

The right genetics have the potential to improve your profitability.

Thanks for joining us.

(upbeat music) - [Lyndall] This week, we pause to remember our former leader, Dr. Bob Whitson, the Vice President and Dean of OSU Agriculture from 2005 to 2012.

Dr. Whitson passed away Thursday, March 17th in Texas.

He is known for a number of key developments for OSU Agriculture, including the Second Century Initiative, working with the state legislature to establish $5.4 million to restore 30 ag research and extension faculty and staff positions after budget cuts.

After retiring from OSU, Dr. Whitson lived in San Antonio near his grandchildren.

He then returned to Texas A&M a short time later to lead agriculture and life sciences programs until his retirement there.

Dr. Bob Whitson was 79.

Our sincere condolences to the Whitson family.

- Last Thursday was Ag Day at the Capitol, and we'll have a story for you on next week's show.

Until then, we wanna leave you with some footage of that event.

Now, if you saw something on the show that you like, you can always visit our website at sunup.okstate.edu, and follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Kurtis Hair.

And remember, Oklahoma agriculture starts at SUNUP.

(upbeat guitar music) (gentle guitar music)