(upbeat music) - Hello, everyone, and welcome to SUNUP.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Now that April is here and the wheat is starting to wake up after some decent rains in parts of the state, some producers are asking whether it is too late to apply fertilizer.

For the answer, here's SUNUP's Kurtis Hair, and Dr. Brian Arnall.

- Well, as we look across the state, the wheat's at various stages depending on when were they planted.

Our early grays out wheat, dual purpose wheat, we're at joy near past mean we're at hollow stem.

Our later planted wheat, that's more of the grain only.

Much of it is coming towards the stage of hollow stem, it's either there or getting there and so we've had rain.

We've had green up.

Fertilizer price is really high got a lot of people wondering, what do I do?

Is it too late to do something?

And the answer is, if you have yellow wheat, if I'm standing out in your wheat field right now, and I look at your wheat field, and the wheat is yellow and nitrogen deficient, I would go apply a fertilizer.

I know it costs a lot, but if we just break it down, the yellow wheat more than likely nitrogen deficiency means it's gonna be highly responsive to that nitrogen.

And so if I put out 30 to 60 pounds of nitrogen, my hopes would be that for about every one and a half to two pounds of nitrogen, I get a bushel of wheat in return.

Well, if that wheat is going for $8 to $10, now I look into my cost I'm gonna have anywhere between a $1.50 to $2 and 30 cents per bushel in on nitrogen.

- Does it impact?

'Cause a lot of places in the state didn't get rain and it's still really dry, so does that factor in at all in that fertilizer application practice?

- Absolutely.

So if I'm looking at the fertilizer, if I'm in that region that's still dry, hasn't got any rain, my yield potential is starting to go down every single day we don't get more rain.

And so with that decreasing yield potential I'm really drawn back inputs.

I know wheat has great value, but if there's no good rain in the forecast, I don't have good soil moisture, I'm not looking at putting that input out.

And with nitrogen fertilizer, we really do need some kind of rain event within one to two weeks of application.

- Yeah, 'cause for the places that even did get rain we're having days like this, it's really warm, really windy, moisture is not gonna stick around very long.

- No, that moisture is going out.

Depending on what I've been in, if the fields were fallowing a summer crop, with small wheat, I've got okay moisture around here central part of the state.

Fallow ground going into wheat.

I've got a lot of moisture.

If it was early wheat though, especially early wheat following some kind of summer crop, then my moisture reserves are pretty limited.

- You mentioned summer crops where it's April, the 1st of April right now.

So it's about that time to start thinking about summer crops.

So what can producers do to kinda get a jump start?

- Well acknowledge that fertilizer prices are going to be high, and it's not gonna come down for this season.

So let's make our decisions wisely, in both not applying too much and applying it in the right, so soil test.

If you've never had a field composite, take a field composite.

If all you have a field composites, look at a zone sample, if you've got zone samples look at a grid sample.

Always think about that one resolution tighter to learn a little bit more.

Let's apply P and K based upon soil test results.

If you're using a consultant, which many people do, many consultants use a replacement factor.

So if I grow 150 bushel corn I'm replacing the phosphorus potassium, I remove that corn, if I'm growing 200, 250.

This year would be the year that we don't do 100% replacement.

If you're using replacement factor consider 50% replacement or 33% replacement of the removal along with the soil test.

On the nitrogen side, I typically don't look at the deep soil test reports except for cotton, but this year 'cause our nitrogen is a dollar or more per pound of the end in many cases.

Take that deep soil sample go six to 12 or six to 18 inches.

Find out what's there.

If you got 30 to 50 pounds in nitrate at depth, give yourself a credit of 20 to 30 pounds.

Give yourself a partial credit.

That credit is worth $20 or $30 you're not spending on that field, and that crop's going to have access to it.

So, look at different ways to be creative.

- All right, thanks Brian.

Brian Arnell precision nutrient management specialist here at Oklahoma State University, and if you'd like a link to some of the things that he talked about go to our website, sunup.okstate.edu (upbeat music) - Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist joins us now.

Kim, I guess a lot of producers are asking you, how low will wheat prices go?

- And I start out by saying I've been in this business almost 40 years and I believe these are the most uncertain times that I've experienced.

You go back to February 1st, the wheat price is around $7 and 50 cents.

Between or before February 20, I'd have probably put the price range.

- For wheat, from $7 to $8.50, with a low price at 6.

After the 20th and the wheat prices were $8 on the 20th, I think I'd put that range from $9 to $11, with a bottom at 8, maybe 7.50, but we've got a higher level of prices right now, and I believe it's gonna hold at least through our harvest.

- So what are you looking at in the market?

What factors to kinda determine this price range?

- Well, I think the big deal right now is supply.

Now there's some things going on with demand.

There's a few countries that are hoarding wheat.

If you look at world ending stocks they're projected to be 10.3 billion bushels.

That's down from 10.9 billion bushels in 2019, and an average of 37.9 billion bushels.

You look at the stocks-to-use ratio, 35.8%.

That's down from 39.8 in '19, and an average of 37.9%.

You look at Ukraine, last year they produced 1.2 billion bushels.

Their five-year average is a billion bushels.

Estimates say that their harvest lose somewhere between 25 and 50%.

So that's from around 300 million bushels to 600 million bushels off the market.

Russia produces about 2.9 billion, who knows what we're gonna lose on that, but we're gonna lose some wheat, and maybe up to 600 million bushels.

- Let's talk about how the world market is now reacting to that news that Russia and Ukraine could have a significantly lower output with their crop.

- Well, the market adjusts, and the world adjusts, and the market works.

You look at India.

I think that's the big news, and a lot of people are talking about that.

India has been positioning itself to get in the export market over the last five years, they put investments in infrastructure, supply, producing and maintaining a better quality product.

- Let's talk about the market factors that have the most impact on prices.

- I think you've gotta talk about supply.

How much are we gonna lose outta Ukraine and Russia, and how much we're gonna get outta the rest of the world.

So, I think the big factor for '22-23 is the exportable supply.

Now it's possible we've got the wheat in storage in Ukraine, Russia, and other places, like you got Kazakhstan comes outta the Black Sea, Romania comes out of the Black Sea, Belarus exports outta the Black Sea, so we could have stocks, but just not exportable stocks.

I think that's the big thing we gotta watch.

- A lot to keep in mind.

What guidance do you have for producers?

- I think just do what you do best.

Concentrate on producing a quality crop.

I believe the price is gonna stay relatively high, at least through this next harvest, and I believe it's the '23-24 marketing year before we can get back to anything of normal.

- Okay.

Kim, thanks a lot for your great information.

We'll see you next week.

(upbeat music) - Hi, Wes Lee with the weekly Mesonet weather report.

Every time we string together a few warm days in the spring, home gardeners get cabin fever and want to begin planting.

While cool-season crops could already be in the ground, it is still risky to plant warm-season plants like tomatoes.

While every year varies, we are still a week or two away from the last average freeze date.

This map is the latest median freeze map, showing dates later in April for most locations in the state.

It is by no means the latest freeze date by location, which would be much later in April, and even into early May in the north.

Our last hard freeze to date this year, excluding the Panhandle, was March 12th.

This has allowed many of our fruit trees to currently move into the blooming stage.

According to this chart on peaches, we need to stay above 26 degrees to ensure that fruit will be available this year.

Apples and pears are a little more cold-tolerant, as they tend to bloom a little later in the spring.

What is the likelihood that we will see another hard freeze this spring?

According to the grays on these longterm forecast maps, for the next two weeks expect near normal temperatures.

Normal means additional freezes are still a possibility.

Now here's Gary with a rainfall summary.

- Thanks, Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, we had another storm system come through this week, and while a lot of folks got some rain, some folks didn't.

We're gonna take a look at the longer-term rainfall, and see how it impacted those maps, and also the drought monitor.

Let's get right to it.

Well, I guess first let's take a look at the drought monitor.

We have had some pretty decent improvements over the last couple of weeks, and now parts of Northwest Oklahoma, which were in solid D4 previously, are in severe drought.

I know it doesn't sound great, but that's a two-category improvement up around Harper, Woods, Ellis counties, those areas.

We still have the exceptional drought, that's the dark red out in the western two-thirds of the Panhandle, also down across Southwest Oklahoma.

And of course a big blob of extreme drought, that's the red across the western half of the state, parts of South Central Oklahoma, a little tiny bit down in the- - Southeastern portion of the state, but we are seeing that area of no drought to just abnormally dry conditions expand from far east in Oklahoma over into more parts of central Oklahoma.

So hopefully we can keep that trend going.

Okay, let's go out to the 30 day timeframe and you can see those trouble spots pretty quickly.

The Western panhandle of course, and far, Southwest Oklahoma.

And again, the lighter shades of green.

Those are areas also haven't gotten enough rain to completely eliminate drought, but it's certainly improved just a little bit.

Those are from one to two inches and then another broad area of two to three to four inches across much of the Northern and Eastern half of the state.

So while we do see some of those areas with greater than four inches, those are still too few and far between to eliminate drought across the state.

Let's take a look at that percent of normal map for the last 30 days.

And again, this covers basically all of March.

We see some parts of the state, still unfortunately well below normal, again that Western panhandle and Southwestern portion of the state.

South central Oklahoma, a little bit of Southeast Oklahoma.

Pretty good areas of above normal rainfall across the Northwestern parts of the state in Harper county and that area.

Again, where that drought improved.

Also portions of north central down into central Oklahoma.

Now, we need that map at least for the areas of surplus to start to expand even greater over the next couple of months.

And maybe we can really start to eliminate drought across more of the state of Oklahoma.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the (indistinct) net weather report.

- As we saw in the (indistinct) net report, some counties in Oklahoma are still seeing drought conditions.

And, as a result, some producers may have to make some tough decisions in the days and weeks ahead.

For some guidance on making culling decisions for your herd, Here's Dr. Dave Lalman.

- Culling early is better than waiting too late, because what we're really trying to do is protect the forage resource and not over graze.

And so generally speaking, if you need to cut back on numbers, you know, the most obvious animals that probably should go to town are the opens.

And so, if the cattle haven't been pregnancy tested, it's time to do that.

If you've got some cows who either haven't calved, or are not showing, contact your veterinarian.

The other thing is that the veterinarians have access to equipment, ultrasound in particular, where they can detect early pregnancies.

And so you may have a cow that doesn't look like she's going to calve at all, but they could tell you within 25 to 30 days if she's only been pregnant that long, you know, they can let you know that.

So second on the list would probably be cows that are aging and having difficult time maintaining their body condition.

You know, most of the time that's gonna be related to deterioration in their teeth.

And that also can be detected rapidly, you know, just by asking a veterinarian to mouth those animals and see what kind of condition their teeth are in.

You know, another thing high on the priority culling list would be cows with bad udders, particularly a long balloon teats, because those females are a challenge for their babies to latch onto and get that colostrum early in their life.

Now, once you get down through the obvious problems, the open cows, the old cows and the bad udders.

Then it gets more into, well, the performance, you know.

Can you cull some of those females because they haven't been as productive?

Finally, the last thing I would say is that while it would be a difficult decision for most people to make.

Those bred first calf heifers are really good candidates to market during a drought.

Why?

Well, because it's gonna take a long time for them to earn an income for you.

Secondly, they are the most susceptible to calving difficulty and calf death loss.

They're the most difficult to get bred back this breeding season.

While they do represent a lot of people's best genetics, most modern genetics and so on.

They might be a good group to consider marketing to someone else that's got more forage and maybe not in a drought situation.

In the latest series of the ranchers lunchtime series, we covered several topics similar to this one.

Culling decisions related to drought.

And so be sure to check those out and they're some very, very helpful presentations recorded there.

- It's been a couple of months of volatility in the cattle markets.

So Derrell, what are the chances for profitability in 2022?

- Cattle prices are significantly higher now than they were this time last year.

We expect that to continue and we're expecting higher prices on average in 2022.

So that's not really the issue, revenue side is gonna look good.

Obviously, cost is gonna be the challenge this year.

Input prices across the board are higher, and so that's really gonna be the factor that determines profitability.

Individual situations vary a lot but producers are gonna have to figure out a way to try to manage these costs.

And that will determine the prospects for profitability for them.

- Early in the show we talked to Dave Longman about one management strategy and calling cattle.

So what are some other management strategies that producers can take?

- Obviously, to the extent that we can call down and maybe just run less cattle this year.

In general, if you think about cattle production, feed cost is gonna be your biggest cost factor most of the time.

So managing that now for depending on what kind of pasture you have introduced forages, you're gonna need fertilizer for both hay production and pasture production.

But one strategy is to just try to need less hay.

Hay is more expensive than grazing.

So put your emphasis on the grazing side, plan that and plan now for how you can manage grazing through the year so that you can actually need less hay and save some cost on just producing less hay this year as we go forward.

So all of those things, some targeted fertilization to both pastures and hay ground will probably help you save a little bit on that fertilizer bill.

- Drought, it's just been on top of mind for pretty much everybody.

We have got some rain but just only in parts of the state.

We don't know when we're gonna get anymore obviously, 'cause it's Oklahoma.

But going forward what can producers do in that regard?

- The drought is a big dark cloud hanging over us at this point.

Obviously, if the drought conditions get worse going forward then we're not gonna have a lot of options.

And so, we're gonna be faced with some serious herd liquidation issues and it's widespread.

It's not just Oklahoma, it's across much of the west.

So we could see some broader market impacts as well.

So need to monitor that carefully going forward.

It's gonna depend on where you are kind of east to west in the state.

We've gotten a little moisture in the central and eastern part that helps for now, but really the drought could rev back up here anytime and really be a serious factor in just a matter of a few weeks.

- So what are some things that actually impacts with that herd liquidation?

How does that actually gonna impact just the consumer?

- Well, in the short run when we have a liquidation it puts more meat on the market, if you will.

It shows up mostly in the cow market.

Initially, we're gonna have increased cow slaughter or continued higher cow slaughter.

But that's a short run impact potentially is that we get some moderation on meat supplies.

Later on it means that we get even tighter.

And so it kind of changes the timing of things in terms of when we get that product and so on.

The net effect is for consumers, I don't expect to see a lot of relief on beef prices anytime soon.

- All righty, thanks, Derrell.

Dr. Darrell Peel, Livestock Marketing Specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

(upbeat music) - We had a great time taking part in Ag Day at the Oklahoma State Capitol last week.

Here are a few highlights - But we love to put on Ag Day at the Capitol for multiple reasons.

One, is we get to recognize our Ag Hall of Fame winner which this year was Don Schieber.

So it's a great time for legislators to see him and kind of get to hear his story.

But we also get all of these great booths.

So those are main Oklahoma companies, Oklahoma State University, our commodity groups.

And so, we get great traffic from people who are maybe here at the Capitol just visiting or touring.

- My company's name is M.A.

Foods based off of my initials, Miavea Asberry.

So far I'm just so grateful for the exposure that this event is allowing me to have.

Being able to talk about my small business with legislature, inform them of what I do and get my name out there.

- To have people in-person, face-to-face sharing that Ag stor, and especially on a way week when it rained, so it's all good, it's been a great week.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

And thank you for joining us this week on Cow-Calf Corner.

Our topic this week is it's the time of year when we're typically selecting out of our yearling heifers, for what we're gonna retain to be our next generation of cows.

And for a long time we've known that the best practices or the general rule of thumb that we follow is that, over 90% of 14 to 15 month old heifers that have reached 65% of their mature weight are gonna be cycling and ready to breed up quick when we go into breeding season.

That's a rule of thumb we've followed for a long time and it's a really good rule of thumb.

But we've had some unique circumstances in Oklahoma in the past seven or eight months.

Namely, very little moisture and that wheat pasture and cool season grass that has typically been so good to develop our replacement heifers on has been in poor shape or sorely lacking as a result of not much moisture.

So we wanna address a couple of alternatives.

- And kinda realize that all is not lost if we go out and look at our replacement heifers right now.

Let's say we're eyeballing those yearlings and trying to make those decisions.

And we realize those heifers really aren't there yet.

So a couple of alternatives.

First, research tells us that those heifers at 14 to 15 months of age that are about 55% of their mature weight about 1/2 of 'em have reached puberty and are gonna be cycling and having fertile heats.

Now, if you're ready to start breeding season and you find your heifers at that point and they're a little short of target weight, you can adjust your numbers up, keep more heifers than you normally would, maybe up to twice as many.

If you follow through on that plan be prepared to preg-check as soon as possible.

Once you pull bulls and end breeding season and those can still be marketed, those open heifers can still be marketed as yearlings at that point.

And you can end up retaining those ones that breed up quick for you.

A second alternative, if your breeding season is still 30 to 60 days off, there's plenty of evidence over the years, research tells us that heifers that have gained as little as 1/2 pound a day for about five months after weaning that we can feed to gain up to about 2 1/2 pounds a day, for the 30 to 60 days going into breeding season and get 'em to those target weights and still have optimum reproductive performance and breed up on those heifers.

In some cases, we can even do that more economically efficiently, then growing 'em steadily all the way through.

If you find yourself in that situation, and you're gonna be feeding on those heifers, a little harder to get 'em to target weight, I recommend an ionophore, it's a good way to get an additional 1/10 to 2/10 of a day average daily gain in those heifers, to help him reach that target weight even a little more easily.

So that's our management considerations on replacement heifers for this week.

Thanks for joining us - Finally today, a special mission for OSU Extension, helping army reservists prepare for a disaster involving large animals.

Army reservists from the 486 civil affairs battalion report for duty at the Rogers County Expo Center, in Claremore.

On the agenda, a training exercise with OSU Extension experts, on how to safely handle livestock in an emergency.

- A lot of our soldiers don't have an agriculture background so they haven't been around cattle or horses or really handled those type animals.

So it's important for us to have that skillset.

A lot of times, we, when we work a overseas, we might work around sheep or goats, cattle.

And so to have just a basic knowledge of how to handle these type of animals is, is extremely beneficial to us.

- [Lyndall] Civil Affairs Soldiers, act as a liaison between the army and civilians.

This battalion is based out of Sand Springs, Oklahoma and can deploy anywhere in the world.

First up, an overview of animal health and behavior with extension veterinarian, Dr. Barry Whitworth, they learn how to spot signs of livestock distress, injury or illness, all with safety as the top priority.

- That's not normal behavior.

So that would be another clue that we've got an issue.

- Our goal was just to educate them on the behavior of animals, how to be safe.

That was the big thing, we wanted to make sure the animals are safe, as well as our humans are safe.

As they're moving, 'cause if people get hurt, then that's not gonna help anybody.

And so safety was our big thing and how to be safe around a group of animals, how to be safe around a group of horses, how to move them as a group and just kind of do that basic education.

- [Earl] There are... - [Lyndall] From here, it's into the arena to work cattle.

- That's a good description of, Hey, I've got 4 steers, 11 heifers.

- [Lyndall] Practicing how to move the small herd from one location to another.

Some of course, are more cooperative than others.

(laughter) The hands-on demonstration is key.

- It's good to see our soldiers out in training.

You know, we we've dealt with COVID-19 for the last 18, 19 months.

So to get outta the reserve center and to, to really, to have our hands on and do some training like this has- it's been fun to watch and it's good to see our soldiers interact and to take part in this training - [Lyndall] Next up soldiers see how to handle horses - Horses have two blind spots.

They cannot see directly in front of them and they cannot see directly behind them.

- They learn how to put on a halter and walk calmly and safely as well as how to avoid possible pitfalls.

- We can't forget the basics 'cause a lot of people even if they bid around animals they may not understand the basics.

When you're in a disaster situation and they're not your own animals.

Behavior is gonna be very different.

- [Lyndall] The army reserves requested the training from OSU Extensions' DART team, which stands for Disaster Assistance Response Team, an agile group that can work directly with counties and communities during their times of greatest need.

- The things that Extension can do especially through our DART team.

We can respond a lot faster than other people can.

We have that presence in 77 counties, right?

We also have an educator there that probably knows more producers, you know, knows what needs to happen in that area.

Kind of boots on the ground type thing.

- And that'll do it for us this week.

Remember you can see us any time at sunup.okstate.edu, and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Lyndall Stout, have a great week, everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma agriculture starts at SUNUP.

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