(guitar music playing) - Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We join you today from the Grady County Fairgrounds in Chickasha for the first ever extension cow calf boot camp just for women.

We'll have more from here in just a moment, but first we're talking about summer crops.

Here's Sunup's Kurtis Hair and Dr. Josh Lofton.

- It's hard to believe we're already starting to talk about summer crops, but Josh, last time we talked to you, summer crops those producers really needed some rain.

Wasn't much to go around in the state, but now is it just too much rain?

- Well we never have too much rain.

That's something we can't ever say.

We have gotten a lot of rain.

Especially certain areas in the state have gotten a pretty substantial amount of rain.

The rain itself is fine.

The fact that it comes down such a short period of time is kind of where things get a little tricky.

The other thing is we've been cool, you know, relatively cool for this time of year.

Below average temperatures.

So what we're seeing is not a whole lot of growth out of some of our summer crops because the soils are either right at saturation, maybe sometimes above saturation or beyond saturation.

And they've been cool.

So we've seen kind of this start and stop cycle in our summer crops where they'll grow a little bit and then they'll stop for a little bit as it rains and it's cool and then we'll grow like this week.

Next week we're growing a lot just cause the temperatures are there.

The moisture is in the soil and we're not flooded or overly saturated.

That's not to say some parts of the state just still haven't gotten enough rain and those areas are still struggling to find what maybe summer crop they're gonna do.

Maybe they aren't gonna do a summer crop.

Maybe they're gonna roll the dice and try it, but it's kind of that feast or famine.

You either have a lot of rain or very little rain still yet.

- So, you know, in regards to when you have too much rain and the crops already starting to come up.

What are some negative impacts that can actually happen to that crop?

- Yeah, so we've seen a couple of really unique situations this year.

Sometimes what you can actually get is your herbicides do a little bit different than you thought.

You know, if you look at any herbicide label, especially some of our soybean and our sorghum herbicide labels.

You'll see that injury can occur if heavy rain is experienced after application and especially true in some of our soybean herbicides to where we did get that really heavy rain kind of in that early May, mid May period, right.

As soon as we were able to get the soybeans in we went and sprayed our pres and they came out with a little bit of herbicide damage.

Most of the time that's not gonna be an issue.

They'll grow out of it, maybe a little bit slow growing.

The reason why that is, is because the growth as they were coming out is slower and so they weren't able to kind of get through that herbicide and just start growing as it should be, if you will.

The other thing we have seen is some environmental issues look like herbicide damaged.

To where we can get twisting of the leaves.

Sometimes in corn and sorghum they can call this rapid growth syndrome.

To where basically the growing point is growing very rapidly, but it's just not able to get out of the collar region.

We have seen it a couple of times, that showing up.

We've seen some necrotic spots from just soil or water just sitting on sorghum leaves, corn leaves, soybean leaves.

I'm sure cotton's the same way.

So we are seeing these little finicky things because we aren't just getting...

In the spots that we are getting rain, we aren't getting just a little bit of rain, we're getting a lot of rain and we're seeing the repercussions of those.

- In particularly when we get to that stage where you're thinking about nitrogen applications for some of our, you know corn and sorghum crops in particular.

Cause that's been kind of an issue the past couple of years, have been some of those nitrogen deficient plants, right?

- Yeah, and for a lot of our summer crops there's still a kind of a back and forth on in season application.

And this is one of those years that potentially that in season application's gonna pay off.

And that's a great point because since a lot of this crop has been planted we've gotten a lot of rain and so loss via leaching or even.

You know we don't talk about it oftentimes in some of these fields they've been saturated for several days.

You start thinking about denitrification being an issue, but the biggest thing they need to start looking out for is as you kind of look around most of your summer crop fields is gonna be the weeds starting to pop up.

You know, if the conditions are good for the crops to grow the conditions are great for weeds to grow.

- All right, thanks Josh and we'll check back with you in a couple weeks just to see how the situation's shaking out.

And if you'd like some more information about weed management, remember you can always visit your local extension office or go to our website, sunup.okstate.edu.

(guitar music) - Welcome to the Mesonet weather report, I'm Wes Lee.

Traditionally, May and June are the wettest two months of the year for Oklahoma.

This year has certainly been true to form.

Heavy rainfall in late May has continued into early June with some impressive numbers.

- Here is the weekly rainfall from Wednesday afternoon.

Again, we have a week with rainfall at every Mesonet location.

Some of the greatest rainfall rates fell in the Weatherford-Hinton areas, with eight plus inches at these two sites.

Also the rainfall at Eva in the Panhandle stands out.

Three and a half inches is about 20% of their normal yearly rainfall.

The soil moisture map for Wednesday is likely the greenest one of the year.

Green on this Fractional Water Index map at 10 inches means the sensor is at or near the wettest it can read.

Some of the heavy rains this week caused some significant flooding issues, especially in areas that already had water logged soils.

This picture is from midweek in Norman, where the intense rain overcame the neighborhood drainage system.

I hope you were able to get all the rain you needed, for a while , because it looks like a pattern change is in order.

For the next couple of weeks the forecast looks very hot and dry.

Now here's Gary with one of the best looking drought maps of the year.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning, everyone.

Well, Wes showed you that rain we've had over the past week and it sure has made a difference in the new Drought Monitor map.

Let's get right to it and take a look.

Now, this is a much better looking map other than, you know, in the Panhandle where we still have lots of moderate to severe, to extreme, to even exceptional drought, a little bit of that extreme drought in Northwest Oklahoma, but most of the Western half of the state now is on its way down, as far as drought coverage goes.

And remember, this is rainfall that's occurred after Tuesday at 7:00 AM last week.

So anything that's fallen this week will work on next week's map.

So we will see further reductions next week because the rain has kept on coming.

So great looking map.

We still need that rain out in the Panhandle.

They've gotten some this week that will be reflected on next week's map, as I said.

But they definitely need more especially, out in Cimarron County.

Now the last few weeks have certainly saved us as far as drought goes across the Western half of the state.

Take a look at this 30 day rainfall map from the Mesonet.

We see tons of rainfall across the main body of the state 4, 5, 6, 7 inches out and across Western Oklahoma.

Our Mesonet site at Butler's had 14.59 inches over the last month.

So, that's an incredible amount for Western Oklahoma.

Absolutely wonderful.

Southeast Oklahoma getting a little bit drier.

They've had more rain previous to this, but we do need to keep watching those folks to make sure that they don't slip back into some dry conditions.

That 30 day period departure from normal.

Again, lots of surplus moisture across the entire state a little bit below out there in the Panhandle.

And also, as we said in Southeastern Oklahoma, little bit in South Central Oklahoma, but looking good so far.

And if we go right to the Percent of Normal map that shows up even better.

You know, parts of Western Oklahoma more than 250% above normal for the last 30 days.

Still looking at that Southeastern corner and up in the far, far Northwestern corner in the Panhandle, we do need rain in both of those areas.

Again, Southeast Oklahoma, not so bad but the Panhandle definitely needs some more.

And it is summer in Oklahoma.

You know, it's coming, the heat is coming back.

We will go into a hot pattern this weekend that will last much of next week if not longer.

So again, it is summer.

So we always expect a little bit of heat and we definitely have some coming.

- That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet Weather Report.

(theme music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

This week's topic is act now, to add value to ween calves later in the summer or this fall, whenever we're gonna market 'em A lot of things that kind of fall under this umbrella, but typical rule of thumb, or best management practices if we want to think of 'em that way, if we're gonna try to market weaned calves, in some sort of a VAC-45 or potentially our Oklahoma Quality Beef Network program, we've gotta have those calves weaned for 45 days.

Typically we say most of those vaccines we want to get in 'em at least twice.

And we're talking about things like respiratory disease, black leg, one dose of shipping fever, and you're gonna want to consult with your veterinarian.

You're actually probably gonna want to go to our OQBN website, and take a look at what some of those requirements are.

But the point of discussion for this week is the benefit of getting that first round of vaccinations into those calves, when they're two to four months of age.

If we think long term and what the benefit of this is, if we get the first round of vaccines in those calves two to four months of age, we get 'em dehorned, we potentially get a growth implant in 'em, we go ahead and castrate those bull calves.

All those are things that add value and price per pound to a set of calves.

However and whenever we elect to market them later on.

And by getting that first round of vaccinations into those calves and implementing those management practices now it permits us to potentially - Follow up here in two to three months, even doing it prior to weaning, and separating, from those cows, we eliminate doubling up on the stress, at weaning.

If we follow up later, with that second round of vaccines, we've got our better immune system in those calves, by the time they actually go through weaning.

And as we look to market 'em later on, it's pretty well documented, that those calves, that have been backgrounded, we've implemented these practices on, are gonna go all the way through the production chain, with less incidents of sickness, health issues, and are gonna tend to be more productive and profitable for everybody that owns them, whether it's us selling 'em at weaning, or the stocker, or finishing operation that owns them later on.

So, we stand here early June, this spring in Oklahoma, if possible, let's act now, to add value to those weaned calves, later on, when we market.

Thanks for joining us on Cow Calf Corner.

(music plays) - According to the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, in its report this week, about 20% of Oklahoma's wheat harvest is now complete.

Significant rains and humidity, have slowed combines in Central, North Central, and Northwest Oklahoma.

Elevator operators are reporting 60 pound test weights at all locations, although some test weights have dropped slightly, in a few locations.

Yields are ranging from as low as 15 bushels per acre, to as high as 64 bushels per acre.

Average yields in Central Oklahoma, are reported in the high 20s to low 30s.

To see the Wheat Commission's full report, and other harvest information from OSU Extension, we have links for you at sunup.okstate.edu.

(country music intro plays) - It's that time in the show, to check in with the crop markets, with our grain marketing specialist, Dr. Kim Anderson.

So Kim what's going on?

- Well, if you look at the wheat harvest a little, it's a little difficult harvest wheat when you got a hundred percent humidity, and a drop of rain every once in a while.

However, if you look at the impacts of the rain delayed harvest, some areas you have a little decrease in test weight.

The wheat's still coming in relatively good quality, slightly below 60 a pound, on probably on the average, but most wheat's coming in 60 pounds or better.

You look at protein, wide margin in there, but I think the protein is coming in, at least average, or above average this year.

It looks like it's it's relatively well.

And the further North you go, the better the yields.

Look, you get down in South Central and Southern Oklahoma, they still haven't gotten in there to see what they've got.

But Northern Oklahoma looks relatively good.

You go out towards your Panhandle, of course it gets the harvest, and the crop gets thinner, and less out in that area.

- So let's dig right into the markets, now.

So what's what's some news happening, that you're, that you're hearing.

- Well, I think the biggest news, is the Russian/Ukraine fiasco.

Russia came in this week, they said, "Hey, we we've opened the sea lanes.

We'll open the sea lanes, let Ukraine export wheat, or we're exporting wheat, and so we'll, we'll let that wheat out."

And then say, "Oh, but you've gotta drop all the sanctions."

So they, they drop a, a carrot in front of the, the market, there.

You'll notice what happens when they do that.

You get declines in, in wheat prices and that's I think we need to pay attention to that.

If Ukraine and Russia ever get to really exporting wheat, it's gonna take our prices down.

- So what's happening, the wheat prices.

- Well, if you look at wheat prices, they go back to April 1, you're somewhere in the $8 range, $8-$9 range.

Wheat prices went up to the $11.50 range, wallered around $11.50 to $10.50, got up to $13 and 13 cents.

And now, they're back in that $10.50 to, to $11.50 price range.

I think they're gonna stay in that.

Like I said, if Russia does re- let Ukraine export wheat, those prices will, I think break that $9.50, that $10.50 level.

If the Ukraine starts exporting, I think you'll probably looking at $9 or $9.50, but right now prices are close to $11.

I think that that looks like a good equilibrium price for the current situation.

- So let's switch over to corn.

So what's happening with corn prices?

- Well, if you look at corn prices, and this is the cash prices at local elevators range, since April 1, has been $7.12 $8.04.

So, about a 90 cent range there.

Prices got up into that $8 state up in there, they've came down, the corn planting, you know, it was delayed.

Right now, we probably got 94, 95% of our corn already the ground, about the same as it is on average.

So the, the corn is planted, we've got be concerned about the availability of fertilizers and, and top dressing, but looks like that's all in good shape.

So you've got corn prices, cash, oh, running somewhere in the $7.50 range.

If you're looking at forward contracting prices, it's about 65 cents less than the current cash price.

So that lets it just below $7 a bushel.

- So given all this, what what's your advice to producers when they're, when you know, when they're looking at this market, right now?

- Uh, don't even watch corn prices.

That's kind of fun, to see what they're doing, see if they change.

They're pretty flat right now in a dollar range.

If you look at wheat prices, you know, wheat on the average, average, a daily price move on wheat, for the last two or three weeks, of 30 cents a day, up or down.

The biggest price, 69 cents down one day, 49 cents up one day.

- You got a lot of volatility.

You have volatility in the market like this just staggered in, sell it over time.

- All righty.

Thanks Kim.

Dr. Kim Anderson grain marketing specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

(upbeat music) - This week, we conclude our recent visit to the wheat field day at Lahoma.

Today we're talking with Dr. Brian Arnall about his research on precision nutrient management.

- Hey we're really talking about what we're doing with the precision nutrient management wheat program and our ongoing trials.

The direction we have right now is historically we've looked at spacial and temporal precision ag meaning changing nitrogen by space and time.

Right now we're really starting to dig into the genetics.

So maybe changing nitrogen management by the genetics or growth type as a graze and grain or a grain only.

So what that means is when we look at some of our wheat varieties we notice they have a different uptake curve meaning they take up nutrients at different rates.

And also we look at our grazing types versus our grain only they produce tillers differently so that it means their nutrient demands are different.

And maybe the timing.

So we're looking at maybe the timing of nitrogen for the crop changing on whether you're doing a dual purpose type for grain which I think we should delay nitrogen which helps us with tiller management or a grain only which may need more nitrogen up front to produce the biomass it needs to take to drain.

So we're evaluating that right here where we're looking at a lot of different companies a lot of varieties from different companies looking at fertilizing them all early where all the nitrogen is applied at planting or before greenup or all the nitrogen applied at jointing.

And we're trying to evaluate the differences.

Yeah, we've never looked at the genetic aspect of nitrogen management.

We've always just done all my work in the past as I'm growing, whatever cultivars best for Lahoma, whatever cultivars best for Perkins.

And so now, because of that, I've always used a lot of the grain or the dual purpose suites.

And so the work I've seen, we need to now check back with other cultivars with other companies is is what I'm recommending for Double Stop for Bentley for Green Hammer going to be the same for Helix Flex or or some of the other varieties out there.

So we don't really see the strategy yet.

In fact, this year was probably the worst year for our goal to establish this where we have right next to me, there's plots that receive nitrogen at jointing or at hollow stem.

Well, that point in time we didn't have rain for two to three months.

And so historically that was a great application timing except for this year.

But what we have found with this data if we look at other locations that we have this is that those plots that had all the nitrogen early versus all the nitrogen really late which in effectiveness hasn't even been fertilized in some locations, we could see the difference.

So it would be a fully fertilized versus non fertilized.

Some of those plots developed deficiencies very early meaning the, the delayed fertilization was very yellow very stunted, poorly growing.

And there's some cultivars that you could not tell had not had fertilizer.

It looked just the same with or without fertilizer at that point.

So we're starting to separate out which those might be better at either obtaining nitrogen or utilizing the nitrogen they obtain.

The ultimate goal is if we discover differences or preferences in how different wheat types want nitrogen.

The ultimate goal is so that we can let farmers know when, how, and where to put fertilizer for different growing types.

It won't be by cultivar.

We don't have the efforts to do that, but it might be graze and grains should be fertilized this way to maximize yield and maximize nutrient efficiency and optimize quality.

The grain only should be fertilized this way to do the same.

So the ultimate goal is to spend as little money on fertilizer to produce as much high quality grain as possible.

(upbeat music) - Recently, you may have heard some news about the red meat allergy in ticks and uh we're gonna share some information today that hopefully will help you.

So it not to worry about, just to be aware of.

When we think about the red meat allergy, there's there's two main things that we need to consider.

One it's our own body's immune response, and what's in the tick saliva.

The ticks that feed on individual humans has a small amount of compound called alpha-gal.

And this same compound is in red meat.

If you were to develop a reaction uh, from a tick bite that has this presence of alpha-gal essentially what could happen is that when you eat red meat that has this same compound you could have an anaphylactic response uh, but what's unique about this is the anaphylactic response is usually always delayed.

So you could have your steak in the evening, and it may you may not have a response until six hours later.

And so the main thing that we want you to be concerned with is just try to keep ticks off of you.

But one particular tick it's the lone star tick in, in Oklahoma.

That's the one with the little white dot uh, there's males out there but mainly the females are what we find on, on people.

- And as- of course, the immature stages.

Immature stages are what a lot of people call seed ticks, all the way up to the nymphs, if they get on you.

And sometimes those are the ones that go unnoticed and you can still develop this, this red meat allergy if those immature stages feed on you.

In, in a scenario where you're walking about in the pasture or in a natural area and then you get these ticks on you and they are embedded.

The main thing just to be concerned with is if you feel like you may have developed this reaction, is just to take small portions of red meat and see how you respond.

The overall message I really want to convey is that this is not something to drive your diet, if you get a tick bite.

It's really just something to be aware of.

Every person is different and it's really a low percentage of people that even, even have this reaction.

And the other thing I want to make clear, this has nothing to do with ticks on cattle.

This is all about ticks feeding on people and people developing this reaction and their immune response remembering that substance, they were exposed to that Alpha-gal at one point.

And so just be careful, protect yourself as you're out there getting more acclimated to this nice outdoor warmth that we're experiencing.

Just know that there's gonna be more active ticks.

Protect yourself, put some kind of repellent, if you're using DEET, DEET is one of our best ones.

Make sure you concentrate it around your ankles and waistlines, because that's where immature lone star ticks will feed as well as just all other ticks.

And so as you go, go, go out and enjoy the outdoors, just to keep in mind that ticks are active and try to protect yourself.

(bouncy music) - Finally today, the takeaways from the first ever extension Cow/Calf Boot Camp just for women.

(cow mooing) - [Woman] We've done this Cow/Calf Boot Camp, similar to this, for several years now but this is the first one that's exclusive for women which has been kind of fun.

Part of the reason why we did that is, there's sometimes safety when women are together and there's camaraderie that doesn't always happen in a regular, our regular Cow/Calf Boot Camp which is men and women.

So this is a lot of hands-on.

It's kind of like drinking from the fire hose, so to speak but there's a lot of good information that they can take back kind of go back over.

They'll also get the Beef Cattle Manual.

So they're gonna have everything they really need to effectively run a Cow/Ca- or a Cow/Calf operation.

- [Woman] So this morning we have a variety of hands-on sessions.

They're working cattle, working 'em for a local producer, that is you know, we're doing vaccinations, we're ear tagging, we're putting parasite control on and letting the participants really get involved with that.

We have a session that is doing bleeding and mouthing, aging cattle as well as body condition scoring.

And we have animals for them to actually do that with, and then our session here is vaccine handling and implanting.

And some of those, you know how-tos with those types of things.

We want to give a comprehensive look at just a local beef operation.

You know, what producers do on a daily basis what you do on a yearly basis for cattle.

And, and we want to give people an, an opportunity for- to do those skills, to learn about those skills and, and maybe use some techniques that they've not used before.

- I think it's just a very genius offering.

I think as women, we want to have a bigger part in the cow operation on our farms.

And sometimes we're not sure how to get into that.

It's been mostly man-run since I was a kid.

I feel like my dad, my grandpa, my husband they do most of the work.

And I wanted to have a little more part of that.

So I like the confidence that it gives you with a group of women.

You can ask questions and feel like you're in a like-minded group.

- I feel like I'm a pretty strong, um, part of our cattle operation at home.

But I do think that there are things that we're doing because we've always done 'em that way, so I mean, there's not really any other places I can think of where you can get this close to Dr. Bigs and Dr. Stein and Dr. Whitworth and ask one on one questions.

Networking has always been really important to me so being able to meet different women from around the state who also raise cattle and maybe you'll run across them in other aspects of life.

So getting to know those people is really important.

(upbeat guitar music) - That'll do it for us this week.

Remember, you can see us anytime at SUNUP.okstate.edu and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

From the Grady County Fairgrounds, I'm Lyndall Stout and we'll see you next time at SUNUP.

(happy music) (cows mooing) - Okay, now turn your lid up.

(acoustic guitar music) (fingers clicking)