- Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We have a great show for you this week that includes my in-depth interview with the head of OSU'S Wheat Improvement Team, talking about a nutritional aspect of wheat breeding that he and fellow scientists are working on.

But first we're with OSU, extension Beef cattle specialist Dr. Paul Beck to talk about what to do when those pesky weeds sprout up in your pasture.

After it rains - This time of year when we get some moisture, a lot of our pastures will green up and start growing up into some native or cool season annual grasses in, in small weeds.

And, and the cattle will, you know, they're tired of hay, just like you're tired of feeding hay.

And they'll start really chasing those winter annual weeds and, and trying to graze those instead of consuming hay.

And it, the temptation is to quit feeding because they're, they're out there grazing.

They're not able to get enough dry matter from consuming those to really meet their nutrient requirements.

So it's not time to, to start, quit feeding or quit your supplementation program, keep some high, you know, palatable hay out in front of them and continue to feed those cubes or whatever supplement you've been carrying on.

'cause they can lose a lot of body condition, especially in a spring calving cow herd when all they've got are those, you know, very short high water content annual grassy weeds.

- Now to our one-on-one interview with Dr. Brett Carver, the wheat geneticist who leads Oklahoma State University's wheat improvement team.

And this time, instead of talking in the wheat field, we headed to Persimmon Hill Bakery.

Brett, thanks for being with us today.

- Thank you for having me.

- For those viewers who may be newer to Sunup or kind of seeing a, a segment on YouTube for the first time, let's start with some background on what the weed improvement team is and how you and your fellow scientists work together.

- Yes, this is a, a team of faculty that we've been together for some of us since 1998 for quite a long time.

There's some newer people, but there, it's just a, a, a true team, a faculty from about three academic departments in our College of Agriculture, division of agriculture, plus one scientist from USDA ARS.

We all have our different expertises, different ways of doing things and research extension and teaching, but we do have one thing in common, and that is the desire to improve wheat for the betterment of our farmers, for the betterment of our industry, millers and bakers, but also for the betterment of our consumers, which is a little bit different take than most weed improvement teams - And a lot of varieties released over the last however many years.

20, 30 years, right?

- Yeah, it's, it's about one per year on the average.

There may be a couple years where we go with zero, but we'll make up for - It.

We always like to visit with you on Sunup throughout the year.

Normally we're out in the field where we're seeing the, the potential varieties that you may be releasing someday and kind of weaving through there.

But today we're at Persimmon Hill Bakery.

Why this location in particular for our conversation today?

- Couldn't think of a better place and, and I just think it really points out the very fact that we are in the field, actually the business of producing food.

You know, this is not a, a wheat improvement team devoted to just making a crop.

This is making food for everyone to enjoy and this is certainly one of those foods that we would enjoy.

And I just, I, I really like having that as a backdrop.

- Today's conversation, we really wanna center around fiber, which is is something you're focused on, you and the team are focused on right now.

- Correct.

And it's, it's a focus of, of wheat and these baked goods behind us.

There probably is not as much fiber in these food products than would be in say a, a whole wheat loaf of bread.

There are times I wish when I just like everyone else, I love donuts, I wish the donut had a little bit more fiber in it and we're actually trying to do something about that.

- So maybe back up and let's talk about what constitutes fiber and how you're looking at that from, as, as a scientist.

- Yeah, and it's really important we understand what, what it is fiber and, and so to understand that we need to think about what are the really three, what we call macronutrients in a balanced diet.

Those would be protein of course, carbohydrates, not all carbohydrates are bad.

We're gonna find that out today.

And then also, lipids are otherwise called fat.

We need all three of those nutrients.

And fiber is part of that carbohydrate component, a really important part of that fiber carbohydrate component.

The part that tends to be less digestible or less readily digestible in our digestive system.

So it doesn't get digested in our stomach or our small intestine.

That's the very definition of fiber.

A carbohydrate that resists digestion and it goes all the way to the colon and that's where it does its job and does a good job.

- We're hearing more about fiber all the time.

Let's talk now about why it's important to incorporate fiber into our, our daily diet.

- Yeah, and I think of two things.

Two things come to mind to a lot of people in the science area about fiber.

And that is, number one, it slows the rate of digestion.

And I'm going to mention this a few times today because that's really important to our health is slowing the rate of digestion of certain carbohydrates and it also perhaps even bigger, it feeds the beneficial bacteria in our gut.

We have to feed those bacteria.

If we don't, we end up getting a less desirable bacterial bacterial population, which is a less healthy gut.

So we need fiber for both of those things.

Unfortunately, and I was looking at the figures recently, we're just not consuming enough fiber.

I look at it personally, you know, I wanna make sure I'm getting what is recommended and there's a pretty uniform recommendation for that we should be getting as adults, children a little bit less.

We should be getting about 25 grams of fiber in our diet daily.

We only consume on the average 16 grams, so we're nine grams short.

We're only two thirds of the way there.

So we really need to improve that.

And, and then only 5% of Americans, only 5% of us get that 25 grams.

So there's a lot of room for improvement in our dietary habits, but I think we can also do some things in science to make that more possible, a more realistic goal.

- This has really got you thinking as a scientist, and most people don't realize this, we included, but we really rely on wheat as a source of fiber or, or wheat products.

- Exactly.

And I was a little bit surprised when I first read that, but yes, 30% of the fiber we consume in our daily diet does come from wheat products, including those that surround us in this store.

And, you know, I, I think okay, that's good.

But we are short of our, of our, of our target that 25 gram target.

So what can we as wheat scientists, wheat breeders like me do to enhance that probability?

We consume more fiber from our wheat foods.

And that's, I that's been a, a driving motivation of this breeding program.

It's not the primary, you know, we're, we're still, we're breeding wheat for farmers to make a living of course, to put enough food on our tables.

We can merely eat anytime we can.

We as scientists can improve the quality of what we eat.

We should take that opportunity.

- We'll have more from Dr.

Carver a little bit later in the show.

But first, a reminder that applications are now open for the next class of the Oklahoma Agricultural Leadership Program.

If you wanna know more about agriculture in Oklahoma, the United States and around the world, consider applying for the Oklahoma Agricultural Leadership Program.

Applications are open now for the next class and are due May 1st.

This video shows members of the most recent class on their capstone trip abroad to Kenya will have highlights from their trip in the weeks ahead on sunup.

In addition to learning so much about agriculture, people in the class strengthen their leadership skills and make lifelong friends.

For more information on applying for the Oklahoma Agricultural Leadership Program, go to sunup dot OK state.edu.

And again, that deadline is May 1st.

- Good morning everyone.

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

Do I have the funnest job in the state or what?

Trying to explain Oklahoma's weather.

Yeah, it was a doozy again.

So let's get right to the new stuff.

See where we are on the drought monitor drought's still here, despite all the rainfall, we did get good rains across the southeastern half of the state where drought is now non-existent, but for the northwestern part of the state still have that moderate to severe drought.

The worst drought is up there in the far northwest corner.

But surrounding that, we do have the moderate drought, so we definitely need more rain up in that part of the state.

Or like we saw this past week snow.

Let's take a look at those rainfall totals for the last week.

Here we see, you know, up in northwest Oklahoma still got less than half an inch in most areas about an inch to two inches as we go to the southeast of there.

And then in the southeastern half of the state, you know, a good three to five inches here and there in the far southeast Oklahoma and east central Oklahoma, they did get from five to seven inches.

So lots of good rains in that southeastern half of the state.

All rains are good, but we could definitely use more in the northwestern part of the state.

It did help calm those deficits over the last 30 days.

We look at the departure from normal rainfall map over that timeframe from the Oklahoma Mesonet, Southeast Oklahoma.

We're in the surplus territory, finally the northwestern half of the state and including much of southwest Oklahoma.

Unfortunately, still in deficits, you know, about a a half inch to more than an inch in some areas, but not too bad.

But certainly we need more in that region.

As I said.

Let's take a look at the percent of normal rainfall map over that same 30 day timeframe.

There you can see in far northwest Oklahoma, my hometown of Buffalo at 19% of normal over the last 30 days.

Surrounding that about 30 to 50% of normal and in the northwestern half of the state, all in deficit mode.

So need more rainfall than the northwestern half of the state.

As I mentioned, it did snow, which is some something of a rarity in April for, for Oklahoma.

The freeze not so much.

We did see about 12 to 24 hours below freezing in the last week up in the northwestern corner of the state.

Other parts an hour to six hours or so, not too bad.

And right on track for about when we normally see our last freeze for the state.

Speaking of warmth, we do see the outlook for next week and we see above normal chances for warmer than normal weather across the entire state, but especially northwest Oklahoma.

But the good news is increased odds of above normal precipitation as well across the entire state.

So warmth and, and moisture means the green up and that would be a good thing for Oklahoma.

Okay, we're just gonna take this week to week, so whatever craziness we see, hopefully we'll have a boring week and then next week we'll have something to talk about, a little better rainfall.

That's it for this time.

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

- A lot of news flowing into our, our grain and oil seed markets.

This, this, this week we'll start with a little bit of the older news in regard to the prospective plantings report that was released on March 31st.

Corn acres were a bit of a surprise coming in at just over 95 million acres soybeans.

We saw the, the little bit of the change there with regard to soybeans, right, right under 84 million acres and wheat at at 45 million acres.

So that's kind of a, a summary of, of our three main crops, the big surprise there was corn acres higher than what corn or corn market analysts were expecting.

And higher than even February's USDA Outlook conference expectation.

I've been speaking to in these, in these reports as we've been coming through the entering spring planting season, how corn was trying to buy acres and what we saw with that prospective plantings report that that is what is gonna potentially be happening.

Moving to some of the more recent news with respect to trade policies and tariffs, that has been quite a hot button.

A a talking point over the past, past few days, one of the biggest commodities that we're seeing impacted is soybeans.

We do export quite a few soybeans to our Asian trading partners, primarily China overall, you know, in, in years past the norm is somewhere around 50 50% of our US production is exported.

And a big chunk of that does go to our Asian markets.

It it, it fluctuates between 40 and 60%, but again, on average about 50% of our soybean production.

And kind of the fallout from, from all of this news is that soybean prices have have been under pressure of late.

Ironically a little bit is that corn and wheat are weathering the storm better than soybeans, still not great, but better than soybeans.

And the the primary reason there is we don't export a lot of our corn.

And then for our wheat exports not nearly as impacted by our, our Asian trading partners.

Corn and corn and wheat to, to also highlight are protected through our USMCA trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.

So that has been a little bit more of a, a, a relief on those two markets.

But overall there's just a lot of, of turmoil in the market, very much I would say, you know, a good, a good word to use here is a roller coaster.

If you look at all of our primary row crop commodities, the markets have been up and down over the past couple of weeks.

And I think it's important to, to keep in mind that, that in times like these where information is flowing in so fast and as, as market analysts and traders and grain market buyers and sellers are trying to navigate these waters, it can be quite challenging.

And sometimes there's a lot of, a lot of results that we, you know, we're trying to draw conclusions and, and make, make forecast about how these are gonna be impactful.

And there's just sometimes where we don't have all the answers and I think it's important to understand that.

And while we do want certainty and we do want these these times to be more calm, these are times where we wanna make sure that as farm managers and, and producers that we're doing everything we can to control the things that we can control.

And in closing, I think it's really good that we are, you know, experiencing some, some, some wet weather and, and getting some soil moisture as we are leading into the, the tail end of our, our winter wheat crop and starting the, the spring with some, some soil moisture.

So let's look, look to the bright side.

Try to try to maintain as, as much calm in these rough waters and focus on all the things that you can control.

- Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to cow-calf corner.

Our topic this week is horn flies, or more specifically, what can we do at this point here in April to control the amount of horn flies we're gonna deal with this year?

We say that of all the parasites that cattle deal with, horn flies are the most devastating external parasite in beef production.

We know it costs us millions in beef production in the state of Oklahoma industry-wide.

This annoying pest is estimated to be worth about $2 billion of robbing profit potential from beef cattle producers.

Horn flies are particularly a concern as we think about cattle on pasture.

Think of cow calf operations 'cause female horn flies, lay eggs in fresh manure patties.

Therefore, as we think about what we can do, how this works and, and what we can start doing right now, even though we haven't seen a great deal of flies, there are some measures we can take that are gonna work to our advantage later on.

First of all, if we can drag a harrow or potentially pull a disc through pastures and break up manure patties, it's gonna work to our advantage.

If we've got old spots where we've stored hay fed hay or just cattle like to congregate, if we can potentially burn harrow or disc any of those, we are eliminating the areas where horn fly eggs like to start.

The other thing we can start, if we haven't already, is feeding some sort of an insect growth regulator and IGR typically fed in a mineral supplement is gonna pass through the digestive system of the cow end up in the manure and it is going to effectively mess up, for lack of a better way of putting it that egg from turning into an adult horn fly.

When we begin to see populations of horn flies on cattle, think around 150, 200 flies per animal is that's the time to begin some sort of an insecticide control.

Insecticides are very effective at controlling horn flies because horn flies spend their entire day and their entire life on a cow taking those 25 or so blood meals a day.

If we can get the insecticide onto cows in the form of an insecticide ear tag, some sort of a pour on or spray on, all those are gonna be an effective means of control.

Even better if we can potentially have some sort of back rub that forces our cattle to use it, which can be the issue.

But if we put it in an area that cows normally travel, maybe getting to water feed shade, we're more likely to have success in getting effective amount of cide off of a back rub onto the cows that's gonna help in controlling horn flies are an irritant.

They cause a lot of stress.

They can reduce milk levels, growth rates to calves, and accordingly weaning weights.

We need to begin taking measures now and as it rains today outside, which is why we are taping here inside the totek arena instead of at our purebred beef cattle center.

It's a good reminder that flies are on the way in Oklahoma.

Take measures now to control horn flies.

Thanks for joining us on cow calf Corner.

- Do you have any unwanted pesticides that you need to get rid of?

If so, OSU extension has a few disposal dates coming up May 6th, we'll be at the Stevens County fairgrounds in Duncan, and the following day you can dispose at the Canadian County Extension Center in El Reno.

The program will wrap up on May 8th at the Craig County Fairgrounds in Vanita.

And if you would like more information on the unwanted pesticide disposal program, just go to sunup.OKstate.edu.

- Finally, today we're diving back into our one-on-one conversation about wheat breeding with Dr. Brett Carver.

When you're looking at a kernel of wheat, where does the fiber come from?

- Yeah, - In that kernel.

- And so it was, you know, first I learned, okay, wheat is the primary source of our fiber.

Well, where is that coming from?

And now it makes sense.

I I kind of knew it, but then I didn't know it.

And there's four principle sources of fiber in a wheat kernel.

Number one is the, probably the more obvious one of, although the name may not be familiar, and that is a, a compound called lignin.

It, it's basically a, it's a kind of carbohydrate.

It's a little bit different, but it's very indigestible and it occurs in the bran.

So if reading a whole wheat product, we're going to be getting that kind of fiber.

And it's not the best kind of fiber, but it's fiber.

It's not digestible in the small intestine.

So that's fiber, that's good.

But then there's some others that I think are really more interesting and they occur not only in the bran, the outer layers of the kernel, but also in the interior part of the kernel where we get white flour that makes these food products, these baked products behind us.

So that's good.

All right.

What are they?

Well, number one, there's what we call, I have to do a little bit defining here.

Cell wall polysaccharides.

Polysaccharides is just a carbohydrate.

It's a more complex, longer chain of monosaccharides, simple carbohydrate molecules.

And it's these polysaccharides that occur in nature throughout.

I mean, every cell has a wall, right?

And these walls are made of these polysaccharides.

The one particular polysaccharide in wheat that stands out as a source of fibers called arabanoxylins.

Sorry, that's just what it's called.

I didn't name it, but that's the scientific name.

And basically it is another one of those polymers, long chain of carbohydrate molecules.

In this case it's a five carbon, and that's important molecule.

So arabinoxylans, then also fructans.

So here we go again, I keep saying long polymers, well, these don't have to be very long, but they're still more than just one simple molecule.

It's maybe a string of six to eight to 10 fructose, fructose units attached end to end.

That's what makes a fructan.

So a fructan is important to us as a source of fiber because depending on how long that, that, that molecule is, how long that chain is, it won't be digested.

So it goes to the colon and feeds those bacteria.

It's like a prebiotic.

Now there's the other side of this.

Some of us can't handle fructans as well as others.

And so we may have a fructan intolerance about one in 15 cannot handle a high amount of fructans.

So in that case, you want to consume fermented, highly fermented baked products that breaks that, that fructan down.

But generally speaking, fructans are very beneficial to us.

So we have lignin, we have cell wall, polysaccharides and fructans.

The fourth one is called, and this is in that starch family.

Starch is carbohydrate, and there's really good kinds of starch and there's not so good kinds of starch.

The really good kind of starch is less digestible.

So we call that resistant starch.

The, the chemical name would be called amylose, but we'll just call it resistant starch.

And then there's the rapidly digested starch.

We call it amylopectin, but it's the AMLO that we're really targeting as a source of fiber in our diet.

It's already there in the kernel.

Why can't we bring it out, make more of it in a kernel of wheat.

So we have four possibilities there.

- So that's what you all are really examining in the lab.

- Yes.

- And trying to figure out the right combinations to breed a higher fiber kernel.

Is that right?

What I'm hearing?

- Three out of four.

- Okay.

- The fourth one, we really haven't targeted, and that's the lignin in the bran.

We could leave that for later.

Right now we're going after those parts of the kernel that end up in white milled flour, because consumers right now just prefer not to eat a whole wheat loaf of bread.

Okay, that's fine.

Let's eat white bread, but let's make sure there's more fiber in that white bread and we can get more fiber if we focus on those aranoxylins, those islands, the fructans or the resistant starch.

So we've done that and we've done it.

I've been working on it for 12 years, at least on the resistant starch part of it.

Fructans, maybe a little bit less.

We've actually published and shown that it's really not that difficult to increase the fructans in a wheat kernel.

As long as we're increasing yield, we're increasing the fructans.

So we're actually breeding a high fiber wheat just by breeding higher yields.

Again, there's that part of our population though that cannot consume fructans.

So fructan is what we call a FOD map.

And there are many FOD maps and, but I should say this too, fructans are the more common fo map across all plants.

It just so happens wheat is our source of fructans in our diet.

We could probably get more fructans in an onion, but we just don't eat onions as much as we eat wheat.

So really our fructan source is wheat and and that's a fermentable carbohydrate can cause problems to those who can't handle it.

A FODMAP.

- We're out of time for our show this week, but we hope you will join us for the conclusion of our in-depth interview with Dr. Brett Carver on next week's show.

And we're so glad that you could join us for sunup.

A reminder, you can see our show anytime on our website and stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

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

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.