- Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Technological advances like drones are growing in popularity, including for things like herbicide application, but there's a little bit more to it than you might think.

I recently caught up with OSU extension weed scientist, Dr. Liberty Galvin, for some initial observations on a new drone study that she's leading.

- Yeah, so drone technology or UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles are a pretty new emerging technology here in the United States.

They have a lot of opportunities.

The thing I'm really interested in that I think is really important is if we're going to be using drones for pesticide application, are they actually doing the job that we expect them to do?

So - You had a demonstration in the last few weeks.

Tell us all about that, where it was, how you set it up and and kind of what you - Learned.

So we really wanted to test how much spray coming out of the drone actually hits the ground.

And to test that with drones, it's different than with a tractor.

With a tractor, you have your gallons per acre, you have your speed, your nozzle selection, and your nozzle really has influence over your droplet size.

But with a drone, you have altitude.

There's a totally different vertical factor there.

So with the drone, we were looking at altitude speed and unfortunately the wind picked up so much that we had to stop our flight, but we're gonna look at that a little bit more.

So it was really fascinating to do these flights in the field.

The way that we measure spray droplets is we have these very cool yellow cards and once water hits them, they change color.

And so you can see how big that droplet is on the card and you can also measure coverage.

So is that droplet getting to the ground where you expect it to go?

And that was sort of the whole basis of our experiment and we're able to look at - Some of the video that you captured that day.

And where about, where were you in the state?

- So we were in Carnegie.

We were allowed to use some property from the Carnegie Cotton Gin across the street there.

They let us, we were just spraying water.

They let us do some flights in their field.

But essentially what you're looking at this video is the drone flying over our little cards and we have multiple cards because we're trying to get a good representation of what that flight pattern looks like.

- You're already getting some great information from this first demonstration, but there's pros and cons already that you're identifying.

Talk about those.

- So I think it's really interesting to compare coverage of a drone to a tractor because a lot of people, they know what to expect with a tractor.

And what we preach a lot as weed scientists who are trying to get good weed control, we tell growers to slow down a little bit, increase your GPA, but with a drone, that's not necessarily the same advice that we would give.

So from our preliminary data, what we found is that low altitude and a slow speed actually got us very poor coverage.

You would think 17 miles an hour was a little too fast to be spraying, but actually 17 miles an hour at 12 feet above the ground had very similar coverage, but larger droplets compared with 22 miles an hour, eight feet off the ground.

And so I would never tell a grower to drive 17 miles an hour in a tractor.

But as you can see from these cards, they have pretty similar coverage.

So there is an interaction between speed and altitude.

- Great information already.

And you wanna test this some more in maybe a different part of the state?

- Yeah.

So the experiments that we've already done, were on flat ground, kind of what you see behind here.

It's a lot easier to measure deposition and coverage when there's no trees.

The whole eastern half of the state, there's a lot of folks there who are also investing in drones.

And it's because the terrain is so rocky and there's so many trees that it's hard to access some of these spaces where people do really wanna do weed control.

And so the next step with this project is to diversify the weed species that we're looking at.

So with flat ground, there's nothing in the way you can get to that weed, but what if you have a bramble bush that's maybe as tall as I am and with a wingspan twice as big as mine with, you need to hover over that weed for a certain amount of time to get good penetration all through that bramble is a quick flyover, gonna work for the weed control needs.

So we're trying to diversify based on the landscapes that we have in Oklahoma and the people who have demonstrated interest in the diverse uses of drones.

- Probably lots of opportunities in Oklahoma given how diverse our state is.

Yes.

From from one end to the other.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well great information, Liberty, keep us on the next round of testing.

Yeah.

And we look forward to following this.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Okay.

We'll see you again next time.

Thank you.

- 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 will 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 - Talking wheat now and word of a new wheat variety from OS U'S Wheat Improvement team called Orange Blossom CL plus.

I recently chatted with Dr. Amanda Silva in the field to learn all about it.

- Yes, we are very excited about this new release.

So as you indicated with the names, so it's, it has the CL p CL plus in its name, so just indicating that orange blossom is part of the, the varieties with a herbicide tolerance.

So for the clear field system, so similar to to double stop.

- So talking about the parentage that really plays into this and, and some of the traits that you've observed in your role as a state specialist in your field trials over the years.

Kind of talk about some of those traits that, that will be intriguing to our audience.

- Sure, yes.

Orange Blossom, one of its unique aspects is it's common or it's having double stop as its parent.

So about 66% they share in common.

So they have in common genetics.

And one of the most intriguing things that we've seen with this variety, looking at it in the variety of trials across so many years, especially last year, was its very good resistance to stripe rust disease.

So last year we had an issue with stripe rust in the state and we could see in the plots this variety being one of the greenest varieties in in the plots.

And that was due to its great resistance, strong resistance to stripe rust disease.

- And what are some of the other traits that you've kind of noted in your field research over the years?

- So one of the things that farmers will see is it, as I said, because of its common genetics with double, so it will resemble double stop in some aspects like acid soil tolerance would say test weight is either equal or better than double stop protein.

And quality is not as good as double stop.

It's still good, protein is still good, but it's not as good.

It's not gonna be a double stop level of good and grain yield.

When we have, when we evaluated last year across the state, we saw that it was actually very similar to one of the also latest releases from OSU high cotton.

So yeah, so that's a quick summary on that.

But on other traits, one of the things, so that I mentioned is it's strong resistance to stripe rust, but farmers should also know that this variety does not have any resistance to soil-borne mosaic virus.

It has not been a problem in a, in a state lately.

It used to be a problem.

So, but it's just an information, a piece of information that farmers need to keep in mind when thinking about this variety.

And it's a very tall variety.

So we, we saw it last year, but we, we did not see any issues with lodging.

We could see it happening in low ground areas, maybe with a lot of wind or lots of nitrogen, but we haven't seen any, any issues with that.

But farmers should know.

It's a, it's a very tall variety.

- A lot of our producers in Oklahoma have dual purpose systems and like to, to kind of keep track of that aspect of it.

What have you observed there?

- Yes, that is a very important aspect for our state in a very important for our varieties to, to be able to be grazed and harvested.

And so Orange Blossom has done well in our forage trials and their grazing systems.

One of the things that we evaluated this year was with the first hollow stem.

So we simulated grazing and then measured first hollow stem after for different varieties.

And orange blossom was one of the latest varieties to reach first hollow stem under that simulation simulated grazing system indicating that farmers could gain a few more weeks of grazing later in the winter.

Which we all know how much, how, how much more profitable that is.

- There's another trait with orange blossom that you also like.

- Yes.

So one of the things that we saw this year in our test was the coleoptile length, especially for the clear field varieties.

We realized and well we noticed that the clear field trait is bringing something in its background that is making those varieties with a clear field trait to have longer coleoptile.

And that is one aspect of orange blossom.

And that means that farmers could plant a little bit deeper if they wanted to reach moisture at planting.

So it just gives that flexibility also for, for our producers.

- And does this variety, how does, does it grow better in certain parts of the state or is it pretty, pretty wide geographic area that it's, it's performing and demonstrating these traits that you've mentioned?

- Yes, so when conducting that analysis that I mentioned to you earlier, orange Blossom did really well and was one of the top three yielding varieties across the state.

So I expect it to be adapted across different areas in our state.

- Do we think that it might be in in demand as once people get through harvest and they start making seed decisions for fall this year, do we think this one might be in demand and will, will there be seed available?

- Yes, there will be seed available when this fall.

And so if farmers are wanting to try out this year, there will be availability for that.

- And you're part of the wheat improvement team.

We, we've talked extensively with Dr.

Carver in the past few weeks about the very specific research and, and that piece of it, but the extension part of it is really important too.

And getting these, these varieties through the pipeline and out of these, these nurseries, right, where you guys look at them for years, what does that extension piece look like and how do you work directly with those scientists in the lab?

- Yeah, so the, our piece on that is actually getting all this information on, on the characteristics of these varieties across the state.

So as we have the, the plots in different locations in our state, we learn a lot about this varieties.

So testing them before they're release and continue to test them after they, they release.

So keep very close eyes on them and we really learn, we really learn about it and we help and we gather information that also help our breeder to make decisions on, on release.

Also help our farmers to make decisions on variety selection.

- Great.

Well we're excited about Orange Blossom.

Thanks for telling us all about it.

And Amanda, I'm sure we'll see you again very soon.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks a lot.

- Good morning everyone.

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

Well the name of the game is Rain and Drought Removal.

So we are filming this a little earlier in the week and we probably got some good rain since I filmed this.

But I'm going to talk about the moisture we received for the drought monitor process.

So let's get right to the new drought monitor map and see where we are.

Well we have shrunk this severe drought, that darker color.

It's now just up there in far northwest Oklahoma, mainly over Ellis and Western Harper County.

We have a little bit in Woodward County, a little bit in Beaver County, a little bit in Roger Mills.

But by and large the worst of the drought has shrunk and we just have about the Northwestern third or so of the state now in either moderate drought, that light tan color or the yellow, which is abnormally dry conditions, which is not drought, it signals areas going outta drought in this case.

So a good report on the drought monitor.

Hopefully we'll get some more good news next week.

And here you can see where the map changed from last week.

Those greens are areas where we had a one class improvement.

It's very hard to get a two class improvement on the drought monitor simply from their own rules.

The gray is where it didn't change.

That's where we need that additional rainfall.

Hopefully we've gotten that to help change that map for next week.

So this is the rainfall, a seven day rainfall from Tuesday to Tuesday covering the drought monitor period that I can use to make changes on the drought monitor map.

And here we see really good rains across the eastern parts of the state all the way up through northwest Oklahoma.

Still looking for that good rain in the panhandle.

Hopefully they've gotten that after we filmed here.

Let's put that in context.

Let's go out to 30 days on the Mesonet here.

Across the southeastern half or so of the state, you see some really good rainfall amounts from six to, in some cases more than 10 inches.

It shrinks of course as we go to the northwest.

Southwest Oklahoma is still well below normal unfortunately, at least for those folks and also up in the panhandle and parts of far northwest Oklahoma still need some good rains up there.

Now as we look to next week, it does look like it's going to be warm.

This outlook from the climate prediction center does show increased odds of above normal temperatures for next week, especially across the far eastern parts of the state.

But really the entire state looking for warm weather as we go through next week.

The best picture, of course is the rainfall here we see greatly increased odds of above normal precipitation for nearly the entire state, but especially from the northern parts down into central Oklahoma across the center part of the state.

There we see those best odds for above normal precipitation through that timeframe.

Finally, let's take a look at the climate prediction center drought outlook.

This goes through July.

So we're talking through basically the first two months of summer and the first month of spring.

We do see the drought is expected to persist through that period through where it at least where it exists now.

However, I do think we'll get a jump on this over the next couple of weeks.

Maybe wipe some of this out where it doesn't persist through that timeframe.

Spring's really coming in, saving us.

I know there's been a lot of bad stuff that goes with it, but we do need that rainfall.

We do need those springtime thunderstorms.

So let it rain and let's get some improvements on that next drought monitor map.

That's it for this time.

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

- Hello and welcome to the Market Monitor.

I'm John Michael Riley, OSU ag economist and the week has started off on a, on a little bit of a sour note.

Most of our crop markets are down since the beginning of the week.

If we think they'll start first with wheat markets, wheat prices on the futures on the futures market are down about 20 cents per bushel in the past 48 hours.

Corn and soybean prices are down about 10 cents per bushel.

So overall, some, some negative start to the week that can be attributed to a number of different things.

We'll start with the weather.

We've gotten some rain across most of the, the growing region and whether we're speaking toward wheat, which is in development stage to be nearing harvest or the crops that we're currently planting a good news for soil moisture, a good news for potential overall yield per acre.

But that tends to to be a negative in the, in the marketplace, given that there could be, it could add some, some bushels to the overall supply.

So that's been one aspect of the pressure.

We've been looking at the US dollar in relation to other currencies that's continued its trend downward that we've been seeing for the past number of weeks, but the last day or so in the last 24 hours has started to, to strengthen just a little bit that in, in relation to what it means to our ag commodities.

Could make our our US crops a little bit more expensive to our, our, you know, neighbors overseas that are wanting to purchase those crops and potentially having some negative implications to, to overall trade.

Combine that with, with all of the other implications related to trade that we've been trying to digest over the, the past month, month and a half, two months.

And right now the market is just trying to make heads and tails of, of what the trade picture's gonna look like for the remaining, for the, for the remainder of 2025.

So all of this combined is put some negative pressure on our crop markets.

The good news going back to the soil moistures that we are experiencing some, some, some rain.

And that has certainly been a positive if we think about what's happening with the wheat wheat crop, some stories out there that the wheat crop really needed that rain to, to kind of finish up.

Its its development as we move into harvest.

So while prices are a little bit suppressed at the moment, the good news is is that hopefully it's gonna be offset somewhat with regard to yield per acre.

Also with wheat.

One thing that I've been mentioning in previous segments is the weakening of the basis.

And since, since the last couple of weeks we have started to see basis strengthen back to normal levels.

We're not quite at normal, but we're only about five 10 cents below normal as opposed to 20 to 40 cents below normal that we were experiencing in the, the first start of 2025.

Corn and soybeans still having some weakness there, especially corn.

Corn, corn bases is the, the weakest of all of the three commodities that we're, we're highlighting today.

And so that is something that we want to continue to keep an eye on.

But for the most part, the basis is, is starting to see some improvements, especially here in Oklahoma.

Which brings me to the last impact that I want to mention.

And that's the overall broad economy.

We're, we're seeing a tremendous amount of uncertainty and turmoil across all of our markets.

This is spilling over or trickling down however you want to, however you wanna think about it into crop prices.

And that's gonna continue to be the case.

And so I'll leave you with this at the in times like these, it's very important to maintain good farm records, good financial records, and, and to control the things that, that you can control, especially with respect to cost when we've got pressure on market, on our crop prices while we're currently experiencing.

That's gonna do it for me.

Look forward to seeing you next time on the Market monitor.

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

Here we tape in about mid-April 2025.

It's the time of year when most of us have either purchased bulls or we're making those final decisions on matings.

One of the questions that I have gotten into with producers in the past few weeks, is it possible for us to get the level of calving ease that we want and still that high level of performance, carcass traits and maternal performance?

And in short, the answer is yes.

If we look at charts of genetic trend and beef cattle over the last 30 or so years, we can see that purebred seed stock cattlemen have done a great job of applying selection pressure to keep birth weights down and calving ease good while we've actually seen a spike in weaning and yearling weights.

Now what has happened is with regard to mature weights as a conversation for another day, but along the way our milk EPDs, fertility EPDs and other barometers of just maternal performance have continued to go up and carcass traits, as we've discussed before in cow-calf corners.

The improvement we have made in the additive genetic merit of today's cattle for marbling is truly one of the great success stories in the cattle business of the last 20 or 30 years.

So can it be done?

Yes, we take a look at those EPDs.

I think each producer needs to determine what they're comfortable with in terms of the calving ease that they're gonna need if they're mating a set of heifers and are gonna be pleasantly surprised to see the amount of growth maternal and carcass genetics that are still available to us out of that pool of potential sires.

Another thing outside the topic of just genetic selection, if we are going to be mating heifers with potential replacement heifers in mind, ample research data shows us that a heifer calf is on average about five pounds lighter than a bull calf whenever they're born.

Obviously that's gonna lead to greater Cavs.

Why do we mention that?

With modern technology or particularly sexing technology on beef semen for probably in the ballpark of about $20 a unit of semen, we can actually purchase and use sex heifer semen to breed those heifers and facilitate calvings through that.

We're gonna keep in mind if we go that route when using sex semen, we're gonna do our AI probably six to 12 hours later than what we normally would, but that is another technology available to us as a potential means for calving ease.

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

- Finally today with the Oklahoma legislature in full swing, one of our favorite days of the session each spring is agriculture day at the Capitol.

- Today is Ag Day at the Capitol.

So we have all the major ag groups here at the Capitol showing off what they produce and talking about the impacts the agriculture has to the state of Oklahoma.

We're here representing OSU agriculture because we're an important part of agriculture in the state.

We help support all the industries in the, in the state of Oklahoma that help produce the food and fiber for America's consumers.

And so we're here to help advocate for agriculture and also to integrate and work collaboratively with the many food and agricultural commodity groups that we help support and serve.

I'll have one too.

It's important to be here at the Capitol because the legislators are here with the House and the Senate, the governor's office, and they're voting on bills that directly affect agriculture, affect food security, and affect Oklahoma State University.

So we're here here to be a resource to help provide information and to help the legislators make the most informed decisions they can.

So here in the Capitol, we have a variety of people representing agriculture.

We have the Wheat Growers, the Wheat Commission with cinnamon rolls.

We have the Pork Council, they've got bacon and charcuterie boards and and socks.

We have indi independent food producers that are here with barbecue, sauces and salsa.

So it's really runs the gamut of food and agriculture in Oklahoma and it's a great place to be, particularly if you're hungry.

So when I see what's going on here at the Capitol, I have a lot of hope and optimism about the food scene that we'll have here in Oklahoma in the next five to 10 years.

- Another highlight of Ag Day at the Capitol, the induction of a new member into the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame.

And this year it's John Pfeiffer Jr. A fourth generation Oklahoma farmer and rancher, the 2025 recipient of the governor's outstanding achievement in agriculture.

Pfeiffer is the 28th inductee into the Hall of Fame, a longtime advocate and leader in the beef industry.

Feifer and his wife Gay, own a pure bred Angus cattle operation.

He's also a proud alumnus of OSU and worked as a county extension educator before serving as a teacher and principal for 18 years.

And Mr. And Mrs. Pfeiffer are proud supporters of four h and FFA from all of us at Sunup.

A big congratulations and that'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder, you can see sunup anytime on our website and also follow us on YouTube anytime and on our social media channels.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.