(guitar flourish) (optimistic music) - Hello everyone, and welcome to SUNUP.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

With fall right around the corner, it's the time of year we start talking about the Oklahoma Quality Beef Network and the upcoming sales.

For some perspective, here's SUNUP's Kurtis Hair with the program's new coordinator.

- When it comes to the value-added program here in Oklahoma a lot of producers take part in it.

But before we get to the upcoming sale dates we wanna welcome our new coordinator, Paul Vining.

Paul, tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to Oklahoma.

- Well, it's good to be in Oklahoma.

So, I'm originally from Birmingham, Alabama.

I'd moved here from Florence, Alabama which is the northwest corner of the state where I was a regional extension agent working with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System for about five years.

And I worked with beef cattle producers there and pasture management.

- Now you're in Oklahoma.

Talk a little bit about kind of, what's maybe some similarities that you see from both Oklahoma and Alabama.

- I like to tell people I'm not from Oklahoma but I got here as fast as I could.

So I've enjoyed it.

It's great to see another state, see another place; you learn a lot.

And it's very interesting.

I've been to the western part of the state and the eastern part of the state.

I'd say the eastern part of the state kind of towards Arkansas is very similar to Alabama as far as topography goes.

The western part of the state is a different story.

So I really enjoyed getting to see the different, you know, flora and fauna and stuff in the state.

There's a lot more cattle out here, of course, in Oklahoma.

And that's really what brought me here is that opportunity to work with cattle producers on a larger scale.

- So let's just dive right into the program that you're the new coordinator of, the Oklahoma Quality Beef Network.

But first let's kind of walk through, like if someone new wants to be a new member of the program what are some things that they need to do to qualify for that program?

- So the OQBN program, the Oklahoma Quality Beef Network program is Vac-45 program, which means those calves need to be weaned for 45 days, have two rounds of vaccinations, the respiratory vaccinations and black leg.

They need to be de-horned, castrated, and some other improved management practices also need to be implemented - So that, you know, the vaccination and the 45 days weaning period, you know, that can seem like a lot to a producer who might be used to weaning their calves for 20 days, but on the buyer's end of the spectrum, they're getting what they pay for.

- Exactly, Kurtis.

Weaning those calves and vaccinate 'em boosts their immunity and allows them to enter that next phase of the beef system, beef production system, healthier, and they experience less sickness in the feed yard, and just that overall improved health over the next next phase of life.

- Now, when it comes for these upcoming sale dates, you know I do wanna touch on, it's been a really challenging year for a lot of producers here in Oklahoma given the drought, lack of hay, just a myriad of issues.

So how is that gonna impact OQBN in your opinion?

- Well, first of all, my heart goes out to the producers.

I know farming is no easy task, and ranching is no easy task.

And it has been dry.

So there is a shortage of hay, shortage of forage.

If they can hold those calves, I know a lot of calves, a lot of cattle are being sold right now.

If they can hold those calves until the fall, kind of November, December time period, I believe those premiums will still be there.

If you look at the price, you know, the prices throughout the year, those prices are gonna come back up kinda in that November, December time period.

And I think that those premiums will still be there.

I think this program started in 2001 and still going strong.

So, you know, that's 20 years, and I would encourage 'em to hold on to 'em if they can.

- Well, thanks, Paul.

We're really glad you're here, and we'll look forward to talking with you more when those sale dates get a little closer.

And for a link to some of those upcoming sale dates, go to our website, sunup.okstate.edu.

(optimistic music) - Welcome to the Mesonet weather report.

I'm Wes Lee.

Oklahomans have been experiencing a heat wave this summer that at times seemed overwhelming.

But when we look back at the data, we see that the higher-than-normal temperatures can actually be traced back into last year.

This departure from normal map for 2021 shows that smooth average high temperatures moved above the normal line sometime in August.

Smooth temperatures are designed to show trends by taking out the daily fluctuations.

The temperatures mainly stayed above the normal line to the end of the year, with December being extremely warm.

Switching to 2022, we see that the high temperatures spent more time above the black normal line than below.

- After a brief cool down in early June, high temperatures have skyrocketed up ever since.

The heat wave on Tuesday had more sites showing triple digits than not.

Then came what we hope is a game changing cold front.

This dropped temperature statewide with some sites cooler by more than 20 degrees on Wednesday.

When you look at the blue colors in the NWS forecast maps for the next week or two, they expect these cooler temperatures to hang around.

So hopefully we will spend a while at or below normal with intermittent warm days for a change instead of the recent blast furnace.

Gary's up next with an expanding drought map.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning, everyone.

Well, I know we're enjoying the cooler weather and hopefully wetter weather, but right now we have a pretty dire drought situation going on in the state.

And our drought monitor map definitely needs some improvement.

Let's get right to it.

Well, simply put, this is the most extreme to exceptional drought we've seen in the state since really back in 2013 when we were still in the depths of that horrible 2010 through 15 drought.

So we definitely need improvements, we need rainfall.

Much of the southern half of the state's in extreme drought, much more of the northern half of the state is now in extreme drought than what we had last week.

It is starting to expand more and of course that exceptional drought down in the far southwest and also in the middle of the panhandle, not good signs for those areas.

Okay, this is the rainfall map from the Mesonet for the June 11th period through August 17th.

So this is the rainfall that makes up the bulk of that drought monitor map due to the flash drought.

And we do see that Southern Oklahoma area, not much rainfall at all, basically less than an inch in most cases.

Now, of course, as you look about the state, there are places that have four to five to six inches even higher, but those are few and far between.

And in some of those areas, they're dealing with long term drought that doesn't really reflect some of those shorter term rainfall amounts helping much.

So again, just a bad situation over the last two months or so with the rainfall amounts.

And if we just look at the departure from normal for the last 60 days, again, a good indication of where those bad areas are in the drought monitor map.

We have areas from four to five to six inches below normal, close to seven inches below normal in some areas.

But again, that's way too much of a deficit for the hot temperatures we've had this summer.

So that's the basis of our flash drought.

Now, not only have we gotten some rainfall this week, but as we look into next week, it's looking even better with much greater odds of above normal precipitation especially across the southeastern half of the state, but really encompassing the entire state.

And finally, if we take a look at the seasonal drought outlook map from the Climate Prediction Center, this encompasses basically September, October, November, we do see all of the southern planes including Oklahoma in the drought improves and even drought removal likely areas.

So that would certainly be good news if we see that through most of the fall.

Now we do have to caution that it seems like much of this map is based on what we're gonna see in the next two weeks.

So we do need a rainfall forecast to come to fruition in the next two weeks.

Okay, so we have some cooler weather, now all we need is the rainfall.

So let's let mother nature get at it.

Hopefully we have better news next week.

That's it for this time, we'll see the next time on the Mesonet weather report.

(upbeat music) - The USDA recently released some information that shows the impact on hay of the continuing drought.

Here to talk about it as Derrell Peel, our livestock marketing specialist.

Derrell, how is this impacting Oklahoma and the surrounding region?

- This data shows that hay production in Oklahoma is estimated to be down about 10% on a year, over year basis.

And on May 1, our hay stocks estimate was down almost 48%.

So when you combine those two together, the hay supply for this year, the beginning stocks plus hay production is down about 17%.

And that's true in several of the major hay states which are also big beef cattle states, a combination of either reduced May 1 supplies, which is really carry over impacts from drought earlier, plus reduced production this year is leading to very tight hay supplies in all of this region and generally across the country.

- As we prepare for winter, does that mean buying hay will cost us more this year?

- Absolutely.

Hay prices are already high.

Again, we've had carry over impacts from last year, but we're gonna set record prices for alfalfa hay and for all other hay, without a doubt.

- And at the same time pasture conditions aren't so great and likely will continue to deteriorate.

- They are.

We've seen drought re advance again this midsummer.

In Oklahoma, about 2/3 of our pasture is currently rated at poor to very poor.

- Just 9% is rated in good condition and 0% is rated in excellent condition.

So, you know again, we're nearly through the growing season.

It's gonna be a long winter with a combination of not much hay and not much forage to work with.

- With these types of conditions, do you think this cattle liquidation momentum will continue?

- Well, it seems to be.

You know we've already seen a lot of movement so far this year, but if you look in the last four weeks in Oklahoma, auction volumes for feeder cattle are up about 11%.

That would suggest that we're probably weaning calves early, moving cattle, those feeder cattle into town early.

And then on the cull cow side, you know, again we've seen really strong cow slaughter this year.

The auction volume for cull cows in the last four weeks is up 115%, so more than double for the same period a year ago.

- So, lot of kind of dismal news.

We know what's going on, but it's still hard to hear it.

Any good news you can talk about this week?

- You know, there is good news actually in prices, in the cattle markets, despite all of these impacts, despite the increased volume of cattle moving through the markets, prices are actually very strong.

So, we're seeing prices for feeder cattle advancing, and we predicted that, generally.

There's a trend of stronger cattle prices.

Cattle numbers are getting tighter over time.

And so, despite these drought impacts we're seeing stronger feeder cattle prices and even the cull cow market, with the volume we had.

There was a couple of weeks in July when the volume really overwhelmed the market and we saw prices drop briefly, but they bounced right back and continue to be very, very strong at this point.

- Well, we'll end on a little bit of optimism today.

Darrell, thanks a lot.

- You bet.

- We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - It's hard to believe it's that time of year to start thinking about wheat planting.

So, Kim, what are a few things that producers need to consider to make a profit this year?

- They've gotta put a sharp pencil to figure out their cost and returns.

You look at the old cliche, "If you can't make a profit with a pencil and pen on the desk, you're probably not gonna make a profit with a tractor in the field."

- Oklahoma producers know the input costs are higher this year.

So, how does those input costs gonna affect profit?

- Well, they're gonna reduce profit unless we have a relatively good price.

I go back to COVID 2019.

Since then nitrogen prices have increased about 80%.

They've came down a little bit over the last couple of weeks.

Phosphorus and potassium have increased 26%, diesel 60%, and machinery 25%.

So we're gonna have to have a higher price.

Looks like we're gonna get it because of the stocks-to-use ratio.

We've talked about that last week.

Hard red winter wheat stocks-to-use ratio has dropped from 61% in '19 to 39%.

You look at all US wheat, it's dropped from 50% to 31%.

World stocks-to-use ratio from 39% to 34%.

The world needs wheat.

If there's not profit in producing wheat there's not gonna be any wheat.

There will be a profit to produce wheat for most producers.

- What's the market offering right now for 2023 harvested wheat?

- Well, in Northern Oklahoma, $8 to $8.10.

That's the Kansas City July '23 contract price minus 70 cents.

If you go out the panhandle, it's $8.20 to $8.30, that's that July contract minus 50 cents.

Southern Oklahoma, $7.70, and that's that contract minus a dollar.

So, relatively good prices looking into '23.

- So how are our summer crops faring right now?

- Well, you look at summer crops, their crop conditions, corn and cotton, they're in the low forties.

The average, five year average, is in the mid sixties.

Soybeans is 35%.

Again, the five year average is in the mid sixties.

Milo is 26%.

The summer crops have been decimated by the drought and producers are gonna have a hard time getting any profit out of that crop.

- So how's that gonna impact prices?

- If you look at prices in Northern Oklahoma for corn, $6.25.

Go to the panhandle area, it's up to $7.15.

Sorghum is at $5.75 and soybeans at $13.20.

Cotton.

Cotton has went from 90 cents a few weeks ago up to a $1.16 on the December futures contract.

Take 3 cents off of that and you've got our cotton price for this fall at around a $1.13.

- So what does all this mean for Oklahoma producers?

- This means the market's going offer them a profit to produce the commodity.

Now the weather's gotta cooperate.

Like it did not.

The weather hasn't cooperated with our summer crops.

If it had, we would've had a profit in those.

It's also extremely important that farmers put a strong pencil to every decision.

They've gotta look at those costs.

They gotta look at what the market's offering for that commodity at the harvest time period.

And they gotta make sure it's offering them a profit now before they invest their money to produce it.

- All righty.

Thanks a lot Kim.

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

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

Well, drought is impacting us pretty dramatically and among the hard decisions that we're faced with right now in the cow-calf business is potentially having to liquidate or cull some cows.

Now it doesn't come without a lot of thought put in, but the upside and the benefit if we do eliminate some cows, we're gonna ease up on our grazing system and allow the long-term health of those stressed pastures to recover a little sooner and save back some of that forage and cover.

And the other benefit is just reducing our feed bill.

So today, we address cow culling criteria and a lot of these ideas have been around forever, but we're gonna relate 'em to what we face right now this summer.

First thing that I would cull cows on right now would be their pregnancy status.

If I've got heavy-bred cows, I'm gonna want to keep on, keep a hold of those the longest.

Short-bred cows are gonna come second to that.

But if I've got a bunch of open cows around right now, that would be my first culling criteria.

From our high national cow inventories in 2018 we're down about 6%.

We know we're seeing more cows go to market almost on a daily basis at this point in Oklahoma and a lot of other parts of the country.

That lower cow inventory that we're gonna be looking at in the future is gonna equate to fewer calves on the market and higher value per pound of those calves that go to market in the next few years.

So if I've got some heavy-bred cows, those are the ones I wanna hang onto.

Those are the cows that I'm gonna be able to capture value out of calves produced the soonest.

Second culling criteria that we get into right now is just age of cows.

We typically think about cows coming into their prime at about four years of age or when they're raising that third calf.

Typically, cows at about 10 are gonna start to break down, be more likely to suffer from one problem or another.

So if I can, I'm gonna tend to keep my younger cows or those cows that are in the prime of production as opposed to the older cows I'm dealing with.

Third thing is just orneriness and bad dispositions.

I could tell some stories here about growing up with certain breeds of cattle, but Cow-Calf Corner's not the time to get into that.

Basically, if we've got cows that are hard to work with, hard to catch, or aggressive in their behavior, we might've made excuses for 'em when times were good and we had a lot of grass, but right now, they're out of excuses.

The next topic I get into is just the oddball type of cows.

Do we have cows out there that got bad udders, bad mouths, teeth, bad legs, some kind of issue with 'em?

Maybe they don't shed hair and they can't handle the summer heat in Oklahoma very well.

Whatever it is about 'em that makes 'em an oddball or makes 'em non-conforming, I'd get rid of those kind of cows.

And the fifth thing that we address today is if all your cows are four years old, tight-bred, due to calve soon, you got no issues in any of 'em, and you've figured out you need to get half of 'em off your feed bill, that benefit that we've talked about on Cow-Calf Corner before of just keeping production records, if we do nothing else about at weaning each year, we weigh the calves, we weigh the cows, and we preg-check the cows, over time, we can take a look at that and figure out what percentage of our cows' mature weight, both on a herd-wide and an individual cow basis, that they're weaning off.

Most herds are gonna range somewhere from the low 30s to 50% or better of their mature weight they're gonna weigh off.

Let's say theoretically, we've got a herd that we figured out we average weaning off, our cows average weaning off 45% of their mature weight and on an individual basis, our cows range from 35 to 55% of their mature weight weaned.

Well, if we gotta get rid of half of 'em, let's go identify those cows that are setting in here from 35 to 45%, we take them off, get rid of 'em.

We've cut our feed bill in half and the positive light at the end of that tunnel is we still own the most productive and best half of our cows.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner.

(upbeat music) - [Kurtis Hair] And just a quick reminder about some upcoming field tours and events.

First up are our Sorghum Tours.

The McCall Research & Demonstration Farm will hold its event on August 24th in Eva, Oklahoma.

And just a few days later, the Southwest Research Station will hold its tour in Tipton.

And we can't forget about our Fall Soil Health Field Training on September 1st.

It will be held at the OSU Agronomy Research Station in Stillwater.

You'll learn about soil health and conservation, as well as cover crop management, soil pit, and rainfall demonstrations.

For more information about these events, go to our website SUNUP - [Kurtis] .okaystate.edu (upbeat music) - As our 4H and FFA exhibitors, and even some of our open-show exhibitors, start to prepare for our state fairs and fall shows really this year, I think it's important to consider bio-security, really, before, during, and after the event.

Definitely need to have visit with their veterinarian on what are the herd healthcare plan for those particular animals?

Do we need to have vaccinations?

Do we need to be prepared?

Do we need to have medications on set and ready to go in case we have a issue at the show or not.

And then we need to think about how we're gonna isolate, as best possible, those animals at the show, as well as equipment.

We wanna avoid sharing equipment, particularly things like water buckets, feed pans, et cetera.

And then we need to think about what's our plan before we ever leave the house and what we're gonna do when we get home.

So, ideally, we wanna keep those animals that attended the show, at a minimum, we wanna keep them isolated from the rest of the group at home.

We've got lots of families with, you know, youth exhibits, but they also have commercial herds that are on the place, as well.

And so we wanna keep those show animals isolated for about two weeks, as best possible, for both contact as well as, we don't wanna be the carrier of disease from sick animals to healthy animals, and so we want to make sure we care for anything that's healthy first, care for those sick animals last.

(upbeat music) - Finally, today, a special honor for a long-time contributor to SUNUP, who also happens to be a mentor to military veterans as they pursue their education.

- [Speaker] And so when we talk about bringing it back, we talked about- - [Kurtis] An afternoon of family and friends gathered around in your honor?

Well, if you ask Dr. Larry Sanders, he'd probably say, "He's not worthy of it."

But ask anyone who knows this humble former professor and extension specialist, this recognition is most certainly deserved.

- Whether it be his fellow faculty, our staff members, students, I don't think I've heard a negative, even sound towards Dr. Sanders.

It's just been mutual respect from every single aspect of higher education.

- I do a lot to solve our debt.

- [Kurtis] For years, SUNUP viewers have tuned in to get their ag policy news from Dr. Sanders, but outside of extension in the agricultural world, Larry is known for his work in serving another community that he's a proud member of, veterans.

- Dr. Sanders has been such a big influence and such a big inspiration for our student veterans.

- [Kurtis] Vincent Rivera is the coordinator of the OSU Veteran Success Center.

A while back, Vincent and his team decided it was time to update the name of an award that recognizes the efforts of a faculty or staff member who champions and supports the cause of military veterans and military-affiliated students.

The honor needed to be named after a distinguished faculty member who's invaluable to the student veteran community and it wasn't hard finding that person.

- So if you would, please, please unveil the Dr. Larry Sanders Award.

(group applauding) - Well, I was humbled and honored to receive this, I never expected it.

I have worked with student veterans for much of my career here, and I know how hard it is for students to come back into a college setting, so it's meant a lot to me.

- The transition from military to civilian can be tough.

Transition from civilian to the university, just the same, there's their own, the university has its own culture, its own norms, written and unwritten rules, and to see another veteran who made it to be a doctor and then for that same professor to give back, and to care, and to show in meaningful ways, that, "I'm not just here to teach you, I'm here to give to you and to help you," that just sort of buoys you a little further along.

- Sometimes they don't understand that they need the help and you have to reach out to them.

I was in the army and I was in Vietnam for two tours, and at first it was very difficult to talk about.

And as I began to talk about it more, I began to realize that it was therapy for me.

- [Kurtis] While spending decades talking with other veterans helped Dr. Sanders greatly, spending time with those closest to him is the ultimate joy.

- Family is real therapy.

Having a great grandson and grandchildren who help me, make the heart grow fonder and fill the gap.

- In Payne County, I'm Kurtis Hair.

- That'll do it for us this week.

Remember you can see SUNUP anytime on our website 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.

(upbeat music) (guitar strumming)