- Good morning everyone.

I'm Lyndall Stout and we have a great show lined up for you today on Sunup.

We're diving in to how recent policy in Washington DC will impact taxes for those involved in agriculture and the staple of summer, the beloved watermelon, and why it's a bigger crop in Oklahoma than you might think.

Plus cooler temperatures brought much needed rain to round out the month of August and head into the Labor Day weekend.

Grab that fresh cup of coffee because an all new sunup starts right now.

We begin talking this morning about taxes with our farm tax specialist, JC Hobbs, who's worked for Extension for a long time.

We've heard a lot about the reconciliation bill or the big beautiful bill the past recently and we want to kind of dive into a few topics, starting with some of those personal items and and how taxes might be affected there.

- Okay, so the really the biggest thing that happened was the standard deduction has been retained.

Now, reason we could talk about this is 2017 with the tax cuts in Jobs Act, we ended up with some major increases in the standard deduction as well as a few other things.

Well, that was supposed to sunset next year, 2026.

It's been retained.

So married filing joint gets about a $26,000 standard deduction.

Singles about 13,000 and it was originally was gonna go back to about 6,500.

So there's a big piece there.

But what that did cost us was the personal exemption.

So when the tax cuts jobs Act passed, personal exemptions were eliminated, but they were supposed to come back in 2026.

Now with the big beautiful bill, it's been permanent repealed, so that is now gone.

So the other thing that was a big deal, we're talking about doing away with taxation on social security.

Well that didn't fly very well.

So for seniors 65 and over for the next I believe three years, they're gonna get a $6,000 per individual.

It's over 6,000 deduction or reduction, whatever you wanna call it, benefit.

And then that will go away, I believe starting 2029.

- Another big thing that that people are keeping an eye on are estate and gift taxes.

- That was a major fear, right?

Because the tax Cuts and Jobs Act, when it passed, it doubled the amount of the estate tax exemption and currently it was about $15 million per individual for 2025 and then it was going to go back sunset to half of that beginning in 2026.

And everybody was afraid of what that was gonna do because with 15 million that exempts most farm and ranches real quick and with a husband and wife being able to share that, it goes up to 30 million.

So that has been retained and it has been made permanent, it will not go away and it's gonna be index for inflation.

So it's gonna keep getting larger.

So small businesses, farms, individuals, husband and wife, $30 million estate tax exempt, not gonna have to worry about that.

So that is a major piece of that puzzle and everybody was all worried it was going to revert back.

A lot of questions came to me, but this big sigh of relief came about with the retention of that.

- Let's talk about another thing that really affects farms and ranches in Oklahoma and obviously around the country are depreciation changes, - Right?

Two big ones.

One of 'em was for the bonus depreciation and that was supposed to go, it's been ratcheting down the amount that you're allowed this year was when we started the year it was at 40% of qualified purchases would be allowed as a deduction.

So as a depreciation deduction above and beyond normal depreciation.

And once the president was inaugurated it went to a hundred percent.

So you could write off a hundred percent of the purchase of qualifying assets, those assets with a useful life of 10 years or, or 20 years or less.

You can write off 100% of that purchase price against taxable or against farm income.

So all of a sudden now we've got another great ability to manage taxes.

And then on the other side, the section 1 79, that's another, that's an expensing rule and it works just like depreciation except there's a little bit of a different nuance from the standpoint.

Bonus depreciation offsets all income section 1 79 only offset farm income or business income.

So with the passage of the big beautiful bill that went to 2.5 million, what that means is a farmer or any business can buy $2.5 million of assets in the current year and deduct 100% of that against their business income.

But it can't create a loss, but it's only for business income.

Whereas bonus in bonus offsets both bus or business and non-business income.

So between the two of them you can do a little bit in manipulation and you can really do some tax management planning in which farmers are probably gonna need, some of the ranches have had a great year with cattle, others have not done so well.

But for the most part this is gonna be around the, both of 'em are made permanent a hundred percent as well as the larger 1 79 and the 1 79 is index for inflation.

So it'll keep getting larger in the future as well.

- So this is a lot to keep track of.

Right.

And we're only scratching the surface today, - Right?

- You and, and Dr.

Hagerman who's on our show frequently or are gonna work on some educational programming through extension throughout the year, - Correct Yeah, we're already talking about how do we best do this with some fact sheets just kind of outlining the bits and pieces.

And also I'm working with, be working with tax repairs this fall, trying to educate them on the new nuances of the big beautiful bill as well and how to apply those.

- So it's good to talk about some of this now so we're prepared.

But the real work comes a tax deadline in the spring.

- The real work comes a little bit later this year.

Okay.

But we really start talking October.

That's the best time to start doing tax planning.

- Okay - Look at where we're at, what can we do to manage our tax bite?

Because the idea is we don't wanna minimize taxes, we wanna maximize after tax net income.

And that's why tax planning is very important.

- Lots of great information today and more to come and we're glad to have you on any anytime JC to to talk more about taxes.

- Thank you very much for inviting - Me.

Me mark your calendars because the 2025 peanut and cotton field day is just right around the corner.

This event will be 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM on September 18th at the Cato Research station in Fort Cobb.

Topics will include weed management, harvest aids for cotton, peanut varieties, and much more to get involved in this event.

make sure and register by September 10.

For more information you can scan the QR code on your screen or visit our website, sunup.OKstate.edu.

- Hello Oklahoma.

This is Emma White, your Mesonet agricultural outreach specialist here with your weekly mezzanine weather report.

It's been wet this past week, especially for northwest all the way to eastern Oklahoma.

The rains have been great for some crops, but they were not so great if you were trying to get your fall garden planted as those little plants or even if still seed may have washed away.

Some lighter rain may appear in the state, particularly for Western and southern Oklahoma this weekend as this forecast for Saturday shows.

But overall, if you have not yet planted the fall garden and you are still intending to the rain conditions are expected to be better for planting early this next week than they were last week.

As this example table shows from the corn in the panhandle with cooler temperatures this past week and even somewhat this weekend as well, growing degree days or GDD have not accumulated as much this past week as one might expect of a normal August week.

The lower GDD has also occurred in the cotton areas of southwest Oklahoma.

The lower GDD has a chance of impacting crop progress a bit such as for cotton, soybean, and even corn.

However, with last week's rains, there is now ample soil moisture across several portions of the state for the crops.

This map is showing the 16 inch percent plant available water across the state.

Generally you want these numbers to stay above 50% for which most of the state now has, but the southwest and the northeast could utilize some more rain.

This map is as of August 26th.

And so in between then and Labor Day, at least the northeast will have received ample rain.

Southwest Oklahoma, however, at this time may be left out of the decent amount of precipitation the state received this past week.

Gary McManus is now up next with your state climatology report.

- Thanks Emma and good morning everyone.

Well, like we've seen a lot of times over the past three or four months, we had a little bit of a skirmish with drought once again building across the state.

And once again, some very timely rains have taken care of the problem, at least for the most part.

Let's just get right to the new map and I'll show you.

So we still have a little bit of a moderate drought up in the north central and just to the southeast of the Oklahoma City metro area and far east central Oklahoma.

Certainly better than the one I was looking, you know, just a couple of weeks ago as we started to see that drought build once again, we still have some abnormally dry conditions that D zero yellow color around those moderate drought areas, signaling areas that have been flirting with drought, but hopefully we get even more rains and take care of this problem.

Are you liking the October weather?

Are you really hoping that some of that summer weather comes back and you can get back in the pool?

Well, it depends on your outlook, but the actual outlooks for the first week of September and a little bit beyond show increased odds of below normal temperatures, especially across the northwestern half of the state.

And also increase or above normal precipitation again, especially across the southern half of Oklahoma.

So we might be in this fall like pattern a little bit longer.

Heck, we might be in it all the way up until actual fall.

So you know, once we see these things start to change as we get farther and farther into September, we get fewer and fewer chances for those really hot days to really persist and come back.

So po possibly good news for those fall weather lovers.

So it's a bit early for fall, but it might be sticking around.

That's it for this time.

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

- We're here now with Dr.

Darryl Peel, OSU extension livestock marketing specialist.

And Darryl, it seems like there's been some more cattle at auctions recently.

Are we seeing an early fall run of calves?

- It does seem like it.

You know, if you look at the volume in Oklahoma auctions for the last several weeks, we're running 25 to 30% over a year ago.

And a lot of those calves are coming in straight off the cow unweaned calves.

So I think we are seeing something of an early fall run calves that normally would've been marketed a couple months from now are coming in now.

- So why are these calves being marketed earlier?

- Yeah, I think it has to do with the market prices.

We've seen prices go up for these calves this summer, which is counter seasonal.

And so producers are, are moving these calves early to take advantage of the market just in case it doesn't hold through the fall.

- So what does this mean for feeder cattle this fall?

- Well, you know, you only get to market these calves once, so we're changing the timing of 'em a little bit.

I suspect what this means is that the, you know, the we, we know feeder cattle supplies are tight by moving these calves earlier.

We're getting a few more of them now, but they won't be there later.

So I would expect that we won't see the normal seasonal movements of cattle this fall and probably not the normal seasonal price pressure, especially on the calves that we would normally see in the fall.

- Yeah, and it seems like we are and are expecting to be getting some more rain.

So that might mean more wheat pasture.

What does that mean for markets?

- You know, we do have prospects for getting some wheat pasture in.

That's the first step obviously.

But when you look at the economics, you know, I think producers have to be, you know, pretty careful to use a very sharp pencil to, to figure out stocker prospects.

You know, you can sell a a calf right now for, you know, say 4.50 a pound or something like that.

If you put another 250 pounds of gain on them in today's market, those pounds are worth less than half of that.

So the market is basically not encouraging us to devote a lot of resources to putting extra weight on cattle.

So, you know, how are we gonna utilize that wheat pasture?

I think every producer has to figure that out.

Maybe it's gonna be some heifer calves that we're finally starting to retain.

Maybe we're gonna use it to support the cows and calves as part of that operation and maybe stockers will work, but I think you'd have to pencil it out pretty carefully.

- Yeah.

So what should producers be keeping in mind right now?

- Well, I think there's a lot of nervousness right now that this market is just too good to be true and it won't last.

And yet the numbers all say that we're, we're still here, we're gonna be here for a while, the high, you know, these are not the highest prices that we're gonna see.

And so we expect to go forward through the rest of this year and into next year with higher prices.

So, you know, producers are, are gonna have a lot to, to think about in terms of how to take advantage of this market.

- Yeah.

Alright, well it sounds like some good news, Darryl.

Thanks for catching up with us.

You - Bet.

- Recently I was speaking with a veterinarian and she commented that pink eye was bad this summer.

And then she further commented that pink eye is bad every summer somewhere.

And I think that's very true.

There's a reason we see pink eye more in the summer than other times of the year.

One is we have abundance of daylight.

Daylight is damaging to epithelial tissue, so the cornea of the eye and the tissues that surround the eye can be damaged from that abundant sunlight.

We also have a lot more dust and pollen, which irritates the eyes when they reach down to graze.

And those tall weeds and tall grasses scratched their eyes that again, damages that eye and, and we're, we're breaking down the in innate immunity, that physical barrier to prevents these animals from getting these infections.

The other thing that we can have that breaks down immunity is stress.

So anytime we work cattle, if we work them and we are not doing it in a proper manner, then we're gonna stress those cattle and that will also break down the immunity of the eye.

Typically, the clinical signs that we're gonna see with that is if you are closely watching, you'll start to see some increase in tears that will be followed by some redness.

And then you're probably gonna see some small white spot on the eye or grayish or blue spot.

As far as treatment goes, there are a variety of antibiotics that have been used for treatment.

Strongly suggest that you contact your veterinarian and see what their recommendations are.

When we have a cow or a calf or whoever with pink eye, we need to separate those from the herd because there's gonna be a large number of bacteria involved at that and that can spread easily.

We probably should cover that eye 'cause that helps protect that eye or puts them somewhere in the shade so that the sun's not bothering as much.

Also, we need to have good fly control because flies can carry the bacteria from one end to the next.

And so we wanna be careful with that as far as prevention is concerned, making sure that we meet the nutritional needs of that animal.

We keep 'em healthy, we don't stress 'em.

If you'd like some more information about pinkeye, we have a good fact sheet that has a lot of good information, we'll put that at the sunup website.

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

Our topic this week is information asymetry in cattle marketing.

An interesting topic, what do we mean by information asymmetry?

Basically in a negotiation where one party has got a lot more or more relevant or better information than the other party and it potentially leads to a bad outcome.

We are fortunate to be joined today by Robert Hodgen, graduate of OSU, one of our graduates of Distinction and our animal and food sciences department.

He is actually in town today to tape another interview because he is one of our college's distinguished graduates.

So be recognized later this fall.

Robert's the CEO of King Ranch.

I appreciate you making time to do this.

- Thanks for having me, Mark, - As, as we think about this topic.

And, and, and Robert, I know you wear a lot of hats in your job.

You are a seed stock producer, you've got to sell and you have a feed yard.

And so you're kind of involved in all sides of this.

So I start by just asking, as a cattle feeder, when you are taking on inventory to put in the feed yard, what kind of information, what kind of genetic or documentation of genetic potential has value to you?

- Mark, I would say with our, with our cattle feeding hat on, and you know, in our business we're gonna buy five to 10,000 head of feeder calves a week.

And we are just beginning the, the journey to really go from working on averages to thinking about origins, thinking about sources.

Today we put a low frequency ID in every calf that shows up and those calves can get dispersed through the yard, but then we can go back and look at where they started.

And so we're focused on health, we're focused on mortality, and we know that, you know, in any, any given pen, the value of the best calf to the value of the worst calf in that pen might be five, 600 in today's market, $700 between the best and the worst calf.

And so, you know, it's still in many ways a business of averages.

And then you're trying to find specific producers and build relationships where you know that that calf is better than average.

And I think for us as, as, as, as as cattle feeders, if, if, you know, we are trying to buy calf know its health, know its, know its background and then predict how it's gonna feed in the feed yard and what that carcass is gonna look like.

- Yeah.

We think long term and you, and i's lifetime, I'm quite a bit older than you, but we talk about how does a commercial cow calf operation build that reputation?

And I can, we've talked about this for years.

Well, maybe we retain ownership, maybe we retain a share of ownership through the stocker phase, through finishing.

We coordinate something to get that information back and then we have our story to tell that helps us earn that reputation.

Does that have value to you?

- It absolutely does.

We work with a handful of producers where we know we're getting calves from a specific ranch.

We fed those cattle before we know how they're gonna feed, we know how they're gonna perform on the rail and absolutely we're willing to pay for those cattle.

And, and you know, in our business it's, it's, you know, correctly valuing them.

We just need to know what the calf is going to do.

'cause we make a set of assumptions and in most cases we're making a set of assumptions off averages, unfortunately, today and working off the averages and know some are, some are better and some are worse.

But, but where we can have that relationship with that producer and, and we, you know, we fed the cattle before we know what they'll, we know what they'll do.

We're absolutely willing to, you know, as a cattle feeder, we're looking for our yardage every day.

We want our, you know, we want cattle in the yard and that's, that's, you know, and then, and then to be able to make a a really high quality product after that, but having, knowing what the set of expectations of that cattle are makes all the difference for us as a cattle feeder.

Absolutely.

- Robert, I really you making the time to be here and, and share with us on Cow-Calf Corner.

Always appreciate you guys joining us on Cow-Calf Corner and look forward to seeing you next week.

Thanks Robert.

- Thanks Mark for having me.

- Finally, today we're talking about the favorite of summer that is the watermelon and how there's more of it planted in Oklahoma fields than you might think.

Here's Sunup's Kurtis Hair with Dr.

Tyler Mason.

- As Lyndall mentioned, we're catching up with Tyler Mason, our OSU extension vegetable specialist, and Tyler, we're talking watermelon today.

You have some right here.

- Yeah.

- And watermelon, you know, is actually a bigger crop than most - People would think in the state.

It really is.

It's a, it's an economically important crop for Oklahoma.

On average an annual year.

We're number 12 in the nation for Wow.

For watermelon production.

- You wouldn't even have thought about - That.

I know.

And, and a lot of it has to do with how sandy our soils are.

So they, they perk water really well and watermelon is somewhat drought tolerant and that makes it, you know, a little more manageable than some of your solinatious crops like tomatoes or peppers, which are, are pretty demanding of water.

And you know what, what we're looking for in the watermelon market is seedless.

- Mm.

- That's what the average customer wants.

The days of producing a 25 or 35 pound watermelon.

They're kind of behind us.

You know, that's, that's a little bit too big for the modern four person family.

So we're looking for a, you know, anywhere between a five to an eight pound seedless watermelon.

And that's what we're growing here today.

The cultivar is called Captivation.

The other thing that you'll notice, Kurtis, is that there's a, another crop planted among the watermelon.

So when you plant a seedless watermelon crop, you need, you need the pollen from a seeded watermelon crop and they come up with some amazing names.

So the name for the pollenizer is called Wing Man.

- Mm Oh, nice.

- Right.

Isn't that incredible?

Yeah.

- Yeah.

That's great.

- So, so Wing Man is is pollenizer Captivation.

- Yeah.

So before we kind of dive into the, you know, the seedless versus seed - Yeah.

- You know, where at in the state is watermelon primarily grown?

Yeah.

Is - It - Kind of everywhere since you said it's pretty drought Tallant?

- Good question.

There is a lot of production kind of west central in Oklahoma and South Central as well as west and south.

In addition, the, you know, the market gardener, which may be on two acres or three acres Yeah.

Of, of productivity.

It wouldn't be uncommon for them to grow watermelon too.

And those would be closer to your city centers.

So - Let's like, dive right in.

You said you got Sure.

You got some examples right here?

- Yeah.

- So like, let's just walk right through it.

- Sure, sure.

So, you know, one of the first questions we get is, is quality.

How do you determine what is a good tasting melon and what is, and when is it ready?

There's a, a couple indicators that you can look at on this cut melon to see that, that it, that it, that it's ripe.

One of them, if we just turn it just a hair, so the, - The - Viewer can see at home is that the, the skin has built up epic cuticular wax.

Mm.

So it's a little more dull.

If you look at an unripe watermelon, it would be hair more shiny.

Mm.

And then another key indicator is the yellow belly.

Oh, - Okay.

Yeah.

- Once it gets that yellow, that yellow spot, you, you know that it's ready.

- So what about actually in the field when we're talking about - Yeah.

You, you obviously can't cut into every watermelon to see if it's ripe.

There are a couple key indicators that, that plant physiological maturity.

The, the first indicator is when you walk through the field, you're looking for that dull melon.

Then after that you wanna look at the tendrils.

The tendrils are the grabbys of the plant.

And when they turn brown, that's usually a very good indicator that it's ripe.

And then if you move away from the watermelon, two or three tendrils away, if those are brown, that's a, that's a, you've got a pretty good chance that that's a ripe melon, but the best way to see if it's ripe is thumping them.

- Oh, okay.

Cool.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So, so what does that entail?

- You wanna try one?

- Yeah, absolutely.

All right, great.

Okay, cool.

So this is something like even I could do.

So just give it a good tap.

- Yeah.

- Maybe harder.

A - Little harder.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I see.

Try this - One.

- Oh yeah.

Doesn't, it's just a little bit louder and more of a thud, more of a thud.

So this one's wrapped right here.

Yep.

And then the other way you can tell of course, is as we mentioned, you go in here, you can see that the tendrils are starting to turn - Brown.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what's interesting about this part right here is you're, you're doing some really interesting research in regards to growing watermelons, right?

- That's right.

We received a specialty crop block grant from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture.

We're trying to understand if we can produce this crop with less water.

- Mm.

- There's a product called Biochar and it's a, it's a carbon rich source that improves nutrient use, efficiency and water use efficiency.

So we're growing captivation watermelon and then we're also growing Italian style roasting peppers, trying to see if we can produce the same crop with less water.

- So do I get to take this home with me?

'cause I do have a spoon in the - Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

- All right.

Thanks Tyler.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Tyler Mason, OSU Extension vegetable Specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- 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 and stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

I'm Lynddall stout.

We wish you and your family a very safe and happy Labor Day weekend.

And we'll see you next time at Sunup.