(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome to SUNUP.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

As we sail through the month of December, we're getting one more check in on Oklahoma's wheat crop with Dr. Amanda Silva, our OSU extension small grain specialist.

And Amanda, since we last talked, I'm happy to report and I think there's a lot of smiles on a lot of faces because we've seen rain across many parts of the state.

- Definitely.

Yeah.

So people are really excited about all this rain.

Unfortunately, the panhandle has not seen as much as we would like, but any rain we can get, we really appreciate it.

And yeah, so the wheat is small around the state.

A lot of fields were planted later.

Of course, no forage this year.

And that's actually what drives one of our studies looking the impact of late planting on wheat production.

- So talk a little bit more about that research that has been underway for a little while and you're starting to get some takeaways that will inform some of the things you're doing with extension.

- Yes, I have a master's student working on that project.

So this is the third growing season that we are evaluating different wheat genotypes and different wheat varieties at two seeding rates.

So the seeding rate that we are looking at, it's 870 thousand and then the 1.4 million seeds per acre.

And in this study that we are conducting, we are not seeing a real impact on increasing seeding rate on the late planting.

In the late planting that I'm talking about here, is December, first week of December.

In fact, we just finished planting some other studies that we are also looking at different nitrogen timing and rate and late planting wheat.

We just finished planting last week.

And the importance of this research that I really wanted to highlight is, especially for years like this, where we really need to delay planting for weather conditions, so either a drought, flooding, or sometimes even to manage weeds.

So we have seen research showing that if you delay planting, wait for that wheat flush to come up and manage that, and then plant later, you could really benefit your system and reduce the chemical application.

- Could this late planting help producers who wanna add in another crop to their systems?

- Yes, actually, it's one of the points of this study.

So we have producers interested in having a cotton and wheat production together.

So cotton, usually cotton harvest is a little bit late so which pushes wheat planting to outside of its optimal window.

So it definitely can work in that scenario.

But one of the things that we are testing that I I meant to mention is the varieties that we test, that we are trying to develop to work in the system.

So those varieties, we have one already released by OSU.

They need to have a very fast growth early in the season.

In the spring, they should also be very quick on coming out of the winter and mature really fast.

So they have this, what we say, shorter season.

They are adapted to this scenario, to this late planting scenario.

So late planting could be a new strategy for producers that are trying to plant cotton, that are trying to go behind corn, or plant before soybeans.

So it could really help producers to diversify their source of income as well.

- You talked about the wheat being a little smaller, shorter than we would like it to be this time of year, with some of the temperature swings that we see from pretty cold to mid to high sixties.

How is that affecting the plant at this stage?

- Yes, it could be a problem, especially for the wheat that are not so well developed but we have seen the wheat also do really well in those in those situations.

So it's something that we'll be watching.

We wish that the week was well more developed to face those single digits temperature, but... - Just wait and see, right?

- Yeah.

- And hope for the best.

- Yes.

- Well, Amanda, thank you very much.

Great information, and we'll see you again early next year.

Thanks a lot.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Mesonet Weather Report.

I'm Wes Lee.

Cooler air is on the way.

This forecast map is for the Christmas week, and shows significant dark blue or likely cooler than normal areas over much of the US.

- [Wes] The Mesonet Cattle Comfort Index is a tool developed to help livestock producers to better manage animals in extreme hot or cold environments.

You can look at historical or current conditions and a two-day forecast of the expected index.

This map from Tuesday shows that on that day, it was either in the comfortable or slight caution range.

This index utilizes temperature, wind speed, humidity and sunlight to come up with a number that symbolizes how cattle might feel.

Available tables show that in winter, temperatures are adjusted higher due to high humidity and winds, but lowered with strong sunlight.

Cattle exposed to a colder index will require some extra attention to help them cope with the added stress.

A rule of thumb for feeding cows in cold weather is to increase feed by 1% each degree the Cattle Comfort Index is below 32 with a dry hair coat.

Limit increases to no more than 25% to avoid digestion issues.

For extremely cold temperatures, it may require an increased feed level before and after it occurs.

Now here's Gary focusing on the drought and moisture situation.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone!

Well, we had yet another storm system move through the state, giving most of us at least a decent dose of rain.

How did that impact the drought monitor?

Let's take a look.

Well, once again, we've seen improvements in localized areas, and large-scale improvement over across parts of central down into south central Oklahoma, also a little bit more into east central Oklahoma.

We do still have a large area of the state in an extreme to exceptional drought.

Those red colors, which indicate the worst two categories on the drought monitor.

But all in all, we are improving as we go through the cool season, which was a little bit unexpected but certainly welcome.

Can take a look at the rainfall data from the last 30 days from Oklahoma Mesonet.

We see much of the state as we go from northwest to southeast, two to three to four inches, and then down in far southeastern Oklahoma over into east central Oklahoma we get up into the seven inch rain.

So, a good amount of rain over most of the state.

But as we see up in the northwest corner and the panhandle, those areas continue to miss out, and that much more is needed in those areas.

Easy to see the lucky areas on the departure from normal rainfall map from the last 30 days.

Again, those surplus amounts in the green show from about an inch above normal to two to three inches above normal as we get over into eastern Oklahoma.

Out in the panhandle, again in the far northwest, close to normal but mostly below normal by about a half inch or so.

So those are the areas that continue to miss out.

And it is the cool season, so how do those surpluses and deficits amount to what we would normally expect for this time of year, at least over the last 30 days, or for much of us it's 150 to as much as 200% above normal.

And that's really good news for drought relief.

But again, in the panhandle, less than 50% of normal for the most part.

The latest drought outlook just released from the Climate Prediction Center does show drought expected to persist across the state where it currently exists at least through the end of March.

So that wouldn't be good news if it comes true, but let's hope for better news as we actually go forward.

So we've gotten a good start in parts of the state, southeast Oklahoma getting rid of that drought.

(upbeat music) We simply need more precipitation as we travel to the northwest.

That's it for this time.

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

- It's time to check in to see what's happening in the grain markets with our crop marketing specialist Dr. Kim Anderson.

So Kim, is there any news happening this week?

- There's a lot going on this week.

I think the number one thing that we're paying attention to is we got some moisture.

Now, the moisture's not evenly distributed around, but I think we can get some excitement with that.

We've got the Fed with their interest rates.

The dollar declined this week.

I think that's good news for our exports.

And our exports, it's been a little weak over the last month or so.

We need those exports to pick up.

It looks like our wheat prices bottomed out.

We took about a dollar and a quarter off of them.

I went down below $8.

They're back above eight now.

I think that's good news.

And then you've got things going on in South America, Argentina, Australia, finishing up their crops.

Just a lot going on right now, and you wouldn't expect this in this 'between Thanksgiving and Christmas' time period.

- So, for the past couple weeks, we've always obviously been talking about Russia's war with Ukraine.

Is there any news coming out of there?

- Well, I think there's kind of a lull there.

The fighting's still going on, but Russia, the reports are that Russia's waiting for the ground to freeze, and then they're gonna have a big offensive, and the war is expected to escalate.

And I think the market's gonna be nervous until we see what goes on when we get into the winter and when we have the winter war going on between Russia and Ukraine.

This week, you look at Russia's put some rockets in Odessa, destroyed and upset the electrical grids.

They had to stop, it impacted the export elevators.

- But now, they still put out eight ships this week.

The other thing that's going on, it's kinda on the sideline, Russia says, "We're gonna let 'em ship," but then they restrict the inspections as it gets into Turkey and Istanbul there.

Quite a bit going on.

- So, you know, taking a bird's eye view, just looking at the world markets in general, you know, what's kinda shaking out there?

There any more news coming out?

- Well, you've got in Argentina and Australia, I mentioned there, the dry weathers.

Also their exports, their production's coming a little less than expected.

They're not getting the next crop put in like they wanted.

There's some political problems down in that part of the world.

I think that's helping support our prices a little bit.

And of course, you haven't seen any news come out of Australia, but you know, they were having trouble with their harvest, and their harvest is coming to an end here in the next couple weeks.

We'll have a final number on Argentina and Australia as we approach Christmas and the first of the year.

- You know, you mentioned moisture.

You know, the majority of the state, you know, except for the panhandle, feel sorry for those folks out there, but we did get, you know, some rain this week.

So if we keep getting rain, what's that gonna mean for prices for 2023 week?

- Well, I don't think it's gonna have much on prices.

And we can get overly optimistic with this rain.

We're still in a drought situation over most of Oklahoma, and I don't think we've got enough rain to get runoff.

We need some water in our ponds.

We need to get some subsoil moisture.

We got top soil.

And the producers report to me that these rains will probably get 'em into that February, March time period of when they're gonna need more rain.

But to solve this drought situation and to get us to harvest, we're gonna have to have a lot more rain than we got this week.

- More mud.

- More mud.

- All right, thanks, Kim.

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

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

This week's topic is forage budgeting , specifically with non-traditional hay sources.

As we've talked over the last few months, we know we've gotten into situations this year because of drought and excessive heat that in a lot of cases, we may be feeding some types of hay, be it cotton, corn, milo, some different type of sorghum that we haven't traditionally fed.

We know that a feed analysis test is critical to tell us that crude protein content, the energy content, and the form of TDN.

And if we look at this as we typically would, we'll take for example some information outta chapter 16 of the "OSU Beef Manual."

If we've got a 1,300 pound dry cow, last trimester of pregnancy, if we're feeding her some type of hay that tests about 54.5% TDN, 7.5% crude protein, we assume she's gonna consume about 1.9% of her body weight per day in dry matter, she's gonna eat enough of that hay to meet her energy and protein requirements without any additional supplementation.

So that's about 24.5 pounds a day of dry matter intake from that particular source of hay.

But we can't stop there as we get into forage budgeting.

We realize that every bale of hay we feed is probably somewhere around seven to 10% moisture or 90 to 93% dry matter.

So we're gonna take that into account and add two or three more pounds of actual hay that we have to feed to that cow as well.

We also know that when we feed hay, all of it doesn't get consumed.

In a typical year, we expect six to 20% waste, hay that's gonna be pulled out, laid on, some extent it's gonna get wasted.

We know that we can improve that if we're feeding in round bale hay feeders, by using sheeted bottom feeders that are gonna contribute to less waste than an open bottom hay feeder.

And probably best case scenario, in closed bottom with a cone shape, or what many refer to as a hay saver, we're gonna be able to reduce that hay waste even more.

But typically, depending on what form we're putting that hay out in, and potentially even just unrolling enough hay each day to meet those cow's intake needs, we're looking at six to 20%.

Some of the unique things we get into this year on these non-traditional hay sources, something like corn stalk hay, just in the past few weeks, I've heard from several producers that are estimating that 1/3 to 40% of each bale is in the form of those lower stalks that cows just simply will not eat.

They're gonna sort that out.

It's gonna accumulate around hay feeders or accumulate in the spots in our pasture where we roll out hay.

That is another form of waste we're gonna have to take into account as we start thinking about that.

So as we come up with some realistic estimate of how much hay gets wasted, we've gotta tack that on to the actual amount of hay that we feed each day as well.

So this same 1,300 pound cow, 24.5 pounds of dry matter intake, two or three more pounds added as a result of dry matter, we're looking at adding another seven to eight pounds of hay on as is to account for wastage, possibly even more.

And now we're starting to look at 36, 37 pounds of actual hay fed per day.

- Another final thing we need to take into account, how much of the bale of hay has actually been spoiled?

If we think of a typical big round bale that's about five and a half foot tall, there's actually about half the weight of that bale in the outer six inches.

If we're looking at a bale of hay that's been stored on the ground and we've only got two to three inches of spoilage on the bottom, we need some kind of a realistic estimate of how much that is accounting the total weight of that bale.

One thing that is a positive this year, since we've probably been buying a lot of hay and having it trucked in, if we're buying it by the tonnage, it's easy to divide the actual tonnage relative to the amount of bales on the semi-load to know what each bale of hay weighed whenever we took delivery.

By taking into account the amount of spoilage, some of those estimates of how much of that weight is in the outer part of that bale, it helps us do a better job of budgeting how much hay to actually put out each day.

I hope this helps, and again, I know hay is scarce and extremely valuable this year.

We need to feed enough, but we don't wanna be rolling out or feeding any more of it than we actually have to.

Thanks for joining us on "Cow Calf Corner."

- Talking insects and what to plan for now to make things a little easier come springtime.

Once again, here's Kurtis Hair and our OSU extension entomologist, Dr. Tom Royer.

- Well, we keep getting rain and the wheat continues to grow.

So Tom, it's been a couple months since we've spoken with you and, and back then, you know, there wasn't a lot going on in regards to insect pressure 'cause, well, you know, we didn't really have any wheat up but now that we do, are you hearing anything?

- I haven't heard a lot about what's going on in wheat because it's come up so late.

So that kind of delays some of the insects that we would normally expect to see this fall.

But I got an interesting call the other day from some farmers up in Kay County that were seeing winter grain mites and they took some videos of it and they were like thousands of them crawling around and wanted to know what to do about it.

So that's a challenge because we don't have a lot of, we don't have to treat for them too often and we don't have a lot of insecticide products that are registered to control them.

So I'm maybe hoping to get up there and put out a quick test to see what products would work.

But other than that it's been really quiet.

- You know, that might not be a problem, but, you know if it does continue to be an issue, how do producers scout for grain mites?

- That's the other challenge is because on a bright sunny day like this, they want to be as far down in the, even under the soil, but at the crown level.

They hate the sunlight.

They come out at night or they come out on a cloudy day.

So yeah, it's hard to scout for them.

We don't really have any thresholds that we can give anybody.

Basically our thresholds is if you see a lot of mites and it's showing evidence of damage, it's time to control them.

- So, you know, in regards to just drought in general, how does drought impact, you know, insect pressure going forward, even though if we do get some rain, but if it, you know, if the drought, you know, extended out but the wheat is able to come up, how, what's the insect pressure usually like?

- Well, the drought has an impact on the wheat because, you know, if it's dry, the wheat is stressed and a lot of times, like an insect like green bug can even cause worse problems for the wheat when it's under drought stress or even burnchere oda, things like that, just because they're already under stress and then they have that additional stress from an insect.

And then last spring when the wheat was under drought stress, that's when we saw an outbreak of another mite called the brown wheat mite that was really causing some issues last spring.

So drought causes all kinds of issues that we don't typically see all the time.

- So in regards to like continuing to scout, so what are some, what are some ways of like scouting methods that producers can take?

- Well, it's not, it's pretty simple.

You just have to get out and be looking, see if there's evidence of insects.

We do have a smartphone application for green bugs that we can use.

It's called Glance and Go.

I've talked about it before, I know, but it works pretty well for green bugs but for some of the other insects, you just have to be out.

If you start noticing that maybe the stand is suffering, you're seeing some evidence of feeding activity from army cut worms or something like that, just need to be out there looking ahead of time so that you can take care of the problem before it becomes a serious problem.

- And, you know, finally, you actually have some big news and sad news for us at SUNUP, but you're retiring.

- I am.

I figured 26 years.

I've enjoyed working at Oklahoma State.

I love living in Oklahoma.

I'm gonna continue to live here.

I love living here and I have loved working for Oklahoma State for the last 26 years.

It's been a pleasure for me, raised my kids here and everything, so I'm just gonna retire, want to see my grandkids and just do some other things now.

And it's gonna be sad for me too.

- I think it's just time.

- Well, for everybody here at Sunup and all of extension, we just wanna thank you for your years of service.

- Well, thank you.

I really appreciate it and I've enjoyed working with Sunup for a long time, ever since I got here.

So it's, it's gone through some evolutions over the years but it's been, I think it's been a good service for the producers of Oklahoma.

- All right, thanks.

Finally, Tom Royer, extension entomologist here at Oklahoma State University.

- Thanks guys, and congratulations Tom.

We will miss you.

Finally, today we meet a woman who's dedicated to making her community a better place.

That's why Patsiann Nix Smith is a distinguished alumna in the Ferguson College of Agriculture.

- [Ron Hays] Patsiann Nix Smith is the best known anonymous person in Tahlequah.

- 60% of the people in Tahlequah think her name is anonymous because she does so much, not only for Cherokee County, Tahlequah, OSU, the state of Oklahoma.

If people need things, they know where to go get it.

Patsi is always willing to step up do above and beyond her part, and I couldn't think of a better person to receive this award than her.

- [Ron Hays] Patsiann was born in Oklahoma City, but spent summers and as much time as possible in Tahlequah starting at the age of three.

- When my father was in World War II my mother got an opportunity to go be with him because so many of World War II vet people were not coming back, army soldiers.

So she got to go out and be with him for six or eight weeks.

So she shipped me over here to two old maid aunts and shipped my brother off up to our grandfather's because he had boys and knew how to deal with boys.

- [Ron Hays] Her aunt also bought the three-year-old a Shetland pony to help keep her outta trouble.

- To get me on horseback was probably the best thing she ever did for me because, you know, kept me out of the bars, kept me going straight.

Horses are good for you.

Horses are not my whole life, but they make my life whole.

- [Ron Hays] She decided to go to OSU and while she wanted to go into animal science, there was a problem.

- I wanted to be in animal science.

I wasn't any good in animal science so it was easier to do that to go into general agriculture.

My mother said, get your education cuz they're always gonna need teachers.

Daddy said, get your business because there's always gonna be businesses.

- [Ron Hays] Patsiann joined Brock and Bridle spending much of her time hanging out at the OSU animal barns.

- I dated a barn boy, so I ferreted a lot of pigs.

That was better than a date as far as I was concerned.

- [Ron Hays] After graduation, Patsiann returned to the family business in manufacturing and industrial supply.

When her parents sold the company they started the Nix Foundation which she eventually inherited.

She and her nephew, Jimmy Nix, are now directors of the Nix Foundation.

They have created OSU scholarships and supported animal science facilities across campus.

- Because I have heard other land-grant colleges have given up their, their places.

I just think that we need to keep the barns, that's agriculture.

- If you get her into a discussion about OSU versus other institutions, she's pretty strong-willed about that.

She's pretty strong-willed about everything.

One of the things I really like about her though is that she really wants to see us continue to have success with the varied animal units that we have on campus.

- I have a sign out here it's worked for the cause, not the applause.

And OSU just had a lot of cause.

- She values education, she values agriculture.

She's a hard worker and she believes in people who work hard.

She supports those people.

And so whenever I heard that she was getting this award I thought, wow, Patsi is the person.

- Now you're getting the true Patsi.

- [Ron Hays] Patsiann wants to be very clear on why she donates and how she wants to be remembered - As a friendly cuss.

A little straightforward.

I just the only strangers in my life are those people I haven't met and I try to do it for the cause, not the applause.

- [Ron Hays] Celebrating Patsiann Nix Smith 2022, Ferguson College of Agriculture, distinguished alumni.

(Guitar strumming) - That'll do it for us this week.

A reminder you can see us 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.

(guitar strumming)