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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We have a very special holiday treat for you today.

We're looking back at some of our favorite stories from the past year.

Seth Fish and Kurtis Hair are also here.

Guys, we really talked a lot about drought this year.

- Yeah, it seemed like every week we'd have an idea for a story, and then drought would, kind of, take the precedent for the week, and we'd end up doing something covering drought.

- For sure.

And you did a popular story on nitrate toxicity.

- Yeah, and you know, I've been with SUNUP for about seven years, and this is definitely the driest it's been.

And this story, I think, is a great representation of what Oklahoma producers were facing, pretty much, you know, from spring, you know, on into, you know, really just recently.

- Okay, let's take a look at that story.

- [Kurtis] A light haze of dust in the air, cracks in the red earth, and waves of unrelenting heat, are familiar sites for Noble County producer Randy Shiever.

- We had this drought back in 10, 11, and 12, and it, sort of, prepared us for what we're going through right now.

We completely ran out of forage in our pastures back then, 10 years ago.

- [Narrator] This year, timely May rains after months of drought helped Randy establish a good stand of forage sorghum, or haygrazer.

But just when the field was ready to be cut, the flash drought and the extreme Oklahoma heat set in.

- I was talking to my neighbor Dennis, and he had planted haygrazer.

I said, "Dennis, I'm going to cut mine".

He said, "Boy, you better look at those light spots out there".

He said, "I lost two cows by unrolling a bale of haygrazer.

Go back the next day, and they're laying there dead, just like anaplasma."

- In drought stress plants, such as forage and Johnson grass, nitrates can be an issue.

Prussic acid can also occur.

Thinking his field might be like his neighbor's, Randy contacted OSU Extension beef cattle specialist Dave Wallman, and Pawnee and Osage ag educator Rick Clovis just to make sure.

- Typically we get this call when the producers are getting ready to bale the hay.

And so we would prefer to take the test from recently cut plants or just cut 'em and then test them.

And we'd strip the leaves off, split the stem, put the reagent on it and see what the reaction is.

So this is a diphenylamine reagent, an acid, and it's very toxic, so it's not available to everybody.

You need to go through your extension office to be able to do this test.

If nitrates are present, it's gonna show a blue to purple color change in the stem wherever we drop the reagent.

- The nice thing about the quick test, if you get a negative answer, in other words, it does not react to the reagent, there's low chance of getting a false negative.

And what that means, is if you send it in to get the quantitative test, it's probably gonna be really low.

- [Kurtis] If the quick test is positive for nitrates, it doesn't mean that the forage is now useless.

- If it does react with the quick test, it's just a real consistent signal that you need to send it in to the SWAFL Laboratory here in the Division of Agriculture.

That test only costs $6 per sample.

We recommend people go ahead and bale the hay, take one or two cores from each bale out of about 20 bales scattered throughout the field, mix it up in a bucket real good, and send a sample.

- A few weeks ago, a number of producers lost cattle to prussic acid.

And although prussic acid and nitrates are both harmful and even fatal for livestock, prussic acid will eventually go away once the plants are cut.

But for nitrates, it's nowhere near that simple.

- Once it's cut, generally speaking in a hay crop, it's there.

Now, you know, one way that may be an option for a few producers is to put it up as silage.

Because the fermentation process in a silo reduces the nitrate concentration by somewhere around 30, 20, 30, even up to 50%.

- [Kurtis] The quick test did show presence of nitrates in plants from one of Randy's other fields.

And for this hay here, it's looking like he'll have some forage for his cows this winter.

Though he's still planning to test once it's baled, just to make sure.

- What that means for me, I don't wake up at night about this much hay that I need.

I think it's going to be okay.

So many people don't have the option.

I'm very fortunate to have a little bit of land that that it was fallow here, that I could plant this.

Most cattlemen don't have that opportunity.

When they're out, they're out.

And if there's none for sale, or if you have to drive so far with the prices of everything, you might as well load your cattle up.

Mother nature.

I guess my final statement, Mother Nature's always in charge.

- [Kurtis] And we're all at her mercy in this hot Oklahoma summer.

In Noble County, I'm Kurtis Hair.

(upbeat country music) (latches clicking) - [Kurtis] On a sunny, windless day, Goose the UAV is preparing for takeoff.

- [Seth Fish] Once off the ground Goose begins an autonomous flight taking a series of photos that will later be stitched together for a very important purpose.

Mapping and monitoring the aging infrastructure of our dams and watersheds.

- We call it DAM TAGS for short, but it's the DAM analysis modernization of tools, applications, guidance and standardization.

And so it's a way of supporting the aging infrastructure that has been constructed by USDA over the past 80 years.

There's nearly 12,000 flood control dams nationwide and right here in Oklahoma we have over 2,100 of those structures.

- [Seth Fish] Cade Shelton is an ag engineer with the USDA ARS and is the remote pilot in command for the DAM TAGS research project.

- So the purpose of this is for dam monitoring so we want to verify and brainstorm events that dams are not eroding, we can monitor vegetation over time.

We're also using this information for our low cost sensors.

We can do radio span spectrums.

Zoom and go in on these dams and configure different points.

And we can do flight studies to see where our radios would work best for our low cost sensors.

So the things that we're looking for is a base run for the first to get an idea of what is there.

So the good thing about this software is you have the ability to re-fly.

So once you re-fly a month, two months, six months later you can overlap those images to see if anything has changed.

So you can see if there's been anything eroded, anything breach on the dams, any big large cracks in the spillway.

So that's kind of the information that we're looking for.

- [Seth Fish] DAM TAGS is a project in partnership with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Agricultural Research Service and the Oklahoma State University Water Resources Center.

- Really, we play a supporting role to the USDA AG Research Service on this.

They have the scientists that they're doing a lot of the research but we provide a lot of the technical support.

So we have the modelers, the app developers, the database managers, the GIS specialists to really make everything come together and make that data available to those decision makers.

And they've been doing fantastic research out here at the the Hydraulic Engineering Research Unit here below Lake Carl Blackwell for decades.

- [Seth Fish] Goose is just one small piece of DAM TAGS research.

DAM TAGS is in the early stages of research and development and is projected to be a five-year project.

The USDA with the help of Oklahoma State University are seeking to revolutionize the way we monitor these ever important structures.

- Water is important to human life and the downhill side effects, if there was to be a breach or overflow of those dams could be catastrophic.

So we wanna monitor those to make sure that that will not happen, and we can include that on our list - [Seth Fish] For Sunup, I'm Seth Fish.

- Really great story and Seth, you were new to the Sunup team in the last year and that was your first story on the air.

- Yes, it was my first story and it kind of felt perfect.

I have a background in GIS and I'm also a drone pilot, so it just kind of felt good to fit into place automatically at the very start.

- Right, it was a great story.

We'll have more stories in just a moment, but first a word from our Vice President and Dean, Dr. Tom Coon.

- Well, it's that time of year again and it's a time to reflect and appreciate all that's gone on this year.

And also to remember some of the challenges that we faced really across Oklahoma.

We've had some very timely responses through our extension programs to some of the challenges that people have faced with the drought.

Everything from dealing with the changes it's caused in markets, to the challenges that we've faced with trying to get a crop to grow, or trying to manage the cow herd to be right size to whatever the ground can produce.

In all three areas of our Land Grant Mission, we've been able to make some progress and address the emerging challenges that are facing our producers here in Oklahoma and consumers.

We've had a lot of enjoyment watching the new building going up on campus, the new Frontiers Agricultural Hall project is well underway.

A lot of concrete has already been poured and we really look forward to being able to move into that in about a year and a half, in the summer of 2024.

So it's with a lot of gratitude in my heart.

I wanna say Happy Holidays to all of you and wish you the best for the new year.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - I'm Kilm Anderson.

Welcome to Tailgate Talk and Market Monitor.

I'm gonna take just a minute to say thank you for 2022.

Wish you a Merry Christmas, a happy New Year.

- 2023 is gonna be one of the best years yet.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Oklahoma cattlemen are all too familiar with these tiny arachnids.

However, these USDA and OSU researchers are studying ticks that haven't been seen in Oklahoma for a very long time.

Tim Propst is a researcher with the USDA and the Oklahoma Water Resource Center.

- The Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program actually started in 1906, and there are two species of tick, the Southern cattle tick and the Cattle fever tick, that carry a protozoa, that's actually a blood parasite, and that causes anemia and a bunch of other complications.

And actually in naive animals that have never been exposed before, there's a 70 to 90% mortality rate.

So it's actually, some literature shows that it's the most financially significant ectoparasite to cattle in the whole world.

- [Narrator] In the 1920s and '30s, the US implemented cattle dipping programs to combat the bacteria-carrying ticks.

The project eradicated virtually all of the problematic ticks from the southern United States, but colonies along the US-Mexico border and in Puerto Rico are causing problems to this day.

- It's really hard to control that.

That's why, you know, even after a hundred years or more, that we still have the program going on.

- [Narrator] The USDA Ag Research Service and the Oklahoma Water Resource Center, with the help of OSU, are seeking to streamline the process of tracking and treating animals affected by the cattle tick, and they're doing it with RFID chips and readers, technology that is probably in your wallet right now.

- So what we have developed is a survey that works with off-the-shelf devices that currently scan the RFID tags to get their number, and it gets their weights from the squeeze chute themselves.

- Soon the same technology used in your credit cards will be used by researchers in Texas and Puerto Rico to monitor tick activity in buffer zones.

- So we've tied those devices together, allowing the survey to be manually entered and fill out all the metadata, and it can be stored in the cloud and viewed by researchers almost instantaneously after it's submitted.

- [Narrator] The Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program is yet another example of the continued relationship between the USDA and OSU, and their shared mission to improve the security of the agricultural industry.

- It's just a matter of finding all the pieces that are necessary to make a project successful and produce something that's useful for folks out in the state.

And sometimes we'll have those pieces, whether it be personnel or physical resources like livestock and land here at Oklahoma State, and sometimes the Ag Research Services groups have it, have those resources, and we can combine them in a synergistic way to help produce beneficial information for people out there in the livestock industry.

- You know, a live animal demo of it was huge and really helped us see all these things go from basically the lab or the, you know, the computer to actual animals.

So it's the partnership has been a huge part of what we've been able to accomplish.

(upbeat music) - For SUNUP, I'm Seth Fish.

- One of the things we all love about working for SUNUP is the fact that we learned so much great new information each and every week.

And this story's really case in point.

- Absolutely.

A lot like the dam tag story, it's a very research-based story, and those are the stories that I love to tell, and I hope I get to do more next year.

- Without a doubt.

There's always something to talk about.

And this spring and obviously into the fall, we like to go on field tours and field days, and you got to go up to a really great event up in Kay County.

- Yeah, and this was the first year where field tours were actually happening in person, you know, from the Covid pandemic, but with Don Schieber's place, it was great because, you know, he actually has field plots like pretty much literally like in his backyard and, you know, getting to see that.

And he also got like a really, you know, prestigious award for the Oklahoma agriculture community.

And it was just a really fun story to do.

- Okay, let's take a look back now.

- You know, to help neighbor farmers and farmers in the area, they got to have a test plot somewhere.

Somebody's got to do it.

And I had a good location to put it, so we just did it.

Maybe we'll have some seed wheat that can help somebody this year.

- [Narrator] Just a stones throw away from Don Schieber's front porch, sits a handful of OSU wheat variety demonstration plots.

During the growing season, it's not unusual for Don to look out his front window to see fellow wheat producers and curious county road drivers hop out of their vehicles to get a closer look.

It's the exact reaction Don hoped he would get when he started this.

- And there's a lot of people drive by and walk out in them and look at them too.

And that's what it's for.

- They don't have to come to the house and tell me they're going to be out there, just go do it.

It's been a good thing to to do, and makes my place look better, too.

- [Curtis] Today is the 18th Wheat Field Day on Schieber Farms.

It's the perfect opportunity for North Central wheat producers to get a look how different varieties are performing this year.

- We have years and years of data to collect on the varieties that Oklahoma State has grown, or partnered with, that has done an awesome job of telling us what does well in our area, you know.

What are things that farmers need to be looking for that do well in North Central Oklahoma.

It's a much different climate than far out west.

We're quite a bit drier.

We're quite a bit cooler up here in North Central Oklahoma, so it's nice to have something that's localized and very, I guess, even a little niche detailed to our area.

- [Curtis] And this North Central wheat crop has had quite a journey so far.

- Well, it's a mixed bag.

We started out last fall with perfect moisture to get the crop up.

We got a good stand on everything, and then it got dry, and then we were living on sub-soil moisture all winter.

- Farming is day by day, and wheat is a tough plant.

Late April, we are actually in a D-3 drought, according to the drought monitor, and it's really turned around.

- We kept walking the fields, and didn't find any weeds, or no reason to put chemical on.

Now we've had all the rain, some of the fields are thinner, and now the weeds are coming up.

But here our heads are just, I saw some heads a while ago that were making four berries.

- [Curtis] Although the weed is looking promising here in Kay County, it's the exact opposite situation in other areas.

- Yeah, it's a really exciting here to be looking at this, and they think it's a bad wheat crop, but it's, by far, better than anything we have in the Texas, Oklahoma panhandle.

- [Curtis] Sam Watson is a custom harvester from Texas, who regularly cuts acres throughout the Texas, Oklahoma panhandle, though there's not gonna be much to cut this year, forcing him up north to find other prospects.

- Well it's a really sad deal for most of my dry land farmers.

Well, it's really gonna affect the bottom line, 'cause, you know, I cut 15,000 acres of wheat, and outta that 15, you know, we might just cut 1,500.

Like I say, my people at Hollis and Wellington, I mean, they're zero.

Can't even, didn't even get to graze or nothing, so it's gonna be a pretty hard fall.

- [Curtis] Although this northern wheat crop is looking significantly better than other areas of the state, for Don, and other Kay County producers, they're still about a month away from harvest, the "hurry up and wait" stage.

And wheat producers know it's time to cross those fingers during that period.

- You know, we always worry about hail when we get close to harvest.

Our average hail out here is once in 55 years.

So, and I got hailed out here in 1993, so I've got a ways to go before my 55 years is up.

So we'll see how that holds up.

- [Curtis] Wait and see.

It's the attitude you have to have on this unforgiving land.

- You know, everything changes every day, so.

My grandpa used to tell me, "Tell me what the weather's gonna be, and I'll tell you how to farm".

Well, that still holds true.

- [Curtis] In Kay County, I'm Curtis Hare.

(guitar music) - Speaking of wheat, when it came to harvest time, it was a tough year for a lot of producers, depending on what part of the state you were in, but we all got to take a road trip down to Cleveland County for harvest, which was a really, a really fun day.

- Yeah, it was great.

And it was, Seth's first wheat harvest story was sun up.

and you know what's great about those stories, you get to go out and meet an agricultural family, a generational farmers, and those are type, those are my favorite stories to do.

- Yeah, I thought it was great.

I had a lot of fun doing it, and actually met some people from my neck of the woods, which was a cool bonus.

- It's funny how that happens when you're out and about around Oklahoma, for sure.

Well, let's take a look back at this story.

(wheat combine motor) - [Narrator] This iconic scene of wheat harvest is the fabric of Oklahoma.

Farming is what holds us together, and helps to feed the world.

It's what the Moffat's have been made of for four generations.

- My folks moved down here in about, I think, '47 or something like that, and I was five years old.

- [Narrator] Jim Moffat is the patriarch of the family farm.

His son, Jerry, and grandson's, Coy and Conrad, run the day-to-day.

Today they're cutting wheat and getting ready for soybeans.

- We're just north of Lexington in the South Canadian river bottom.

We, right now, it's kind of our wheat harvest time.

We double crop soybeans behind the wheat.

If it's, we normally try to no-till if the grounds conditions are right.

This year it's a little bit wet, harvesting.

So we got some fields it's gonna be no-till.

Some that will probably be conventional tilled back into soybeans.

- [Narrator] A bit wet?

Maybe an understatement.

Muddy fields.

- [Host] Slowed progress.

- So we got five and a half inches there in a matter of about two days.

And we luckily got two loads out before the rain, but then we had to wait for it to kind of dry out the ground so we could get on it to combine.

- [Host] And combine they are.

A few hot and dry days means it's full speed ahead.

- This year actually has been a real good year for us.

The wheat looks good, it stood good.

We switched to double stop a few years ago.

And the variety, that variety of wheat for us has been a lot more, just more tolerant to our conditions here.

This year, you know, even with that five and a half inches of rain on it, we had very little wheat went down.

- You know, we're double cropping, so this year making 45 bushel an acre has been really good.

Normally we're doing good if we make 30 after double cropping soybeans in.

We got the right rain at the right time and didn't dry out too much for it.

So we had to start to pivot a little bit this year on some ground to get it up.

But other than that, it's been really good year for wheat.

- [Host] Oklahoma's 2022 wheat crop is hit or miss.

Drought led to abandonment of 45% of fields in the state.

Spring's heavy downpours and hail caused further damage and disease pressure.

But areas with timely rains are thriving with good yields and protein, depending on the variety.

- At a patch, we've been getting the highest protein over there.

We've been getting paid for 20 cents extra for 15% protein.

So we really like the double stock, you know.

It stands up so it doesn't sprout as bad is what we like about it.

- [Host] At age 20, Conrad does more than farm.

This fall he starts his senior year at Oklahoma State University, majoring in animal science, with an interest in livestock genetics for their cattle operation.

His grandpa says Conrad's education is already making a difference.

- And he's real good on keeping track of the bulls and what breed line we need to stay with and all that.

I mean, he's good on that and good on the computer.

- [Host] He is indeed the embodiment of the future of agriculture.

- Dad's farmed here all of his life and that's of course that's, I kind of grew up in it.

That's all I knew what to do and exactly what I wanted to do.

And for us, I mean, for me it's been a big benefit.

I enjoy the way of life.

I mean it's, I couldn't ask for anything, any better.

And then to see my boys come up and kind of wanting the same way, it makes you pretty proud.

- [Host] Conrad and his brother Coy, plan to carry on the family farm.

- [Conrad's Grandfather] So as long as they want to do it, whatever they wanna do, plan about it, we're not gonna take it with us, so raising food for people, that's what it's all about.

- I've always grew up on the farm, so I've always really enjoyed it and I'm hoping after college to come back and take it over.

Always, you know, walking in my dad and grandpa's footsteps.

Hope to continue that on.

- Is grandpa retired?

(chuckles) - He says he is, but we, you know, he'll always come around and help some still.

He says he is retired but we still don't see it and believe it, so... - And as we leave you today, we wanna give you a very special gift, which is a look back at some of our favorite bloopers from throughout the year.

And from all of us here at Sunup we wish you and your family a very... - [All] Happy holidays.

(man laughing) - Take.

Three, two... Hello... (laughing) Let me... All righty, try that again.

Are there chiggers out here, you think?

- [Man Off Camera] Probably.

- You need to call the epidemilog... blah!

Excuse me.

- Is it gonna be impact going forward in...

I'm sorry, let me ask that again.

My nose is itching like crazy.

(sniffling) Ah!

- Join us for all this, plus Kim and Daryl with the three...

Sorry, I'm so hungry!

- Tillman County, 22 days above a hundred degrees at Grandfield.

20 degrees... (exhales) Okay, let me do that whole part over again.

It's very frustrating, somebody's beeping in the back.

- Good morning, Oklahoma!

I'm Curtis Hare and welcome to Sunup.

Well, the Oklahoma hot weather is here and while these muggy conditions might not be so great for us, they're the perfect conditions from wha... No?

That was just a lot of word salad, right there.

- You want to make sure that there are no places on your property where mosquitoes can... (laughing) - For more information, go to Sunup... - Sunup.

- .okstate.edu... Jazz hands!

- Oh, jazz hands.

- And follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Curtis Hare... and that was good.

I couldn't remember what, what was at the end.

- Legislature has approved emergency drought funding.

(woman off camera laughing) Amy, get us up to speed.

- You do a mean robot.

- In addition to making foods flavorful, capsait... (laughing) Capsaicinoids (laughing) - Three times fast.

- Finally today, a bird's eye view of Oklahoma's dam infrastructure.

(laughing) - Shades?!

These are shades, these are spectacles.

These are seeing kind.

(man off camera laughing) - [Man Off Camera] We rolling on that?

- [2nd Man Off Camera] Yes.

- [Man Off Camera] Blooper!

- Join us for Sunup on, wait... How does that go?

Join us for Sunup on OETA... - It'll be okay.

The ladies like that.

Kind of gives me a wild boy look.

- [Host] Right.

Wind blown... - That's on tape, isn't it?

- [Host] The beachy, beachy waves.

- And then I just hit the go button and it gives me a, it gives me a screen that shows sorghum plants and I just go in and take a stop, out here.

- And as far as you know, all of this is just BS.

(laughing) (Christmas bell music)