(upbeat lively music) - Hello everyone and welcome to SunUp.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

OSU scientists will be paying close attention to the Super Bowl this weekend.

We'll tell you why a little bit later in the show.

But first we're talking forage options other than wheat that you may wanna consider now.

Here's Dr. Alex Rocateli.

- So last year by September was a time that producers were planning on seed some wheat for forage.

But unfortunately we were in a drought condition so some producers really delayed to put the the wheat on the ground and after we've sudden and soon low temperatures what happen is wheat pastures didn't develop well or even in some cases producers even give up on placing wheat pasture.

Something now that producers might be wondering is is there a plan B that I can still produce forage for the Spring?

And the answer, yes, we have and that would be spring oats.

Producers can plan on planting spring oats from mid-February to early March and that can provide like forage for 35 to 60 days depending on the weather.

Oat has a similar or even superior quality forage than wheat.

So on that end, we are gonna be good but expect a little lower yield than wheat.

We are talking about 1,500 pounds of forage to 2000 pounds one ton of a forage per acre when plant oats, that's the trick.

If you are putting oats in a field that you have fertilized and managed to plant wheat and your wheat field failed, pretty much all the fertilization that you place there is still there.

So you may not need to fertilize in this case.

You just go and you can no till your your oats.

In this case, oats can can be no tilled to a deep of 1.5 inches.

However, for a fast emergency, we recommend about half an inches to three quarters of inch.

So it can start to to grow faster.

If you are planning to graze oats well you can start grazing oats when the plants reach about six to eight inches.

But height is not the only way to check.

It's a good idea that you go there and you try to pull the leaves in the field when you're trying to pull mimicking the animal trying to graze.

If what comes to your hand is, is the leaves the leaves detached, but the roots stay in the ground means that the plant is well anchored and you can start to graze.

If in that time is still you are pulling the plants and the roots are coming out with it well better that you delay a little bit to start grazing.

Otherwise you can lose all your oats and it's not gonna have any regrowth and stop grazing when those plants are about three inches height.

So it still can have some leaves there for photosynthesis in a good regrowth.

Now if you plan going for hang, the best time for hang is when the plants are reaching the boot stage to heading because at that moment we already achieved the half medium point.

We have a great and high amount of forage there and the quality still good for growing animals.

So that's the time that you can go that you can have a very good yield for hay.

So that's pretty much some tips here on oats but if you wanna know more in details I invite you to to check our fact sheet and also talk to your educators in your counties.

They are the best resource to help you find the best varieties and more details in the management.

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

I'm Wes Lee.

After such an extended drought, it is nice to see some saturated soils in at least parts of the state.

Rainfall that started at the first of last week dropped from one to over five inches in areas south of I 44.

Lighter amounts were recorded in the one or two counties north of that line but unfortunately no rain was recorded in the driest parts of the northwest and panhandle regions of the state, at least as of Wednesday afternoon.

Where heavier rain amounts occurred, we have actually moved above normal for the calendar year.

Our soil moisture map show in detail where rains fell and areas that were left out.

At 10 inches this fractional water map shows green where moisture is good and yellow or brown where moisture is lacking.

One year ago, the same map looked a little worse.

With more Western counties showing deficits.

- But focusing on the panhandle illustrates how severe this continuing drought has been for them.

At our deepest sensor depth, you start to see a larger area of the northwest where deep infiltration is needed before summer planting season.

The good news is we seem to be getting more wet weather chances lately, and more rain is forecasted for the early parts of next week.

Now here's Gary with some moderate changes to the latest drought map.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, some great rainfall amounts across the southeastern half to two-thirds of the state, not so much across the northwestern third.

How does all this impact the new drought monitor report?

Well, not quite as good as we think, let's take a look.

Really the same basic drought monitor map we've had over the last few weeks.

We did have a little bit of improvement down in far southeastern Oklahoma, where we went from D0 to D nada or no drought, or no color at all.

But we also had a little bit of increasing drought up in the far western panhandle as we went from D3 to D4.

Now the problem with the drought monitor map, when it rains after Tuesday at 6:00 AM, is that cannot be considered for that week's drought monitor map.

So that will go on next week's drought monitor map.

So those areas that had two, three, four inches of rainfall since Tuesday morning, we'll see vast improvements as we get into next week's map.

It's also improved our 30-day map and this is the 30-day rainfall map from the mesonet.

We see again that southeastern half to two-thirds of the state, one to two to three inches of rain.

Then we get down into the far southeastern corner.

We get 6, 7, 8 inches of rain, I mean, close to nine inches in some cases.

So the rainfall definitely tapers off from southeast to northwest, but some drought-quenching rainfall across the southeastern half of the state.

That shows up quite well on our percent of normal rainfall map for the same timeframe, the last 30 days, above 100% of normal and even close to 200% of normal in some areas.

Again, mostly across that southeastern half of the state.

Much worse up in the panhandle where they're less than 50% of normal but some cases less than 25% of normal for the last 30 days.

So the haves and the have-nots, unfortunately.

When we go back six months, that 180 day rainfall map from the mesonet shows, again, pretty much the southeastern half of the state in much better shape than the northwestern half.

Not really shocking to see this map but when we go to the percent of normal rainfall map for that same timeframe going back 180 days, we do see again, though, that most of the state is still below normal, at least going back to August 12th.

So we have several different drought periods going on, impacting our drought picture.

So the great rainfall amounts that we've seen across the southeastern half of the state, they really do need to start to spread into the northwestern half so we can really start to curtail that drought up in that part of the state.

That's it for this time.

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

(jaunty music) - First hollow stem is almost here and as Dr. Eric Devuy tells us, grazing your cattle past this crucial stage of development could seriously impact your bottom line.

- You know with forage really tight right now coming out of winter, there's a temptation to graze that wheat as it's taken off.

And it's about, we know it's just about ready, you can just see it's ready to jump out of the ground or take off the short wheat.

If we get some more rain like today, we get some heat units, it's really gonna grow.

Somewhere around March 1 every year we get first hollow stem, depending on temperatures and what part of the state you're in.

And so here's this temptation.

Maybe I should run some cows or heifers out there or to keep some stalkers out 'cause gains weren't what I wanted.

But there's two studies that were done in Oklahoma on extended grazing that show that's a really bad idea economically.

There was a study from Fieser, et al.

who showed just one day of extended grazing reduced wheat grain yields then by 1% but the Fieser study needs to be taken with a little bit of caution.

They were grazing stockpiled forage, meaning the wheat was really tall.

It hadn't been grazed.

Where when we look at the paper, a study by Redmond et al., they show more punitive losses from extended grazing.

Just one day of extended grazing Redmon et al., and their study was on more conventionally-managed pastures.

They show a 5% loss in grain yields.

So if we go back to the Fieser study, that equates to after we take into account the gains that the stalkers put on, about a 90 cent an acre loss, which isn't horrific, but when we look at the Redmon study, that one-day loss is $11 and 40 cents an acre for a 35 bushel wheat at $7.50 with $1.40 in the value of stocker gains.

If we're being conservative and trying to make good sound financial decisions, we need to be pulling cattle off at or even before first hollow stem.

So if we continue that, we continue to graze past first hollow stem, it gets even worse.

The Fieser et al.

study show a 3% loss in wheat grain yields where Redmon et al.

showed a 15% at three days.

- It's seven days.

It's even worse.

Fieser, 6% loss; about $4 of lost profit.

But the Redmon, et al study, a third of the grain yield was lost.

And that translates to about $75 an acre loss in terms of economic returns from grazing just seven days past first hollow stem.

It's just not a good idea.

Be checking that wheat.

Pull those cattle.

Don't take the losses - For a link to that new fact sheet, just go to Sunup dot O K state.edu.

(upbeat country music) We're joined now by Dr. Kim Anderson here at Foundation Seed.

Kim, the February WASDE is out, looking at supply and demand numbers.

Were there any surprises?

- There weren't any surprises in this report.

The numbers came in right at expectations.

Minor changes on corn, wheat, beans, cotton.

All the reports were just almost exactly what we had in the January report.

- With that kind of steadiness and no surprises, what is your wheat price outlook?

- The price outlook's about what we've been expecting over the last couple months.

You can look at the harvest prices that you can forward contract for.

Wheat up in northern Oklahoma, Medford Pond Creek, around 8 dollars and 15 cents.

If you go to the panhandle, you add a nickel to that.

you go down in southern Oklahoma, Snyder, you'll take off about 50 cents.

And if you're going to Weatherford and north in that area, right in there, probably take off 25 or 30 cents.

You look at corn prices, 5 dollars and 70 cents.

Of course higher in the panhandle area.

That $5.70, that's overall for Oklahoma.

Looking at soybeans, just under $13.

And cotton, it's just been staying at $83, eighty, somewhere in that vicinity over the last month or so.

- So looking at wheat specifically, how much is that forward contract price due to the pandemic?

And then of course Russia's war with Ukraine.

- Of course with the COVID, you know, I've said that we've take, took prices from around 4.50 up to $8.

Then the war last February took it from the $8 up to over $13.

It's backed off.

I think we've got most of the COVID impact out of the market, but I think there's the Russian-Ukraine war with the amount of wheat and the little bit of corn coming out of there, they're definitely gonna have an impact on prices.

Now what you can look at is the average general US prices, and the the ending stocks-to-use ratios, and look at that relationship, and that should tell you and show you, the impact of extraneous forces on prices.

You go back to 2012, for the average annual price, around 7 dollars and 77 cents, the stocks-to-use ratio is 24%.

You can go in, in mid, about 2016, you had 3 dollars and 90 cents for an average annual price; 55% stocks-to-use ratio.

So you're looking at exactly offset relationship between stocks-to-use ratio and price.

You come back to now it's 30%, and this year's price is projected to average around 9 dollars and 10 cents.

You go back to again 12 and 13, with 24 and 30% you had 6.50 to 7 dollar and 70 cent prices.

So that tells you that, oh, from around seven and a quarter to nine 10 or if you wanna look out to harvest 8 25, there's about a dollar to a dollar and a half impact in prices, higher prices because of the Russian-Ukraine war.

And I think that's what we gotta watch is we're going out in the future watching that war and watching how the product moves out of that Black Sea area.

- I think it's already lasted a lot longer than anybody thought that it would.

- Oh you bet.

Russia, and I think it's just common knowledge, Putin thought that he could go in and take that country in a couple months at the most.

There are no expectations for a quick result from that war.

Right now it looks like it's gonna go on for a while.

- So with all these numbers and all of these other factors in consideration, how should producers market their crops?

- Well in that that war's not expected to end anytime soon, I think you just ignore that impact; take that dollar increase in prices.

Probably a 30 or 40 cent increase in corn prices.

I wouldn't do anything until it got closer to harvest.

Our big problem right now is the drought, is the poor quality of our wheat that's in the ground, and our uncertainty of yields.

I think price is gonna take care of itself.

Yields is what we gotta be concerned with.

- Okay, Kim, thank you so much.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat guitar) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and welcome to Cow-calf Corner.

- This week's topic is, is it time to reprogram your cow herd?

Now, for the past week, those of us in Oklahoma and a lot of surrounding states, and even going back for a few years of a lot of the United States has dealt with some pretty severe drought.

As a consequence of that, in many cases we find ourselves at reduced cow inventories.

We've went through culling methods and eliminated cows that were open old ornery had some kind of an issue.

And so we're setting here at a point in time when if cow inventories are low, with the anticipation of maybe returning to normal rainfall patterns, returning to normal growth of warm season grasses we're figuring we're probably gonna restock with cows.

And when I talk about this being an opportunity and potentially reprogramming that cow herd I encourage producers to take a look at some of the performance levels that they've seen in their cows over the past few years.

Maybe even take a look at some of those things that led to some of those cows that work cold over the past 12 months to be eliminated from their cow herd.

And whether it is a fertility issue, a mature cow size issue, maybe it's a lack of milk or too much milk, maybe it's a lack of performance and growth and we need to improve upon some of those things in those calf crops relative to when we're marketing those.

This is a time, as we think of the bull buying season that we've got approaching us in the next few months to actually seek out some genetics that are gonna improve upon those things and lead to a cow herd that acts as a production factory for us in our cow calf operation that we are gonna see fit our environment a little better.

Maybe take a little less feed supplementation, calve on a consistent and timely basis, and yield us a calf crop that returns against that investment that we make in the cow herd and our cow calf operation.

So, as I always say, tough times and droughts can make us better managers if we learn from what's going on and permit those lessons to help us be better managers.

At this point, if you see yourself restocking taking on more cow inventory or just regrowing from within whether it's looking at any of those things relative to the cows or Brett heifers or pairs you're purchasing or specifically addressing things in your bull purchases they're gonna lead to profit potential.

Look at this as opportunity and reprogram that cow herd for profit potential at some point down the road.

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

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] OSU Extension supports Oklahoma farmers and ranchers with mental health resources and programming.

If you or someone you know is experiencing mental health challenges call the Comprehensive Crisis Response Lifeline at 988 or go online to the OSU extension website dealing with farm stress.

For more information about local resources, suicide prevention, finances, disaster recovery, and more.

We have links to both of these website at sunup.okstate.edu.

(upbeat music) - So now that we're into the first of the year we're starting to get a few more minutes of daylight every day.

And this is the time of year that chicken enthusiasts like my wife, they get excited about possibly getting some new chicks.

And the other thing that as we get more daylight hours that those old hens that are still out there in the backyard will begin to lay again.

If you're gonna be purchasing some new chicks this year I would highly recommend that you use a reputable hatchery, preferably one that's on the National Poultry Improvement Plan.

This will give you at least some confidence that you won't bring some disease home that could inflect your entire flock.

The other nice thing about reputable hatcheries is they have the ability to vaccinate those chicks.

The other thing is, if you don't have a biosecurity plan in place, you need to have one.

This is our only protection against certain diseases such as avian influenza, and if you've looked in the news or heard anything about avian influenza this year it's been a major problem in Europe and Asia.

So make sure you have that biosecurity plan in place with your chickens.

The last thing I'd like to talk about and I'd seem to talk about this every year, is is salmonella infections associated with backyard poultry.

2020 was a record year for the number of salmonella infections we had in with people that had backyard chickens.

Over 1700 people were infected.

333 of those people had to be hospitalized and one person actually died from the disease.

- What's really troubling is almost 25% of those cases were in children under the age of five.

Children need to be supervised when they're around chickens.

You don't want to eat or drink around chickens, and you don't wanna bring chickens into your house.

- Finally, today, millions of people will be tuning in this Sunday for the Super Bowl and cheering on their favorite team.

But here at Oklahoma State, we are also cheering for the Turfgrass Team.

Oklahoma State University's Turfgrass Research Center is once again in the national spotlight.

This time for Super Bowl 57.

Tahoma 31, developed by OSU scientists, was selected for the playing field at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

- Turfgrass breeding program really has focused on developing varieties that are tough.

- [Lyndall Stout] Tahoma 31 is also resilient, has a fine texture, darker green color, and can handle drought, cold, and shade.

Plant breeder Dr. Yanqi Wu is on the turf development team.

- [Lyndall Stout] A new turf grass variety takes 10 to 15 years to research and develop.

The extensive testing takes place in the greenhouse, the lab, and in the field, and can include more than 1000 experimental plants.

The best variety is then patented and released commercially.

- We have no involvement in the selling of the product itself.

It's just simply the development of it to really try to solve specific problems.

So let's say for instance, this year we had a very tough drought year.

And so we have some grasses that have some specific characteristics that really handle the drought very well, like perhaps an enhanced root system.

And so those are the kinds of characteristics that a breeder is looking for.

- [Lyndall Stout] Royalties from the patents come back to the university for further research.

Dr. Dennis Martin is an OSU Extension Turfgrass Specialist on the team.

- So the grass is performing and as long as it continues to perform, I think we'll see it on those facilities, and at the same time, we've got the next generations of materials in the pipeline that are experimentals to be rolled out.

- Turfgrass breeding programs were originally developed in order to develop forages for cattle and sheep to you know, to for food production.

But in the process we learned a lot about how grasses behave and different kinds of grasses.

And lo and behold, it turns out Bermuda grass is a tremendous grass for playing surfaces.

- [Lyndall Stout] And great for advancing science.

- Very proud when you start thinking about the reach that we have for our turfgrass.

We have it in Soldier Field, but we also have it at Churchill Downs.

We have it at the Capitol building in Washington DC, and then to have it in two playoff games, two different ones, and then the Super Bowl.

I don't know if anybody could ever claim that they had plant material that people were playing on and the performance of that.

That's really astounding.

- Bottom line, even though the game has yet to be played, Oklahoma State is already a winner.

That'll do it for us this week.

Remember, you can see Sunup anytime at our website, and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone, and we'll see you next time at Sunup.