(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hello, everyone.

And welcome to SUNUP.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

With the January and February temperature swings, alfalfa weevils may be arriving earlier than usual in Oklahoma.

Wes Lee talked about it last week on SUNUP.

And this week, Kelly Suehs, OSU Extension Alfalfa Specialist, has more details and resources that are available.

- The Mesonet tool, the alfalfa-weevil model, the Mesonet tool is an excellent tool for giving us a heads-up of when to start scouting.

It actually accumulates the degree days, or heat units per day, starting January 1.

And accumulates them and gives us a starting point to when to start scouting.

Some of the more southern counties down in the southern part of the state, started seeing some accumulations kind of earlier than normal toward this time of the year, which we see that sometimes, but it gives us a snapshot in time, it's not the full story.

Because early February, we start seeing some warm temperatures.

And so we can see some early hatch.

But we have weather like this, the cold temperatures that we had about a week ago, and the really cold temperatures we're expecting in the next few days, we can see a lot of damage and some control with those insects during that time frame.

We could even see, even if the small larvae, eggs hatch, the larvae comes out, barrels down into the plant we can still, we get the single digits and even less than zero, minus zero, we can see some, more (indistinct) there.

And so, this is kind of expected.

We see this up and down trend where the numbers get out there, and we think everything, we gotta go out there and start scouting, and it's a good idea to be out, be aware and see what's going on.

But then, we have weather events like this, and it kind of puts everything in perspective.

- Sure.

These temperature swings.

So, as we get on into March and things level out a little bit in terms of our temperatures, will we see some increased activity then?

- We normally see our peak somewhere depending on the part of the state, sometime between mid-March and mid-April.

And so if the trends continue and say, we get through all these bad weather events and cold weather events generally what we see is moderate trend for an extended period of time.

So in the next week or two, when we start seeing temperatures get up close to 70 or above, we'll probably start seeing some adult activity.

And so eggs will be laid, and within a couple days, those eggs will hatch.

And so, but, based on the life cycle of the insect itself, we could see some damage start to occur within about two weeks.

And so, if the weather conditions warrant that, and they're optimum, we could start seeing some in that mid week, mid-March to late March time frame.

- So what are the control options that producers have?

And what's kind of the ideal time to activate those if you will?

- Well, we do have several control options.

We're in the works, some of my projects right now are dealing with some resistance issues.

We also look at some, we've also lost some products last year due to EPA cancellations.

But, we do still have quite a few options.

Several pyrethroids, some other non-pyrethroid products.

And we also have some, one of the companies I work with has a new product that's hopefully gonna be available this year or maybe next year.

But hopefully this year.

And so we do still have some options.

It's just a good idea to be out scouting and work those rotations in when we can to try to prevent resistance as much as possible.

- Now, you have a fact sheet that you wanna guide producers to with more information?

- Current report 7150.

It tells us managing forage insects in alfalfa.

And it lists all the labeled products for that crop.

- Okay.

Great information Kelly.

Keep us posted on how the spring goes.

- All right.

We will.

- Thanks a lot.

And for a link to the fact sheet Kelly mentioned, go to sunup.okstate.edu.

(upbeat music) - Joining us today is Dr. Derrell Peel, Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, here to talk to us a little bit about the cattle cycle.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about where we are with that.

- You know, we got new numbers on January 1 for the cattle cycle and obviously we did accelerate herd liquidation, so.

Backing up just a little bit, the beef cow herd, and cattle numbers in general, peaked in 2019.

We've been in some level of liquidation for the last three years, but it accelerated in 2021 because of the drought on top of other factors that we had last year.

- So, knowing that we're in this drought cycle, how do you think that that may or may not impact what's getting ready to happen with cattle numbers over the next few months?

- You know, with the drought conditions we have right now, if those persist into the spring, and into the summer, as we get into the growing season, it will have a major impact on this cattle cycle.

So, given that parts of the country have been in drought for two years, parts of it were in a lot of drought last year, we really weren't right here in Oklahoma, but we are now, and if it goes into the springtime.

So, the bottom line is, if the drought persists through the first half of the year, we will see a substantially accelerated rate of herd liquidation.

We'll see a lot of cows that have to be marketed.

We'll see early weening of calves, and a change in timing of our feeder cattle in 2021.

- Okay.

What happens if the drought recedes or becomes less of a factor for us?

- You know, that's a really interesting question trying to figure out what producers will do if they can kind of do what they want to do, at least within, the boundaries of what we have to work with.

And so, if the drought is not a factor forcing us to do certain things, then the question becomes, we've got higher cattle prices this year, we're expecting higher cattle prices, is that enough to get producers to kind of wanna change the direction of this cattle cycle?

So they could be interested in stabilizing the herd or even trying to grow it a little bit, but the real question then is could they do that if that's what they wanna do?

And of course, and assuming drought's not an issue, the bottom line is that given that we had such a reduction in replacement heifers last year because of the drought, I don't think the herd could probably grow this year.

I can't make the numbers work out to show that we could grow, but we could really slow down the rate of liquidation to maybe a very small percentage and be sort of set up for maybe beginning herd expansion in 2023 if this year goes right.

- Okay, so as we look to the future, what could producers be doing to kind of get ready for that?

- Well, obviously producers that are in drought are still dealing with drought, so they're watching that.

I think all producers in general wanna watch these two scenarios that we just kind laid out, as to how the drought evolves or whether the drought gives us a little more room to kind of pursue what we wanna do.

Once we kind of know which of those is happening, then if you're in the drought, you're trying to deal with it, but you're trying to set up for recovery as much as possible.

Other producers that aren't in drought will wanna know that because, again, we've got higher cattle prices, there will be some opportunities for herd rebuilding, and so we'll be watching not only the feeder cattle markets, but also the calf / cow markets very closely this year.

- Okay.

So definitely a lot of things for us to be looking at appreciate the information that you're sharing with us today, Dr. Peel.

(country music) - Welcome to the Mesonet Weather Report, I'm Wes Lee.

This past week was definitely a chilly one with most places spending several consecutive days below freezing.

It is interesting to look at soil temperature information during extreme cold spells.

Mezonet has temperature sensors at four depths, 2, 4, 10 and 24-inches below ground at each side, under a sod cover.

There is also a sensor at 4-inches under a chemically treated bare soil.

It tends to be the sensor that registers the coldest soil temperatures in winter.

Here is the soil temperatures under the bare soil on Tuesday as the cold front moved through the state.

You might wonder how cold our Oklahoma soils can get in wintertime.

Remember last February when we set many cold temperature records?

This early morning Valentine's map from last year shows bare 4-inch freezing soil temperatures across most of the state.

Soil temperatures could have dropped further if it wasn't for having an insulating snow cover that fell.

A little research shows that January 2010 had much cooler soils.

Here you see all but a handful of sites were well below freezing at this depth.

How much difference does the sod make?

On this map of the same date, time and depth but with a sod cover, there were several degrees of insulation value given by the sod.

Now here's Gary with some wintertime moisture maps.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, we had another powerful winter storm come through the state and we're not quite sure yet what the impacts to the drought will be.

However, we can take a look at that newest drought monitor map and see where we're at.

Well, once again, the most impressive improvements have been across far eastern Oklahoma, really the eastern one-third to one-fourth of the state, where we had a little bit of improvement due to the last winter storm.

Now this winter storm also impacted eastern Oklahoma quite significantly.

So at least expect some of those improvements over that area once again next week.

Let's take a look at that rainfall over the last 30 days from the Oklahoma Mezonet.

We do see at least much of the state has now had at least an inch of rainfall, over that last 30-day period.

Certainly not saying a lot, but compared to what we've had over the last six months with endless supplies of less than normal rainfall, we're at catching up a little bit, thanks to these winter storms.

Now parts of the state are still quite parched.

Namely the northwestern quarter of the state especially out into the Oklahoma pan handle, and down into west central Oklahoma, generally less than an inch.

And in some cases less than a quarter-inch for those parts.

That shows up quite well on the percentile of normal rainfall map, again or that last 30 day period, lots of yellows and oranges, and even those deep reds up into the northwestern corner of the state signifying less than normal rainfall amounts.

But we do have patches across eastern Oklahoma and also parts of western Oklahoma that have seen a little bit more than normal.

So again, a little bit of, improvement in what we've seen over these last few months.

And that consecutive days with less than a quarter-inch of rainfall map, again we are starting to shrink that area.

And now it's confined mostly to the western, the far western Oklahoma, a little bit up there in north central Oklahoma, and a little bit of an oddity down in southeastern south central Oklahoma.

But we are starting to see some improvement in these maps.

And that's really all we can hope for is continued improvement especially as we go into spring.

And hopefully we can start to get some more beneficial rainfalls as we start to go into that spring, severe weather season.

That's it for this time.

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

(country music) - Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist joins us.

Now, Kim, I think the question on everyone's mind and where everyone's attention is going this week is the Russia and Ukraine situation and the possible impact on crop prices.

Talk about that.

- Well, in reality nobody knows what the long term impact's gonna be.

The initial impact was higher prices.

Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat and corn, Russia is a major exporter of wheat.

And if something happens to the production area or the export area and the export facilities that are in this area that this conflict is in, then it could have the impact of significantly higher prices, cause it'll take product off the market.

On the other hand, if things settled down, our shipments continue as expected, then I think prices will remain high.

However, you've got the China-Taiwan situation also.

And if something happens in that and between the Russia-Ukraine, China-Taiwan, if we have disruptions in the commerce and trade if it impacts the economic conditions worldwide, then there's a possibility of significantly lower prices.

- Should this situation impact production decisions that Oklahoma producers are making?

- Well, I don't think that the Russia-Ukraine situation whatever happens there should be taken into consideration in these decisions.

My rule of thumb, is in volatile situations just stand aside.

However, in the case of producers, they have to utilize their land, labor, capital and management.

I think they should take into consideration the drought situation, they should look at wheat crop conditions, do they want to turn that wheat under and go with a summer crop?

I think they need to look at the price relationships as they select their summer crops and the crops they're gonna produce in the Fall.

And they've got to look at impact of the input cost, because we have fertilizer coming out of Russia, we have things coming out of that area of the world that we need to use in producing our commodities here in Oklahoma.

So yes, you gotta take that in consideration but what's going on, in volatile times just do what you do best.

- Let's talk about the market and what it's offering right now for Oklahoma crops.

- Well, this market is moving rapidly right now.

Wheat in Medford can be forward contracted for harvest delivery for $8.60, in Snyder it's 8.45 and in Perryton Texas or the Oklahoma Panhandle, it's $8.50.

Corn for harvest delivery is $5.80 in Medford, 6.50 in and 6.45 in Perryton.

Sorghum, and I've been talking to producers that are wanting to go to sorghum this year.

Now, the China situation with sorghum could come into play, but right now sorghum can be forward contracted for 5.70, Snyder 5.65, Perryton 5.90.

Soybeans is $14 in Medford, $14 in Snyder and 13.60 in Perryton.

Canola, the state average is around $14.25.

And cotton is right at a dollar a pound for the harvest delivered cotton.

- A lot to think about when you look at the whole picture.

What advice do you have for Oklahoma producers?

- Remember you cannot predict prices.

At least not accurately enough to I think make a profit from trading the prices.

In volatile situations, stand aside.

In most producers situation, they cannot stand aside, they've gotta make a decision.

So, get the best numbers you can get, crunch them tight, get those budgets made up with the best information you can get your hands on.

Put probabilities on your answers and the variability, income variability around those budget estimates and then do what you do best and make the decisions that's gonna let you sleep at night.

- Okay.

Great advice Kim.

Thanks a lot.

We'll see you next week.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

This week on Cow- Calf Corner, we're gonna address one of the classic age old questions in the cattle business.

What is the value of a good bull?

This is a question that's been around forever or at least as long as we've been breeding cattle with the notion of trying to make the next generation better.

It is a very important question, it is a timeless and classic question, and it is a question that this time of year with many bulls on the market, going into the breeding season, as we're planning ahead we ask the question quite a bit.

So what's the answer?

Well, I remember about 40 years ago as a college student here at OSU, a professor telling me a good bull is worth the value of about five calves that he sires.

That's a good answer.

It's a good rule of thumb to follow and it's a answer that actually can lead to even more questions as we think about it a little bit deeper.

First couple questions it leads to, when are we gonna market the calves out of this bull we're looking at?

- And what's gonna be those calves value at the point that we actually send them to market?

So, in looking at the USDA market report this week we see that about a 500 pound steer calf is worth approximately $2 a pound.

If we are looking at their value at $1,000 a head, five of those calves at $1,000 means a $5,000 investment in genetics is what we should make if we intend to be marketing our steer calves as wean calves in the future.

If we take a look at yearlings, we see that an 875 pound yearling's worth about $1.57 a pound.

Those cattle are worth little over $1,300 a piece.

We do the math on that, five of those means that a good bull should be worth close to $7,000 to us.

This week's fed market, taking an average 920 pound carcass worth about $2.26 a hundred weight gives those carcasses a value of well over $2,000 a piece.

So if we intend to retain ownership of finished cattle and sell 'em on a carcass value basis, five of those calves work out to a value of about $10,500 or just shy of it.

So if that's our marketing plan, that becomes the value of a good bull to us.

So in the end, we see a pretty wide range.

What's a good bull worth?

Somewhere between $5,000 to a little over $10,000.

The answer to that leads to a wide range because there's a lot of layers to that onion.

Some of the things that that's informative about is we think about when we're gonna market those calves is that the longer we're gonna own the offspring out of a bull, the greater opportunity we have to capture the value of our investment in genetics.

The retained ownership through finishing means we get paid more for a bull than if we're selling all the calves at weaning.

As I said, it gets to be a complicated answer, and we haven't yet even taken into consideration the value of heifers that we're gonna retain and let become cows if we intend to use a bull as a rotational sire.

In those cases, we're going to reap the dividends of good genetics in the cow herd for 10, 12 years down the road.

So we'll get into that a little deeper next week.

As we conclude this week, final thought is we think about ownership cost of a bull at an investment of price points of $3,000, $6,000, $9,000, and $12,000 investment in that bull.

You see on a per cow basis, if we assume a bull covers about a dozen cows as a yearling, 25 as a two year old, has four more seasons of service at about 30 cows a year, that bull cost us somewhere between $19 and a little over $76 per cow that he services over an expected six years in service.

Now, those numbers change if we're gonna use the bull two breeding seasons a year, if we've got fall and spring calvers.

Those numbers can change if the bull services more cows than that or fewer cows, or doesn't last that long.

Bottom line to this chart, we're actually taking a look at what the bull cost us annually, and at those same investment points, it's somewhere between $500 a year versus $2,000 a year if we're paying $12,000 for a bull.

So, I hope this helps in answering that age old question.

We'll dig into this topic a little deeper and look specifically maybe where we ought to apply selection pressure as we invest in those genetics in some Cow Calf Corners we got coming up.

Thanks for joining us this week.

(cheerful music) - So you may have heard of the term sous vide and wondered what does that mean?

Sous vide is a French word that translates to under vacuum, and is a cooking method in which food is placed inside of an airtight container, such as a vacuum sealed bag, and cooked in temperature controlled water.

The food does not come in direct contact with a flame, smoke, or steam, and the temperature of the water never reaches the boiling point.

Spices, herbs, or marinades may also be placed inside the bag along with the food to help season as it cooks at a low temperature for a long time.

The low temperatures ensure that the food is cooked gently while the sealed container ensures that the food retains moisture and aroma.

The low temperatures in combination with the long time and immersion in water ensure that the food is cooked evenly.

However, precise control of the temperature during sous vide cooking is vital to maintain the safety of the food because clostridium botulinum bacteria can grow and produce an extremely dangerous toxin in the absence of oxygen.

The use of a temperature controlled water bath or circulating immersion water heater is often recommended for this cooking method.

A downside of sous vide is that foods such as meat don't form a crust, char, or bark on the outside because the maximum cook temperatures are below the temperatures at which the maillard reaction or browning occurs.

This means that before the meat is served it has to be seared over an open flame, on a grill, or in a frying pan to achieve those familiar textures and flavors.

- So remember when it comes to sous vide, low and slow is the way to go along with appropriate temperature control.

(country music) - We're joined now by Dr. Chris Richards who is director of the field and research service unit for OSU.

Chris, we're talking about field days today, for those who haven't been in a while or maybe who've never been, describe for them what a field day is and why they might wanna come.

- So Lyndall, a field day is an event with OSU Ag Research and OSU Extension that partner together and host an event at one of our agricultural research experiment stations to present everything from the latest research to some of the most practical applications of work that's being done related to agriculture at those sites.

- [Lyndall] And one of the things I love is that we get producers, we get industry folks, we have our researchers, extension people, all in the same place, all interacting for the day.

- That is correct, it's a great opportunity for all those folks to get together.

Part of the highlight of the new events is we're looking at actually expanding those that we're gonna start including more of the basic sciences that will be leading to the future developments.

Some of the associated sciences that are involved with getting our products to market, as well as some of the social sciences, like the economic impacts and the sociology of how our impact, how our products and agriculture and our practices influence society in those events coming up.

- So the goal of this is really to have OSU Extension and OSU Ag Research working together to get that knowledge to the people of Oklahoma.

- That is ultimately the land grand mission of OSU is for the research to be developed and as that research expands into practical applications then we take it through the extension program to carry that out so that it's in a useful format that people can actually implement those practices.

- So the spring season has already begun, you guys already have one field day under your belt, talk about that a little bit and then we'll talk about some of the events coming up.

- We did have our first field day, the fruit tree field day at the Cimarron Valley Research Station in Perkins.

It was a full house event, a little bit chilly for the morning session, really nice for the afternoon session.

Our next two coming up are at the South Central experiment station in Chickasha, going to be our Wheat Field Day there on April 29th, and then our flagship Lahoma Wheat Field Day on May 13th in Lahoma.

- Well, that's one that I've been to many, many times, it's a great field day and folks are really looking forward probably to reengaging and getting out and about after some of the challenges from the last couple of years, right?

- That is definitely true.

We're excited to have people come out engage with each other, see what we've been doing during the pandemic.

We've been running research trials throughout the pandemic, never stopped in this process and we certainly are gonna have some new and exciting things and we're gonna be expanding to see some things that maybe they haven't seen at previous field days.

- Terrific.

Let's talk about, is there a fee, is there a registration process those kind of details.

- There will be a registration process.

You can either register online, we'll have an app online registration for those, or you can call your local county Extension office and register for those events.

There will not be any fee for any one of these events, lunch will be provided at both the Chickasha and Lahoma Field Days.

- And I can attest that the lunch is usually pretty good, so that's nice.

We talk about Extension having county offices statewide, but there are research at station statewide as well.

- There are, we have really 24 functional units spread across the state so we go from Eva, Oklahoma down to Altus, Oklahoma, over to Idabel and then up to Haskell, so we do have a pretty good encompassing of the state, the different environments within the state spread out where we can do experiments that are representative of the local environments that are there, the soil types, the environmental conditions are obviously drastically different in those locations so we can conduct research in those relevant areas.

- And for folks who want to learn more about the field days, you and the team have a website set up?

- We do, our field days have a new website that you can go to, you can see the major events that we're promoting at the Ag Research Stations as well as a number of other events that are gonna be going on with partnerships between Ag Research and Ag Extension.

- Wonderful.

Well, it sounds like a great spring, thank you for giving us a preview Chris.

- Very good.

- Okay, for a link to the website Chris mentioned, go to sunup.okstate.edu.

(upbeat music) And that'll do it for us this week.

A reminder, you can see us anytime on our website, sunup.okstate.edu 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.

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