- Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

The cold temperatures, the recent snow event.

It's definitely the heart of winter here in Oklahoma.

So when it comes to your wheat crop, are there things that you can do now or is it best to wait a little bit until those warmer temperatures arrive?

For some guidance, we're joined by Sunup's, Kurtis Hair with OSU, extension Soil Nutrient specialist, Dr. Brian Arnell.

- Well, the whole state received a good chunk of snow, which was pretty good moisture.

So Brian, how does that good moisture affect wheat management at all right now in these cold months?

- Well, for those that got out ahead of it, so there's a lot of folks that fertilized ahead of it.

It was a perfect event to get the nitrogen into the soil that slow melt, get it in the soil.

But really what we're looking at now is that we have soil moisture.

So that's a, that's a win.

We've, we've come into a lot of our springs, fairly dry, not a lot of soil moisture.

So as we come through January, get into February, we've got soil moisture.

And so that means when we have good temperatures, we're going to get good growth.

It also means that, you know, we're, we're moving the nitrogen cycle accordingly.

We, we came into the fall really dry.

We were dry and planting.

And so once we got that rain in November, I saw a lot of fields go yellow because the, the organic matter, the straw was being tied, tying up the nitrogen.

And so this moisture's actually good to help keep that nitrogen cycle moving, help keep breaking down that organic matter and making sure that we have some of our, our naturally available nitrogen ready for when we get into greenup.

- And with this snow too, that, that I mentioned it was a good wet snow.

It's one that we don't really get very often.

So that's a really good chunk of moisture.

- Yeah, it's a great chunk.

It, it's got us down to depth.

So that means, you know, for two things I'm thinking of right now or, or actually three things we need to be paying attention to, okay, let's make our plans for top dress wheat.

What, what are we looking at?

What are our plans?

I know a lot of folks are still not sure about the, the price and their inputs and so they've gone out or plan to go out with a, a 20 to 30 pound shot right now at greenup.

These are the grain only folks to get that going and then wait till hollow stem and decide the rest, the grazing folks, you know, if you've pulled a lot of wheat off already, a lot of gain off already, you're probably need to be looking at maybe we should consider top dress.

And if you haven't put much on that grazing wheat, it's definitely time to get it up and going.

So when we get warm, it's got plenty of nitrogen to go on the other side, we've also got, you know, we expect a fair amount of spring, spring oats this year.

And so that means let, let's make sure we're, we're ready to put the phos down if we need a little bit of phos in furrow with those spring oats to give 'em that good start that if we've got the seed, we've got the availability, we're, we're ready to go on nitrogen and phosphorus and, and we're good to go to get that early spring growth to get the benefit.

And then finally, it's never too early to start planning for our summer crops, you know, corn's right around the corner as we get into it.

So just making our fertility plans and if we still got time for soil sampling, get your soil samples in for, even for your spring oats and your corn to make sure you know what you got and then make your, your management decisions as far as how much, how much do we need, maybe even how much can I afford?

- Yeah, so it's basically halftime looking at the third quarter going in right now.

- Absolutely take advantage of the, the, the fireplace and some, some hot coffee right now so you're not out there in the cold and, and get some planning.

'cause we can make a lot of revenue by just good planning and forecasting, having an option or two in case it gets dry or, or we stay with good moisture.

- You know, one thing that's kind of interesting is in years like this when it's supposed to be drier and warmer with the La Nina, but we're getting these, you know, arctic blasts that are coming through sometimes, you know, freeze burn can happen but that can kind of mask, you know, nitrogen, de nitrogen deficiencies.

But when it's actually really not, is that gonna be a concern at all as we move into the spring, once the wheat starts to really come up, - You know, a lot of the early planted stuff that was really stressed and I've been saying a lot of our early stuff just looks lethargic.

It just hasn't been really moving very good and we've got a lot of really late planted wheat.

We've got a lot of wheat that's just spiking up.

And so we're going to see a lot of things happening and it's going to be hard on early, like right after that as we get into this, this thaw out to say, okay, was it a freeze or is it something else?

The freeze damage will die off.

You'll see that it goes from yellow chlorotic to necrotic, which is dead pretty quickly, but, but the plants aren't moving rapidly right now.

And so I will say if you're yellow don't, don't worry necessarily about it, let's get out of the freeze, let's see what damage there is if there is any.

And then start making our plans to get nitrogen on because as you've heard me on Sunup many times before, I'm okay with a little bit of yellow wheat, especially for grain only if I have yellow wheat in the pasture situation, if I'm seeing cowpox, I'm definitely starting to make plans to call that fertilizer rep. - Alright, thanks Brian.

We'll check with you in a couple weeks.

Thank you.

All right.

Dr. Brian Arnell, precision nutrient management specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- A new artificial intelligence chat bot with all kinds of useful information is now up and running.

The OSU extension bot answers questions based on more than 400,000 extension publications, articles, and fact sheets, as well as content from different educational programs.

And it's all sourced exclusively from 30 different extension networks and the US Department of Agriculture.

The chatbot gives you unlimited access 24 7 to accurate and practical information in all areas, including agriculture and natural resources, gardening, health, nutrition, and family resilience.

Check out the extension by scanning the QR code on your screen or going to sunup.OKstate.edu.

We're joined now by Dr. Josh Campbell, OSU extension specialist for beginning farmer and rancher program.

That is just getting started.

Josh, welcome to Sunup.

We're glad to for having have you on.

Tell us a little bit about this new program that is starting and some of the things that you have in the planning stages.

- Yeah, so this is a new program to OSU extension, emphasizing support for beginning farmers and ranchers.

It's something that we, we've been doing forever.

We've support beginning farmers and ranchers, but really putting an emphasis on that and, and so my role is a part of that and, and so it started with some initial funding from CoBank to support this.

And then we've are developing a program just kind of aggregating the resources that we have as OSU extension and leveraging those to support beginning farmers and ranchers across the state of Oklahoma.

- Give us an idea of some of the topics that you are looking into, right.

Content and, and resources and information that's already there that you're kind of rounding up.

What's, what are some of the hot topics?

- Yeah, well I think beginning farmers and ranchers face a host of challenges.

They're not always the same, but there's, there's some kind of general challenges that any beginning farmer and rancher may experience as they're trying to get their, their agricultural enterprises started.

Oftentimes that's funding and, and financial related, you know, and so there's a lot of great resources from our agricultural economics department.

Sometimes that's production specific and so maybe that's something related to livestock or, or crop production or even a specialty crop.

And so we have a lot of great resources that talk specifically about many of the needs that beginning farmers and ranchers have.

And, and my role is really helping people navigate those and understand the resources available to them, getting a plan in place so that they can be set up for success as they're starting as a farmer or rancher.

- When we hear beginning farmers and ranchers, you may think, oh, that's somebody young and just getting started, but age really doesn't have too much to do with it, right?

- That's right.

You know, we do often think of beginning farmers and ranchers as, as a young person getting started for the first time and it has nothing to do with age.

And in fact the USDA defines a beginning farmer and rancher by the, the length of time that you've been farming and ranching.

And so whether you are coming into agriculture as a young person or maybe you're jumping into it as a, as a second career in retirement, it, it really has to do with how long you've been farming.

And so 10 years or less is the standard definition for a beginning farmer or rancher.

So have you been operating your farm or ranch enterprise for less than 10 years?

And the USDA realizes that those, that that first 10 year period is where most of the, the challenges that somebody needs to overcome in terms of just infrastructure and, and capital costs that are associated with farming.

And so that's why they really prioritize those first 10 years.

- There is a new grant that has been awarded to focus on this topic and it's sort of collaborative in Oklahoma, right?

- That's right.

So we, we were fortunate to, to be awarded from USDA nfa, a beginning Farmer Rancher development program grant.

They were excited about our emphasis on beginning farmer and ranchers in Oklahoma.

And so they funded us starting to, to develop more resources and also to collaborate with other organizations.

So we are working with the College of Muskogee Nation among other partners to start to develop some activities, some, some education.

- We, we heard from our viewers recently in a, a survey in the month of December and some of the topics that you're talking about are some of the very things they would like to see more of on our show.

So we look forward to having you on.

There's also an event coming up in, in later in January that we wanna talk about and your new webpage where you're kind of bringing all of this information together.

Yeah, talk about those.

- Yeah, so the Oklahoma Local Ag Summit is an event that will be happening towards the end of this month, January 29th, 30th and 31st.

It's a free event, actually funded and sponsored by ODAF, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry and, and other collaborators including OSU extension, USDA, natural Resource Conservation Service and, and many others.

And that event would be a great one for, for folks who are maybe wanting to dip their toes a little bit and and hear from, from some experts on, on various topics in, in agriculture.

And then I would love for people to check out our new beginning Farmer and rancher webpage.

And so it's on the OSU extension website under programs and services, we have our, our beginning farmer rancher webpage.

That's where we're cataloging a lot of the resources that we, that we have in one place so that beginning farmers and ranchers can really access that in, in an easy place and we'll populate it as we have new resources made available.

There's a email signup list there that I would encourage people who are interested in learning more about my program to click on and and fill out.

- And last but not least, you are sort of a familiar face and extension because you were in the Oklahoma County Extension office for a while before you stepped into this position.

- That's right.

I have worn a few hats over the years and I was fortunate to have worked for a number of years as a county extension and then earlier this past year had the opportunity to step into this role and I'm really excited about the future.

- Great.

Well best wishes as you get started, that was for the folks who were going, I think I've seen him before, so, - Okay, - Thanks a lot for the information and we will definitely see you again soon.

And for a link to the event that Josh mentioned as well as his new website, please go to sunup.OKstate.edu.

- Good morning everyone, this is state climatologist, Gary McManus with your Mesonet weather report and welcome back to winter once again.

So after the warmest year on record in 2024, we actually tied 2012 and 2025.

We've been warmer than normal for much of that timeframe.

You know, we, we are seeing snow so that's helping our drought situation a little bit.

Let's get right to that new map and see where we're at.

Boy, this map looks really good, doesn't it?

A lot of white and not even a lot of yellow on there.

We still have a little bit of drought down in South Central and up in north central Oklahoma, but by and large drought free across the state of Oklahoma thanks to that November a little bit in December.

And then the snows that we've had recently, however, it is still Oklahoma and drought is always right around the corner.

We can see some dry spell working here on the consecutive days with less than a quarter inch of rainfall map from the Oklahoma Mesonet, getting close to 60 days in a row without at least a quarter inch of rain in a single day.

We have had some snows that melted and alleviated some of this map, but again, when we start getting up to that 60 day range, we are gonna start worrying about, we're introducing colors on that map if we start to get warm again.

So we definitely need some good rains.

Snow, hopefully not ice, but we'll take anything we can get now the rainfall or at least the liquid equivalent rainfall from the melted snow from the first two weeks of 2025.

We do see some really good amounts down there in far southeastern Oklahoma about the southeastern third or so.

And then out in there in west central Oklahoma, we do see very little in the amount of precipitation at least through the first couple of weeks and that extends back into December as well.

So we do need rainfall, especially out there across west central Oklahoma and out in the panhandle where they've had less than a 10th of an inch in the, in the western panhandle.

Now looking over that same timeframe again, the, the first two weeks of 2025, the deficits aren't too big because remember this is the driest time of the year.

So we are seeing deficits generally under a a quarter of an inch, not too bad, but we would like to see a surplus like we have up there in northwest Oklahoma where they've had about a quarter to a three tenths of an inch above normal over those first couple of weeks of the year, I guess have a good news, bad news situation with El Nino La Nina.

We are finally in that La Nina that was predicted all the way last spring.

We've been expecting it to develop and finally it's here.

It is expected to be at least a weak La Nina.

But we do see from this graph is expected at least a, a more than 50% chance that it lasts from the February through April timeframe.

Probably somewhere between February and April it will weaken to neutral conditions and then we see those neutral conditions dominating through most of the summer into early next fall.

Now as a reminder, LA Ninas on average tend to bring us drier than normal conditions and warmer than normal conditions across the southern tier of the United States, including Oklahoma.

You can see from this depiction from the National Weather Service, what happens is that a jet stream gets pushed farther to the north and so all of our storm systems are a little bit farther to north as well.

Again, though, since it is expected to be a weaker LA Nina, possibly not as much impact as we previously feared, that would certainly be good news.

Now how about for the next couple of weeks?

We do see, according to the climate prediction center's outlooks at least increased odds of below normal temperatures for Oklahoma, but especially that southwestern two thirds of the state as we go through really about the, the, the remainder of January.

I guess the better news is that we do see increased odds of above normal precipitation during that same timeframe.

I don't necessarily like the cold weather, at least colder than normal weather, but I guess the good news there is it's not putting any pressure on the drought to develop it any more rapidly like we've seen in previous winters in these parts.

That's it for this time.

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

- We're here now with our OSU AG economist, Dr. John Michael Riley.

So John Michael, this last Friday, the WASDE report came out again going into the new year.

What is that kind of showing us with the crop markets?

- A lot of information was given to us on Friday, not just the WASDE, we also got the crop production report.

It always comes out with the WASDE quarterly grain stocks report, winter, winter crop plantings report.

So a lot of information flowed into the market on Friday and, and all of it really was a surprise for pretty much everything except for wheat.

We saw some adjustments to corn and soybean yield and the positive, positive for the market.

And then on the other side we saw a drop, or excuse me, an increase in cotton yield, which had a negative impact on the market.

So a lot of information, all of it was pretty much a surprise based on how the market reacted.

And so that's kind of where we're starting the new year off.

- Yeah, so let's go back into wheat and corn and soybeans real quick.

Let's talk about those.

- Absolutely.

For the wheat side of things, a lot of significant changes, mostly where we expected those to be, where they were prior to the report coming out.

A lot of that because, you know, we're in the middle of, of the crop growing and all of that's based on last year's, last year's harvest.

So on the, on the corn and soybean side of things though, we, that's where we saw those, those really big moves.

They USDA shaved a bushel per acre off of soybean yield and 3.8 bushels per acre off of corn yield.

Now some of that has been expected to be seen, but it's just, we didn't know when USDA was going to to to bring that in into the report.

Mentioned a little bit of that last fall whenever we were having some of these conversations that as, as corn and beans were beginning to harvest, they started drying up quite a bit in the Midwest and test yields were down quite a bit.

So that, that was largely, you know, we were waiting on that to happen, but it finally happened and it happened in a, in a big way and really surprised the markets in that regard.

- Yeah.

And so let's dive back into cotton.

You said it kind of went the opposite direction.

- Absolutely.

Corn, excuse me.

Cotton yield was increased almost 60, 60 pounds per acre from what the report showed in December.

And as as the opposite side of that market kind of reacted negatively and, and cotton prices were down on the day and they've kind of stayed in that, in down cycle since then.

- Yeah, so moving from these national numbers to kind of more local, we got some snow here in Oklahoma this past weekend, so what does that possibly mean for this next harvest?

- Well hopefully it's gonna expect to see some, some improvements in soil, soil moisture as we, as the crop is kind of interact, been in that dormant stage, kind of staying there.

But certainly hopefully it's going to, you know, improve that soil moisture, not just for for our wheat acres, but also for our spring crops as we start making those decisions on, on those acres moving forward.

- Yeah.

And then lastly, as we move into this new year, what are some things that we should be keeping an eye on?

- Well, I think one thing that I've mentioned in the past, I'll keep benching it, is this weaker than typical basis that our crop markets are experiencing here in Oklahoma.

Something we'll keep an eye on, we want you to keep an eye on as well.

And also as we think about the administration taking over and, and how that's going to impact some, some major aspects with regard to, you know, domestic agriculture, but more importantly how that's gonna impact trade.

- Alright, thanks John.

Michael, we'll catch back up with you in a couple of weeks.

- Good morning, Oklahoma.

Thanks for joining us on cow calf corner.

This week's topic is retained placenta in beef cattle.

Typically the third stage of partuition, when everything goes normally is the expulsion of the placental membranes.

And this happens usually within six to 12 hours after giving birth to the calf.

What happens and how do we define actual retained placenta?

Typically when we see a cow that has still got the placenta attached and hanging out of our vulva at 24 hours postpartum, we define that as retained placenta.

What is the issue with this?

Well, it can lead to some real serious health issues.

You've got something that is still attached inside the uterus.

We've got a cow walking around with this every time she lays down all the microorganisms and bacteria that are in the soil have a means to now get into the uterus.

This can be something that causes the cow to be a little off, potentially get really sick.

It could potentially result in death if an infection gets bad enough.

Typically that doesn't happen typically with good nutrition.

Retained placenta is not that big an issue.

But what are some of the causes if we are seeing retained placenta or we have in the past?

First thing, proper nutrition, vitamin and mineral supplementation, particularly vitamin A is gonna be a key step forward in making sure we don't see retained placenta.

If we've got cows and heifers at a body condition score five to six, they've been in a good plane of nutrition as far as protein and energy consumption, a good free choice mineral, they've been getting some green leafy forage in the form of hay or existing grass.

It's an excellent form of vitamin A.

If they're in the right body condition score, typically nutrition's not gonna be the issue.

Nutrition from that standpoint can be an issue if cows are too obese or if they're too thin.

Second thing is potential health issues.

If we've got a good herd health program and we typically vaccinate once a year, twice a year, we should be warding off the potential sources that lead to issues there.

Genetics can be an issue.

There are certain genetic lines, certain breeds that are more prone to having retained placenta than other breeds are the final thing that can lead to retained placenta.

Even if nutrition's been good, we don't have genetic issues.

And a good herd health program is just if we have seen a cow experience dystocia a cow that's given birth to twins, a cow that's had an abnormal presentation or just a calf that's too big and required a lot of assistance is more likely to suffer from retained placenta.

So if we've got that and we get a few days into it, we want to keep an eye on that cow, potentially administer antibiotics, reach out to our veterinarian and see what course of action we might need to take.

Retained placenta can cause reproductive failure and subsequent breeding seasons.

And to unlock all the profit potential we can in the cow calf operation.

We want to avoid it whenever possible.

Hope this helps, and thanks for being with us.

- Finally today, Sunup's Elizabeth Hokit takes us to Oklahoma County to see how a furry 4H youth development program teaches kids some great life lessons, - Kids and their dogs.

A bond, sure to bring joy to the hearts and faces of all.

- So today was our first Rally Dog invitational.

And so this is a new competition that we started for Oklahoma 4Hers.

So to get to invitationals, they had to submit a video.

So we post online courses and they submit a video of them doing that with their dog.

And then we took the top 25 scores and invited them here to the Oklahoma City Obedience Training Club to do our invitational today.

- You have multiple signs set up and you have a whole list of signs that you need to know, and they set them up in an order.

When you show up, they give you the pattern and then you take your dog through it.

- You have to like tell your dog to sit, stay, and yeah, you have to do the stuff to make them be able to do the things that you need me to do.

- What I saw was a lot of kids that even if their dog maybe was giving 'em a little grief, they were persistent, they kept with it, they didn't give up.

They had great attitude and it was, it was fun to watch that.

- It's so much fun and it's simple.

You can work your dog 15 minutes a day and that's all it takes.

- Why is this important to get kids having a better relationship with their dogs, understanding how to work with their dogs, the empathy for another living being that this creates, it's a great introduction to dog sports, but even if they never compete formally, you just get such a better relationship with your dog when you spend time with it and train it.

- I think that that teaches a lot of responsibility and it helps the kids.

I think they're much more mature when they have to do this and it's a cooperative thing.

You know, they're working with their animal and so it's a, they have to learn not only to train, but if things don't go well, they take the responsibility.

Maybe I should have trained more on that.

- There's so many families that have pets and want to have positive youth development for their kids.

So this is a great way to introduce kids to four H, get them involved, and we're hoping this program grows immensely over the years.

For Sunup at Oklahoma State University, I'm Elizabeth Hokit.

- That'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder, you can see sunup anytime on our website and also stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.