- We have a great show for you today.

Topics like cattle nutrition for your expectant cows to ensure good health for spring calving, plus some interesting food trends for the new year.

And some of them surprised us.

I hope you have your coffee ready because Sunup starts right now.

We're joined now by Dr. Paul Beck, our OSU extension beef cattle specialist.

And, and Paul, we're talking today about minerals and, and the needs for cows that are calving kinda set the stage for us for, for the conditions this time of year, - The majority of the beef cows in Oklahoma are spring calving cows.

We have quite a few of, of the cows will be calving within the next two months.

And that corresponds to the rapid growth of a lot of the cool season annuals that, you know, whether it's just a volunteer that comes up in pastures or if we have producers grazing wheat pasture with cows and there's some mineral issues within those cool season annual grasses that can lead to some metabolic diseases for the beef cows.

- Talk about that a little bit more.

What are these, these metabolic diseases?

What do, what do they look like?

Explain that part.

- The two primary ones that are the most concern at this time of year would be milk fever, which is very common in dairy cows, but we also see it in, in beef cows.

And it's related to calcium nutrition and the uptake of calcium in the diet along with resorption of calcium from the bones.

And if we are feeding a high calcium mineral and we're getting close up to calving, that kind of makes the cow's system lazy and it's not used to, it's not prepared to resorb mineral calcium from the bone to, to keep the blood calcium levels at the right level.

When the cow calves and starts producing milk, it becomes deficient in calcium and blood.

Calcium decreases and they have muscle tremors from, from the low blood calcium and that leads to incoordination and, and a lot of times death if we don't treat that right away, you know, a lot of times this happens with older cows and because of their, their just bones are more brittle and they don't resorb that calcium out of their, their bones.

The other issue is grass techniques and the symptoms are the same muscle tremors and coordination stumbling around, but it's a magnesium issue.

And the problem with these cool season annuals is we've, they're adequate in calcium but they're kind of marginal in magnesium in a lot of cases.

And we have high potassium levels in, in those forages and in the potassium interferes with the calcium and, and magnesium absorption in the GI tract.

And this happens a lot with younger cows and the way we treat that would be to start feeding a higher magnesium mineral as we get closer to, to calving.

If we can feed a, instead of a, a three or 4% magnesium mineral to our dry cows, we need to up that to a higher mag, 10% magnesium mineral about a month before calving.

- As we know on sunup we've got folks who've been farming and ranching their whole lives and then we have some people who are just getting started.

So this, this guidance applies to everybody.

- Yes, it absolutely does.

You know, our newer producers may think they've got a good mineral program and then some of these issues crop up that they didn't expect.

And a lot of times these issues crop up to experience producers too and we lose sight of some of the things we do know and it comes up and gets us in the end.

So - Now in terms of integrating this into your feeding regimen, how does that work?

- The requirements and the needs that are being met by the forages change over the year and, and when we have dormant grass or, or hay, we have different requirements or different deficiencies at that time than we would during the summer with green growing grass.

So we need to be prepared to alter our mineral program with the season and, and to meet those beef cattle's needs for both what the forages supply and the, what the cows need for their stage of production at this time.

It, it's important to go to the feed store and, and find that higher magnesium mineral.

Everything else can, can stay the same as far as the calcium and the phosphorus needs, but just adding that magnesium to the mineral would be important.

At this time it's a good idea if we're feeding hay for a long period of time to go ahead and get a min a feed analysis with the mineral just to see where you're at and, and tailor your mineral program to, to fit what your forages are actually supplying and what those cows actually need.

- There's some fact sheets available that address these topics as well.

- Yes, we have a full series of fact sheets on the nutrition requirements of beef cows and the mineral nutrition of beef cows and, and those are freely available from our extension offices or our extension website.

- Okay, great.

We'll check those out.

Thanks a lot Paul.

Thank you.

And for the fact sheets Paul mentioned plus a link to find your nearest county office, just go to sunup.okstate.edu - Good morning everyone, this is state climatologist Gary McManus with your Mesonet weather report.

Well that just about covers winter, right?

I've had enough cold weather to last me for a while now.

Of course it's Oklahoma.

Probably get really cold again probably April, right?

That's how it works here.

But we still have the drought in the state.

Just a little bit left.

Let's go right to that new map and see where we are.

Well really not a lot of changes from the last couple of weeks.

We still have drought down in south central and North central Oklahoma.

A little bit of abnormally dry conditions.

The yellow in parts of northeast Oklahoma and of course up again in north central and south central and southwest Oklahoma surrounding those areas of actual drought, only 5% of the state in drought, which is a pretty good number compared to what we've seen over the last few years.

Now speaking of the last few years here you see the drought monitor a time series for just the state of Oklahoma from J July 1st, 2021.

Remember this drought or this drought episode started in August, 2021 and then that goes all the way through the current timeframe.

You can see how low we are now, remember these colors, the, the darker reds and the oranges that indicates the, the, the worst conditions.

The yellows abnormally dry conditions.

But you can see the ebb and flow of the drought over that timeframe.

The worst of it was there in 2022.

We haven't had a horrible time with drought since then.

A little bit there in the fall of 2024, just recently before November.

Killed that.

But we're in pretty good shape compared to the last three years at least.

Okay, now let's take a look ahead from the climate prediction center, the February through April outlook.

So you average the weather over the February through April timeframe in 2025.

Here's what they foresee below normal precipitation across the southern half of the state, including the western panhandle.

Now the northern half of the state, they see equal chances of above, below or near normal conditions.

But the best news in that area is we don't see that increased odds below normal precipitation.

Okay, now let's take a look at the seasonal temperature outlook from the climate prediction center.

This is for the February through April period 2025.

So the weather averaged over that three month period we see equal chances of above, below or near normal conditions across the northern half of the state.

Now across the southern half of the state in the western panhandle, we see slightly increased odds of below normal precipitation.

This is generally reflective of that La Nina that I talked about last week.

So drought's looking good right now.

We are on a pretty long dry spell.

If it starts to warm up we'll have to start, you know, pushing that drought forward.

Once again, something to watch for.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet weather report, - Talking food now and some of the industry trends you can expect to see in 2025.

Here's Sunup's Kurtis Hair with OSU food scientist Darren Scott.

- Well the first month of the new year is almost over and that means it's time to dive into some food trends for 2025 with our OSU food scientist, Dr. Darren Scott.

So Darren, there's one food trend that's really been happening in the past couple years really post covid that's really trending down and that's alcohol consumption, right?

- Well, you know, you're right, young people, older people just seem to be drinking less alcohol right now.

You're seeing an increase in things like no alcohol or low alcohol beers also an increase in things like mocktails, these different kinds of beverages that don't have alcohol in them but have other types of fruits and things like that to help kind of make them nice in flavor.

- You know, when I was younger, especially in college, the the, the no alcohol beers or or those types of drinks weren't really available in stores that much.

You couldn't really find them.

It was really mainly at, you know, if you're going to a bar or a restaurant.

Sure.

Is the availability of that, do you think that that's one of the reasons why?

- Well, you know, I think that that's right.

You know, those two things kind of drive one another.

You know, if something is available, more people are gonna be able to have a chance to try it.

And so you see these things in sort of like micro breweries where they're offering, you know, more of these kinds of, again, low or no alcohol, beers, mocktails and those sorts of things.

So what are, what's some things that are taking place of alcohol consumption?

Oh you know, that's a good question.

Water, believe it or not.

But we're not just talking about plain old tap water, but we're talking about things like flavored waters, electrolytes, even protein being added to different types of water to kind of make them more healthy If you can imagine, you know, unhealthy water.

- Is it, do you think that that's an overall trend too of just like the focus on health that's kind of replacing the alcohol - As well?

You know, and I really think that you put your finger on it is that sort of wellness, health, you know, wellbeing and those trends are sort of bleeding over into these other categories of foods.

- Yeah.

Let's like shift really into foods.

So what are some food trends that you're, that you're gonna see that we're gonna see in 2025 in regards to things that we're gonna eat?

- Sure.

You know, kind of on the tail end of the decreasing alcohol consumption, things like what we're seeing is an increase of beverages.

Mm.

So things like soft drinks where in the past they were kind of tailing off or at least leveling off.

But we're seeing that kind of increase a little bit and kind of expecting that to continue into the new year.

- So I'm kind of curious in regards to technology, how is that gonna impact the trends?

Are people gonna be more interested or were we gonna see that really impact cons on the consumer side?

- Sure, you know, you're gonna see more of AI love it or hate it in our lives, particularly in how we maybe interact with websites or apps.

You know, the ai, AI is kind of integrated so that in the past I might do a search for, alright do you have chicken breasts?

Well now as you build up this sort of profile over time the AI might be able to provide additional information where I say, well rather than just looking for chicken breasts but what goes well with chicken breast or the AI might offer suggestions for recipes that I can make with chicken breasts.

- And one food trend as well is that's seems like, like a lot like alcohol and then water is in the dairy industry.

You know, a couple years ago I think we had spoken with you about the rise in alternative dairy products like oat milk and almond milk, but now the dairy consumption is really shot right back up, - You know, and that's - Right.

- There's gonna be I think more of a return to sort of those nostalgic comfort foods and so typical dairy products, cheeses, whole milks, those sorts of things, I think that you're gonna see an increase in that.

And speaking of sort of nostalgic types of products, you're gonna see probably an increase in things like meatloaf.

You know, that's kind of very nostalgic but depending upon how you change up the recipe you can make it very interesting.

Very new.

And so I think that you're gonna see kind of an increase in those kinds of foods as well.

- Yeah, and I'm, I might be one of those consumers who's gonna hop on the meatloaf train 'cause I didn't really used to like it and had some not too long ago.

It was quite delicious.

So I just kinda wanna dive into the nostalgia part of this, of these food trends.

Why do you think that is?

- Well, you know, there's a lot of change going on right now and so I think that those sorts of things bring people comfort, ease, that sort of thing.

And again, they're the kind of products that you can kind of gussy up, change 'em up a little bit, make them special.

- Yeah, meatloaf reminds me of the nineties, so I guess it's somewhat comforting.

Alright, thanks Darren.

We'll check back in with you on food wise in a couple weeks and see what else is happening in the food world.

Alright, great.

All thank you.

Darren Scott, OSU food scientist here, Oklahoma State University.

- When it comes to staying warm this winter, what are the pros and cons of a fireplace versus a woodburn stove?

Here's Dr. Scott Frazier to take a look.

- So today we're gonna be talking about alternative forms of heating here in Oklahoma, there's a couple of different ways to do that.

One is the traditional fireplace and the other is the wood stove.

The fireplace is essentially a structure, so it, it's built into a wall and usually has quite a bit of masonry and things like that.

So to install one of these in a retrofit in a home would be very expensive, probably easily 20 to 30 to $40,000.

The other thing is that it's quite often open to the rooms that it's trying to heat.

So that is a, a fireplace hazard.

Now on the other hand, you can have a wood stove, which is not a structure, it's actually an appliance.

And one of the main advantages of the wood stove is that it's very efficient.

EPA estimates start at about 70% efficiency versus about 15 to 20 for the fireplace.

So your, your dollars for wood is going to go a lot further and then because it's converting more of that into radiant energy, less pollution, so less smoke, things like that, maybe a half to a third of the cost in wood versus a fireplace.

So that's a nice option.

As far as cons with the wood stove, there's, there's not much.

It, it costs less to install.

Estimates I saw ran from about 1000 to maybe 4,000, depending on how fancy you get.

There's not as much back drafting issues.

There's not as much of a fire hazard because the wood stove is usually closed off.

There is a bit of a safety issue because these metal sides do get pretty hot.

So if somebody were to stumble a child, elderly person, something like that, you could get a, a bit of a burn.

So those are the major issues, the pros and cons going on with these two things.

It, it kind of comes down to a question of how important are aesthetics to you versus how important is this thing really gonna be to, to heating your home.

In both cases you want to have wood that's, that's been dried.

In my case, I like to have it dry at least a year.

Yeah, you're gonna want to wanna watch out for the, for the wood quite a bit.

Don't wanna burn green wood, obviously.

And there's certain types of wood like cedar and things like that that generate a lot of creosote, so you probably wanna stay away from that.

- Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to cow-calf Corner.

This week's topic is cold weather, cold stress, managing cows and managing calving season.

Whenever we have some of those extreme cold snaps and we just kind of take inventory of different things that we need to keep in mind is we've got another cold front that should hit us just within the next 48 hours after we tape today.

We're gonna live through some of these as we move forward here in the next couple months in Oklahoma.

It's nothing we don't see year to year, but first, as I always say, if we're in calving season or we're getting ready for calving season, let's make sure that we've got inventory of all that stuff that we know we're gonna potentially need during calving season.

Last week we talked about the stages of partion that are helpful in knowing when we might need to assist with a cow that's having a calf, but just thinking through everything from a cotton towel to maybe wrap a calf in to our OB chains, our calf puller, maybe a Tet cannula, some OB sleeves, some disinfectant.

There's that list of eight to 10 things that we've talked about having in a calving kit in past cow-calf corners.

And we wanna make sure we know where that stuff is, maybe have it in a cooler and ready to go if and when we have to assist.

Second thing we want to think of, that's a really important part of that calving kit, but we're probably not gonna keep it in that cooler.

It's gonna be somewhere in a freezer, is just colostrum.

Colostrum is critical to get calves off to a good start and give them that passive immunity.

Cold stress is potentially gonna make calves a little more sluggish and we want colostrum on hand and if we're in question we want to get colostrum into a calf as soon as possible after they're born.

That is critical to get those immunoglobulins across the gut wall and into the bloodstream.

So a feeding tube, a means to get that colostrum into a calf is gonna be very important to us.

We know that calves, when they're born, they're basically leaving a temperature of about 101 to 102 degrees in the womb, depending on how cold it is whenever they hit the ground, we know that's gonna be a shock to their system.

Nature equips those newborn calves with a certain amount of brown adipose tissue that they're gonna burn to maintain body heat.

But that being said, cold stress can still overtake 'em if it's cold enough, especially if we got snow wet conditions or anything like that.

Some shelter, some wind breaks, maybe putting some bedding down.

We're fortunate in Oklahoma we, we are blessed with a pretty good environment to raise cattle in.

Don't have a lot of calving barns, but any measures we can take in that way, and even just separating the first calf heifers from the mature cow herd that might need a little more assistance going through that process could be pretty important in saving some of those newborn calves.

Final thing that we address relative to cold stress is realize the impact it has on nutritional requirements of our cow herd, particularly in the form of energy.

If we're thinking about that last trimester of pregnancy, we know that optimum or even a positive plane in nutrition is gonna lead to less calving difficulty, quicker breed back on cows and heifers.

But if we look at 32 degrees as a baseline, if conditions are dry, every degree of temperature fahrenheit that we fall below, that increases the cow's energy requirements by about 1%.

So if we're looking at a cow that might need 10 pounds of TDN per day when it's 32 degrees or above, if we drop that temperature down to say 12 degrees, 20% spike, that cow now needs about 12 pounds of energy or TDN a day.

We further double that.

If we think about a wet hair coat in those cold conditions, it's been a couple weeks ago, we had that weekend where the front came in, but we'd had a warm day prior to it had a little bit of rain across Oklahoma.

If we get those cows wet to the skin and then we drop that temperature, maybe add in a little windchill on top of it, for every temperature, every degree Fahrenheit, we are below 32.

It's 2% that we increase that nutritional requirement for.

And so wet her coat 12 degrees, we're now looking at 40% increase in energy that that cow's gonna need.

So that same cow that needed 10 pounds of TD in a day is up to 14.

So we wanna feed accordingly, manage accordingly.

We wanna save all the calves we can.

We wanna shorten that breed back and reduce that stress to the extent possible.

Nutrition management's a key part of that.

Hope this helps.

I hope all your calves are born on a nice, pleasant dry day and we thank you for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner.

- Finally today we learn what makes Ed Moydell a distinguished alumnus in the Ferguson College of Agriculture video production manager Craig Woods put together our story.

- Ed Moydell always had a love for people and plants - Growing up.

I got into this by inheriting a lawn mowing business for my brother when I was 13 and I got really into being with people and being outdoors.

- He would find a way to combine those loves during a visit to another university in Missouri and it would eventually lead him to Oklahoma State University.

- When I was out there, I visited the Missouri Botanic Garden in St. Louis, and it was sort of at that moment that it all kind came together for me that I wanted to work in public gardens.

- Ed reconnected with Dr. Doug Needham, an OSU professor that he'd met while living in Tulsa.

Dr. Needham would become a lifelong mentor colleague and friend.

- He came to OSU as a transfer student and I could just tell he was sharp, he was genuine, he had leadership skills beyond his age.

- Ed became one of the first students in a new public horticulture degree program.

After completing his degree in 2003, ED was accepted into a prestigious graduate program run jointly by the University of Delaware and Longwood Gardens, a renowned horticultural gym near Philadelphia.

He and his wife Aaron, who he met at OSU, moved to Pennsylvania.

- He actually was up there the year prior to me going up there, so he was in the class ahead of me.

We were both in the Longwood Graduate Program through the University of Delaware.

It is a two year master's program that's a full fellowship program, so they only take five grad students each year.

- My thesis project was to create a center for Excellence in public horticulture.

So it was a research education and training center dedicated to preparing the next generation of people to work in places like this or Longwood or OSU Botanical Garden.

And so I completed that project and we got seed money to start it and I ran it out of the Philadelphia area for a couple of years.

And then in the most bizarre of coincidences during that time, they actually recruited Doug to be my boss at Longwood.

- So I arrive on a evening flight into Philly, get to Longwood Gardens, and of course who, who's there to welcome me?

Ed.

- In 2007, Ed was offered a position as the interim director for the BLO de Reserve in the state of Washington.

Within a year he was the president and CEO bringing a fresh perspective to the job.

- One of the things that prepared me the most professionally for the jobs that I've had was I actually worked my way through college as a Benihana style hibachi chef.

And when I got my last job, they asked if I had any creative fundraising ideas.

And totally as a joke, I said, I still have my hat and my knives and my scarf.

Just buy me a grill and we can do these fundraising dinners.

- But I don't know any other horticultures or executive director that would be willing to be a hibachi chef for a fundraiser.

And so Ed is pulling out all of his skills.

Some students, you never know what that high school job might lead to later on down the road - In 2023 and his wife moved once again across the country where Ed became the president and CEO of Holden Forests and Gardens.

- Holden Forests and Gardens is the combination of two of northeast Ohio's leading environmental nonprofits, the Holden Arboretum in the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Between the two areas, we have the full gamut of urban and rural, very intimate to very expansive education is really important.

We educate about 50,000 - People a year.

When you think about OSU, agriculture probably have a lot of stereotypes.

Maybe you think about a wheat farmer or a cattle producer in a certain spot in in Oklahoma.

But I think Ed's a good example of the possibilities that exist within OSU agriculture.

He came here, got a degree in public horticulture and went off and did great things outside of the state.

- There is absolutely nothing else that I would do.

I feel really lucky to have found a passion in this.

I think to have a job and your passion feels like a real, I don't know, to a certain extent, it kind of feels like a luxury and to have a, like a meaningful career in something where at the end of the day I feel like I've actually done something positive and meaningful for myself and for my family and for the community.

I mean, to me that's like a dream.

I didn't know that was possible.

- Celebrating Ed Moydell 2024 Ferguson College of Agriculture, distinguished Alumnus.

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

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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.