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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

It's a little strange to still see wheat standing in the field this late in the season, but as we know, the rains have meant many producers have had to hit pause on harvests this year, (upbeat country music) including the Williams family here in Noble County.

- [Kurtis] A wall of dark blue, rain-filled clouds drift closer and closer, threatening to throw a roadblock up for today's wheat harvest.

This is what Marty and Crystal Williams have been dealing with for the past few weeks here on Frontier Farms in Noble County.

Get ready to fire up the combine and then boom, a slow rumble echoes in the distance, the soft warm breeze turns cool, and then, the rain comes.

- With these little rains that have come through, it's made harvest windows very, very challenging, very, very small.

Two days maximum we've cut in a row and then it rains.

And we're out for two days.

Then we've had another two days and then it rains.

So we've harvested really only a total of six days probably in three little small incremental windows.

- [Kurtis] Normally, Crystal is in the cab of the combine while Marty is in the field handling other details.

Their kids, Ava and Morgan, are busy with summer activities, and the dogs, well, not much has changed.

Dive bombing for field mice is still on the agenda.

(grass rustling) But for the Williamses, this harvest and this year has been anything but normal.

- So this year, I was really heavy on the amount of wheat that I planted because of the drought.

And then it didn't rain all winter, all through planting season, so our wheat was very, very thin all year.

We thought maybe spring rains would bring it out of it, and for the most part, it kinda did.

It was gonna make a marginal crop, but it was so thin now the weeds have come on.

- [Kurtis] Aside from the drought and untimely rains, there's a lot going on personally for this sixth generation farming family.

They just moved into their newly built home literally days ago.

Ava's off at church camp, and Morgan is the one climbing in the cab of the combine because Crystal is about a week away from delivering the new addition to the Williams family.

- We have a baby coming, so that's been a pleasant surprise.

And I did actually try to combine the other day for two hours, and my feet were swollen, so.

(laughing) I learned real quick, these last two weeks, I need to rest.

- [Kurtis] With a baby on the way and thin wheat fields, Marty decided to shift his focus to summer crops and hired a custom crew to help take care of the majority of his wheat fields.

For this wheat near the house, Morgan and his copilot best friend, who's fittingly named Corbin, are ready to pick up the slack.

- Our son is really talented with running equipment.

He has been since he was little, and we're very safe, overly safe, but he's just got a knack for it and he pays attention to what's going on.

- Well, you start it up, you put the back end on first, and then it has to be on the very low, like not fast revving.

And then, you start the header up, and then you rev it up more.

And then you lower the header and start cutting wheat.

- It's been a challenging year for sure, but Marty and Crystal are on their 19th year of marriage.

And when you have that much time under your belt, you sometimes look at these challenges as gifts, because you never know how quickly things could change for the better.

Just takes a little time.

- It's no secret that, from 2013 to 2018, farming went through really tough economic time.

During that time, we had several challenges emotionally.

Spiritually, there were several times we thought we were gonna lose the farm, and we always prayed that someday we could build a new home for our kids to enjoy and my wife to enjoy and me.

All of a sudden, we were extremely blessed with a shift in crop growing conditions and prices and things of that nature.

Financially, things just came around, and then we were fortunate enough to be able to build a home and get that process started.

And then, all of a sudden, woohoo, we have a baby on the way.

I thought I was coaching my last Little League team, and now, might not be.

- I didn't grow up farming.

I don't know as much as most people do, but I'm learning.

The 19 years we've been together, we're already experienced as a young farm family so many trials and errors, and learning to adapt, it's still stressful, but we're able to kind of navigate and support each other through it a little bit better than when we were younger.

- My family's been in this area since the land run of 1893.

Every day I can wake up and drive by the farms that several great-grandparents have farmed on and left from several generations, and it's really cool that I get to do that.

- [Kurtis] If the rains hold out, harvest should be wrapped up not too long after their baby boy arrives.

Though Morgan still hasn't quite wrapped his head around having a baby brother.

- I honestly don't know what to do when he's here.

(light country music) Gonna be a lotta stuff.

- [Kurtis] It's just another challenge, but also a gift.

In Noble County, I'm Kurtis Hair.

- We're joined now by Mike Schulte, who is executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission.

Mike, as we just saw up in Noble County, they've had lots of rain delays, and that's really the theme throughout harvest.

- Yes, it's just been a really challenging year for producers as they try to get this crop out.

You know, we have made some progress this past week.

We're now about 57% complete in Oklahoma, made great progress in southern and central Oklahoma.

But as we've gotten into northern Oklahoma, we've gotten rains once again today.

And so it's really just created challenges for producers overall.

- Forecast doesn't look very good for the next week as far as that goes.

So I'm hopeful that maybe after the 4th of July it will dry out and maybe we can get this crop behind us.

- It's really kind of what over a week behind where it normally would be?

- We're about 12 to 15 days behind schedule now of where we normally would be when you look at harvest over the last 10 to 12 years.

So, it just we're thankful for the moisture.

It allowed us to have something where we thought maybe we weren't going to have anything at all.

But now at this point in time it would be great if we could have five to six days of real dry weather to try to get it out because anything now that happens with rain probably is not gonna bode well for us as far as quality.

- So to this point, how has quality looked, yields moisture levels, all of that?

- Considering everything this crop has been through with the challenges of the drought and now the late rains, it's really remarkable.

We actually have had really good test weights in southern Oklahoma where we got the majority of the crop harvested out before the rains came.

Central Oklahoma, we've had some test weights that haven't been as high as we've moved into northern Oklahoma again, where harvest is going on right now test weights were extremely high in the beginning.

I think we're gonna probably average out but I think we're gonna do well overall once we get it all harvested.

Just because we had some really great tremendous test weights to begin with.

Actually the northeast part of the state is really kind of the bright spot of the state.

They did have timely rains, it all worked out for them.

The northeast part of the state also grows the classification of soft red winter wheat.

What's interesting about that is the soft red varieties are making anywhere from 85 to a hundred bushels per acre and the hard red winter wheat varieties were making 50 to 55.

Test weights were running 60 to 64 pounds.

So it's really kind of the bright spot of the split state and we're really happy for the producers in that region.

You know, yields right now not so favorable across the state.

We're probably looking at a 30 to 35 bushel average in northern Oklahoma.

But USDA is calling our yield statewide average this year, 25 bushels per acre.

Last year we were at 28 bushels per acre.

There was a lot of abandonment in our large wheat production counties in northwest Oklahoma and the panhandle regions.

Those areas are probably gonna take in 30% of what they normally have taken in over the last five to six years.

And so that's really gonna create some challenges for the overall yield for Oklahoma USDA calling us at 53 million bushels right now, currently.

Last year, we were at 68.6 million bushels.

The year before that 115 our five year average in 2021 was around a hundred million.

So we're looking at about half the crop of what we normally have.

- And with windy days arriving like this those fields will dry out pretty quickly, won't they?

- Absolutely.

- All right, Mike, great talking with you and we'll see you again soon.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to another edition of the Mesonet Weather Report.

I'm Wes Lee.

Some of the hottest temperatures we have seen in a while occurred last week.

Triple digit heat was seen on Tuesday in southwestern counties and only built upwards from there.

This made five or six days already above 100 in this area.

The rest of the state had not seen the century mark yet but that will change before the end of the week.

Forecasted highs for Wednesday and Thursday showed 100 plus temperatures almost statewide.

In fact, Wednesday's highs were expected to be very close to the all time record high temperatures for that day.

These are actual temperatures and not the heat index number.

When looking at those, you can add several degrees to the sites.

On Tuesday, Grandfield in Tillman County topped out at 120 degrees.

Even though most of the state has received adequate rainfall lately, with temperatures like this, the soil moisture can be depleted very quickly.

On Tuesday, where the 100s were recorded, you can see the very high evapotranspiration rates.

Three days of this type of weather can see over an inch of water leaving the soil profile.

This is for short crops such as grass and even higher for tall crops such as corn.

Hopefully the rainy, cloudy weather will return soon.

Now here's Gary with the drought monitor.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, we're down to about 40% of the state and drought our lowest amount since right about this time last year.

So we are making progress.

A little bit of trouble in eastern and south central Oklahoma.

Let's take a look at that new map and see where we're at.

Obviously the worst two areas of the state remain in drought.

Southwest Oklahoma, northern Oklahoma but especially north central Oklahoma.

Extreme to exceptional drought up there but we also see new areas of drought in the east central Oklahoma and also a new little small area of drought in south central, southeast Oklahoma.

So definitely areas to watch out for.

Let's take a look at the calendar.

Year to date rainfall, we go from about nine inches in the panhandle and far southwest to as many as 37 inches down in the far southeast.

In between there, lots of 10 to 15 to 20 inch amounts.

How does that compare to normal though?

We take a look at the departure from normal rainfall map from the Mesonet.

We see again those trouble areas, southwest Oklahoma.

- About five inches below normal, in some cases.

Up in north central, northeast, Oklahoma as many as 10 inches below normal.

Let's take a look at the top soil moisture from the USDA.

This is the percent short to very short.

18% for Oklahoma.

That's very good compared to where we were just a few months ago.

So, and we're certainly much better than many of our neighbors, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas.

Missouri's really bad at 88% short to very short.

So we've definitely improved in these numbers.

But before we get too confident in our moisture, we see the topsoil moisture that's percent surplus, only 4%.

So I'm afraid most of that, the topsoil moisture is merely adequate.

So going into summer, that's a little bit of a concern, but certainly not the doom that we saw last year at this time.

Okay, things are continuing to improve.

We are entering the depths of summer, the heat's come back.

Hopefully we can continue with the abundant rainfall and continue to keep drought out of the state, or at least on its way out.

That's it for this time.

(lively music) We'll see you next time on the Mesonet Weather Report.

- Chigger bites are really some of the worst insect bites you can get in Oklahoma this time of year.

So how do you prevent them in the first place?

OSU extension livestock entomologist, Dr. Justin Talley has some answers.

- As we're coming into the summer season, we're also gonna see an increase in chigger populations.

And historically, when we have chigger populations, you're always gonna know where those areas are, whether it's you've walked through an area and you know that you had chiggers feed on you.

But traditionally, if you have any area that you're walking around that has high vegetation, that has vegetation that can come up to mid thigh to waist area, then it's a likelihood of supporting chigger populations because it's maintaining humidity within that vegetative cover.

Some of our common misconceptions of chiggers is that you can suffocate the chiggers away by putting different substances on your chigger bites and that's really not true.

The main thing is a chigger mite feeds on you and leaves.

It's a non-burrowing mite.

It's doesn't burrow into your skin like a lot of outlets may share with, but essentially what a chigger does is it feeds on you, then leaves, but the bite is what's causing the irritation.

And so typical things that can relieve the chigger bites are typical things that you use for any kind of irritation to your skin, such as antihistamines, creams or anything that can kinda counteract that inflammatory response on your skin.

That's gonna be our best thing, but try to avoid putting substances thinking that you're gonna suffocate these chiggers, because they're simply just not there.

So when we think about chiggers and where they preferred to feed, think about anywhere that there may be some kind of tight clothing around waistlines and your ankles.

So, sock lines around your ankles and any kind of waistline, that's where we tend to see more of our chigger feeding sites.

Again, it's all about the type of vegetation you're walking through.

So if you walk through something that's low, that's always in contact through your ankles, check your ankles, but it doesn't prevent them from feeding around your waistline because they can crawl up to your waistline.

The other thing is as you walk through tall vegetation, then more than likely they're gonna be around your waistline.

Very rarely do we see a lot of chigger bites just in and around the face or neck region, unless you simply take a nap and some vegetation.

Then we'll see some chigger bites around those areas.

But some other misconceptions is that chiggers can transmit some pathogens, and they're really a low-risk in when we consider what transmits significant pathogens.

And chiggers are simply just causing a lot of irritation because of compounds in their saliva that your skin is reacting to.

(lively music) - It is that time to check in on the crop markets with our crop marketing specialist, Dr. Kim Anderson.

So Kim, what's happening with the wheat market right now?

- I don't think the wheat market knows where it was to go.

It's just going up and it's just going down.

You look, you go back into May, early May of a $6 and 95 cents for harvest delivered wheat.

It went up to $8 and 54 cents.

In June, it's been between $7 and 35 cents and $8 and 15 cents, an average 7.71.

Right now, it's down just below that $7 and 70 cents level.

If you look at the numbers around the world, you got world production this year projected to be 29.4 billion bushels.

That's a new record.

That's better than last year's record, 29 billion.

You look at world ending stocks, 9.95 billion.

That's up a little bit from 9.8 last year, but it's still below average as far as ending stocks goes.

US total wheat production, 1.67 billion bushels.

This is the third year in a row that US wheat stocks have been between 1.6 and 1.7 billion.

The average is about 1.8, so still below average.

Look at ending stocks for the US for all wheat, 525 million bushels.

They average, 800 million bushels.

So we got tight stocks in the US.

- Relatively tight in the world, but plenty of wheat out there.

So we got adequate wheat around the world, just tight US stock.

- So what's the latest news in the corn market?

- Well, if you look at corn, volatile, just like wheat.

You can go back into May, $4.75 for harvest delivered corn.

The range in June has been from, oh, $5.20 to $6.05.

We've seen it just ram that price up and bring it back down relatively fast.

Looking at the corn numbers, world for 2023-24 marketing year, 48.1 billion bushels, a record.

The old record was 45.3.

That increased production down in Brazil and the Southern hemisphere.

You look at ending stocks for the world, 12.4, up from 12.0.

US production, 15.3 billion bushels.

The old record, 15.1.

You look at US ending stocks, 2.3 billion compared to 1.6 average, so relatively high corn ending stocks in the United States.

Record production around the world and in the US and still relatively high prices, but volatile.

- Is the soybean market the same as corn?

- If you overlay the soybean prices over the corn prices it's almost a mirror image.

You've got the world production, 15.1 billion.

That's a record.

The old record was 13.6, and that was last year's production.

You look at any stocks for the world, 4.5 billion.

The average is 3.8.

So more than adequate stocks there.

US production, just above 4.5 billion.

Last year was just below 4.5 billion.

US ending stocks, 350 million.

That's up from a little over 200 this last year and an average of 440.

So soybeans, just like corn, just like wheat, near record world production and still relatively high prices.

- All righty, thanks Kim.

Dr. Kim Anderson, grain marketing specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

(uplifting music) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and welcome to "Cow-Calf Corner".

This week in honor of our nation's birthday and our Independence Day and that great holiday that we celebrate to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we don't really look at our nation's history.

We're gonna look at the history of the beef cattle business in this country.

And there's some interesting things to reflect on and I always feel like it's worth doing because we can learn from history, and part of the take-home message as we reflect on the history of the beef cattle business in this country, it's still a relatively new thing.

We go back five, 600 years ago, the Spanish explorers, some of the English explorers actually brought Spanish Longhorn cattle into North America.

And it was those cattle that for a couple centuries really flourished living on the Southern Plains and did quite well in a feral state in the United States.

Now, by the mid-1800s, there was some domesticated beef production that took place in Texas and South Florida.

And then what really happened is during the Civil War, we found millions of those descendants of Spanish Longhorns roaming the Southern Plains.

The American public acquired a taste for beef.

Now, most of that public was back along the Eastern Seaboard and the population centers back east.

We had the railways being built into the west.

We had the establishment of a stockyards in Abilene, Kansas on a railhead that came there, and the long drives started.

The long drives, it would have up to 10,000 head of cattle would be rounded up in Texas, come up along the Cimarron River, follow that trail, the Chisholm Trail all the way to Abilene, and there, those steers were worth 10, $20 a head.

And if we could get 'em back to the east to Chicago, New York, a packing facility, those cattle were actually worth 40 to $80 a head.

Now, in the 1880s, we began to fence.

We began to brand.

We began to claim ownership of land and cattle.

We had a severe blizzard that wiped out a lot of those Longhorn cattle.

We began to repopulate the Plains with the British breeds.

The British breeds, late 1700s and through the 1800s, all came to this country from the British Isles.

We're thinking primarily Shorthorn breed, the Hereford breed, and even later, the Angus breed.

For about 50 to 60 years, we selected for more muscle thickness, and up until about the 1950s, we put our selection pressure on cattle that were smaller framed, early maturing.

They were thicker and heavier muscled, but our big objective was cattle that could actually reach a market weight and a degree of finish on a grass-based diet.

So by the 1960s, the popularity of grain finished beef coupled with the modern beef industry as we think of it and a population of cattle that have been bred for decades to be early maturing.

- Led to a breeds revolution.

By the 1970s, we had dozens of new breeds coming into this country.

By the 1980s, we had 70, 80, 90 different breeds that had been imported.

We had made cattle a lot bigger, a lot trimmer, a lot later maturing.

And in the last 30 years, we began to kind of consolidate breeds again.

And really, since the turn of this century, about 20 years ago, the breeds that have remained popular, the beef products that are popular are the breeds that can provide documentation of genetic potential pedigrees and good information about the genetic potential of those cattle.

What does that tell us about the future?

I suggest to breeders to stay on your toes, and spot emerging trends, and give thought to the past because 50 years down the road, we may be breeding types of cattle to meet consumer demand and fit our production environments that are a lot more specific than even what we are doing today.

So, we can anticipate the future, we're gonna learn from our past.

I hope you enjoy this.

I'm Mark Johnson.

I appreciate you guys joining us on Cow-Calf Corner.

(country music) - Talking forage now.

OQBN Coordinator Paul Vining has some tips on monitoring moisture, or lack thereof, in your round bales.

- I'm Paul Vining.

I'm a graduate student here at OK State in Animal Science Department.

I'm actually working on a PhD in Ruminant Nutrition.

But one thing I wanted to talk about today, one thing I've noticed, is we've definitely entered hay season.

And so as we enter hay season, I know it becomes a game of dodging those summer showers.

So, we wanna make sure that we're getting that hay up, that we're baling that hay when it's completely dry.

Again, I say completely dry.

Even though it seems completely dry, hay is actually never 100% completely dry.

There's always just a little bit of moisture in there.

But we wanna bale that hay between 14 and 18% moisture, especially for those round rolls, because if we go over that, we can risk some potential dry matter, some nutrient loss, and even potentially hay fires.

And those hay fires are due to some bacteria and fungi that actually live in that hay, that are on that grass, that continue to feed on the carbohydrates on that plant after it's baled.

And if there's moisture there, they can actually feed at a greater rate.

And as they feed, they release heat.

And when those bales get up around 150 or above, they can actually potentially catch fire.

Kind of that 170-175 range is when it's really, really dangerous.

We like to recommend anything above 120, 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Remove that hay from the barn, let it sit out, and check it every couple hours.

A good way to check it, to check that temperature, is a compost thermometer.

It may be called a hay thermometer.

Technically, it's a 36-inch compost thermometer.

Stick that in that hay bale and just... You wanna watch that temperature.

And if it gets up above 120-125, I'd recommend removing that bale from the barn just 'cause you don't want to risk fire.

Hay goes through a sweat.

So after it's baled, it actually can go up in temperature and then come back down.

And so again, even if we don't see fire, if we don't catch fire, we can see nutrient loss because those bacteria, those fungi, are actually feeding on that hay and they're consuming some of that dry matter, and then your cows aren't gonna get it.

So we can see the TDN, the total digestible nutrients, of that hay drop if it's baled too wet.

Again, 14 to 18% moisture is what you're shooting for.

Some balers will let you know the moisture level of that hay.

There's also some different tricks you can use.

If you Google or look up the microwave test for hay, you can actually use your microwave and kind of get an estimate of that hay dry matter.

So it's a little complicated, but it's pretty straightforward and doable.

But again, you can find that online, some extension websites.

And if you're looking for a compost thermometer or a hay thermometer, you might check with your local extension office.

They very well could have one for you to borrow.

So, check with them.

You can find them online or sometimes at a local store.

There's a lot of 24-inch thermometers out there, but I'd recommend going with that longer 36-inch thermometer so that you're getting all the way to the center of that bale 'cause that's where it's gonna be the hottest.

For more information about hay moisture content and hay quality, or to find your local extension office, go to the SUNUP website, and there's more information provided there.

(country music) - That'll do it for our show this week.

Remember, you can see SUNUP anytime at sunup.okstate.edu.

And also, follow us on YouTube and social media.

We wanna thank the Williams family here in Noble County for having us out for harvest this week.

And we'll see you next time at SUNUP.

(country music) (lighthearted guitar music)