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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

After reports of livestock deaths in recent days in Oklahoma, we begin with important facts about Johnsongrass and how it can become toxic to cattle almost immediately.

Here's Dr. Rosslyn Biggs.

- We received reports last week that a number of cattle producers were running into issues, in particular with Johnsongrass, which we've got some here behind us, and losing cattle from eating Johnsongrass.

We've got a couple of issues we worry about with Johnsongrass, and really we wanna make sure that we get really anything in that Sudan family.

So grazing Sudan puts us in that category too.

You wanna know first and foremost what's in your pasture, what's in your hay, what are your cattle eating.

The biggest issue we're running into right now is that these cattle that we had deaths on were believed to be prussic acid which is also known as cyanide.

When we have certain members of this Sudan family, and they become stressed, particularly in drought conditions, they produce a compound that when that plant is damaged then turns itself into cyanide.

It's important to recognize that when we're dealing with cattle deaths, we can have a number of different toxins that can can give us problems.

With Johnsongrass, we can see nitrates as well.

And so producers really need to be aware that we need to do some testing on both our pastures, know what's there, and then also anytime we're dealing with hay we wanna make sure we're testing those hays as well.

Producers need to get in connection with their local county extension educator as well as their veterinarian.

And OSU has laboratories that can do quantitative testing where we can know how much exactly is in that plant.

But there's also a field test that can be done on site but it's a little tricky.

So we wanna make sure that it is being performed correctly.

Otherwise it may give us a false sense of security.

Johnsongrass is really everywhere.

It's in pastures, it's along the side of the road, it's in the bar ditches, and it doesn't really take all that much to impact a cow.

Once she eats that, it's usually gonna be a sudden death.

We will know with prussic acid, with cyanide related to these kind of toxins.

When we draw blood on those animals, it is bright cherry red because that's what the cyanide is doing, is keeping the oxygen moving into the cells and the tissues.

In particular, the treatments for both of these type of toxins need to be administered quickly.

They need to be administered into the bloodstream which many may not feel comfortable with.

Additionally, the antidotes to both of these toxins have become harder and harder to get our hands on.

And so we wanna be prepared in advance.

It's important to note too that this is a condition that can impact all ruminants.

So sheep and goats, we can see problems with potentially too.

Horses, for some reason, seem to be more tolerant of grazing Johnsongrass than others.

Trying to get rid of Johnsongrass is harder than one would like.

And so we wanna manage those pastures and talk to our local county extension educators about options of managing our pastures really at all times from all kinds of toxic plants.

For more information on this, we wanna direct you to our SUNUP website that will have our OSU extension fact sheet available.

That'll have more details in dealing with Johnsongrass and other members of the Sudan family.

- Good morning, everyone.

Wesley is off this week, so I'll be your main captain for this flight, and we're going to talk about my least favorite subject, drought, so let's get right to it.

Well, we're still in pretty good shape on the latest drought monitor map across the Eastern 2/3 of the state.

Still got some trouble spots, of course, over in the Western half.

But we do have some new D zero, abnormally dry conditions creeping into Northeast and Southeast Oklahoma and a little bit farther east in South Central Oklahoma.

Now these are areas indicative of drought possibly starting to form, so these are the places we're going to have to watch as we go through the next few weeks if we don't get rainfall.

And it is summer, so you know that can always happen.

So we have started to extend the time where we are getting a significant rainfall.

We now have about 15 to 20 to even 30 days across parts of the state without at least 1/4 inch of rainfall in a single day, as you can see from this map from the Oklahoma Mesonet.

We're gonna have to keep a good eye on this, because flash drought can definitely start to develop quickly as we get into the heat of the summer without rainfall.

The 30-day rainfall map still show a lot of that good rainfall across parts of Western Oklahoma and definitely East Central Oklahoma, where generally five to nearly 10 inches of rain fell.

However, in between those spots, we still have lots of real estate with one to two inches of rainfall, so those are the areas we're definitely gonna have to keep an eye on as we go through the next few weeks as we watch out for that flash drought.

We can see those deficit areas show up quite well on the departure from normal rainfall map from the Mesonet.

We now have deficits over the last 30 days of one to two to even nearly four inches of rainfall over parts of the state, definitely across parts of Northern Oklahoma and also South Central Oklahoma.

So those deficits are starting to mount as are our flash drought worries.

So our nice soil moisture recovery is starting to lag a little bit.

Now we start to see that seven-day, 10-inch fractional water index change start to go really negative across much of the state.

So that soil moisture, especially in the top layers of that soil, starting to leach out, starting to get evaporated by the sun's energy and used up by all the plants.

So definitely a warning sign for flash drought development as we start to lose that soil moisture.

That's also reflected in the USDA map of topsoil moisture percent short to very short by week.

We've gone up by 12% since last week, and we're now at 46%.

We're a lot better than of course New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, some of the surrounding states, but we are starting to see that number start to go up a little bit too quickly.

So again, another indication of possible flash drought starting to form in the Sooner State.

Now we have been a little bit cooler over the last few days, a little bit this week, but that heat dome is going to set directly over Oklahoma as we get into next week.

Again, that means a lot of above normal temperatures, and when you're talking above normal temperatures in the July 4th timeframe, that means blistering hot weather, and that does not help those flash drought worries that we are starting to see.

And as we look at the rainfall outlook for next week from the Climate Prediction Center, unfortunately we're seeing increased odds of below normal precipitation, and during the summer that means not a lot, unfortunately.

Okay, you heard me mention flash drought quite a bit there.

Summertime is the prime season for flash drought development.

We will be in the middle part of summer, the hottest part of the year, and we are expecting to see lots of above normal temperatures, so definitely something to keep an eye on.

That's it for this time.

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

(upbeat music) - It's time to find out what's shaking out in the wheat markets with our crop marketing specialist, Kim Anderson.

So Kim, what's leading the news right now?

- I'd say Russia.

You look at Russia wheat production, it's predicted to be over 3.1 billion bushels, a record crop.

You look at their projected exports for this next year, 1.5 to 1.6 billion bushels.

They'll normally export 1.2 to 1.4.

You remember they held up wheat in storage last year.

They're ready to put it on the market, and they're planning on doing that.

You look at Ukraine, 700 million bushels is about what they'll normally export.

They only exported 370 million last year.

This year they're looking at maybe 175 million bushels.

You've got world production, not a record but near record at 28.4 billion bushels.

The record is 28.6.

So we got sufficient amount of wheat.

We just gotta get it out on the market.

I think you've gotta look at the world's stocks-to-use ratio.

Remember, we've talked about the ending stocks at 9.8 billion, which is the same as 16.

And in 16, we had about a $5 wheat price, and we're looking at $10 this year.

Something's gotta give.

It's that stocks-to-use ratio.

It's projected to be 19.6%.

- The average is 23.5.

And in '16, when, the other year we had 9.8 billion bushels in these stocks, it was 24.

- There's just a lot of variables going on right now.

So have prices found a bottom?

- Maybe you we're near $9.50.

The war, Russia, Ukraine, drove those prices.

We got up to $13.13, wallowed around $10.75 to $11.25, something like that for several weeks, dropped off, now.

In the last couple weeks, we've taken $1.75 off that mark, that price, got down to $9.25, back up to $9.50, 60.

We may have a bottom here, or we may have a dead count bounce.

- So, using your crystal ball, what do you think wheat prices could do?

- Well, I think if we'll go back to 2008 and look where wheat prices have been and how much they can change it'll give us an idea of what they can do.

You go back to 2008, we were running around $9.

We came down from 12 because we had a short crop that year before.

We were at $9 when we came into that '08 crop.

We bottomed out at $3.50 within that marketing year or the next marketing year.

Then we worked down from February 2011, we got back up to nine, we worked back down to $2.90 by July of '16, back up to six by, in '18.

Four to six, from '18 to '20, and then COVID hit.

I think COVID prices took our prices up to around $8.50.

Problems with transportation, increased demand.

I think that's where we got that low stocks-to-use ratio 'cause our demand has increased dramatically.

And then the war took it $3.13.

Pendulum too high, brought it back to 11 and now Russia is exporting wheat.

They put that wheat back on the market.

They've got stored wheat to get on there.

And I think that's driven our prices back down to the $9.50.

- So over the past for the past few weeks you've been, your recommendations to producer's been selling in fits, so what should producers be selling wheat at all, given this uncertainty?

- I think that ranges eight to $12.

I'd probably pull the trigger on some that's staggered in the market but it just depends on how much risk you can take.

- Alrighty, thanks Kim.

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

(lively music) - Joining us today is OSU Extension livestock marketing specialist, Derrell Peel.

Derrell, it's certainly starting to get warmer today and you know in the next few weeks, it's supposed to get even hotter.

So what can you tell us about the feeder cattle markets as we get into summer?

- You know, right now, feeder cattle prices, it depends on the weight, of course.

The lightweight feeder cattle, the calves, and stockers are about 15 percent higher than they were this time last year.

So from that standpoint, prices are better.

Seasonally, prices for calves tend to fall this time of the year, And they have been generally, although with the rains we've gotten recently and the improvement in pasture conditions, they've actually kind of steadied out a little bit.

But they'll probably continue to be under some pressure here, seasonally.

The big feeder cattle tend to go up this time of the year and they have been.

And so they're more or less following seasonal patterns.

Now, of course, all these feeder cattle markets are being impacted by high feed prices and high production costs, in general, but that's pretty well priced into the market at this point.

So unless those things change dramatically, the market already reflects those conditions.

- What about feed cattle markets?

- You know the fed cattle markets are a little bit stronger, right now.

They generally fall through the summer, to a late summer low, but they've actually picked back up a little bit.

And part of that may be the fact that we're gonna pick up an underlying trend here as we go through the year.

We might see these prices hold a little bit steadier this summer and then pick up again this fall.

So right now we're kind of moving counter seasonally on the fed cattle prices.

- What about cull-cow markets?

How are they doing?

- You know, the cull-cow market has been remarkable this year.

We've had very, very strong prices for the most part, with a little volatility.

And that's despite the fact that we've been, continued to see cow slaughter well above a year ago levels.

We're running, in fact in the last two or three weeks of data, cow slaughter has actually, beef cow slaughter, has picked back up a little bit.

So we're running 15 percent above a year ago and yet these prices are holding very, very well and have actually picked up a little bit in the last couple of weeks.

- So how is beef demand holding up with all this?

- Well beef demand, compared to a year ago, we saw very strong beef demand in 2021.

Right about now prices advance sharply.

So today, box beef prices, for example, are a little bit lower than they were this time last year.

Now the latest retail prices we have from May are actually well above a year ago, but they're gonna be coming into those higher prices we saw in the second half of last year.

So, I think box beef demand or beef demand, in general, has probably moderated a little bit with the inflationary environment we're in, the concerns we have, it's probably moderated a little bit but it's still actually holding fairly strong.

And with the pork and poultry prices, actually a little bit higher right now compared to a few months ago, relative to beef and pork, it's holding up pretty well.

- So with all that said, what does that look like for the second half of the year?

- You know, the next six months we've got an awful lot of things in up in the air.

Obviously the U.S. economy is weakening, the global economy is weakening.

So we're not quite sure what all that's gonna mean for markets as we go forward, We've got higher production costs, we don't know what- - Feed grain markets are gonna look like in terms of this year's harvest and so on.

And then we've got drought issues still.

And so there's a lot of uncertainty for the next six months.

Frankly, it might be easier to talk about 18 months from now than it is six months from now.

But I think, with all of those factors in play, at some point in time we're gonna see some uptrend in these markets because numbers are gonna get tighter but that may not happen that much over the next six months.

- Well, Darrell, we appreciate your insight and we'll keep an eye on the markets.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

This week, we're joined again by Dr. Rosslyn Biggs.

And we're gonna talk about water and our title, Rosslyn, is it good enough to drink?

I know you got some specific things that we want to address.

And the first one is how do we handle situations if there's been some water deprivation?

- Absolutely.

Especially during these summer months, our classic story is the automatic water stopped and nobody checked it every day.

And so what we need to do in those cases is really monitor those animals super closely.

Particularly in cattle, we need to make sure that when we go to rewater them, we do that over an extended period of time.

- And why is that important?

- It's super important because as animals become water deprived, their electrolyte imbalances get outta whack.

And we have a build up of sodium, particularly in the brain.

And so if we rewater too quickly, then that water flows to that sodium in the brain.

And then we see neurologic signs related to that, even as severe as death.

- We've been hearing for a while about blue-green algae.

- Blue-green algae is always a concern particularly in the summer.

We need to be watching for blooms of blue-green algae.

Our classic sign with that one is we find cattle or even wildlife too.

Wildlife may be our initial indicator, birds included that are dead immediately around that that farm pond.

So we need to be watching those ponds and monitoring that particularly if we've had runoff of excessive amounts of manure or fertilizer.

That can put us in a situation where we see those blue-green algae blooms.

- So even areas, maybe we fed hay, something like that that runs off, puts us more at risk for blue-green algae.

- Absolutely.

We wanna be watching really any of our water sources for it but in those particular conditions, it can set us up.

- And sulfates.

- Sulfates are another one that here in Oklahoma we see a variety of water sources and we can have heavy sulfates.

It's important to recognize with sulfates that they're additive to.

So if we're feeding like a DDG or something like that, that the sulfates in the feed can combine with sulfates in the water and get us at levels that can become toxic.

Nitrates are another one that we wanna watch.

We usually think of nitrates during forage analysis, we wanna make sure that we're not getting nitrates in that hay, et cetera, but the classic sign we see at our diagnostic lab, for instance here at Oklahoma state is watering out of containers that used to hold some type of fertilizer.

And in that case, even though super, super small amounts, it's heavily concentrated fertilizer.

We fill that up then we water the stock with it.

We can see toxicities related to that too.

- Any preventative measures or any good management practices that you suggest?

- The good management practice is check that water every day and make sure that it's clean and fresh.

Make sure that all the animals have access to it.

That's the first and foremost.

And then reach out to your veterinarian if you start to see conditions related to that or you unfortunately find yourself in a situation where you're needing to rewater animals that have been water deprived.

- Well, Dr. Biggs, thank you for joining us and thanks to you all for joining us this week on Cow-Calf Corner.

- This week, we wanna spend a few minutes looking back at a couple of popular sunup features.

First up, we take you to K County for a wheat field tour.

- To help neighbor, farmers and farmers in the area, they gotta have a test plot somewhere.

Somebody's gotta do it.

And I had a good location to put it.

So we just did it.

Maybe we'll have some seed wheat that can help somebody this year - [Narrator] Just a stone's throw away from Don Schieber's front porch, it's a handful of OSU wheat variety demonstration plots.

During the growing season, it's not unusual for Don to look out his front window to see fellow wheat producers and curious county road drivers hop out of their vehicles to get a closer look.

It's the exact reaction Don hope he will get when he started this.

- And there's a lot of people drive by and walk out in 'em and look at 'em too.

And that's what it's for.

They don't have to come to the house and tell me they're going to be out there, just go do it.

It's been a good thing to do and makes my place look better too.

- [Narrator] Today is the 18th wheat field day on Schieber farms.

It's the perfect opportunity for north central wheat producers to get a look of how different varieties are performing this year.

- We have years and years of data to collect on the varieties that Oklahoma state has grown or partnered with that has done an awesome job of telling us what does well in our area.

What are things that farmers need to be looking for that do well in north central Oklahoma?

It's a much different climate than far out west where we're quite a bit drier, we're quite a bit cooler up here in north central Oklahoma.

So it's nice to have something that's localized and very I guess, even a little niche detailed to our area.

- [Narrator] And this north central wheat crop has had quite a journey so far.

- Well, it's a mixed bag.

We started out last fall with perfect moisture to get the crop up.

We got a good stand on everything, and then it got dry.

And then we were living on sub-soil moisture all winter.

- Farming is day-by-day, and wheat is a tough plant.

Late April, we are actually in a D3 drought, according to the drought monitor, and it's really turned around.

- [Don] We kept walking the fields and didn't find any weeds or no reason to put chemical on.

Now we've had all the rain, some of the fields are thinner, and now the weeds are coming up.

But here our heads are just I saw some heads a while ago that were making four berries.

- [Kurtis] Although the wheat is looking promising here in Kay County, it's the exact opposite situation in other areas.

- Yeah, it's really exciting here to be looking at this.

And they think it's a bad wheat crop, but it's by far better than anything we have in the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle.

- [Kurtis] Sam Watson is a custom harvester from Texas who regularly cuts acres throughout the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle.

Though there's not gonna be much to cut this year, forcing him up north to find other prospects.

- [Sam] Well, it's a really sad deal for most of my dry land farmers.

Well, it's really gonna affect the bottom line 'cause you know I cut 15,000 acres of wheat and outta that 15, you know we might just cut 1500.

Like, say my people at Hollis and Wellington, I mean, they're zero, didn't even get the grays or nothing.

So it's gonna be a pretty hard fall.

- [Kurtis] Although this Northern wheat crop is looking significantly better than other areas of the state for Don and other Kay County producers, they're still about a month away from harvest.

The hurry-up-and-wait stage.

And wheat producers know it's time to cross those fingers during that period.

- [Don] You know, we always worry about hail when we get close to harvest.

Our average hail out here is once in 55 years.

So and I got hailed out here in 1993.

So I've got a ways to go before my 55 years is up.

So we'll see how that holds up.

- [Kurtis] Wait and see, it's the attitude you have to have on this unforgiving land.

- [Don] You know, everything changes every day.

So my grandpa used to tell me, "Tell me what the weather's gonna be, and I'll tell you how to farm."

Well, that still holds true.

- [Kurtis] In Kay County, I'm Kurtis Hair.

- Finally, today, we're talking about dams and Oklahoma's aging infrastructure.

Let's take a look at how researchers are working together to make improvements.

- [Seth] On a sunny windless day, Goose, the UAV, is preparing for takeoff.

Once off the ground, Goose begins an autonomous flight.

Taking a series of photos that will later be stitched together for a very important purpose.

Mapping and monitoring the aging infrastructure of our dams and watersheds.

- [Sherry] We call it DAM TAGS for short, but it's the dam analysis, modernization of tools, applications, guidance, and standardization.

And so, it's a way of supporting the aging infrastructure that has been constructed by USDA over the past 80 years.

There's nearly 12,000 flood control dams nationwide, and right here in Oklahoma, we have over 2100 of those structures.

- [Seth] Kade Shelton is an ag engineer with the USDA ARS and is the remote pilot in command for the DAM TAGS research project.

- So, the purpose of this is for dam monitoring.

So we want to verify, in rainstorm events, that dams are not eroding.

We can monitor vegetation over time.

We're also using this information for our low-cost sensors.

We can do radio span spectrums and go in on these dams and configure different points.

And we can do flight studies to see where our radios would work best for our low-cost sensors.

So the things that we're looking for is a base run for the first to get an idea of what is there.

So the good thing about this software is you have the ability to re-fly.

So once you re-fly a month, two months, six months later, you can overlap those images to see if anything has changed.

So you can see if there's been anything eroded, anything breach on the dams, any big large cracks in the spillway.

So that's kind of the information that we're looking for.

- [Seth] DAM TAGS is a project in partnership with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Agricultural Research Service, and the Oklahoma State University Water Resources Center.

- Really, we play a supporting role to the USDA Ag Research Service on this.

They have the scientists that they're doing a lot of the research.

But we provide a lot of the technical support.

So we have the modelers, the app developers, the database managers, the GIS specialists that really make everything come together and make that data available to those decision-makers.

And they've been doing fantastic research out here at the Hydraulic Engineering Research Unit here below Lake Carl Blackwell for decades.

- [Seth] Goose is just one small piece of DAM TAGS' research.

DAM TAGS is in the early stages of research and development and is projected to be a five-year project.

The USDA, with the help of Oklahoma State University, are seeking to revolutionize the way we monitor these ever-important structures.

- Water is important to human life, and the downhill side effects, if there was to be a breach or overflow of those dams, could be catastrophic.

So we wanna monitor those to make sure that that will not happen.

And we can include that on our list.

- [Seth] For SUNUP, I'm Seth Fish.

- And that'll do it for us this week.

We wanna wish you and your family a very safe and happy 4th of July weekend.

And a programming note SUNUP is starting its 15th season on OETA this weekend in its current format.

So on behalf of the team at SUNUP and all of OSU agriculture, we wanna thank you for your support and viewership over the years.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We'll see you next time at SUNUP.

(guitar strumming)