- Good morning, Oklahoma.

We have a great show for you today on Sunup.

A corn disease has been showing up in fields, so is it now time to scout?

We're also talking sorghum research.

Find out what questions scientists are trying to answer.

And the middle of summer means it's time for the beloved tradition of 4H State Roundup on the OSU campus.

Grab your cup of coffee and enjoy a half hour break from the heat dome because an all new Sunup starts right now.

Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We're joined first thing this morning by Dr. Mara Duffek, our OSU Extension Field Crops pathologist, and we're talking about some disease that's been spotted in in corn.

Mara, tell us kind of what you're seeing and where.

- So in the last weeks from two to three weeks, we started to see very frequently across the corn fields in Oklahoma presence of disease.

That's not unfamiliar for the corn growers, but it's always good.

A reminder that is southern rust.

So southern rust is this disease that produce this pustules on top of the leaf.

They are very bright orange when it's in the beginning and also turn to some red brick color, more dark color in the end of the season.

So as you may see here in this leaf, so this pustules can be heavily dense, packed in the leaf.

Something interesting about this disease is that the pustules is going to be seen just on the upper side part of the leaf, but if you turn on the other side, we don't have the production of pustules.

We just have this yellow halo that's produced because of the production of posters in the upper part of the leaf, but not in the lower part of the leaf.

And this is a good diagnostic characteristic because we have another disease that's also commonly observed in the corn fields across Oklahoma that's common rust.

And common rust produce pustules in both sides of the leaf.

So you can have most of the time both of the disease together, but common rust is not going to affect yield or cause any yield decrease in your fields.

But southern rust in the other way is very aggressive, is what we call a explosive disease.

And if it's not managed correctly, it can take your field very quickly, especially in the conditions that we are observing right now in Oklahoma that's temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit and also have heavy relative immunity, especially like the heavy dews that we have in the morning.

Accumulated in the leaves can also favor the conditions for the disease development.

- So the important thing now is to get out and scout.

I understand.

And then is are you seeing it in corn that's a little bit more mature or more these, this corn that's later planted or later varieties?

- Yeah, so the growth stage for the corn when the disease is reaches the field is very important because it's going to determine if the growers needs to take action regarding management or not.

So in Oklahoma, most of the fields that are planted early in the season, such as in March, April, they are in a growth stage right now that's past the time that we need to protect the leaves.

They're already like in the senescence growth stage and the maturity growth stage, but we need to be concerned about the fields that are planted a little bit later because the growers could not get in the fields because of all the rain that we receive or the double crop corn that's also in the fields right now.

So in these fields, we need to be doing like a heavily scouting in these fields to determine if we need or not the, the application of foliar fungicides.

For foliar fungicides we know that the best time to apply this fungicide in the field is when the plants reach the R one growth stage.

That is when they're teling or silking until they're until R three, that's when they're milking.

So from this R one to R three, we recommend fungicide application is always gonna to be beneficial in case you're seeing this in neighbors across the state or in your own field is going to be beneficial.

But in case it pass that growth stage, we do not recommend application of fungicide anymore because it's not gonna be profitable for the growers.

- And you're asking for growers to, if they, they need some help identifying these, especially since the two, you know, may be confused, right?

The two diseases, what's the best route to to do that and and get samples to you?

- Yes, so the growers can contact the extension educators in their counties.

They're the best resource that they have to send the samples.

And then these extension educators can easily deliver those samples to us at the plant disease diagnostic lab that we have at Oklahoma State University or also to me directly.

So they are the best point of contact that we can have for send sample to us in order to identify this in a correct way.

- And we can just talk about it a few minutes today on Sunup, but you've also put out some information on online and on the e pest alert people can read more and and, and then they can better understand what they're looking for when they're out scouting.

- Sure.

So we did put, like I I think two weeks ago, I post alert about this disease that has more information regarding management or how the growers can track the spread of the disease across the United States because something important to mention here is that this disease is caused by a fungi that we call bio traffic.

So this fungi doesn't survive in the residue as most commonly known pathogens that we have affect in the corn field.

So the spores of disease needs to blow out from other states to the state of Oklahoma every year.

And then we can track the movement of those spores in a map that's available at the Crop Protection Network website where the extension is across the southern states especially, they keep tracking their fields and they, they, they color the county where those, those this disease was showing up.

So we can be better prepared in the state of, of Oklahoma when, for example, Texas reported Missouri or other neighboring states.

Then we, we can see what's the movement of this disease.

And also in the Crop Protection Network website, we also have a table for the efficacy of the fungicides that are working right now to manage this disease.

So these two are the best resource that we have to manage this disease and to keep track of the, the dispersion of this spores across the United States.

- All right, Dr. Duffeck, thank you very much for the information and for a link to that e pest alert and the other materials that Mara mentioned, just go to sunup.OKstate.edu.

Sorghum is popular to grow in Oklahoma, both for forage and for grain, but it can be tricky.

OSU extension, soil Nutrient Management specialist Dr. Brian Arnell, talks about the pros and cons of this important crop.

- Now this time of the year, we got a lot going on.

You can see behind me our main crop, our early season is making it.

I've seen some great sorghum out there.

This is looking pretty good.

If you look at just a bulk ground and our, our fertilized plots, we probably have over a hundred bushel.

I've seen some great, sorghum across the state all the way from Altus up to the Kansas border.

But right now our early seasons basically made it, we have quite a bit of double crop in the ground.

It's, it's going right, we're getting some heat.

The early double crop is up.

It's looking pretty good.

We've gotta be scouting on a regular basis for our insects, though we've got a fair amount of armyworms moving through.

We found aphids here and there along with other insects.

So a good scouting program is needed this time of the year.

Along with scouting, as you know, it's starting to get hot and dry again.

We had a beautiful spring, which has led to a lot of great forage production if we look at forage sorghums and sorghum sudans.

But man, I've been spending the last couple days in Altus and it is getting hot and dry and we're starting to see Oklahoma summer take packed.

That means we gotta be careful with our nitrates when it comes to forage, sorghums and Johnson grass.

As this crop starts stressing as it gets hot and dry, anything that was growing well does have potential to throw high nitrates.

Now a high nitrate reading is a concern when it comes to cattle, primarily goats and sheep.

Also a little bit concerned, but it's primarily cattle that nitrate will get into the blood system and will cause significant, it will cause death.

And so we need to be cautious and we need to know where if you think you have Johnson grass or forage sorghum that is stressed, I recommend you taking that sample, getting it cut from the ground up, taking it into your local county office.

In that extension office, they'll be able to do a diphenyl drop test.

Now that test is just putting liquid on the stock to see if there's nitrate.

It is a yes or no test.

It will tell you if you have it in this plant or if not, one part of having nitrates is a little nitrates, not a concern.

A lot of nitrate is a huge concern.

So if you have any symptom of nitrate in that stock, we want to send it to the Oklahoma State soil for soil water forge analytical lab to run a nitrate test.

Another concern we have with nitrates is that nitrates don't just go away if you've cut the crop.

So I'd much rather see you take those samples on a standing crop if possible.

'cause at least on a standing crop, if we get rain again, the crop can dilute and we could potentially see those nitrates come down.

But once you cut that plant off and it's laying down, that nitrates locked in the system.

So if you bale it up, you won't know it until next spring when unfortunately you put a high nitrate bale out and now all of a sudden you have either abortions or some dead cattle.

So make sure that you test before you hay if possible.

But absolutely after you hay, if there's any, any concerns, we're excited to be hosting the sorghum experience in Tacoma, Oklahoma on July 29th.

This is really getting back to the roots of how we used to do extension field days.

We're gonna be getting down, looking at the plants, digging into the soil, just taking a look at a sorghum crop onsite.

We have variety trials and and fertility research.

We'll be learning about scouting for our common insects in the sorghum crop.

And of course we're gonna be splitting stalks and just learning as we do in that sorghum field.

Again, that's July 29th, Tacoma, Oklahoma.

And if you want more information about that event, you can find it@oklahomasorghum.com.

For more information about sorghum management, nitrate and prissic acid, go to the sunup website.

- Hello Oklahoma.

This is your Mesonet agricultural outreach specialist here with your weekly Mesonet weather report.

Just as a heads up, I have recently been married, so I am going by the name Emma White instead of my maiden name, Emma Seran.

But you may see it as one or both.

As I undergo this transition in the next several months, temperatures have been quite warm this past week and uniform across the state.

These trends are expected to continue into next week.

As of July 22nd, triple digits have been reached in the western half of the state, but not yet in the eastern half.

Little to no precipitation is expected in many parts of the states for the next several days.

It seems the Oklahoma summer has finally hit its stride as one could guess from the above statements.

The Cattle comfort index is also quite high, as shown in this map from Wednesday, July 23rd.

The maximum cattle comfort index for that day is in heat danger across the state.

The daily water demand is fairly uniform as this map for July 22nd shows indicating again the hot temperatures the entire state is facing.

Nevertheless, the high cattle comfort index though uniform is still quite high.

So this will lead to a significant water demand for the cattle with purple shading even appearing on the eastern side of the state.

These trends from this past week are expected to continue even into next week as the hot and dry conditions will be hanging around.

On the flip side, hotter and drier conditions could help slow pecan scab.

Hour accumulation, as you can see on this three year comparison graph from Stillwater 2025 currently has accumulated more pecan scab hours than previous years, likely due to the higher relative humidity in 2025.

This trend is similar at other locations around the state, however, with less humid conditions predicted for this next week, pecan scab hour accumulation will likely slow, slower accumulation means a longer time between spraying applications.

However, remember that this product is a tool so does not replace the best judgment of the growers.

Gary McManus is up next with your state climatology report.

- Thanks Emma and good morning everyone.

Now, it's been a while since I've talked to you, but a lot's happened since then.

We got a lot of rain, then it got hot again and we actually have some color on the drought monitor map for the first time since early June.

Let's get right to that new map and show you where it's at.

Now I say new map, but this has actually been here for a couple of weeks and it's just 1.24% of the state.

So a little tiny area down in southwest Oklahoma.

Hardley worth mentioning, unless you're down in that region again, it's just abnormally dry condition, so not drought just yet, but it does show an area that might go into drought, that D one moderate drought if they don't get rainfall soon.

And this shows you why.

So up to two weeks and even as many as 37 days consecutively without at least a quarter inch of rain in a single day out there in that spot across far southwest Oklahoma, but much of the state, 10 to 20 days.

So this is something to watch for as we get a dry spell in the hot summer of Oklahoma, we could see that drought come back once again pretty quickly if we're not careful.

Now what's that little spot of color come from?

Well, if you look at the 60 day rainfall map from the Oklahoma Mesonet, lots of good colors on here, at least the reds, purples and, and, and those.

But if you get down there in southwest Oklahoma, three to five inches, so not too great for that region.

Now we have the Western panhandle.

Kenton less than four inches or four inches or less.

So that region is a little bit more used to that and we can see that on the percent and normal rainfall map again for that same 60 day period.

Southwest Oklahoma, basically 50% of normal or less over that last two months.

So that's a region again, when you're in the heat of the summer, if you start to lose that rainfall, those dry conditions can come back pretty quickly and and develop into drought.

So again, something we are watching closely.

So we're finally in that heat of summer rainfall shut off.

So we are watching those select few areas for possible drought development.

That's it for this time.

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

- It is that time in the show where we check in on the grain markets with our OSU agricultural economist, Dr. John Michael Riley and John Michael.

Let's briefly talk Wheat harvest.

You know, it's about 98% finished, so talk what producers are seeing as we're kind of wrapping everything up, - Right?

We're finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In fact, the train's come almost coming outta that tunnel for the most part.

It's, you know, still looking good.

- Yeah, - Definitely the crop has deteriorated as the season has.

The, the harvest season kind of continued to, to lag on.

Yeah, we dropped off in about two to three bushels per acre through through late June.

Now we're another two to three bushels below that.

So somewhere in the mid, mid fifties overall state average is what we're looking, what we're expecting.

So overall, you know, it's, it's still been a good harvest, but just not what we've probably could have been had, had the rains not continue to fall.

- Yeah, and those rains, you know, keeping, it's really the, the crop suffered a little bit too as well, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Like I said, dropped off, you know, overall about four to six bushels per acre.

That's state average.

So some, some, some individuals probably worse than others.

But overall, you know, it, it certainly, i I would say this, it certainly could have been worse given the, the, the, the level of rainfall that we received over the, you know, heavy harvest period.

- So let's switch to summer crops right now.

What are you hearing in regards to just the, how prices are looking for for those three?

You know, commodity crops that we have, - Well, unfortunately still lots of pressure in the, in our, in our summer crop grain markets, oil seed markets.

Started to see a little bit of a, a bump toward the end of last week.

Some news of, you know, tremendous heat, some stress on the crop.

Also just some political, you know, news coming through that was, was providing some lift and all of that came to stop at over the, over the weekend.

We got some rains across most of the corn belt through the weekend.

Still still some pressure there I think, but those rains did do some, did did provide some pressure as we started this week and that's continuing as we're having our conversation right now.

- And so with those rains, that was primarily not really in Oklahoma, but that was more in the Midwest and the upper Midwest, like in Ohio as well, right?

- Yeah, this is, this is more just me speaking nationally about the corn crop across the corn belt.

Some rains fell over the weekend and that that reduced that, that possibility of, of continued stress.

You know, we're still in this critical growing stage so that that's still going to be something that the market's gonna monitor.

But the rains over the weekend kind of did away with all of that, that upward momentum that we were seeing at the end of last week.

- What about cotton - Cotton's doing a similar, similar story, you know, overall, you know, nationally all of our summer crops are looking really good, good to excellent ratings are very high crop progress is pretty much on track, obviously not here in the state.

Here in the state, we're about five to eight percentage points behind where we typically are at because of all those rains that we received.

But nationally, everything's, you know, kind of opposite of that, it's looking really good and that's, that's providing some pressure.

No different for cotton.

We're also seeing some lower oil prices.

The good news is that the dollar is weakening a little bit, which, you know, sometimes provides a little bit of a, a boost, but for the most part cotton's a similar story to all of our other summer crops.

- So that's nationally.

How are prices looking for those summer crops in the state?

- Well, again, similar story, some pressure there.

Been spoke, spoke in the spring about basis, that's continuing to be something I'm monitoring.

We've got tremendous weakness in basis for soybeans.

50 to 50 cents to a dollar below where we typically are at with basis for soybeans.

Much low, much weaker than than usual.

That's continuing to be an issue.

Not nearly as bad with corn.

We're right around, you know, 25 to 50 cents below average.

With regard to regard to basis.

So corn prices in the state are, you know, high threes, low fours, soybean prices, you know, low nines to mid nines for the most part with regard to those two crops.

Cotton prices somewhere in that, that 65 to 70 cent range, kind of hovering around 67 cents a pound.

- Alright, thanks John Michael, Dr. John Michael Riley, OSU, agriculture economist here at Oklahoma State University.

- It's that time of year for the 2025 Women in Agriculture Conference.

The conference will be August 7th at the Hilton Garden Inn in Edmond.

Join other women in agriculture and small businesses for a day of networking and learning topics will include how to write a grant, make a will, or trust, and using AI and social media to build your brand.

The registration fee is $100.

For more information, go to sunup.OKstate.edu.

- Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

Our topic this week is a very problematic and undesirable grass that we call Foxtail.

And it's interesting that this spring and summer in Oklahoma, as we've had an unusually high amount of moisture for the most part and some unseasonably cooler temperatures up until July, that it seemed to be pretty favorable conditions for foxtail to actually be more competitive than Bermuda grass or some seeded and improved forages in a lot of cases.

And we actually taped today in a lot that was set back with a light dose of Roundup in April.

We have a Bermuda grass stand underneath this.

We came in and no tilled, some sorghum sudan followed that up with an application of two four D in later May.

And actually in the past six weeks, we have seen foxtail overtake this and actually become outcompete Bermuda grass and the sorghum sudan that was seeded in.

So what are we talking about when we get into foxtail and we address some of the ways to try to control it.

And I would begin this by just saying it looks like a fairly cumbersome process.

We have got a grass that goes to seed annually.

We identify it by these bushy foxtail looking seed heads.

It's a very populated, very dense seed head and we anticipate there's probably a pretty healthy dose of seed built up in our soils.

And so the most likely control tactic we're gonna take is a long-term approach of using herbicides that are selective to foxtail, probably some tillage and potentially even some mowing.

One thing I would say about mowing it off, if we come in and mow down this stuff that's here right now, it will come back, make another seed head on a much shorter stalk.

Mowing alone is not likely to be that successful.

We're gonna have to incorporate in some tillage, some herbicides, and take a look at a long-term plan here to potentially exhaust the seed bed, the setting in the soil.

One of the issues we say it is a grass, therefore normal broadleaf weed applications we would do on pastures is not gonna kill this particular grass.

And so I would encourage producers, inspect your pastures, see if you've got an issue.

If you've got a small infestation, you can probably spot treat it.

If you get into pastures, hay meadows, entire lots that are overtaken with foxtail, you may need to renovate the entire pasture in order to get it under control.

Take a look at your hay and your hay meadows before you feed a lot of hay.

See how much infestation of foxtail there is in it.

Every time you feed this, you are potentially putting out seed in all the areas that this is fed as hay.

Final thing, if you've got cattle that are grazing it, beware these little seeds are gonna be in their feet, they're gonna be in their hair coat, they're possibly gonna pass through their digestive system.

That process could take two to three days, but that seed is gonna come out the other side viable and potentially gonna go to seed on you later.

I hope you don't have any foxtail, but if you do, it is something that is good to get under control and problematic to have in pastures and hays.

Hope this helps.

And as always, thanks for joining us on Cow Calf Corner, - OSU Extensions, popular Ranchers.

Thursday lunchtime series is back.

Join the OSU Beef Cattle Experts, experienced ranchers and scientists to learn and share production management and marketing tips.

The Zoom webinars are all on Thursdays at noon and they're free, but you do need to register so you can receive the Zoom link and more details.

Just scan the QR code on your screen, contact your county extension office or go to the sunup website for a direct link to registration.

Finally, today it is state 4h roundup time on the OSU campus where 4Hers from around the state descend on the university for contests, workshops, and of course plenty of fun.

And this year, OSU'S biggest celebrity is along for the ride.

- Yeah, so we're, this is the hundred fourth state, 4h Roundup.

The event offic officially started today at 1230 tonight we have our Pete's Premier at Pete's Premier.

We have different organizations and different departments across campus, different organizations, community partners that set up booths, and our kids get to go around to the different booths and learn about those organizations and those departments and colleges on campus.

- I believe there's the entomology booth again this year.

I love getting to see those.

They have last year.

I know they had the bugs out and I let you - Crawl on your arm.

- There we go.

She's a little heavy, but don't tell her that - It, it's a lot of fun.

Most of these booths are interactive so the kids like to, to come and interact at the booth and, and, and do something.

I guess she's crying in - My arm.

So we are doing a beyond ready signing day and having our 4Hers that are graduating out of the 4H program, they are signing on to their future endeavors and they've been telling me all about what they're doing.

So it's really exciting to see how ready they are for their futures.

And four H has prepared them for that.

- I mean, in everything I do, I can see a part of 4H go to football, I meet people that I've already known from 4H, mean just that people meeting skill and speaking, public speaking, I'm just so, it's, it's almost first nature to me now.

- All of the projects that they've done in 4H have provided them with life skills in addition to helping them find their spark of what they're interested and what they wanna pursue - In 4H, we, we want our youth to be, we like to say that we prepare our youth to be beyond ready.

- Just these leadership qualities and community service that you do just really helps you learn like just other skills you can use pretty much anywhere in mind.

- And many are practicing leadership today.

They are doing community service projects and that's making them not just ready but beyond ready.

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

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

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.