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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

The West Nile Virus has been detected in Oklahoma and one person has died, according to state health officials.

To learn more about prevention, we're joined by Dr. Gina Peek, who is head of Extension Family & Consumer Sciences.

And Gina, let's dive right in and talk about what people can do to keep their families and their properties safe.

- Yes, absolutely.

There are many no cost things that families can do to protect themselves.

First of all, consider your property.

You want to make sure that there are no places on your property that where mosquitoes can lay eggs.

So any kind of standing water that you have, obviously buckets, little kid swimming pools, things like that.

But also be creative and look around, walk your property.

Are there for example, French drains that you need to maintain?

Are there any kind of ruts that you could fill in with dirt?

Again, think creatively, look around your property, and eliminate any breeding grounds.

- So what about things like on your home specifically, screens and other things to keep them from coming in?

- Absolutely.

So in addition to checking your property for any kind of places where mosquitoes would reproduce, you wanna make sure that you're not letting them into your home.

So check the screens, just like you said.

Make sure that if you need to patch, you can get a simple patch and put it over there.

A piece of tape will work as well.

You can also make sure that you keep the screen doors shut to prevent them from coming inside.

Making sure that any kind of other pest entry points are sealed up.

And it could be simple as putting something over to block mosquitoes from coming in.

- And really all of this is just kind of a level of awareness.

It's really little or minimal cost.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

It is completely being aware.

It's making sure that you're not letting mosquitoes into the home, and it's also making sure that you eliminate any kind of habitat where they can breed on your property.

- So briefly, let's talk about bug spray and what folks need to keep in mind.

- Okay.

In terms of bug spray, the label is the law.

So read the label and follow the instructions.

- Okay, great.

Short and sweet tip.

And last but not least, there's an Extension fact sheet that kind of covers the common mosquitoes in Oklahoma.

- My colleague, Justin Talley wrote a fact sheet about mosquitoes and it's available on the extension website.

- Great, we'll check it out.

Thanks a lot, Gina.

And for a link to the mosquito fact sheet, go to sunup.okstate.edu.

And speaking of Dr. Talley, here he is talking about West Nile prevention in horses.

- Yeah, when we think about mosquito borne disease and West Nile Virus particularly, sometimes we have gotta think about not so much the amount of rain that's coming in, but the cyclical pattern of how these diseases interact with the mosquito and what we call the the animal host.

And in this case, our animal host that's important are horses.

And so West Nile Virus can be transmitted by mosquitoes, in particular, what we call Culex mosquitoes.

And why Culex mosquitoes are involved is because they tend to prefer to feed on birds.

Birds are our, what we call reservoir host, which means the virus is replicating inside that bird.

And that mosquito is feeding on that bird and then feeding on either humans or horses and can cause some issues when they start feeding on those.

The thing about horses and humans is we're also a dead end host.

That means, once the mosquito feeds and transmits the virus to either horses or humans, the virus is not replicating at a high enough rate for them to serve as reservoirs.

So essentially, once it's transmitted, the mosquito is not gonna, if you have other mosquitoes feed on horses, it's not gonna be able to transmit it to other horses.

One particular thing we need to kind of think about is for horses, we have protection mechanisms.

And one of those are a kind of a multitude of vaccines that we can give horses.

And basically the premise of these is it allows the horse's immune system to do all the work.

And once they are vaccinated plus receive the timely booster in some of the vaccines, then they are usually fully protected from the transmission of West Nile Virus, even if an infected mosquito feeds on them.

So it's good to be on the lookout, because even though it's getting hot and dry, these types of mosquitoes can develop in what we call these hidden water resources.

So if you have water that's collecting in areas that may not necessarily be drained or get dumped out, then this mosquito will breed in it.

And this particular type of mosquito can breed in what we call murky or dirty water.

And so think of those areas that have that stagnant water where there's storm drains or any kind of culvert that's holding water that never drains away, those are the areas we need to be concerned about where these mosquitoes are coming from.

- Welcome to this edition of the Mesonet Weather Report.

I'm Wes Lee.

We were very fortunate to have had a very wet period of late May and early June.

But, since then things have been very dry with very little rainfall.

This seven day map from mid week shows just a few places on the map recording much rainfall.

It seems so out of ordinary to say it, but the panhandle might be just the wettest part of the state this week.

A few other places, like Fairview, Lahoma, and Durant had clouds break through the heat dome and produce a little localized rain.

For the rest of the state you can see with the yellows on this map that it has been about a month now since significant rainfall was received.

Of course, without rainfall the soil moisture has deplenished quickly.

This map from mid week shows the daily average percent of plant available water from the surface down to 16 inches.

Gone are the dark green colors that we had just a couple of weeks ago.

Now we are seeing more reds and browns indicating 80 to 90% of the soil water has been used up.

The biggest weather event lately has been the relentless heatwave.

On Tuesday the temperatures reached almost 100 statewide.

This added to the already impressive running list of 100 degree days in the western counties.

Altus has been the hottest city in the state with 30 days and counting on Tuesday above the century mark.

Are we going to rival the record breaking heat from 2012?

I sure hope not.

Since the end of June the statewide average high temperatures have been running about six to eight degrees above what is normal for this time of year.

Add to the heat a nice helping of humidity and we get felt temperatures even higher.

On Tuesday, the heat index soared into the triple digits at all locations except the tip of the panhandle.

Heat advisories have become commonplace lately for most of Oklahoma.

There doesn't appear to be a whole lot of relief from the heat coming any time soon.

We are expected to remain above the long-term average for temperatures for at least a while.

This forecast map from the National Weather Service is predicting that we will stay hotter than normal next week.

I guess if you're looking for any good news it might be that Oklahoma will probably not be the hottest place in the country like we were last week.

The bullseye appears to focus directly on Texas.

So it will likely take over with the hottest temperatures.

The forecast precipitation map for the next week looks just a little more promising, leaning above normal for what is expected, especially in the panhandle.

However, with showers that will likely be spotty in nature and the continuing heat, I wouldn't expect any kind of drought relief soon.

Gary is out of the office this week, but we will both see you next week on the Mesonet Weather Report.

(upbeat music) - Dr. Kim Anderson, our Crop Marketing Specialist, joins us now.

Kim, you say wheat prices have taken a beating recently.

The big question, how low can they go now?

- Well, let's look at a chart we showed last week that starts in January of 2008.

Now in January of '08, we had prices around upper eights, low $9.

By March, early March in 2008, they peaked out at $12.16.

Now this price rally was because supplies were tight.

Production had been low, use had been relatively good, and it drove prices up.

But by the time we got into harvest those prices had fallen to $8 to $9.

Now you remember the world's harvest starts in March in India and Asia and some of those countries, North Africa, and some of those, so we had a good harvest comin' on and we had taken $3 to $4 off of that price between March and our harvest.

By the time we got into early December we'd dropped to $4.50.

We'd taken $8 off of that price because of a good harvest.

Now prices wallowed around.

They went back up to nine.

They came back down and as we got into June of 2010, they were down to $3.60.

They rallied back up in '10, back up to near nine.

We bottomed out in 2016 at $2.90.

And so, this shows you lookin' back at '08 and '10, that we can have some big moves in the market.

Now let's look at what's goin' on right now.

We came into May.

Our prices peaked at $13.

- [Kim] And 13 cents in Medford, North Central, Oklahoma this was not a supply driven.

Well, it was a supply driven because Ukraine and Russia taken a third off but it was also a demand driven price increase cause COVID starting back had driven the price up to the $8 range.

So we got a supply driven and a demand driven, got 'em to 3.13.

We came into June this year, $11.

The crop was looking short, but relatively good.

And as we got into July, $8 and 20 cents.

We had taken $5 off the price of wheat.

- Kim, very important to have that historical context so we can better understand kind of the ebb and flow right now.

- That's because history tends to repeat itself.

- Definitely.

Okay, let's talk about corn, soybean and cotton prices now.

- Well, lower prices is in just about every market.

I mean, you can look at corn prices.

You go back to May, $5 and 90 cents up into April $7 and 40 cents.

Now back down to 5.50.

And our corn is just in the ground and our harvest isn't for several months but now we have had good crops down in Brazil and Argentina.

You look at soybeans, go back to April, $13 and 30 cents, $15 in early June back down to 12.40 now.

Cotton, a dollar back in March, April time period, got up to a $1.33.

Now these are new crop prices, 22 harvest prices and they're down to 90 cents.

You've seen oil prices, everything, all the commodities, the stocks, everything's coming down.

- What do you think's behind that price decline?

- Well, I think it's high prices and market jitters.

When you get prices up into near record highs, the market gets nervous.

Buyers and sellers both get nervous.

Now, if you're looking at wheat and corn, you gotta look at Russia and Ukraine cause you took a third of the wheat off the market.

Russia has now brought theirs back on the market.

I think that's one reason that's coming down.

You got Ukraine and corn, a big corn exporter.

They're moving some of that back on the market but it's slow.

You got world production expected relatively good for wheat, corn and beans.

And you've got China.

China canceled maybe five cargos of soybeans this week.

And oil prices go down, that brings down corn prices.

Ethanol also impacts the other prices.

- So with all this in mind, what should producers do?

Should they sell their commodities or hang on to things?

- Well, you know me, one, I have a written marketing plan, but two I like to sell our commodities at harvest, when we're getting 'em off the machine, we do not know what prices are gonna do.

There's a lot of risk in the market.

And I say, just get it over with and staggered in over harvest.

- Alrighty, Kim, thanks a lot.

We'll see you next week.

(upbeat music) - We're making our way into July now which means we need to start looking at the second half of the year for the market.

So Derrell, what's beef production, looking like?

- Our forecast for beef production all year has been for it to decrease from last year's record levels.

However, in the first half of the year beef production was actually up about 1%.

So that would suggest we're gonna see some changes if we're gonna meet our forecast here, either that or we're gonna revise the forecast.

And so beef production's gonna have to fall in the second half of the year.

We know that cow slaughter continues well above a year ago.

That's put some extra beef on the market.

That's part of it, but things may change a little bit as we go into the second part of the year.

- You mentioned cattle slaughter.

So how's that shaping out and also feed lot expectations?

- Yeah, the cow slaughter is up and it's probably gonna stay up relatively speaking.

So it's gonna be up year over year.

What we're expecting to see is a change in the fed steer and heifer slaughter.

And that was actually up, well, the slaughter was about equal to a year ago in the first half of the year but we're expecting it to be down year over year.

And that's made up of steer slaughter has actually been down about 1.7 or 8% but the heifer slaughter has been up.

And I think, again, that's a drought related impact, just like the cow slaughter where heifers last year that were probably would have been replacement heifers got moved into the feed lots and we're still seeing those come through the feed lot.

So, as we go into the second half of the year, we've got basically record feed lot levels, June 1 feed lot inventories were record for that date, but we've been placing lighter weight animals there.

The turnover rate in the feed lot is slowing down a little bit.

So we should see those marketing rates come down and that'll be consistent with the slaughter dropping off a little bit as we go through the second half of the year.

- So out of projection, what do you think that that's gonna mean for cattle prices?

- Cattle prices have been higher than year ago levels all year.

That was our expectation.

And it continues to be obviously if we turn the corner here and actually start into these tighter supply fundamentals, that's gonna even continue, even more continue to support those prices.

So feeder cattle prices.

Now we've had lots of challenges with high feed grain prices affecting feeder cattle and fed cattle prices are actually doing pretty well here for a midsummer level.

- You know, our expectation is for these higher cattle prices to continue for the rest of the year.

- So, what are some things you know, as I mentioned, we're lookin' at the second half of the year, what are some things that you are watchin' out for over the next couple of months?

- Well, we mentioned drought a couple of times and that's clearly one of the big ones.

So, you know, the drought could continue to force more cattle through the market.

That could change our beef production forecast, for example, and our slaughter forecast.

So we're watchin' the drought impact and really, you know, drought is gonna reduce forage production in those drought regions, but we know that high fertilizer prices and high fuel prices is also gonna reduce forage and hay production in areas that don't have drought.

So all of those factors will determine exactly how the flow of cattle works, if you will, for the rest of the year.

Additionally, we're watchin' obviously, just the general economy, the macro economic situation, the possibility of recession, the inflationary impact, global market impact, all of those things we're gonna have to keep an eye on as we go through the rest of the year.

- All right, thanks Derrell.

Dr. Derrell Peel, Livestock Marketing Specialist, here at Oklahoma State University.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

This week we talk about trying to find some competitive advantages in the cow-calf business relative to high input costs again.

We're joined by Dr. Paul Beck.

We're gonna talk about some growth promotants that we can use in the beef cattle business.

Paul, it's interesting as we visit about this, I liken it to the silver bullet, so to speak, whenever we know feed, fuel, fertilizer is so costly right now.

And very important at this time that producers aren't using some of this stuff that we encourage 'em to do so.

Let's talk about ionophores first.

Yeah, anything that we can use that increases the efficiency, increases performance for an additive to whatever supplements or other management that we're doing is a lot more influential now with high feed prices than even before whenever it was economical, but feed prices were low.

So, ionophores, if we can include that in a creep supplement like the Oklahoma Silver Program was back in the, developed back in the '80s and '90s.

You know, the cost of adding an ionophore is about three to four cents per day.

So, we're only looking at about 12 cents per pound of added gain, compared to the supplement which could cost up to about 25 to 30 cents.

- Paul, is there a way to get that done with a mineral supplement?

- So, there are no labeled ionophores that you can feed cows in a mineral.

So, you'd have to stay on label, provide that to the calf within a creep gate or something like that.

You know, if we supply ionophores to cows we can decrease feed intake.

It actually does increase milk production.

So, providing ionophore to a cow, if you're providing a supplement as well, which probably would not be the case this summer.

But, it does make the cow more efficient as well.

- And so, the other technology available to us is growth implants.

Explain this concept.

- So, growth promoting implants, you know, provide hormones that increase the growth rate of calves.

They function by increasing protein deposition instead of fat deposition.

Fat takes more energy to put down than a protein does, so that increases performance and efficiency of that calf.

We have a lotta producers that like to leave their bull calves intact, hoping to get an increased weaning weight, and that really doesn't happen until you know, after weaning, or after a normal weaning age when those cattle are reaching puberty.

So it's, you know, much later in the growth of that calf.

So, what we're seeing is if we castrate a male calf and implant it we'll have you know, 20 to 25 pounds increased weaning weight.

If we leave a male calf intact, we're not gonna see any increase in weaning weight.

So, castrating and implanting that calf prior to weaning you know, does you know, really economic job of improving those weaning weights adding value to the calf.

- And can these two things be used in tandem?

- Yes, so we can expect about a tenth to a quarter pound of added gain with a ionophore.

And we can expect another 2/10 to 3/10 of a pound of added gain with an implant, and when we do both together we have research that shows you can gain the advantage of both of those.

It's an additive effect because they have different modes of action.

- And, you know, together we can get a full half pound of gain per day using both an implant and an Iona 4.

- So, some pretty important advantages to gain by stacking these two things on top of one another.

- Yes, and lookin' at the prices and the cost of these, you know, we're adding a lot of value for a very small input cost.

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

- Finally today, how do you know when you have enough aphids in your sorghum crop to justify applying pesticide?

Well, turns out, OSU has an app for that.

Here's SunUps, Kurtis Hair, and extension entomologist, Dr. Tom Royer.

- Well, when we hit the dog days of summer in Oklahoma that means pests and summer crops are usually an issue.

So, Tom, what are you hearing right now?

- Right now, well, of course we're always concerned about grain sorghum pests.

Headworm, the aphids, they've been something that's been on our mind for, since about 2014.

I've also seen some issues in some of the soybean fields this year.

False chinch bugs have been attacking.

I even heard a, a really kind of odd one, those rolly pollies, getting into, getting into soybean.

That's a first, that's a new one on me, I've never heard that, but seeing false chinch bugs, if you didn't get your weeds controlled before you, you, you planted soybean.

And, and of course, we also, in certain places in Oklahoma, in grain sorghum, we have chinch bug too.

So, those are things that need to be watched.

That means that you have to get out and be kinda payin' attention to what's going on.

- So, really quick, you know, it's been really, really hot and it's gonna keep getting hotter.

How does that impact, you know, pests in our summer crops?

- Well, certain pests, like chinch bugs, love hot weather.

It also seems to me that sugarcane aphids always been okay with hot weather too, but part of the deal that we've got with sugarcane aphid now is that we've got a lot of resistant varieties or tolerant varieties.

So, we don't see them as much of an issue as we did before.

- So, you know, talking about aphids, you actually have an aphid app that could- - Yes!

- That could help a lot of producers, you know, when they're going out in scout.

- Yeah, we finally got this thing programmed, and it's available now.

It's, it's called the Sugarcane Aphid app.

It's downloadable on Apple store or Google Play, and it works, works really slick, and it's backed by a lot of research from a former PhD student, Jess Lindenmeyer.

We call it the Glance N Go app because it's a presence-absence sequential sampling system, which means you only sample until the app tells you that you've made a decision to treat or not treat.

You don't have to keep sampling after that.

If it's 50 or more, you just say, it's infested.

If it's less than 50, you say it's not infested.

So, it's a pretty simple system to, to go through, and it saves a lot of time and sampling.

- So, and it's, I, I would imagine that one thing that, that's really useful for this is it also probably saves producers money if they're not, might not have a bad of an issue as they thought when it comes- - Absolutely.

- For that insecticide.

- Yes That, that's the whole point of it.

We, we only want fields to be treated if they need to be, and we wanna save a scout or a producer time by sampling.

So, it's combining two things.

It's, it's an economics of time, and it's an economics of, of production.

This app will keep track of all the different fields that you've sampled in a given time, and it'll tell you what the decision was.

So, you have to name your fields, you have to select the control costs that it's gonna, it would cost to treat the field, and you have to select the price that you're hoping to get for the grain, and I just go in and take a stop out here, and I look at three plants in a row, and I look at the uppermost extended leaf and the lowermost extended leaf, lookin' for aphids.

If there's 50 or more aphids, I say it's infested, if there's less than 50 on the two leaves, I say it's not infested, and continue to do that until it gives me a decision.

You have to, you have to check a minimum of 15 plants before it will give you a decision.

And then when you're done, you just say "Save the Sample" and it will save it to your thing, and you can go back and look at it later.

- All right, thanks Tom.

Tom Royer, extension entomologist here at Oklahoma State University.

And if you'd like more information on how to download the app he was talking about, go to our website, SUNUP.OKSTATE.EDU.

(upbeat music) - That'll do it for us this week.

Remember you can see us anytime at SUNUP.OKSTATE.EDU, and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Lyndall Stout, have a great week everyone, and remember, Oklahoma agriculture starts at SunUp.

(upbeat music)