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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Oklahoma's wheat harvest this year actually started well ahead of schedule, but lots of rain and days like this with lots of humidity have really started to slow things down.

For an update this week, SUNUP's Kurtis Hair caught up with Dr. Amanda Silva, our OSU Extension small grain specialist.

- You know, it wouldn't be an Oklahoma wheat harvest without the rain coming in and messing up everything.

So Amanda, just how much has this rain slowed down harvest?

- A lot.

So, we started off the spring, we were about two weeks ahead of schedule.

And then as the season progressed, we were about a week ahead of schedule.

So, we had a lot of fields that were ready to be cut even before the Memorial Day weekend.

But with all this rain, we really haven't progressed as much as we would wished.

- Which is kind of a bummer, because you know, in a lot of parts of the state, the wheat's looking great, right?

- Yes, we have very good looking crop out there that is ready to be cut in some places that weren't looking as good because of drought, but I think it's gonna recover and hopefully surprise us.

And of course, some places that were just really drought stressed especially.

First reports from the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, we are hearing some fields that we have like a 60-70 bushel wheat to be harvested.

In our trials, you know, some of our cooperators, we have very good looking wheat, but it's just the rain won't stop.

- So, you know, with that rain, there's been a lot of really severe weather with that.

So, are you hearing any reports of, you know, hail damage or just storm damage to their crop?

- Yes, we had some around the El Reno area, some other areas in the state, our plots at Lahoma, some of our research plots.

We do have a very severe hail damage, but yes.

- And, you know, in terms of just heavy rainfall, you having any issues with, I mean sure lodging's an issue?

- Oh yes, we do.

Here in our stations Stillwater.

If you walk by our wheat, you can see some lodging in our variety.

Some are still standing better than others, relative to others, but the some that were more sensitive to it, you can see that kind of falling down.

- Well, you mentioned the quality of the crop, you know, during what was able to get harvested, what was the quality like?

- So, we are seeing as per, again, Oklahoma Wheat Commission report, protein is being varying from 9% to 14%.

Would say average it's about 11, 12%.

So, it's been really good.

Test weights been good to above 60, some places up to 64.

And in some areas in the Northwest that was really dry, it seems like the wheat's recovering a little bit.

So, we are gonna maybe see a 30 bushel crop there in some places.

In some places it's really poor, especially in areas where we see the crown or root rot disease, that fungal disease that we see the wheat going white.

Yeah.

So, it varies.

It does vary a lot.

But at the same time we have some good looking crops standing there that I am very nervous about and I really wanna cut that wheat in some places.

Hopefully, we'll do a little bit better than we thought.

- Well, you know, I mentioned earlier that it wouldn't be an Oklahoma summer without the rain, so producers are used to this, but what's kind of that window, you know, that timeframe for that crop before, you know, it's just too late?

- It's hard to say, because it depends.

It depends how much that crop's being kind of sitting there.

Of course, once it's mature and the weather's kinda, you know, you get those cloudy days.

The humidity has been so high.

- [Kurtis] Yeah, I can feel it right now.

- Yeah, yeah, it's really heavy.

It's really thick.

Yeah, we can see a decline.

So, it depends how long the crop will stay there in that situation.

So hopefully, I know the forecast is not very promising in some cases, but hopefully, we'll get some dry days that we can start cutting.

- You know, you mentioned Lahoma and when we had you on out at Lahoma, you mentioned the research that you're doing out there and really it's just kind of waiting to harvest before you can get that data, right?

- Yes, yes.

So, we hopefully, it will be soon.

I think this year will be that type of year that we are gonna be pulled in many directions, because I really hope wheat's gonna be ready.

But it will be southwest to north, central Panhandle, Oklahoma, all at the same time.

And yeah, as soon as we start cutting, we'll have the results available on our website.

- Alrighty, thanks, Amanda.

Amanda Silva, small grain specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

And if you'd like a link to the research she was talking about, go to our website, sunup.okstate.edu.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Welcome to the Mesonet Weather Report, I'm Wes Lee.

Many of the state's wheat producers would love some favorable weather to get the crop out of the field.

The rain has been nice for our summer crops and forages, but wet conditions continue to hinder winter crop harvesting.

- The seven-day rainfall map from midweek shows some impressive numbers.

Two-inch rains were common in about half of the state, and three to six-inch numbers were seen across the southeast.

To get wheat moisture down to an acceptable range requires some good drying conditions.

Our soil surfaces are currently wet in much of the state.

This two-inch fractional water map shows soils are as wet or nearly as wet as the sensors can read in most areas.

Focusing on our Medford site, you can see the surface soil has been moist since the middle of May.

Sunshine has also been lacking in that area lately, as seen on this graph.

The line has been below normal for most of the last week.

As expected, this means that humidity levels have also been high.

This graph shows maximum levels have reached into the high 90s every day since mid-May.

High humidity hints that leaf wetness or dew is likely on those days.

Now here's Gary with this week's drought map.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, it's certainly been a bumpy ride over the last couple of months.

We've had at least 100 tornadoes, a slew of large hail, lots of flash flooding, and of course lots of rain in really just the wrong spots over and over.

So let's take a look at that newest Drought Monitor map and see what we have.

Unfortunately, although we did whittle away at some of that severe drought, we still have quite a bit of drought up in far northwest Oklahoma out into the western Oklahoma panhandle.

We did get some good rains up there.

We just need a bit more in places to really start to whittle away a little bit more of this drought up in that area of the state.

But as far as the rest of the state goes, really in good shape, and I know that we've missed some rains and we take a look at that 60-day rainfall map from the Oklahoma Mesonet.

You know, it really get a good 10 to 15 inches, close to 20 inches and more down across parts of East Central down into southeast Oklahoma.

But really up there in the panhandle, we have less than four inches of rain, up in the far northwest.

Some areas less than four to five inches of rain.

So when you take a look at that percent of normal rainfall map for the last 60 days, that same timeframe, and it really does start to show up.

But also, the large amount of rain that we've had down in South Central Oklahoma and parts of North Central Oklahoma, so really a typical spring rainy pattern here in the state of Oklahoma just where have those storms gone over the same area again and again.

So, but we have the same thing out in the the panhandle, where storms have missed again and again, and also parts of Central Oklahoma.

So just sort of a topsy-turvy spring.

And when we start to look at the climate in general, we do look at the temperature as well.

How does that impact the drought?

And if we look back at the spring season, this climatological spring, so March through May, we did have average high temperatures in the mid-70s over much of the state.

And we look at that as the departure from average, the long-term average from the Mesonet, and a good two to three to four degrees above normal across the state.

And it was the fifth warmest spring on record dating back to 1895 for the state of Oklahoma, so a very warm spring indeed.

So we've gotten a good dent in that developing drought up in far Northwest Oklahoma.

We just need a bit more rain up there.

And as we start to get into the summer months, we're gonna need continued rains, continued rains over other parts of the state.

That's it for this time.

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

(upbeat music) - We're here now with Dr. Derrell Peel, our Livestock Marketing Specialist.

So Darrell, we're gonna get into summer officially in a couple of weeks, so how are the pasture conditions looking in Oklahoma and across the country?

- You know, if you look at the Drought Monitor, for example, we've got less drought in the US than we've had in since about April of 2020.

So in general we're in pretty good shape from that standpoint.

The reported pasture and range conditions are also pretty good.

I mean, they reflect that lack of drought for the most part.

There's a couple of spots that are bad.

New Mexico in particular is probably the worst from a state standpoint.

A lot of drought there, but by and large across the country and in Oklahoma, our pasture conditions are in pretty good shape.

- So the forage conditions are in pretty good shape, too?

- You know, I think we're making a lot of pasture right now.

We're making hay.

You know, as long as we have a good sort of first half of the year, we still have some concerns about what might develop later in the year, but we're definitely off to a good shape.

We also know that on May 1, we came in to the new hay crop year with a very large hay stock.

So again, from that standpoint, we've got a lot of forage supplies right now, and I think that's helping everybody out a lot.

- Yeah, so what does that mean in terms of herd rebuilding for producers?

- You know, that's a big question obviously in the industry right now, is are we saving heifers yet?

Are we trying to start rebuilding the herd?

And the short answer is I don't have any data at this point, so we're not sure.

I think we probably are beginning some level of heifer retention in various places.

I don't think it's necessarily really big yet, a really big thing.

Producers are still being pretty cautious, even though I think the forage conditions would support maybe a little more aggressive.

- Herd management plans, but I don't think the producers are quite ready for that yet.

- So what's the outlook for the cattle markets for the rest of the year moving forward?

- You know, we're still in this situation where supplies are tied and getting tighter.

You know, we're basically at record levels or very close to it.

We have been at record levels within just the last couple of months across the board for all kinds of cattle, and so we're just sort of moving forward with that tight supply kind of driving things.

We're going into summer, and, you know, cattle markets typically are a little bit slow in the summertime, kind of summer doldrums, so they may not move a lot higher immediately, but over time, the supplies continue to get tighter, particularly at the feedlot level.

I think we'll see these feedlot inventories come down.

That's gonna continue to really push these markets as we go forward, and the bottom line is we're expecting the highest cattle prices of the year on average in the last part of the year.

- Okay.

Thanks, Derrell.

We'll talk to you again in a couple of weeks.

- Thank you.

- Dr. Derrell Peel, livestock marketing specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

(upbeat music) - Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist, is here now.

Kim, let's dive right in and start with crop prices.

How are things looking?

- Well, let's look at wheat since we're in the middle of that harvest.

We had a good run up in wheat, oh, $1.85.

Everybody's excited.

It's backed off about 35, 40 cents, somewhere around $6.50 per bushel.

That's in Pond Creek.

It'd be about 40 cents less down in the Altus-Snyder area, or you come up Weatherford and north, probably 30 cents less, the panhandle, 10 cents less.

We gotta remember that the average price in Oklahoma for wheat during the June to August time period's $5.85.

We're above that.

Our stocks-to-use ratio in the US and world are about average.

So you can kind of see what's gonna happen in prices there maybe.

Look at corn prices.

We had a good rally in corn.

Got up to $4.75.

That's for 2024 harvested corn.

We've taken 25 cents off of that down to about $4.40.

Average price is $4.80.

The stocks-to-use ratio are well above average in the US and the world, so you'd expect below average prices.

Soybeans, $10.80.

That is the average price during harvest for soybeans, and this is for the '24 harvest.

That's down 80 cents from a few weeks ago.

With the stocks-to-use ratio in the US, oh, little bit above average.

The world around average, this is about what you'd expect.

Cotton prices the last couple weeks, December contract has fallen from near 80 to down around 73.

- Let's talk about harvest now.

We're hearing from Amanda Silva this week, of course, the Mesonet crew talking about all the rain.

What's your take on harvest?

- Well, if you look at what's going on at harvest, it rains, it's slowing down the harvest.

We were, you know, harvesting about a week or so earlier than normal.

This is slowing us down.

There's some potential problems there with the heavy rain, some hail, but I think the harvest has come along relatively well.

Relatively good test weights, protein.

Depends on where you are, but it's an Oklahoma harvest, and there's a bunch to go, and you just really don't know what's gonna happen.

- That's right.

It's kind of like this every year, and this year is no exception.

- That's right.

- Let's talk about this decline in prices and kind of strategy for producers.

What are you recommending?

- I think you just dollar cost average into the market.

You look at June, July, August average, around $5.85.

I don't care if June, July, or August, those monthly averages are around there.

You got a 23-cent average price drop going from August to September, so sell it.

Sell it during that June through August period.

And you look at prices, and you cannot predict prices.

So let's look at prices, you know, for years where we came into harvest above average and go back to '23, last year.

We came into harvest at $7.53.

Our bottom for the June through August time period was $6.55.

Our average was $7.44, our top was $8.50, and we ended, we started at $7.53, we ended at $6.67.

So what'd we see last year?

$7.53, up to $8.50, and down $2 to $6.67.

You cannot predict prices.

- So how should producers then sell their 2024 wheat?

- I think just dollar costs staggered over that time period.

I sat down and came up and said, "If I had wheat, how would?"

I'd sell it in lots of six, 16% at a time, June 15, July 1, July 15, August 1 or July 30, August 15, August 31.

That's six sales.

Just come out with a mechanical strategy that's gonna let you sleep at night.

Now, if the current price at $6.40, $6.50 is a price you've gotta have to stay in business, you can't afford lower prices, sell more wheat now.

If you can afford higher prices and would like to have higher prices and can afford that $2 downside risk, go ahead and hold some.

- All righty.

Kim, great advice.

We'll see you next week.

Thanks a lot.

(upbeat music) - After 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 any 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 chiggers bites, and that's really not true.

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

It's a non-burrowing might, 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 or 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 in where they prefer 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 chiggers 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 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 in some vegetation.

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

But some other misconceptions is that triggers 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.

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

This week's topic is CRISPR technology, or specifically gene editing in beef cattle.

This is something that we in the beef industry have been hearing about and reading about for years, and we address this topic at our recent blueprint for the future conference.

And we're gonna address where we're at now and what looks like might happen with this technology in the future.

CRISPR technology or gene editing has the potential to be a powerful tool in the toolbox of cattle breeders.

At this point in time, we are capable of working with simply inherited traits or traits that are influenced by one pair of alleles at a particular locus and making some alteration there or intentional edits to change those qualitative traits that are influenced at that particular locus.

This technology has the capability of improving sustainability, facilitating efficiency, and improving animal welfare.

We are capable with CRISPR technology of making gene edits that can do away with deleterious genes.

As we think about things that are sub-lethal, lethal, simply inherited traits that are recessive, we have got the potential to give, reduce susceptibility to disease or even create animals that are resistant to disease.

We can take desire alleles from one breed and actually introduce those into another breed to think of something like influencing the polled allele into a horn breed of cattle to create a polled phenotype there that breeds true generation after generation.

So, what have we accomplished with this technology to this point?

Well, as of May, 2024, we have actually created a disease-resistant calf, particularly reduced susceptibility to a major viral pathogen, bovine viral diarrhea virus.

This is a calf that currently exists as in the process of growing to maturity and has been challenged with that disease multiple times and remains healthy and resilient to that.

We have the potential, again, to take desired alleles out of one breed, put them in another.

We've actually accomplished that with the pulled allele.

We have the potential to take a diluter gene for coat color and a slick hair gene from one breed, introduce it in another, to dramatically improve the heat tolerance of cattle.

Once that changes their phenotype to be that lighter color and shed hair more readily.

The use of this technology in the United States beef industry likely hinges on federal regulatory policies, and this is something that on a global basis varies a great deal from country to country.

If we see this in the future regulated in a sense that facilitates innovation, free trade, facilitates profit potential in the beef industry, and particularly facilitates consumer acceptance of beef produced as a result of this technology, again, it has the potential for pretty widespread use.

Hope this helps, and thank you for joining us this week on Cow-Calf Corner.

- Finally today, just before things wound down for the summer, students at a big city school, got to learn all about our favorite topic, agriculture.

It's tough to tell, what's more fun today, the mini mezzanine weather station demo.

- It's called a tipping rain gauge.

- with a calving simulator.

- You gotta pull hard.

- Or maybe it's the baby goats, chickens, calves, and a horse just to name a few.

Welcome to the Agrikids event, part of career day at Millwood Elementary School in Oklahoma City.

- Can I try?

- They're getting a glimpse of the variety that is agriculture, whether it's through livestock production ag, or we're seeing some more hands-on activities for our indoor portion.

- [Lyndall] Hands-on learning about agriculture, the brainchild of Dr. Courtney Brown, OSU extension ag leadership specialist.

- Within my experience as well as research shows that if we're not getting this programming in front of the kids early, then they aren't gonna make the natural connection.

So in my mind, it's just a really great way to expand our advocacy efforts with agriculture and also get some kids involved that could see agriculture as another potential opportunity.

- [Lyndall] In-person connections with experts from Oklahoma State University and Langston University, opening eyes about career possibilities and where food comes from.

- [Mindy] That's where the egg develops inside the chicken.

- [Lyndall] 4-H educator, Mindy Aragon, translates the science to the day to day.

And of course, these cute, soft baby chicks bring it full circle.

A lot to see, a lot to do, and a lot to take in.

- And it's causing problems for the fish.

- But that's the point.

- We have goats, we have cows, we have sheep, and we have horses.

We're just trying to give the kids, you know, a wide spectrum of, you know, the different type of animals we have.

Agriculture is important for students, for the simple fact, like, everyday life depends on agriculture.

You have farming, we have the horses, the livestock, just everyday life revolves around different aspects of agriculture.

- [Lyndall] Farming and ranching realities like the simulated birth of a calf in a setting designed for fun.

- Steady pressure.

Well, for the best part, most of these kids today have never seen an animal actually have a baby.

So it's kind of fun to see their reaction.

Most of them are pretty squirmish about it.

(children screaming) so hopefully we're doing something here that brings them a little bit closer to agriculture.

- [Lyndall] And it appears they are, judging by the smiles, giggles, and lots of questions and comments.

- It's a station where they tell you about where peanut butter and jelly comes from and how they make the bread, and the wheat, and how the whole process is.

So that has to be one of my favorite.

I love peanut butter and jelly, and I actually never knew where it really come from and, like, the process of how it's made.

And I never knew, like, how bread was actually made and, like, the wheat and all the stuff that's inside of it.

- Having the information in front of individuals so they can make those informed decisions is really important.

And I feel it's really important for us as agriculturalists to take on that responsibility, to go into spaces that don't have that continuous connection to the producer or to the companies.

- [Lyndall] Loads of curiosity combined with real connections leave a lasting impression.

- [Courtney] I'm just here facilitating, but they're making the magic happen for the kids, and that's what it's all about.

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

A reminder, you can see us anytime on our website and also stream our show anytime on our YouTube channel.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at "SUNUP."

(bright music) (soft music)