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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Harvest is well underway, despite some significant rains in some parts of Oklahoma wheat country.

Quite a coincidence, really, when you think about the considerable drought that producers have been dealing with with this year's crop.

Scientists consider drought and many other things when developing new wheat varieties.

To continue our recent discussion with Dr. Brett Carver, let's head back out to Lahoma.

- We're back here at Lahoma now with Dr. Brett Carver to talk more about some new potential varieties that are in the works.

So we're here with three varieties to look at today that are connected to Doublestops.

So take it away.

- All right.

So yeah, Doublestop.

I think everybody is familiar with that name.

It's the leading variety in the state this past year and I expect it to continue that way near the top.

It's just a strong variety in terms of graze ability, the ability to tolerate grazing stress, drought stress, just high tolerance of stress in general.

And I wanted to repeat that ability and I've been able to do that in a clear field system.

That's what the CL+ means, which is a herbicide tolerance package.

But what about if we took that trade out now and we can use this Doublestop lineage more widely in our program?

And so that was the objective in producing these two experimental lines and others with these two.

But these are the two that stand out the most.

- You call these two advanced experimentals and they're actually twins?

- Yes, and we have more than this set of twins that came from Doublestop.

So it's been a really difficult decision to decide, okay, which ones do we really want to go commercial with?

But these are the two that stand out and the difference between them is so minuscule, but I still have to make that decision this summer and I'll be able to do that.

But the one obvious difference between these two and Doublestop is their height.

And these are shorter lines and I wanted to make the progeny shorter than Doublestop, but keep the yield potential, if not increase it.

And so, I can tell our audience that these two lines have a 15% yield advantage over Doublestop the last two years.

I wanna see if that holds for this third year.

That's very critical.

I think it will.

- I think we had some ears perk up when you said that.

- Yeah, and my eyes perk up every time I see these in the field.

We see that same tilling ability of Doublestop, just a shorter plant.

We also see acid soil tolerance.

What we don't see in Doublestop is Hessian Fly resistance.

That's good.

We brought that in from the other side of the parentage.

The other side of the parentage came from the same parentage used to produce Uncharted.

So now, we have, in addition to everything else I've talked about, barley yellow dwarf resistance.

That doesn't exist in any other variety we have except in Uncharted, that level of resistance.

So as you can see, I'm pretty excited about the total package.

- Well, Brett, keep us posted.

Best of luck to you and the team as you continue to keep an eye on these through harvest.

- Great, thank you.

- We'll see you again soon.

- All right.

(gentle upbeat country acoustic music) - Welcome to the Mesonet Weather Report.

I'm Wes Lee.

Drought quenching rains continued again this week, especially in the western half of the state.

As of Wednesday morning, the seven day rainfall maps show two plus inches in most of the West.

Butler and Cherokee received an incredible six and seven inches during this time period.

In the east, rain was spottier with a fraction of an inch up to a couple of inches in a few locations.

This continued with a recent trend of wetter in the West and drying out in the East.

Here is the two week rainfall showing almost every site west of Interstate 35 with two or more inches.

Looking longer at the 30 day rainfall map, there were great rates in the West and fair rates in most of the East.

Parts of the panhandle received more rain this past month than they did in all of the last calendar year.

Ironically, the driest station, Broken Bow, came in at 1.12 inches.

In most years, Broken Bow usually comes in as one of the wettest sites in the state.

Here is the percentage of normal rainfall over the same period of time.

It shows 300 plus percent in the panhandle and 20% at Broken Bow.

For the 2023 calendar year, you can see most of the state is between 70 and 120% of normal.

The couple of exceptions are the tip of the panhandle with 183% of normal and the north central areas that are close to 50% of the average.

Looking at soil moisture, you can see the same trend as with rainfall, improving soil moisture for the week shown in green in the West and areas drying out in the brown areas of the East.

There are lots of 0.9 and ones in the West on this four inch fractional water index map.

- In the east, some of the yellow areas indicate the driest soil in that part of the state.

The scale for this map is where one corresponds to the wettest the sensor can read and zero the driest it can read.

At 10 inches, the trend is almost the same with great levels of moisture indicated in the west, and dryer areas in the east, but with maybe a little more yellow showing up in the south central areas.

At our deepest sensor in the soil at 24 inches, things look a little different.

It indicates a few really dry levels in Texas, Roger Mills, Beckham, Jackson, and Tillman counties.

With such a prolonged drought in these regions, the soils were so dry before the rains began that water has not penetrated that deep yet.

In the east, there is still some deep soil moisture showing up.

Rain chances should continue through this weekend and into next week according to forecast maps.

Gary will be back next week with the newest revised drought maps.

(upbeat music) - Well, Memorial Day is in our rear view and 4th of July is just right around the corner.

So, Derrell, as we're heading into another holiday, how does beef demand look?

- You know, it appears that Memorial Day was pretty good.

I think the weather was generally good and judging by the box beef prices that we've seen in the week after Memorial Day, they pick back up significantly.

Not quite to the levels they peaked out at about a month before Memorial Day, when we were buying for that holiday, but they certainly have strengthened back up.

And so obviously tighter supplies is helping support that, but the demand clearly is there.

- So is smaller beef supplies supporting the prices at all?

- It is, and that's gonna be one of the major supports going forward.

We have questions about sort of how far we can push consumers from a demand standpoint, but the bottom line is there's gonna be less beef and there's gonna be a lot of support for these prices to move even higher as we go forward.

- So is that having an effect on why cattle markets are moving higher?

- Yeah, that's part of it.

You know, I mean, we're moving into tighter supplies all the way around.

So, in the very short run, of course, box beef and cattle prices are, there's a time lag in between there.

Cattle prices are going up just because cattle numbers are tighter.

We're moving clearly into that.

And we've seen a strong uptrend, and really a significant jump recently in both fed cattle prices and feeder cattle prices.

And we're gonna continue to see that as these cattle numbers continue to tighten.

- Well, the rain just keeps coming through a lot of part of the state, so I'm sure that that's having an impact with drought as well, right?

- I think it really is.

You know, prior to the improvement we've seen in the last month or so, we haven't completely erased the drought, but I think we've minimized it enough in Oklahoma and parts of Kansas, maybe parts of the Texas Panhandle.

There was probably still some cowherd liquidation though as recently as a month ago in those areas.

And even though beef cow slaughter was down nationally, I think in those regions, there was still some liquidation.

So we're probably getting pretty close to stopping that liquidation at this point, and once that happens in that region, then we'll really be in a position to sort of say that we're kind of past the major drought impacts and stabilize this herd, and then we'll start thinking about sort of the timing of when we begin to rebuild this thing.

- So, what are the things that you're most watching when it comes to cattle markets this time of year?

- Well, I tell you right now, again, with the improvement we've seen in the drought conditions and so on, the main thing I'm watching right now is sort of the female slaughter.

That was very large last year, and so far this year, heifer slaughter is still up a tick over last year's level.

But I'm watching that very closely to see when that starts coming down.

As I mentioned, beef cow slaughter is down on a year-over-year basis, but it will drop a lot farther.

So it's really that female slaughter side that's gonna tell me when we really have stopped liquidating and are starting to retain heifers and cut cow culling.

That will be the first signs of the beginnings of trying to rebuild this herd.

- All righty, thanks Derrell.

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

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

Kim, wheat harvest time in Oklahoma, but what else is happening around the world?

- Well, China's in the middle of their wheat harvest and they've had heavy rains and hail.

A good third of their crop is laying down on the ground.

It is sprouting and they're looking at losing a significant amount of wheat.

I think the biggest news is Russia's wheat crop.

We talked about last week, you go back a month or two months, it's 2.8 billion.

They raised it to 2.9, they've raised it to 3.0.

They keep inching it up a little bit by little bit.

Every bushel that Russia raises above that increased production is another bushel on the export market.

So there's a lot going on around the world.

Argentina, of course, had some drought.

They've gotten rains.

Their production's questionable.

There's just a lot going on in other places.

- A lot of rain, of course, been the big story around Oklahoma the past week.

How's that impacting things?

- Well, if you look at the crop conditions, let's go back to May the 7th.

I've calculated an average for the hard red winter wheat crop, and on the 7th it was 46%, poor to very poor, 32% fair, and 22% good to excellent.

This last report was 38% poor to very poor, increase from 46 to 38.

That's good.

At fair, 31%, and excellent, good to excellent increased from 22% to 31%.

Now, you come to Oklahoma.

7th, we were 64% of our wheat was poor to very poor.

Now it's 26%.

You look at fair, 29% to 37%.

Good to excellent, increase from 7% to 37%.

Significant improvement in the hard red winter wheat crop conditions.

- And that is such good news to hear.

Well, with that in mind, what's your wheat price outlook?

- Well, if you go at price prediction, and of course the first thing, you know, when you predict a price, it's wrong.

And very few crop or marketing analysts predict prices anymore, but I'll do it.

Let's go back to February and look at the prices.

Back then, we were around $8.30.

In about 12 marketing days, we dropped down to $7.20, a $1.10 drop.

We increased $1.35 cents or gained it back to $8.30 as we got into April.

In 12 marketing days, we dropped down to $6.95.

In about 11 marketing days, it went back up to $8.55.

Then we came down to $7.44, $1.25 move there.

Back up 40 cents and then we dropped off 30.

We're currently around $7.47 and 50 cents.

A couple weeks ago I was at harvest price average of $7.75.

I think I'm gonna lower that to $7.50.

If you look at this volatile range, it's about plus or minus 75 cents, so that gets us $6.75 to eight and a quarter with an expected of $7.50.

- That is a lot of information you packed in there.

Let's talk about corn and soybeans now.

How are those markets looking?

- One last thing on that wheat price.

I'm probably wrong.

(laugh in unison) - Only time will tell, right?

- That' right, that's right.

I look at corn.

Now, corn prices have fallen off over the last couple months.

And this is the '23 harvest price.

It got down to $4.75.

It came back up to $5.20 and it's wallering there.

Of course, that increase in the expected corn price for harvest is because there's some problems in the production area's dryness, just lack of rain.

You look at soybeans, they dropped from around $13 down to $10.70.

They've gained a few cents.

They're wallering around now about $11, and so you've seen both corn and bean prices down.

The crops are coming on relatively good.

- Okay, Kim, great information.

A lot packed in there this week, and we'll see you next week.

(upbeat music) In its latest report, the Oklahoma Wheat Commission estimates harvest is at 20% complete.

Rainfall amounts vary, and several locations in the southern part of the state are still reporting good quality despite the moisture.

Test weights meanwhile are down in the areas with the most rain.

Yields are favorable for the loads coming into elevators, ranging from 30 to 40 bushels per acre on average.

Meanwhile, protein averages are currently between 11.5 and 12.5%.

We'll keep you posted as harvest continues, and you can always find the latest and more in-depth reports on the Wheat Commission's website.

We have a link for you at sunup.okstate.edu.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and welcome to Cal-Calf Corner.

Again, we've taped during our blueprint for the future Cattle Conference.

I appreciate all of you joining us, and it's my honor to be joined tonight by Dr. Frank Mitloehner from UC Davis.

Dr. Mitloehner is an air quality specialist and taking the time out of his schedule before he gives our keynote address this evening after our dinner.

Frank, tell me, what do you do at UC Davis?

What's an air quality specialist?

- Well, I study the impact of animal agriculture on the environment, so quantifying things such as greenhouse gases and mitigating those, and that's a big deal.

It's a hot topic and one that's so hot that it's not just a California topic now, but it has spread throughout the country and the world.

And so here in Oklahoma tonight, I'll talk about how do we quantify this gas?

How do we mitigate this gas?

How do we turn something that's broadly and generally seen as a problem and turn it into part of a solution?

Because methane, and that's the gas I'm talking about, methane is a problem only if you ignore it, if you don't manage it.

It's the same as natural gas that you use at home to heat your home, okay?

You wouldn't say natural gas is a problem.

- Absolutely not.

- It's a utility that you need.

But if you were to just off-gas it into the air, it would be a problem.

- The same is true for our farms.

About 10% of the energy we feed to our cattle gets lost as enteric methane.

They just belch it out.

And a lot more methane comes off the animal manure.

Learning how to avoid that, learning how to limit that, is not just in the best interest for our environment, but also to the pocketbook of the producer.

- Excellent point, and I know you're gonna give our keynote address tonight.

What are the most important take home messages we as cattlemen in this industry can learn from you tonight?

- Well, I think the most important thing is, don't be afraid of this topic.

You only have to be afraid if you ignore it.

If you take that bull by the horns, you can turn something that used to be a problem into something that people would say makes you a part of a solution.

- Great point.

A lot of what we're talking about here in the next couple days at the conference, I'm curious, I've gotta ask, because I've read some of this about your work.

What are you all doing at UC Davis?

I know you're director of these things.

You're actually capturing some of this methane from animals and using it to power vehicles.

Am I wrong on that or what can you tell us?

- No, you're not wrong.

There are two principle sources of methane from animal agriculture.

The one is the belching by ruminants.

That's pretty much burping of methane, and that's the main source.

We can reduce that through feeding feed additives, for example.

There are some other avenues as well.

And then the second most important source is animal manure, particularly on dairies, where it's stored in a liquid form in lagoons.

In many cases, these lagoons are now capped.

The gas is trapped and converted into a vehicle fuel, and that has become such a big deal that we see a new gold rush in California, namely a rush of people moving into this technology, capturing this gas, and making it into a utility.

- Thank you, Frank, for taking the time to join us.

I know your schedule's busy, and thank all of you, for being with us this week on Cow-Calf Corner.

It's good to be with you, and we look forward to sharing more topics with you from our Blueprint from the Future Conference in the next few weeks.

(upbeat instrumental music) - Today, I thought I'd share a little bit of information about vegetable oil.

There are multiple techniques involved in turning seeds or nuts into the oil that we find in grocery store.

Generally, the following steps may be used in the manufacturing process.

The vegetable oil has to be extracted from the vegetative material.

This may involve squeezing the oil out using a press, extracting the oil out using a solvent, or some combination of these two methods.

This crude oil contains desirable compounds such as phytosterols and tocopherols, that are beneficial to our health.

However, it also contains undesirable impurities such as free fatty acids and phospholipids, that can negatively affect the quality of the oil.

Therefore, it has to be refined to remove these compounds.

Processes such as degumming help remove the phospho lipids that may settle out during shipping and storage of the finished vegetable oil.

Afterwards, sodium hydroxide may be used to neutralize any free fatty acids that may be present, because these compounds may go on to negatively impact the flavor and shelf life of the oil.

Next, the vegetable oil is passed through a type of clay called bentonite.

This process is called bleaching and was originally used to remove undesirable colors.

Today it's used to remove compounds such as aldehydes, ketones, and other contaminants, such as pesticides.

After bleaching, the oil is filtered and then deodorized by using steam distillation to remove any compounds that may cause off aroma.

Finally, the oil may go through a process known as winterization, where the oil is refrigerated to help remove triglycerides and waxes that might otherwise precipitate out and cause the oil to become cloudy.

After this point, the oil is ready to be packaged.

So just a little bit of information about vegetable oil.

For more information, please visit sunup.okstate.edu, or food.okstate.edu.

- [Narrator] We just want to take a quick break to share with you the news that a case of chronic wasting disease was recently confirmed in Oklahoma Panhandle.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, a Texas County landowner observed a deer behaving abnormally and reported it to the Wildlife Department.

This is the first ever case of chronic wasting disease in Oklahoma.

Chronic wasting disease or CWD, is an always fatal disease that affects the brains of deer, elk, moose, and other members of the Cervid family.

The Wildlife Department and the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry launched the CWD response strategy after this case was confirmed.

And if you notice any unusual deer behavior, contact the Wildlife Department or the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry immediately.

If you'd like to know more about chronic wasting disease, just visit our website, sunup.okstate.edu.

- Finally, today we return to the Lahoma Wheat Field Day to talk about a new approach to controlling weeds and cleaning up wheat fields.

On a recent cloudy day at Lahoma, no one's complaining about the rain.

No one's complaining about the weeds either, because there aren't many.

- One of the new systems we have available for Oklahoma Wheat Producers is the new CoAXium system, developed back in Colorado, that's a new herbicide tolerant system where we have to grow a certain resistant or tolerant variety to apply that herbicide without any crop injury.

- [Host] CoAXium is another option for producers to consider to tackle weeds in hopes of improving yields.

- We've been used to double stop and the Clearfield system with BASF.

We've been looking at that for over two decades now.

- Some great success out of that program, and it's still used today, double stops a lot of acres.

It's been a great tool for us, and this CoAXium system is another tool.

So some of our problem weeds and wheat are gonna be our winter annual grasses, namely feral rye, (indistinct) and jute grass, all of our bromes, downey brome, Japanese brome, cheat, rescue grass, is something that's this new system's really targeted towards.

So it gives us a tool to plant one of those varieties that have the tolerance to that herbicide.

We can spray ideally with the fall and spring like we've been using with the clear field system and the herbicide beyond, to get those grasses, clean up our fields.

There's a lot of stewardship to it.

I've been kind of hintin' on that keyword, tolerance.

We don't have complete crop resistance to it, so we still have some stewardship where the applicator and the farmer has to coordinate.

We don't wanna spray too early, we don't wanna spray too late.

- [Lyndall] Scientists at Colorado State University conducted the initial research.

Word spread, and now other states are testing the system.

Dr. Brett Carver is in the driver's seat for OSU's Wheat Improvement Team.

- Normally I talk about advanced lines that have kind of come through the pipeline, and they're about ready to be released.

This material is a little bit farther away from that.

However, we may push the accelerator to bring it out a little bit quicker.

But behind me are breeding nurseries that feature herbicide tolerance, or tolerance to the herbicide that Josh talked about, the aggressive herbicide.

And in this case, we would've applied not the commercial rate of herbicide but twice the commercial rate, with the methylated seed oil to ensure that we do have adequate tolerance in our germplasm.

The fact that we have wheat in these nurseries that looks very healthy, means we have good tolerance.

Why are we doing this though?

I mean, there's germplasm out there, and there's plenty of it like Josh said.

But most of that germplasm has the high plains influence?

In other words, the germplasm originated at Colorado State University, and it's spread to other breeding programs, and to other organizations that would just license the germplasm.

So it's still a high plains influence.

We want something that fits Oklahoma and specifically Oklahoma.

I'm really excited about what I'm seeing this year.

I mean, this is the first time we've really been able to see this level of tolerance in germplasm that I think has potential in a commercial setting.

So now we just need to figure out, well, which one?

Because behind me directly, there's 500 conventional inbreds, farther in existence, there's about 140 non-conventional or double haploid inbreds.

Then of course we have the head rows, which you know, we're trying to select (indistinct) that will make varieties three to four years from now.

So we had this pipeline started, we just haven't seen the end pipeline produce a released variety yet.

I think that day is coming.

- It has been very good for us, this system.

So, no more than two years in a row, just like Clearfield.

So we don't wanna build up resistance.

And then one big difference between this system and last one, we got a lot of genetics in the works, and a lot available to the producers.

- Clearfield has been in our our gang for so long.

We are the leaders of Clearfield Wheat Variety Development.

I think we could be in that same position with CoAXium in the very near future.

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

A reminder, you can see "Sunup."

anytime on our website, and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone, and best of luck as you continue with wheat harvest.

We'll see you next time at "Sunup."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)