- Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Heavy rains can cause a number of issues, but it's the issues that bite that are the most annoying.

We're starting things off with Dr. Jonathan Kamec, OSU, extension, livestock entomologists with some mosquito prevention tips for both you and your livestock.

Jonathan.

It's really been raining a lot.

We're already seeing quite a few mosquitoes around.

- Yeah, it's, it's been kind of nonstop for the past two months now with, you know, with this rainfall, we're getting these, you know, short bursts that are dumping, you know, pretty significant amounts of water and things aren't really having a chance to dry out.

- So what does that mean in terms of mosquitoes when it's a year like this?

- Right.

You know, we always think, you know, it's, it's raining a lot, so it's going to be a bad year for mosquitoes.

So, you know, the, the truth is we always have mosquitoes present.

Some years could be better, you know, and for us, some years could be better for the mosquitoes, which would be worse for us.

But, you know, it really comes down to how much rainfall we're getting in, at, at what frequency.

We have some species of mosquitoes that we would classify as flood water mosquitoes, and they lay their eggs in areas where they anticipate that waters are going to rise, so that once their eggs get wet, those eggs hatch, the larvae will go down into the water and they'll complete their development cycle.

Some of those eggs can lie dormant in the environment for two, three or four years until we have a, a big enough rainfall event to, you know, rise those water levels up and cause them to hatch.

So a lot of the mosquitoes that we saw early on this season are those flood water ones, because their eggs have been sitting dormant in the environment since, you know, last year or years prior.

And we're now seeing a lot of those mosquitoes in the environment.

- And then this is kind of second issue is like what we see here, standing water that really is appetizing to those mosquitoes.

- Yeah.

So the standing water, like we have right over here in the background, it is an environment for a different group of mosquitoes that, that don't really rely on those kind of rise and fall of flood waters.

They, they want kind of more either temporary pools like what we see here, or permanent pools like, you know, what might be a, you know, a pond environment or, or something.

But with the ground being as saturated as it is right now, we've got these environments like over here where that water is sitting for enough time, you know, four or five days kind of at the, the minimum to maybe seven to 10 days at the maximum for mosquitoes to be able to complete their development.

And as long as, you know, once every 2, 3, 4 days, it seems we're getting these pretty big rainfall events so far this spring.

These areas aren't having a chance to dry out.

And, and we could even see areas as small as a, a hoof print, you know, being able to hold enough water to support the development of some mosquitoes.

- And these mosquitoes, once they're out and about, they're kind of non-discriminating, right?

Between pets, horses, cattle, and people.

- Yes.

Everything we have right now is, is kind of non-discriminating in, in terms of, of what it's biting.

Really, really nothing is safe, you know, whether it's us, you know, sitting outside, you know, and on a patio trying to enjoy a nice cool evening or even some cattle that are out trying to graze or our pets, you know, we're really all kind of at their, their mercy at the moment.

- Are they most active in the evening?

- Certain species are, are active in the, what we would call the corpuscular times a day or at dusk and dawn.

And so those are kind of some of the mosquitoes that we have right now are those.

And then, but others, you know, as we just saw a minute ago, there, there are mosquitoes flying around out here right now.

- So let's kind of switch gears and talk prevention tips, both, both for people and for animals.

There's some general things, right?

Like cleaning this up, talk about that, and then some of the other prevention tips.

- Okay.

So with a lot of our pests, you know, we wanna start thinking about those environmental modifications that we can make to make that area, you know, not a, a good place for them to be able to reproduce.

So in this example over here, you know, if you have a, a corner of a pasture or, or something around a, you know, a water trough, you know, where there's always water standing, you know, come up with some way to, to try to drain that, whether that's cut a little, you know, small drainage ditch to get that water to move away so that it doesn't stand.

Or if we think about something, you know, maybe in our own front yard or backyard, if you've got a, a bird bath that's accumulating water and has some algae growing in it, that's, you know, great for mosquitoes.

So we want to periodically go over and and dump that out.

And same thing goes for five gallon buckets or, or even pots, you know, right now we've got so much rainfall that even our pots that have that kind of basin at the bottom that kind of serve as an, you know, automatic water or if you will, in, you know, the summer right now, that's a, a perfect location for mosquitoes to be reproducing.

And because we've got that continual standing water.

So if you've got anything that's holding water, just go around, you know, once or twice a week and pour that out.

- So very things very saturated right now.

Yeah, - Very saturated.

Yep.

- In terms of treatment options, prevention, treatment options, what do you recommend?

And I'm, I'm sure there's protocol for livestock, pets and people.

- Yeah, for, for livestock, there's, there's not much that we can do.

You know, they're just kind of out there in the environment, you know, we can't, you know, tell the cows to put on, you know, DEET or, or something like that.

One because it's not labeled for them, but you know, they're constantly in the environment, so if they're getting rained on or sun exposure, that product isn't going to work.

So there's, there's not much we can do for our livestock for, you know, preventing the mosquitoes, you know, from being attracted to them.

But for people, we can use repellents things, you know, that are contain de det is a very effective mosquito repellent.

It works extremely well, you know, if you have to be outside, you know, or if not, once they start biting, go inside, you know, it's, there are things that we can do, you know, you might, you might want to, to sit outside, but you know, the kind of the off chance that you might contract something like West Nile virus, you know, is a little bit more of a, you know, a risk than, you know, potential sitting outside in the evening.

- And these mosquitoes do, do carry things, - Right?

So we've got those two groups that we talked about initially, the, the kind of the flood water species.

We don't have any really human health concerns associated with those.

They're just some of our larger mosquitoes and their, their bite is, you know, very painful because of their size.

But some of those species can transmit Venezuelan equine encephalitis to horses and then anaplasmosis to our cattle.

So they, we have a, a livestock threat there.

And then some of our other kinda more urban or those container breeding such as the eighties species that we have, you know, they're vectors of West Nile virus and also heartworms.

So we've gotta think about protecting our, our dogs and our cats from those as well.

- And, and they, some of those preve prevention treatments that you can get from your veterinarian provide some protection.

- Yes.

A lot of the products that are available on the market for dogs and cats that are labeled for flea and tick control, particularly some of the newer, more advanced ones, are also effective against either repelling mosquitoes or also treating heartworm.

- Okay, great overview, Jonathan, and, and scientific information for us on a not so fun topic, but one we need to be aware of, especially in a season like the one that we're having.

All right.

Thanks for your time today.

Thank you.

- Good morning everyone.

This is state climatologist Gary McManus with your Mesonet weather Report.

Well, we've gotten some really good news over the last few weeks with the US drought monitor and we have more good news today.

So let's get right to that new map.

Well first let's start out with the changes we saw this week across the state of Oklahoma.

And this is the drought monitor change for one week.

So over the last seven days, and we can see those green areas up in northwest Oklahoma and the panhandle, that's a one class improvement.

And that means if we go to the newest drought monitor map that we are now color free in the state of Oklahoma when it comes to the drought monitor intensity scale.

So that means even, even that D one yellow color, which means abnormally dry conditions is also gone.

So that's a momentous change for Oklahoma.

I know we had the no drought D one through D four last week, but now we have the no abnormally dry conditions either.

So that's the first time since June of 2019, so six months or six years rather, that we've been completely free of any of those drought monitor colors.

And we certainly hope that we can keep this streak going for a little while longer.

Here you see a time series of the US drought monitor again from that June, 2019 on the left side all the way through the June of 2025.

On the right side, you can see those big spikes in drought, especially in 2022 and 2023 when we had much Of the state covered with extreme to exceptional drought.

The worst two categories, a little bit less as we go onto either side of that area, but again, that's six years of drought being in the state of Oklahoma.

How did we get here?

Well look at all this rainfall since April 1st.

Again, remember April 1st through April 30th, the wettest April on on record in the state of Oklahoma.

And that dates back to 1895.

But if you include May and June, look at all those tremendous rainfall amounts, especially across the southeastern half the state where, you know, they got about 15 to at times close to 30 inches of rainfall.

Now we go to the northwestern half, 10 to 15 inches in general.

And it has been a very rainy June, just over the last three weeks.

We've had 13 outta the last 18 days with rainfall, and this is over a southwestern Oklahoma where we're trying to get that wheat harvest started.

So a very rainy period over the last three weeks or so and all the way back to April.

In fact, now signs of the long-term drought being alleviated at least largely alleviated lots of lakes, five to 10 to even more than 20 feet above normal.

I still have a few below lu lurid out this down in southwest Oklahoma and Ellsworth yuca up in northeast Oklahoma.

But by and large, everybody has a surplus of reservoir water and soils are definitely saturated.

Here we see the two inch fractional water index, the soil moisture values from the Oklahoma Mesonet almost everywhere is nearly saturated, a little bit down there in southwest Oklahoma.

It gives us a little bit of pause for maybe drought development later, but at least everybody's doing pretty good so far.

We're also avoiding the extreme heat so far with this rainy spring and early summer.

Only a few stations have had at least a hundred degrees so far this season, so doing well in that area as well.

Of course that'll change.

It's Oklahoma after all.

So Nature's Bounty has been well too bountiful so far this spring, but it's certainly got us out to drought conditions now.

We need a few more drying days and hot days to, to further that wheat harvest along.

So hopefully we get some of those.

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 with the livestock markets with our livestock marketing specialist, Dr. Darryl Peele and Darrel Wholesale boxed beef Prices have risen quite sharply in the past few months.

So what's - Driving that?

You know, since the 1st of April we've seen a dramatic run up in prices and you know, we expect to see prices increase in, in ahead of Memorial Day.

So it's sort partly seasonal, but it's been very strong, stronger than usual.

And the other thing that's been going on since the 1st of April is we've seen a significant decrease in beef production that is a little bit of a surprise in the market.

- So what is driving that recent decrease in beef production?

- Well, you know, over the last year or so, fed beef production has stayed high, actually has increased year over year last year and coming into this year was doing that non fed beef.

Of course cull cow slaughter's been down for a couple of years, but in the last six, you know, last couple months we've seen fed beef production or fed beef slaughter go down.

So steer and heifer slaughter have been lower.

- Could heifer retention play a role at all in that?

- Well, I suspect it is.

We don't really have any confirmation yet that that's happening, but, but the steer slaughter is also down and that's the part that's a been a bit unusual here in the last few weeks.

We're just a few weeks away from - The first official start of summer.

So what's your market outlook look like for the summer months?

- Well, as we go into summer, you know, we've had extremely strong markets.

We've continued to set record high prices for cattle.

We may see that sort of flatten out a little bit seasonally.

It wouldn't be surprising to see them pull back a little bit box beef as well as, you know, fed cattle and some of the feeder cattle markets.

I don't know that we'll see that this year because of the underlying trend in the market.

I think we're, you know, we may see it, like I said, flatten out a little bit.

It could pull back slightly with the seasonality, but the seasonality has been mostly overwhelmed by the underlying trend in the market.

So I think we're gonna continue to see very strong markets through the summer.

- And what about in regards to consumer prices as we're, you know, in the, the heavy grilling months?

- Yeah, I don't see any real relief for consumers in this, particularly if beef production continues to fall, that alone is gonna continue to push prices higher.

There'll be a, a limited supply of beef.

That means some consumers aren't gonna get as much beef, but it's not because the demand is not there.

It, it's, it's gonna be just, you know, rationing that supply and that's gonna keep prices high.

All righty.

Thanks Darryl.

Dr. - Darryl Peele, livestock marketing specialist here to Oklahoma State University.

- So Oklahoma has had a lot of rain recently, and as we get into the summer, temperatures are gonna start to increase.

These are two conditions that are associated with foot rotten cattle.

Foot rot is caused by a bacteria called fusobacterium, necrophorum from subspecies ne from 'em.

But there's a host of other bacteria that are involved in this disease and we really don't completely understand this disease.

Generally the first clinical sign that you'll notice with with cattle that have foot rott is they suddenly became lame.

The lameness occurs more commonly in the hind leg than the front.

When we pick those feet up and examine that foot, you're gonna see that redness or maybe even a splitting of the, of the skin between the toes.

You might actually have a discoloration that it's black or necrotic looking, it'll be swollen.

That swelling will be symmetrical.

It's not gonna be one side or the other.

It's gonna be symmetrical.

If it's severe swelling, it'll actually make those toes start to spread apart.

There's usually a very foul odor with it.

These cows don't like to eat and they typically will have a fever.

When we treat these, this disease, we're gonna typically clean that area between the foot.

We may apply a topical treatment, the most important thing that we're gonna do for these animals to give them some type of an antibiotic.

I would suggest that you consult with your veterinarian and what would be the best choice for your area.

Another good idea, when we're treating these cows, if we can get them, put someplace where that foot will stay dry, that'll help the healing process.

Diagnosing this disease is usually by clinical signs.

We can take biopsies or cultures to confirm it.

When we talk about prevention, that can be difficult when we've got these moist, soggy conditions that we're dealing with right now.

It would be nice if we could get those cattle to dry areas, but that may not be practical.

The other thing that's really important is that we have a good mineral program.

Minerals like zinc are very important in the health of the foot.

There is a vaccine I would consult with my vac, with my veterinarian about whether this would be a good choice for you.

I think the most important thing to remember if you have an animal that's got foot rot, is to treat it early.

If we delay treatment, we're gonna, that's just gonna lead to complications like bone infections and tendon and sheath infections and that that infection is gonna just progress up the leg.

If you'd like some more information about foot rot, if you will, go to sunup.okstate.edu.

We'll leave some information there.

- More and more combines are able to get out into the fields with all this rain.

According to the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, wheat is coming in from the Oklahoma, Texas line to the Oklahoma Kansas line.

Some crews are getting lots of grain in the bin, while others are still waiting for wet crops and muddy fields to dry up across the state.

Test weights range 58 to 63 pounds per bushel with most wheat above 60 pounds per bushel.

However, lower test weights are being observed for heavier rainfall impacted fields along the highway 2 81 corridor with a few fields in this area lost to excessive flooding.

Yields are ranging from the mid thirties to the mid fifties across the state.

While more intensively managed fields are coming in between the mid sixties and low eighties, the statewide protein average is 11.1%.

The Oklahoma Wheat Commission estimates that 22% of the state's wheat has been harvested at this time.

If you would like a link to this harvest report, just go to sunup.OKstate.edu.

- Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to Cow Calf Corner.

Our topic this week is the current status of the cow calf sector of the beef industry.

The beef industry in the United States is really unique as compared to most countries.

We've got a very large cattle finishing part of that and the cow calf sector itself, that segment that accounts for the production of the initial product, that calf that will eventually become beef exist in a variety of production environments that get really extreme in terms of the temperature, the rainfall, the type of land that we use in one part of the country or another.

Because of that, we always say there's not one perfect size or milk level production cow that fits all those production environments.

But the cow calf sector itself is a really critical component of using our ag resources and particularly land that for the most part couldn't be used for crop production and just isn't really very well suited for anything other than the production of beef cattle or particularly a cow that can take that grass and turn it into a calf.

And so we've got a unique industry relative to other countries.

Another unique part of that is that in this country we produce a really high quality beef product and that there is a great demand among consumers for that high quality, consistently tasting beef product itself.

If we take a look at inventories, we see that historically we're at a very low inventory of cows in production right now and with really good consumer demand, what this leads to is record high value of all classes of cattle as well as record high value of beef.

The product.

If we think of that typical cow calf production system, the average size of it on a national basis is about 47 head.

There's only about 10% of all cow calf producers that operate on a really large scale thinking over 50 head.

And so again, some unique characteristics and dynamics of it.

Currently, how do we supply the robust demand for beef with this really low cow inventory?

We are finishing cattle to heavier weights than we ever have before.

It's not unusual in the last couple years to hear about 1516 knocking the door of 1700 pound pens of finished cattle coming outta the feed yard.

So that extra tonnage equates to higher carcass weights and helps us meet the consumer demand.

As we think about the future, this currently low inventory of cows, what it's doing for prices, we often ask the question, are we gonna see an expansion in the cow calf sector and bring numbers back up?

That's gonna depend on things like weather and drought.

But as we think of if we begin to keep a really high percentage of replacement heifers this year, that biological time lag that I always talk about relative to beef production means that heifers born this spring turn into yearlings at 14 to 15 months of age.

That can be bred next spring, that turn into 2-year-old pairs two years down the road.

We are now six to eight months out from weaning those calves, those calves potentially turning into yearlings and they're gonna be fed for six to eight months once they go in the feed yard.

So we've got several year runway before we actually begin to see increased cow numbers and increased amount of beef the product.

So where we're at looks like where we're gonna be for a while because of that biological time lag.

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for joining us this week on Cow Calf Corner.

- Finally today, Sunup's Kurtis Hair takes us to Pittsburgh County to learn about a new partnership between OSU extension and OSU Medicine.

- It's Monday here at the Pittsburgh County Extension Office, which means it's almost time for the free health clinic to open once it gets here.

That is right on time.

- Today we're here filming our OSU Medical van.

This is something that OSU Extension and OSU Medicine have come together and collaborated on and found a way to bridge the gap between extension and medicine.

- Pamela Ward is the OSU Extension Director and educator in Macintosh County.

Since last fall, Pamela along with the OSU medical team have been holding space for Oklahoma State University's virtual care clinic every week.

- So there's areas in the state of Oklahoma that are known as medical deserts.

- We've kind of been expanding virtual care for the past 12 to 18 months.

Really, really, after COVID happened, Oklahoma State University looked at virtual care as a tool that we could use to increase access to care across rural Oklahoma.

- Dr. Bradley Anderson is the medical director for virtual care at Oklahoma State University.

He says, when thinking about where to bring the clinic, it didn't take long to figure out where to take it.

- One of the ideas was our extension office that is well trusted within a community, oftentimes concentrated on around agricultural things such as soil testing and you know, water testing, those kind of things.

We thought, what not, why wouldn't we use that situation for healthcare?

- So it's a health clinic on wheels, but what does that exactly entail?

Surprisingly, a lot.

- Yeah.

So this is a, what we kind of classify as a walk-in kind of quick clinic, not quite an urgent care 'cause we don't do x-rays and we don't do, you know, procedures here on the bus, but we do provide kind of quick walking visits for, you know, colds, sore throats.

- Patients can even receive basic lab work for preventative care.

And much like a regular doctor's visit, a nurse is there to assist.

- My pressure's good one 10 over 70.

So I am actually the school's nurse.

So I handle a lot of student and residents.

So this gets me more into like the actual community side of it.

So getting to see the patients, especially out in rural areas, this is where I'm from.

So it's neat to be able to help the community and be a part of something big like this.

- Hello, how you doing Mr. Jones?

Doing good, - Good, good.

Sometimes they don't even realize the things that they might need.

And so those are the, some of the things that I am kind of trained on.

- Vanessa Weir is a community health worker for OSU Medicine.

Before patients see a doctor, they see Vanessa and she consults with them to see if they need other resources outside of healthcare.

- So maybe they come in and I pick up on, you know, maybe they need help with hygiene items or they need help connecting to food banks or you know, it might be something that they're coming in for, something very simple, but I pick up on other needs and so I can provide those resource lists.

- According to a US News and World Report ranking, about 61% of Oklahomans live in a medical desert, which means people often have a choice to make.

- So in my county, in McIntosh County, we do not have a hospital in in the entire county.

So our, our patients have to travel at least 30 to 45 minutes to get healthcare.

- Yeah, certainly I think transportation is one barrier and also cost is another barrier.

You know, it's difficult for people to be able to, you know, sometimes drive, there's always an issue with people being able to afford insurance, being able to find insurance, and kind of the lack of understanding about how to get that insurance.

And so I think it's a little bit of a perfect storm that occurs where there's less number of providers.

It's hard to get to a provider due to transportation and then you don't have the means to pay for the provider.

- When we offer it for free, then it kind of eliminates that boundary of people being able to pay.

So even if they have insurance, sometimes it might be they have to choose between a copay or they might be choosing to pick up that medication.

So even if they have insurance, they can still come see us.

And that eliminates one of those barriers.

- OSU Medicine and Extension team hope to expand its regular efforts to other counties in the future.

And one thing is for sure it's needed.

Watch your steps in Pittsburgh County.

I'm Kurtis Hair.

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

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

Follow us on social media and stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

I'm Lyndell Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.