Hello everyone, we have another great show lined up for you today on SUNUP.

New World Screwworm in Texas continues to make headlines.

Hear the latest on prevention and detection in Oklahoma from OSU Extension's Livestock Entomologist.

Then after the latest USDA crop production and supply and demand reports, we'll talk about what, if any effect they had on wheat prices.

And policy updates and FSA deadlines for base acres.

Get the latest from our ag policy specialist.

Grab that hot cup of coffee because an all new SUNUP starts right now.

Welcome to SUNUP, everyone.

I'm your host, Lyndall Stout.

We begin today with more information for Oklahomans on New World Screwworm.

Today, we have expert guidance from Dr.

Jonathan Kamek, OSU Extension Livestock Entomology and Parasitology Specialist.

Let's first start with how these flies move.

It's slower than we realize if they're just doing it on their own versus being transported.

Right.

So, you know, naturally the flies only have the ability to fly relatively short distances, maybe five to ten miles over the course of their lifespan while that female fly is looking for a host animal to to lay her eggs on.

And a lot of the very large jumps that we have seen over the past year and a half or so with their movement through Mexico have been movement of animals from positive areas to areas that didn't have screwworms.

So we can put cows into a trailer, for example, and drive them hundreds of miles in a day, whereas that screwworm fly is only going to be able to travel maybe five to ten miles over the course of her lifespan.

So, you know, we can think about a role that humans might be playing in their movement as well.

So what's happening in South Texas where this case was confirmed is kind of locked down now.

Yes.

Yes.

So the kind of current protocol for whenever there is a case of screwworms in the United States and this this goes back to, you know, even to about 10 years or so ago when there were cases in in South Florida in the Florida Keys.

The protocol is it's kind of an all hands on deck type situation where USDA deploys a response team that's trained in monitoring for screwworms, trapping for them and very well trained in kind of their biology.

And so they set up a perimeter essentially around an infected area.

And it's a pretty wide area, probably 25 miles or so in diameter, kind of around that that point where that infestation happened.

And they released the sterilized flies in that area to wipe out any wild flies that might be present.

But they also do a significant amount of trapping to make sure there are no other wild and therefore viable flies in the environment.

No cases in Oklahoma.

No reason to panic, but guidance for producers to to not overworry.

But there are things they can go ahead and do.

Right.

So certainly not present in Oklahoma.

That's the one thing we want to continue to let everybody know.

But really, we just need to be vigilant and producers need to to have eyes on their animals and be checking them more frequently than they might currently be for open wounds or or other potential screwworm entry points.

So I think if we we look across the cattle spectrum across the country, we have producers that are looking at their animals, maybe maybe on a daily basis, maybe two or three times a week.

And then we've got the other side of that, where we have producers that might be looking at their animals in the spring when they get tagged and dewormed and then in the fall when they get get worked again.

And so we have kind of this pretty broad spectrum of of working with animals.

And we need to narrow that down to where all of our livestock producers are working with their animals on a frequent basis.

And whether that frequency is, you know, once a week or two, three times a week, it just needs to be, you know, kind of somewhere within that that range of time.

It's getting warmer in Oklahoma.

There are lots of flies, especially where animals are, but it's not necessarily a screwworm.

Likely not.

Right.

So we have a lot of flies that kind of fall under this larger umbrella of what we call filth flies, because they like to live in and around dirty things.

A lot of them are metallic.

A lot of them are not.

But their common theme is that they like things that smell bad.

So, you know, manure, trash, maybe rotting feed or hay or something.

So we see a lot of flies out in the environment, particularly around our livestock.

A lot of those flies are also metallic in color.

So the larger group of flies that screwworms are kind of, you know, part of are metallic blue and green in color.

And these are the flies that we typically see associated with decomposing materials.

So carrion, dead animals, things like that.

We've also got other flies that are metallic green that are strongly associated with our livestock.

So there is a fly that's very closely related to house flies that only eats cow manure.

So the last thing we need is for any of our livestock producers to, you know, be up in arms about, you know, I saw a metallic green fly, you know, out in my pasture or or in my barn, because I can guarantee you metallic flies and nonmetallic flies that that kind of feed on these rotting materials are there and they have been there for for quite some time.

But they're not screwworms.

And you and your fellow scientists are setting up monitoring and doing your usual thing right this time of year, but also monitoring for screwworm.

That's correct.

So there's a huge monitoring effort going on in South Texas right now.

There there has been there have been screwworm specific traps that have been deployed essentially along the Rio Grande River, the border between Texas and Mexico, monitoring for for screwworms.

There are a lot of other people around the the states of Texas and Oklahoma, New Mexico, some of our surrounding states that that have positions similar to mine.

And we're all working to put in monitoring efforts.

So I have a project right now that's going where we're looking at the distribution of kind of this larger group of flies.

The blow flies around the state of Oklahoma.

So we're out sampling, looking for things to try to keep out, keep an eye out before something happens.

It's reassuring that you and your fellow scientists are on top of this.

And of course, there's a lot of information available through OSU Extension.

That's correct.

Yeah, we have a new website that's just recently launched compiling a lot of this information.

It's screwworm.okstate.edu, and anybody can go there and get information as we put it out.

All right, Jonathan, thanks a lot.

Great information.

And for a link to that website, go to sunup .okstate.edu.

Oklahomans can help prevent the spread of new world screwworm by reporting any potential cases of infestations for livestock or pets.

Contact your local OSU Extension County office, your veterinarian or the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

And for suspected cases in wild animals, contact your local USDA Wildlife Services office.

For more information, check out our resources page at screwworm .okstate.edu.

Good morning, this is state climatologist Gary McManus with your Mesonet weather report.

Well, I'm wondering if folks in western Oklahoma have forgotten to pay their water bill because we keep getting rainfall, some decent rains in some places, but we just continue to miss out in the most important spots.

And those are those areas most impacted by drought.

Let's get to that new drought monitor map and take a look.

We are certainly doing wonders across the eastern third to half or so, including down across south central Oklahoma.

But we still have that blob of extreme to exceptional drought across central all the way over in the west central Oklahoma and then out into the panhandle.

We have a few improvements in that region, but we just are not getting enough rainfall and we are having really bad drought as we get into the heat of summer.

So we're really going to have to be careful here.

We take a look at this seven day rainfall map from the Mesonet.

And here we can see the rainfall we had to work with with this week's map.

And again, across the eastern third and then, you know, other parts of the state, north central, south central Oklahoma.

Some pretty decent amounts.

But across the western half or so of the state, just way too many of those blue colors.

We did have some good rains out in Roger Mills County, but that was few and far between for the totals out in that region.

Just simply not enough rainfall.

And the 60 day rainfall map tells the real story.

Again, a lot of those greens and yellows out across that area of the state, western Oklahoma and the panhandle.

Simply not enough rainfall.

Those great reds, oranges and even purple colors across the eastern portions of the state.

And again, up in north central, up into that part of the state, south central Oklahoma, some pretty good totals, but just not enough across western Oklahoma.

So even on the longer term, we are hurting for rainfall.

And now we really see it as we look at this departure from normal rainfall map again over the last 60 days from the Oklahoma Mesonet.

And we can see large scale deficits of four to five, even close to six inches across that area.

Also over into central Oklahoma and even up into Osage County and portions of K County.

So these small areas do add up and we have an overall drought picture just not good enough for this time of year as we start to head into summer.

And it is summer, of course.

So we look at the days with the temperatures above 100 degrees.

This will probably go up by a day or two by the time you see this, especially across western Oklahoma.

But we are starting to see those triple digit temperatures.

And believe it or not, we have just as many triple digit temperatures up in the Panhandle and far northwest Oklahoma as we do southwest Oklahoma.

So anywhere we have those really bad drought conditions, we're going to see those temperatures soar when it gives it when it gets a chance.

Well, it's the same tired phrase I say at the end of every week to get out of this drought.

We just need rainfall.

We're getting well into summer.

So we really need to get that rainfall going across western Oklahoma.

Hopefully next week we'll have better news.

That's it for this time.

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

We're joined now by Dr.

Todd Hubbs, our OSU Extension Crop Marketing Specialist.

And Todd, wheat harvest full speed ahead in Oklahoma.

And we're talking wheat prices.

Yeah, we're coming along nicely.

You're seeing the crop come in.

A lot of delivery going around at elevators around the state.

Spotty crop.

You know, there's some really good.

There's a lot of really bad because we've had a pretty rough winter.

And the prices, not where we would like them, not where they were a month and a half ago after the May crop production report.

Even though the June crop production report showed winter wheat crops down even more than they said in May, another about 18 million bushels have lost of hard red winter, basically confirming what we've seen in the Southern Plains and particularly here in Oklahoma and Kansas.

They dropped the Kansas yield two bushels an acre.

Oklahoma's still at 28.

One of the smallest winter wheat crops in decades.

And despite all that, prices have still been weaker.

We've seen some of that geopolitical risk come out of the prices.

It looks like this Iran war thing's going to get worked out a bit.

We disconnected from energy prices.

And on top of all that, like they reported in the WASDE, which confirmed what a lot of people thought, the Northern Hemisphere wheat crops outside the United States are decent this year.

They're not massive crops like we saw last year, but they're not like ours really bad.

That helps explain why with production being down, prices are still down.

That's true.

And we also have a decent carry in because of the big crop last year.

So there's stocks still out there.

And we'll get a better idea of what we had at the end of the market here at the end of the month of June, because we get the June stocks reports, which will give us an idea of all of our stocks of our major grains and oil seeds on hand.

And for wheat, that's the end of the marketing year.

So we expect that to be elevated from the year before.

And then you add the production onto it.

And we always see a little bit of harvest pressure when things are coming in.

But I think the main story is with this bad crop, we would expect prices to be much higher than where they are now normally.

But around the globe, their crops are just there.

Yeah.

And that's an issue for us.

Briefly, we want to touch on corn and soybean prices.

How are things looking there?

Pretty much the same.

A lot of weakness.

Everything's gone down.

We saw corn prices hit a marketing year low recently.

We're going to know more at the end of June when they do the acreage report.

When they originally put out the corn acreage in March and the prospective plantings, they said 95.3 million acres.

I have no reason to doubt that farmers like planting corn.

And when it's you can hit a homer with corn, right?

The yields can be really large.

And so we'll see what they say.

There's been a lot of talk because fertilizer prices are elevated and moving to oil seeds like soybeans or other crops that don't require a lot of nitrogen.

Right.

I'm not so sure.

And so that'll be a good indicator.

And it probably will set the tone for corn through pollination.

All right, Todd, well, we appreciate your analysis and we'll see you again very soon.

Thanks a lot.

Our state's wheat harvest is now 90 percent complete, according to the Oklahoma Wheat Commission.

Producers in the north central region have made significant progress after rain events, but moisture is still a challenge in some fields.

As harvest winds down, statewide yields range from 15 to 30 bushels per acre, with some fields averaging in the mid 30s.

Northern Oklahoma overall has higher yields ranging from 30 to the mid 50 bushels per acre.

Test weights are averaging between 57 to 59 pounds per bushel statewide, with protein levels ranging from 12 and a half to 13 percent, which is generally favorable for milling quality wheat.

Back to the topic of New World screw worm now.

Dr.

Mark Turner, OSU Extension Wildlife Specialist, tells us how this invasive pest may impact wildlife populations.

I'm Mark Turner, Wildlife Extension Specialist at OSU, and today we're going to be talking about the effects of New World screw worm on wildlife populations.

As many of you are familiar, there has been some detections of New World screw worm within the United States.

It's not yet been detected in Oklahoma.

However, it's important to be knowledgeable about some of the potential effects that it might have.

Most folks are familiar with some of the issues that producers may be looking for and potential issues with cattle production that could be affected by screw worm.

But not as many folks are aware that screw worm can also impact populations of many wildlife species.

Screw worm feeds on living flesh.

And so in particular, it targets mammals.

But it can also occasionally be found in birds.

And so many species of wildlife are actually vulnerable to screw worm as it as it is potentially, you know, reentering new areas in areas with screw worm.

Historically, during the 1930s to the 1950s, there were many accounts, in particular with whitetail deer, of major effects on wildlife populations and specifically with deer.

A lot of the time there were issues with screw worms impacting fawns.

And although at that time there wasn't great wildlife monitoring technology, we do actually have a more recent example of potential screw worm impacts on whitetail deer specifically.

And back in 2016, screw worm was detected within the Florida Keys.

And specifically there, it was impacting populations of the endangered key deer, which although that's a it's a subspecies of whitetail deer that's relatively small in size.

It's the same species of deer that we have in most of Oklahoma.

And so whitetail deer populations there were negatively impacted by screw worm.

And although they were able to eradicate screw worm within the Florida Keys, over the course of about a five month period, unfortunately, the population of key deer were negatively impacted.

And in fact, about 20 percent of the key deer were killed by screw worm.

And so that's not to say that screw worm is going to eradicate populations of wildlife species or anything like that.

But we certainly can see some negative impacts if about 20 percent of a deer population could be killed by screw worm in only a five month period.

And so things to be aware of going forward, certainly as more information comes out about the spread and distribution of screw worm, be aware if it's been detected within your area.

And actually, this is a great opportunity for many folks in the general public to serve as citizen scientists.

And so a lot of hunters are out there and they have trail cameras out on their properties or areas that they may be hunting.

And that's a great opportunity to potentially help with detection of screw worm.

And although there's other monitoring efforts ongoing, wildlife populations are a little bit harder to monitor.

And so if you get a picture of a deer that looks like it has a large infection on its side, certainly that's something to be aware of and something that you're going to want to look at reporting to either USDA Wildlife Services or Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

And so, again, hunters can be great assets when it comes to detecting screw worm.

Fortunately, during the time of year, whenever most folks are going to be out there hunting in Oklahoma in the fall, screw worm shouldn't be as active on deer, and so I'm not necessarily anticipating seeing it on deer during the fall, but you could pick it up on deer during the summertime.

It goes without saying that oftentimes when a new disease emerges or at least one that we're not as familiar with, it can be a little bit scary.

And certainly there are some negatives with wildlife populations that could occur with screw worm.

And that's why it's important to stay vigilant.

But it's important also not to panic and recognize that, you know, deer populations and populations of lots of wildlife species, in fact, persisted for a long time dealing with New World screw worm.

It's important to recognize that the work is being done right now to monitor and and help control this this new problem.

For more information on screw worm, its distribution and potential management options, check out some of the information that's available at screwworm.okstate.edu.

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

This week, we continue to talk about feet in beef cattle.

Last week, we talked about foot rot.

This week, we get more into the topic of the genetic component of feet, feet structure, and just structural soundness in beef cattle.

Structural soundness in beef cattle is an economically important trait.

Whether we're in a cow-calf operation, whether we're in a finishing operation, even a stalker phase, structural soundness equates to longevity and problem-free production.

And it's a positive thing for us in the cattle business.

How can we select for it?

There are basically a couple measurements that we have arrived at in the beef cattle business that serves an effective tool.

We can collect those phenotypes.

We can actually use pedigree genomic data and those phenotypes of feet scores to arrive at an EPD.

It's been available in Angus cattle for a little over 10 years.

There are other breeds that are actually working on collecting phenotypes to generate those EPDs within breed right now.

And so what are those two things?

If you look at the chart that appears on screen, we basically come up with two scores looking at the feet of an animal.

One of them is kind of a score that we would take from directly looking down in front of the animal.

We want to score the worst foot on a particular animal and arrive at that claw score.

And what we're trying to get out here is toes that are evenly spaced.

They're even, the feet actually look big.

If we can take that into consideration, along with that angle score, thinking about how that pastern joint ties down, hopefully at about a 45 degree angle, tie into the right feet or claw score, we get some depth of heel.

These two things collectively, if we look at these optimum or ideal scores of five for both of these phenotypes equates to an animal.

Since we know that all joint angles tend to correlate and be about the same, this is going to equate to an animal that puts their weight down evenly as they need to on those feet.

And it's going to tend to keep them sounder, longer and contribute to overall productivity longevity as we think about beef production.

The EPDs themselves that we generate from these phenotypes, basically right now in our current population of Angus cattle, a lower score gets you closer to those ideal scores of five, whether you're looking at claw or angle.

And so whether you're going to collect the phenotypes in your own commercial cow-calf operation, take that into account in looking at replacement heifers.

Typically, we don't want to look at these scores until they're about a year of age.

We know that feet are going to change a little bit with age and through maturity.

If we're looking at this and want to put selection pressure on it through sire selection, we can look at those two EPDs and the bulls we're going to use and know that it's going to contribute to long-term structural soundness.

Final thought on these EPDs.

Both of these traits fall into the moderate heritability category.

There's actually a positive genetic correlation between claw and angle.

So selection pressure applied to these traits is going to lead to that cumulative, permanent, additive genetic improvement that we're looking for that will serve us well in the long term in cow herds.

Hope this helps.

And as always, thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner.

Finally, today, we hear from OSU Extension Ag Policy Specialist Dr.

Amy Hagerman, who has a timely update for Oklahoma producers on deadlines and some changes in legislation.

USDA has announced that producers are welcome to enroll new base acres.

Now, this is something that was in the one big, beautiful bill last summer.

Up to 30 million base acres can be added to farms across the country.

But first, let's pause because I get the question a lot.

What are base acres?

Base acres are your historical production on your operation.

This goes back to 1985 legislation that established base acres and they occasionally get updated over time.

The last update was 2009 to 2012 on a broader basis and for seed cotton in 2018.

And that's important for this base acre update as well.

So landowners, not necessarily the producers or the leases, but the landowners have until August 31st to enroll in their login.gov account or go into their Farm Service Agency office to determine whether they want to update the base acres on their operation.

It's going to be based on 2019 to 2023 planted acres or prevent plant acres on the farm.

Now, these total acres that can be added in terms of new base has to be less than the total base acres, including unassigned base on the farm.

Now, what about unassigned base?

You'll remember back in 2018, whenever seed cotton was brought back into ARC and PLC programs, that producers, as they did that allocation, had these leftover acres, unassigned base that wasn't included in their program eligible acres.

Those could be brought back in through this new base acre program.

So I really encourage you to look at your look at your inbox, see if you got a message from Farm Service Agency.

Go talk to your county office and find out if you might be eligible for new base acres on your operation.

A new artificial intelligence chat bot with all kinds of useful information is now up and running.

The OSU extension bot answers questions based on more than 400,000 extension publications, articles and fact sheets, as well as content from different educational programs.

And it's all sourced exclusively from 30 different extension networks and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.

The chat bot gives you unlimited access 24-7 to accurate and practical information in all areas, including agriculture and natural resources, gardening, health, nutrition and family resilience.

Check out the extension chat bot by scanning the QR code on your screen or going to SUNUP.okstate.edu.

That'll do it for our show this week.

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

Follow us on our social media and stream our content anytime on YouTube, youtube.com/SUNUP TV.

We leave you this week with another set of great photos captured by our chief photographer, Mitchell Alcala, of 4 -H members giving back to their community.

They're installing native pollinator flowerbeds at the Route 66 fire department in Tulsa.

It's all in partnership with the Keep Oklahoma Beautiful Project and the city of Tulsa.

These students are connecting agriculture and community while celebrating the 100th anniversary of Route 66.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week, everyone.

We'll see you next time at SUNUP.