(lively music) - Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Harvest is in full swing in Oklahoma, including here on the Moffat family farm in Cleveland County.

We'll have much more from their harvest in just a moment, but first Sunup's Kurtis Hair catches up with Dr. Amanda Silva.

- Well, combines have been rolling in Oklahoma wheat fields for the past couple of weeks.

So Amanda overall, how's harvest looking?

- Right now, we are able to make a lot of progress.

So if we go back a few weeks ago, wheat was ready to harvest a little earlier than usual because of drought.

But then, when we are just about to start cutting wheat, southwest producers started to cut some wheat, we got all that rain we wished we had during the season.

That rain took us out of the field for a while, for a week or more, depending on the area where we were.

But we, we were able to make some progress in the past weeks.

A lot of situation that we faced were the ground was not ready, the wheat was ready to be harvested but the ground was just too wet.

And yeah, but fortunately, we're able to make some progress in the past weeks.

- So, you know, with producers not able to get down any fields, have you been hearing any issues with sprouting?

- Yes, so especially in areas where the wheat was already matured when the rain came in.

That's where we have issues with sprouting.

So sprouting can be a factor that is caused by the environmental condition, but also a genetic.

So depending on the wheat variety, we may have more or less.

And what happens is the wheat is matured and you create those ideal conditions for seed germination.

So warm weather, humid, in wet conditions, that is what causes the seed just to start germinating while it's still in the wheat head.

And in those areas where we are seeing issues with pre-harvest sprouting damage, I would recommend for producers to take a look at their seed and if they're intending to plant for next season, to really do a germination test.

- What about in those areas that were really, really drought stressed in southwest Oklahoma or in southern Oklahoma?

What's the situation like with them?

Where they actually able to make a crop at all?

- In some cases, a lot of fields were abandoned.

In fact, we had to abandon one of our trials at Altus, unfortunately, and in some cases where they got a little bit more rain than other areas, we are hearing about 10 bushel crop in some cases, even 20 bushel crop.

But in some others, it's a five bushel crop.

And so what I would say is that we had some field abandoned, that were abandoned with a reason because the drought was just so extreme this year.

Some fields that producers were able to save and at least get something from it.

So what is actually giving us as a result is just our yields are so variable throughout the state and you move up to to north central Oklahoma, we have one of our trials there, it's about 60, 70 bushel crop.

And so very variable, protein is still favorable, in a good range.

Test weight was lowered a little bit with, especially in those locations where the range really delayed us.

But still we are in that good range, 58, 60.

So yeah, it's a, it's a variable year.

So for areas where we were able to at least cut something, that's great.

And especially in those areas where we got some timely rains, that's even better.

- All righty, thanks Amanda.

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

(lively music) - Welcome to this edition of the Mesonet Weather Report.

I'm Wes Lee.

This past week was officially the start of the summer season, however, it has felt like summer for quite a while.

Temperatures reached into the hundreds again on Wednesday adding to the recent string of days well above what is considered normal for this time of year.

Heat index numbers climbed even higher, up to 110 at McAlester.

Heat index is the combination of temperatures and humidity levels.

For cattle, the news has not been any better.

Cattle deaths have been reported in several of the southern plains states.

The Mesonet cattle comfort index was developed to help estimate how cattle are dealing with heat or cold issues.

The index takes into account the temperature and humidity, like heat index, but also wind and sunlight intensity.

Wednesday's map made it into the heat danger range as it had for at least the last two weeks.

Cattle do not perspire like humans and have- - To pant to expel body heat.

They must dissipate a lot of body heat during the nighttime, and need at least six hours of temperatures below 80 to return to normal.

On hot days, do all cattle handling and moving activities early in the morning if possible.

And always make sure plenty of water and shade is readily available.

Now here's Gary with the latest drought information.

- Thanks, Wes.

And good morning everyone.

Well, we're in our second week of the great heat wave of June of 2022.

And all I can say is thank goodness we got all that rain previous to that, or we would be in big trouble.

As it is, we're still in a little bit of trouble out in Western Oklahoma, a lot of big trouble out in the Western panhandle, but we can take a look at the newest drought monitor map and see exactly where we're at.

Same picture as last week.

The first week we've had in a long time where we're status quo.

We do have that area of no drought across west central Oklahoma, and that of course, fans out into moderate to severe drought as we go north and south.

A little bit of that extreme drought in Northwest Oklahoma.

And then of course the Western panhandle, which is in really bad shape.

We've gotten a little bit out in the panhandle.

Hope we get a little bit more as we go through the rest of the week, but we do see basically over the last two weeks, not a lot of rainfall.

Mother Nature shut off the faucet and turned up the heat.

We can see the extent of the current dry period.

We go back a couple of weeks basically where we see the consecutive days from the Mesonet without at least 1/4 inch of rainfall.

Now we're up to 27 days up in Alfalfa County, but basically across the state 11 to 13 days.

Some places 15, some places 20, but by and large, just about two weeks since that rainfall has definitely shut off.

And that of course, coincides with the heat wave.

We can take a look at this consecutive days with the maximum air temperatures greater than or equal to 90 degrees from the Mesonet.

We see basically 11 to 12 days.

Now, of course, some of these folks have had triple digit temperatures, but by and large, this dry spell and heat wave has lasted on the order of about a couple of weeks.

We look at the topsoil moisture from the USDA.

This is the percent short to very short across the state for the week ending June 19th.

We do see only 34% of the state, those top soils considered short to very short.

So definitely much better than we were just a couple of months ago when we were up to around 75% of the state.

That's it for this time.

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

(upbeat music) - We're joined now by Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist.

Kim, what in the world is happening with wheat prices?

- Well, somebody would say they fell out of bed.

In four marketing days, we probably knocked about $1.25 off of wheat prices.

Going from $11 up in the Medford Pond Creek area down to $9.75 Now that sounds like a lot, and it is, a dollar and a quarter is a lot of money for wheat prices to go down.

But if you go back to when we had $4 wheat, that's really equivalent to going down about 60 cents.

So yes, it's about 12, 15 cents.

It's important, but we still got 9.75 or so price for wheat.

- So quite a drop, but you put it in perspective for us.

Let's talk about some of the reasons why we saw that kind of decline in just a few days.

- Well, I think the biggest reason, and in earlier programs, we talked about the Russian Ukraine export of wheat.

Now Russia announced this week that they're looking at a record 31 billion plus harvest coming.

Ukraine's reported that they'll harvest about 80% of a crop.

Ukraine's getting storage facilities in there, storage bags, ways to store that wheat.

There's rumors that Russia is moving wheat.

Now they've got wheat.

They say, they're gonna export it.

They're trying to put it on the world market.

They're having trouble getting vessels.

Ukraine, Turkey said they will help 'em export.

Other countries are gonna help Ukraine get that wheat out.

And so that wheat's starting to move on the market and that makes the market nervous.

You've also got our crop.

We're halfway up into Kansas.

It is short crop, but it's a good crop.

And I think that's having an impact on our prices too.

- Some of the wheat we've seen looks really nice around the state.

The wheat that did make it.

So, from here now, will prices go up or down?

- Who knows what prices are gonna do?

I had a producer ask me when prices were 10.67, are prices going up or down?

And I said, I don't have a clue.

I do know that 10.67 and 51 bushels is what he harvested, is a doggone good price and a good amount of wheat.

I'd take advantage of it and that.

And so we're down to 9.75.

That's still a good price for wheat.

I would be staggering that wheat in the market.

I'd take some of it.

You don't know if it's gonna go to $12 or if it's gonna go to eight.

It will move, as we've seen in the last week.

- So that covers wheat.

Let's talk about corn and soybean prices.

- Well we really saw all commodity prices going down.

Corn prices went down 60 cents this last week up in the Medford.

This is for contract for 2022 harvest, from around 7.06 at Medford down to 6.50.

Around 60 cents.

You look at soybeans.

- [Kim] 4.63 down to 13.65, took off about a dollar off those prices, prices are going lower right now.

And the market is just nervous about these high prices.

- So how is cotton looking meanwhile?

- Well, cotton's knocked about 30 cents off of that price coming into the November time period.

So it, with corn, with soybeans, with sorghum, with all your commodities, prices are going lower.

We'll have to see how low they go.

- Alrighty, Kim, thanks a lot.

We'll see you next week.

(upbeat music) - Here I'm standing in front of poison hemlock.

Poison hemlock is one of the most toxic plants we have here in Oklahoma and is spread across the state.

The only counties you might not find this plant is in the Panhandle.

It's toxic to many livestock species, but more importantly it's also really toxic to humans.

Even by just touching this plants, you can become really, really sick.

So this is a plant that you don't wanna touch and you definitely do not want to eat.

For livestock and wildlife that consume this plant, they can sometimes die within 20 minutes and it doesn't take very much.

Less than 500 grams of this plant can actually kill an animal.

You might see this plant growing in your flower beds.

It might be growing in wooded areas in the edge of your property, you really need to be very, very careful when around this plant.

This plant has white flowers and they're kind of umbrella shaped.

The leaves kind of look like a fern and they have deep, deep lobing.

You can tell this plant apart from some of the other white-flowering plants that grow at this time of the year because of its really, really tall height.

This plant will grow six to 10 feet tall, as you can see behind me.

So another important characteristic that you can look for to help identify poison hemlock is the red spotting that you'll find on the stem.

This plant gets really, really large and the stems are big and they have all these little red dots along them.

And you can see these really, really well especially earlier in the season when the stems are really green.

So that can help you to identify it and is different from many of the other white-flowering plants that we have.

To manage this plant, you really don't want to do anything where you're touching it.

And even if you do spray it with herbicide, herbicides could increase the palatability of this plant.

So if it's in a pasture where livestock are grazing, that might not be the best option unless you can keep the livestock out for a length of time after you've sprayed it.

In addition, the stalks remain toxic for up to three years.

So you really wanna try to make sure that you remove any of the aboveground growth after you've done any kind of herbicide treatment.

One option for controlling this plant is after you've done a herbicide spray is to do a prescribed burn in that pasture to try to remove all of the aboveground material so you won't have any animals that potentially graze it.

Another thing that you can consider is not using heavy stocking rates and not using rotational grazing systems that have high stock densities where animals are forced to consume plants that they don't want to eat.

These can help to limit the chances of your livestock eating this plant accidentally.

You know, when we think about problem plants in our yards and in our pasture, we think about plants that might give us a rash like poison ivy or bull nettle.

But when we talk about plants like this, this could actually kill you.

And even just by touching it, it can really make you sick.

If you have questions about a plant that you think might be poison hemlock, take pictures of it and take it to your county extension office so they can help you to identify it.

(upbeat music) - Good to go.

Good morning, Oklahoma.

Thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner this week.

This week's topic is heat stress.

It's kind of a timely topic relative to the weather that we've been going through in Oklahoma the past few weeks and our forecast that we've got coming up.

And we're gonna address a little bit about what we can do to try to prevent it and some of the indicators are when cattle are subject to it.

First of all, any time the temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, we can potentially see heat stress occur in cattle.

The temperature-humidity index, something we can look up in a phone app or visit websites to get a feel for, any time that's over 80 we're at more risk of cattle suffering from heat stress and in particular, and something that's really hit home in the past two weeks in our state, when the night temperatures are not getting below 70 degrees, it does not give cattle time to offload that heat buildup that occurs in them naturally through the day.

So what do we get into in terms of management, things we suggest as far as best management practices to try to avoid heat stressing cattle?

First, if we have to work cattle, if we're gonna be handling or sorting on cattle, we need to be doing that as early in the morning as possible.

Now that leads to the question.

Could we wait till nighttime when the temperatures cool back off a little bit and potentially work cows then?

Not as good an option as doing it in the morning because cattle have built up heat all day long.

So even as those night temperatures start to fall cattle are still dealing with heat load at that point, which makes it a far better idea to be doing it in the morning.

Second thing, we need to provide ample amounts of clean water, cool water when possible, and even give some thought to- - Is there shade over automatic waterers?

Is our water coming out of a source that gets an opportunity to soak up a lot of sun and warms up itself?

Because as the temperature of water goes up, we actually see water intake decrease in cattle at a time of the year when it's warm.

And their water intake needs to increase for the sake of helping them cool off and offload that heat build up.

So ample amounts of water.

Keep that water as cool and clean as possible.

Allow ample water space is gonna be important to alleviate heat stress in cattle.

Couple other things, shade.

We need shade for cattle at this time of year, particularly black hided cattle.

Airflow can be very important at helping cattle have a little bit of evaporative cooling.

Cattle mainly get rid of heat through respiration and that process.

But airflow is really critical to avoiding heat stress.

If we've got anything up from the winter when we're trying to block wind, whether we've got hay stored somewhere, or maybe even just tall foliage beside areas where cattle are gonna shade up.

So some basic management practices, work 'em early in the morning, provide ample shade, provide ample water and do anything we can to eliminate wind breaks, so that there's some airflow through.

I suppose, if given the option, cattle are gonna catch a little more airflow at higher elevation than they are down in valleys.

So if we're putting in some kind of a shaded area, give thought to where you're gonna locate it.

If you are dealing with something that is mechanical shade that you're gonna move into pastures or grazing paddocks, the orientation of it can be helpful relative to if it's in a low spot, helping that dry up so that sun hits it more time of the day.

So a north south orientation versus an east west is something to give consideration to.

Just some tips on heat stress, how to try to avoid it.

And thanks for joining us on Cow Calf Corner.

- With the high cost of feed these days, many livestock producers are asking whether they should use a lower source of protein.

For some guidance, here's Dr. Dave Lalman.

- Feed costs are substantially higher this year than they have been in the past.

And so we've had a few questions about how this might influence the cost effectiveness of a popular mid to late summer supplementation program here in Oklahoma.

Here in this state, we call it the Oklahoma Gold Program.

And that's, essentially, it's the idea of providing one pound of supplement per head per day to either replacement heifers or growing stocker cattle.

That combination provided about 6/10 of a pound of additional weight gain per head per day.

So very substantial improvement in their performance with only one pound of feed.

Well, folks are asking, is that still gonna be cost effective with the higher protein supplement costs?

So just to give an example, let's say that a product might cost $450 a ton.

So that's 22 and a half cents a pound, or about 22 and a half cents per head per day feed cost.

Now you would have to add the additional cost to that that would be needed to get the supplement out to the animals.

So let's just say that's seven and a half cents per day, and we'll round it off to 30 cents.

And then the next thing you need to know is what is the value of the additional weight gain?

And that's gonna range, and each producer needs to calculate that or estimate that themselves.

But let's just say it's gonna be somewhere in the range of a dollar per pound of added weight gain.

So if we feed that for about 60 days through the middle to late part of the summer, we might expect another 36 pounds of weight gain give or take.

If that weight gain is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 per pound, again, give or take, and our costs are 30 cents a day.

We're gonna spend about $18 to get about 36 pounds of additional weight gain.

So even with a high protein supplement cost, it still pencils to be a cost effective program.

Now obviously, you could improve on that if you can lower the supplement cost by shopping around and so on and so forth.

The Oklahoma Gold Program is one way that producers can improve their management to increase their profitability through the mid and late part of the summer, and add value to calves in difficult times like this.

If you need more information about the Oklahoma Gold Program, just go to sunup.ok.state.edu.

(upbeat music) - Now back to wheat harvest in Cleveland County and four generations on the Moffat family farm.

(combines roaring) This iconic scene of wheat harvest is the fabric of Oklahoma.

Farming is what holds us together and helps to feed the world.

It's what the Moffat's have been made of for four generations.

- My folks moved down here in about.

- I think 47 or something like that, and I was five years old.

- [Lyndall] Jim Moffat is the patriarch of the family farm, his son, Jerry and grandsons, Coy and Conrad run the day-to-day.

Today, they're cutting wheat and getting ready for soybeans.

- We're just north of Lexington in the South Canadian River bottom.

We, right now, it's kind of our wheat harvest time.

We double-crop soybeans behind the wheat.

If it, we normally try to no-till, if the grounds conditions are right.

This year it's a little bit wet harvesting so we got some fields it's gonna be no-till, some that will probably be conventional till back into soybeans.

- [Lyndall] A bit wet, maybe an understatement.

Muddy fields slowed progress.

- So we got 5-1/2 inches there in a matter of about two days.

And we had luckily got two loads out before the rain, but then we had to wait for it to kind of dry out the ground so we could get on it to combine.

- [Lyndall] And combine they are.

A few hot and dry days means it's full speed ahead.

- This year actually has been a real good year for us.

The wheat looks good, it stood good.

We switched to Doublestop a few years ago, and the variety, that variety of wheat for us has been a lot more, just more tolerant to our conditions here.

This year it's, even with that 5-1/2 inches of rain on it, we didn't, we had very little wheat went down.

- You know, we're double-cropping so this year making 45 bushel an acre's been really good.

Normally we were doing good if we make 30 after double-cropping soybeans in.

Got the right rain at the right time and didn't dry out too much for it.

So we had to start to pivot a little bit this year on some ground to get it up, but other than that, it's been a really good year for wheat.

- [Lyndall] Oklahoma's 2022 wheat crop is hit or miss.

Drought led to abandonment of 45 percent of fields in the state.

Springs heavy downpours and hail caused further damage and disease pressure.

But areas with timely rains are thriving with good yields and protein, depending on the variety.

- At Apache, we've been getting the highest protein over there.

We've been getting paid for 20 cents extra for 15 percent protein.

So we've been, we really like the Doublestop, you know.

it stands up so it doesn't sprout as bad, is what we like about it.

- At age 20, Conrad does more than farm.

This fall, he starts his senior year at Oklahoma State University, majoring in animal science with an interest in livestock genetics for their cattle operation.

His grandpa says Conrad's education is already making a difference.

- And he's real good on keeping track of the bulls and what breed line we need to stay with and all that.

I mean, he's good on that.

And good on the computer.

- [Lyndall] He is, indeed, the embodiment of the future of agriculture.

- Dad's farmed here all of his life.

And that's, of course, that's, I kind of grew up in it.

That's all I knew what to do and exactly what I wanted to do.

And for us, I mean, for me, it's been a big benefit.

I enjoy the way of life.

I mean, it's, I couldn't ask for anything any better.

And then to see my boys come up and kind of wanting the same way, it makes you pretty proud.

- [Lyndall] Conrad and his brother, Coy, plan to carry on the family farm.

- So long as they want to do it, whatever they want do.

Funny about it, we're not gonna take it with us, so raising food for people, that's what it's all about.

- I've always, I grew up on the farm, so I've always really enjoyed it.

And I'm hoping after college to come back and take it over.

Always walking in my dad and grandpa's footsteps.

Hope to continue that on.

- [Lyndall] Is your grandpa retired?

(laughs) - He says he is, but we, he'll always come around and help some, still.

He says he is retired but we still don't see it and believe it, so.

(soft music) - [Lyndall] That'll do it for us this week.

Remember, you can find us anytime at Sunup.OKState.edu, and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

From Cleveland County, I'm Lyndall Stout, and we'll see you next time at Sunup.

(lively music)