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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We join you today from Kay County near Tonkawa, where the weather's been absolutely ideal for wheat harvest this week.

And today, we are at River Road Farms with the Caughlin family.

And Joe, thanks for having us out.

- How are things looking?

- Lyndall, it's been great weather the last few days for Wheat Harvest here in North Central Oklahoma, and today, we're here in a field of Doublestop CL Plus, and we're excited to have this opportunity to harvest today.

Doublestop CL Plus is a great variety.

It's one that's very good for grain yield, very good for test weight.

It's an excellent wheat for grazing as well, good protein wheat, excellent end use.

So we sure appreciate Dr.

Carver and his Wheat Improvement Team for all that they do for Oklahoma State and the wheat producers in our state.

So we're excited about wheat harvest right now.

Here in our part of the state, we have some Green Hammer to harvest yet, and we also have some Showdown to bring in.

So the wheat's been doing pretty well in general.

We've had wheat yields ranging from 40 bushels to 70 bushels per acre and even some intensive managed wheat a tick higher than that in spots.

- You've already cut some Doublestop here.

How is this field in particular looking for you?

- I think this field looks like it should be in that 60-bushel-per-acre range, somewhere in that neighborhood.

We haven't checked a test weight yet, but I'm assuming it's gonna be 62 to 63 pounds.

Doublestop is always a very heavy test weight wheat.

So I'm excited to see what that's going to be.

But yeah, it looks beautiful.

It's a beautiful day.

We've got an open seven to eight days of open weather, it looks like.

So we're excited about being able to harvest now.

- When did you guys get started?

- We got started about five days ago.

It was a little bit green and a little bit wet with some of the rains that we've had recently, but we got started and been working for several days now, and it's been busy.

Really, it's been busy.

- Since you planted last fall, what has this growing season been like for you up here?

- We were pretty wet late in the fall.

You know, through the winter, we had some wet weather kind of in that December-January period, which is unusual for winter weather.

So, but where we got good stands, the wheat looked good, and had a little bit of a dry spell kind of in that March time period, but the wheat weathered it well.

We got some tough varieties that took it very well.

So then we started getting some rains in May, and they helped finish the crop.

Really had a lot of cool weather in the spring, late spring, so that really helped us with grain fill, and that's really what's helped us a lot with the yield potential that we've seen so far.

- So the last couple months, a lot of us were glued to the TV night after night after night, watching this terrible weather coming through Oklahoma.

Did you all experience any of that around here?

- Right here, south of Tonkawa, we didn't have as much hail as other places.

I did have some growers that did have some hail damage up around Kildare and Newkirk and east of our farm.

Fortunately, some of that hail damage, although it looked pretty significant, you know, the wheat genetic potential of these varieties is so good nowadays, they still perform very well.

And we still saw some 40, 50, 60 bushel yield, even in some hail damage of 10 to 30, 40%.

So it was exciting to see how these varieties can still weather the storms like they did.

- Really, we talk about the resiliency of drought and the disease pressure and insects, but to have that weather resiliency too is pretty amazing.

- Yes, yes.

I mean, these varieties, they're bred to perform, and so Mother Nature throws everything at us, and yes, we can try to manage the best we can, but I mean, it's great to have that genetic base there to give us all the opportunity that we have.

So we're very appreciative of that as well.

- Now this is a family farm, been in the Caughlin name for over 100 years.

Tell us just a little bit about that and kind of this next generation too that's helping you out.

- I've been blessed to have this opportunity to be a fourth generation agriculture producer.

We raise wheat, corn, soybeans, cattle here on our farm.

My dad did it before me, my grandpa.

My son Kevin, he'll be the fifth generation on our farm.

Got a couple nephews that help me out.

My brother Paul helps me out as well.

So I'm really appreciative of my family for giving me this opportunity, something I take a lot of pride in, and I'm very proud of.

- So you also work with a lot of seed producers in this area too.

Tell us how that's going and how things are looking for them as they're cutting wheat.

- Sure, Lyndall.

We have a certified wheat seed business that we grow Oklahoma State varieties for.

And we also do something a little bit different than some producers.

We have contract growers that help us.

So we have the opportunity for our contract growers and their families to help us grow the wheat that we need to provide to our seed wheat customers in the fall.

So that helps us spread our risk out, get more wheat across a geography in case we have hailstorms, as we've seen this past year.

- And so, that's a win-win situation.

We pay them a little bit of a premium and then they bring their wheat to us and we clean it and it goes through the certification process and it also gives those producers, those customers, a way to look at that wheat on their farm, sometimes new varieties for the first time.

We had some high cotton this year down around Perry, the De Vor farm helped grow that for us.

It really looks nice, really a lot of yield potential, a very consistent variety, very good test weight, stands in the field very well.

I'm excited about high cotton.

- It sounds like a really good harvest for you all overall.

- Yes.

- And your colleagues, you know, at these different farms.

- Yes, it's been nice.

It's been really... Like I said, the weather's opened up.

It was so rainy down south for a while.

We were nervous about that, but the weather's opened up.

It's beautiful harvest weather now.

I think the next six or seven days there's gonna be a lot of harvest progress made, not just on our farm, but across this area.

- Is is it safe to say this is your favorite time of year?

- I think it is.

- [Interviewer] Besides maybe when Santa comes or whatever, but- - Yeah, it's exciting.

I love the springtime in preparation for harvest.

Sometimes when we get in harvest, it's like, I'm ready for this to be over.

(chuckles) You know, we're tired, you know, we work long hours, but then the fall is a fun time of year too.

When we plant the wheat, we're thinking about what new varieties we want to grow.

So I like it all.

But this is certainly the climax of a nine-month growing cycle and so that's very exciting, it is.

- Best of luck to you and your crews and the other folks that you work with as you all finish harvest.

And happy Father's Day to you on Sunday.

- Thank you, Linda, we appreciate that.

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

I'm Wes Lee.

The spring rainy season was a good one for most areas of the state.

However, now it appears that we are heading into the typical hot dry weather Oklahoma summers are known for.

This brings us to the start of irrigation season for those that have irrigation equipment and water available.

Mesonet has several tools to help irrigators make decisions.

First, our reference evapotranspiration maps called ET maps for short.

They're calculated daily for both short crops like Bermuda grass and tall crops like corn.

You can also view this data for an individual site, like Fort Cobb shown here.

It lists both the reference ETs for short and tall crops, along with specific ETs for warm and cool season grasses.

It also shows daily pan evaporation, which is basically how much water is lost from the surface of a water source, like a stock tank.

Another tool available is for irrigation scheduling on most of Oklahoma's major crops.

Shown here is the tool for cotton, again, at Fort Cobb.

This table shows ET values along with rainfall inputs.

To use the tool, you go down to the last date of irrigation to see the water balance.

If this negative number is high enough, then it indicates it is time to irrigate again.

(upbeat music) - [Newscaster] And just a quick break in the show to see how wheat harvest is progressing throughout the state.

With the recent warm weather and break in the rain, combines are finally able to make a dent in the fields.

The Oklahoma Wheat Commission says harvest is about 75% complete with test weights ranging from 58 to 64 pounds per bushel.

Protein is ranging from 9% to 13.5% and yields are coming in about 40 to 50 bushels per acre.

If you would like more information about this year's wheat harvest, just go to sunup.okstate.edu.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner.

This week's topic is one that we addressed recently at our blueprint for the Future Beef Cattle Conference.

And it's basically addressing the question, can management influence the carbon footprint of beef production?

And in short, the answer to that is yes.

And if we are a cow-calf operation, the reality is that what we do with regard to managing pastures, if we rotationally graze, if we practice no-till or minimum tillage, if we do something like adaptive multi-paddock grazing, we are doing things that do decrease the carbon footprint of beef production.

Now, there remains a lot to be sorted out with regard to carbon markets and how much of a revenue stream is potentially available to us in the future from doing some of these things.

But we learned some interesting information at our conference.

Dr. Jason Roundtree from Michigan State University has led a team of researchers there and they took a look from 2011 to 2018 running cows that weighed from 950 pounds to 1,450 pounds at maturity and took a look at several different things.

And what they found is that those smaller mature weight cows at equal body condition scores consistently weaned off a higher percentage of their mature weight.

Those cows were more biologically efficient in that sense as well... - We found that those cows, or they found that those cows left a smaller carbon footprint by using adaptive multi-paddock grazing.

Those cattle and calves were actually grazing a more highly digestible diet.

They had less enteric methane emission and collectively the result of the higher energy diet, the intensive, highly managed rotational grazing system that they were in, there was more carbon sequestration in the soil and left a smaller carbon footprint, and hence documented the advantage of a more moderate, mature weight cow in production with regard to that carbon footprint, the overall biological efficiency, and looking at that on an economic basis, those smaller mature weight cows had a higher net present value than those heavier weight cows.

Again, there's a lot to sort out long term, but if we can consistently establish the metrics, the management, and the monitoring of things that influence soil health, there could come a day where selling carbon credits could be an additional revenue stream for cow calf producers.

As always, thanks for being with us on Cow Calf Corner.

(lively music) - I'm Kim Anderson and this is Tailgate Talk on Sun Up's Market Monitor.

The USDA released the World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates and the Crop Production Estimates this last week.

Let's start with wheat.

If you look at wheat production, US wheat production was estimated or projected to be 1.88 million bushels compared to 1.81 last year, and an average of 1.89.

World wheat production was projected to be 29.1 billion bushels.

That's a near record.

It was 28.9 last year, and your average is 28.

Hybrid winter wheat for the United States was projected to be 726 million bushels compared to 601 last year and an average of 745.

So you really got average US wheat above average world wheat production and below average or right at average of hard red winter wheat.

The important numbers for wheat are the stocks-to-use ratios.

You look at all US wheat, it's for '24 '25, it's projected to be 39.4%.

It's 37.5 last year, and the average is 40.8.

So slot just, we might as well say right at average, stocks-to-use ratio for all wheat.

You look at world wheat, 31.6.

Down from last year's 32.2.

I think that's good news for us, and it's below the 33.5% average.

We don't have a stock-to-use ratio for hard red winter wheat.

We'll get that number next month, but we finished the year at 47%.

That's slightly below average on the 50%.

If you look at wheat prices, you see that wheat prices, you go back to April, around $5 and 40, 45 cents.

We had an increase in prices up to $6 and 85 cents a bushel.

That was the end of May.

We came into harvest at 6.85 and then we've lost about 85 cents since we got into harvest.

I think what's important though is to look at when to sell wheat.

If you look at the June, July, and August average from 2009 through this last year, that average price is $5 and 85 cents, and it was about the same for June, July and August.

But once you got to September, you lost 23 cents a bushel on the average on that.

So what that tells you on wheat is to just get you a mechanical marketing strategy.

Say sell it in lots of six or 16% of the time.

Start June 15, July one, July 15, July 30, August 15 and August 31.

Make up your own mechanical marketing strategy and I think you'll be happy with how it turns out with wheat.

Now let's look at corn, soybeans and cotton.

On that WASDE report, corn production was estimated to be a record 16.9 billion bushels.

It's 15.3 last year.

You look at the average, it's 14.4, so well above average corn production.

Soybean production at a record 4.45 million bushels.

4.17 last year, and an average is 4.17.

Cotton production at 16 million bales compared to 12 last year and an average of 16.4.

Now, the important numbers again, are those stocks-to-use ratios.

Corn, 14.2% projected for this next year compared to 13.7 last year and an average of 11.6.

Well above average for corn.

If you look at soybeans, 10.4%.

Last year, 8.5, the average, 7.5.

Again, well above average product and stocks-to-use ratios there.

With cotton at 27.5%, that's higher than last year's 20.1% and the average of 22%.

So above average stocks-to-use ratios for cotton.

If you look at corn, the world stock-to-use ratio is slightly below average and soybeans is above average.

Now looking at prices forward contracting for the upcoming harvest.

- Right now, you can forward contract corn for around $4.43.

The average price from '09 through '23 was 4.80.

And you look at the stocks-to-use ratios, you would expect corn prices to be down in this range.

Soybeans, you can forward contract for 10.70.

Average is 10.80.

Look at the stocks-to-use ratio, you might expect a slightly below average price.

And so we'll have to watch that soybean price as we go on out.

Cotton prices, cotton prices have fallen around 72 cents on that ICE Futures contract, and that implies around 68 or 69 cent cotton as we get into harvest.

I look forward to visiting with you again next week on "SUNUP's" Market Monitor.

(upbeat country music) - So heat stress in horses is definitely something that we have to think about.

If I'm going to provide my best strategies that are maybe the easiest for people to implement, always make sure the horse has plenty of fresh water.

They really do increase their intake quite a bit.

You may find, like even if you've got a 50-gallon tank of water, it's gonna go down quite a bit per day.

So horses may double to triple their normal water intake just to cool themselves in these temperatures.

Especially on days like this that it's really windy, that actually does help with evaporative cooling.

But again, all of that water is coming out of that horse, and we need to get that back in.

So plenty of water.

Obviously, when horses are sweating, that means we increase their salt intake as well.

So I generally recommend, if you do not have a loose salt available for that horse freely, that this is the time of year that I might add a tablespoon or two to the horses' concentrate or grain ration to make sure that those electrolytes are replenished.

The other big consideration for horses is providing shade.

And shade actually comes in a number of different ways.

So we can think about structural shade or shade from a tree.

The nice thing about shade from a tree is that that horse actually will release more heat to that tree, and that tree takes it up more than a solid structure.

That's why you may actually have experienced yourself, you'll feel cooler underneath a tree compared to just kind of a static shade.

The other big consideration for horses and when it's hot is that we ask horses to do things, right?

So exercise.

And it's really important that we have thoroughly cooled that horse off, especially if we've got temperatures where it doesn't really cool down at night.

Because the animal needs that cooler environment to release all that heat of the day.

Our horses, we add thermal load to them, right, by exercising them.

As with any stress, the young and the old are gonna be the most susceptible.

So young foals do not have ability to thermoregulate very well, but don't forget senior horses.

They also have reduced capacity to thermoregulate.

And so that means, anytime that we have temperature extremes, it's gonna be a little bit harder on these guys.

So yes, if you have young foals, you really wanna make sure (laughing) that they have areas to get out of the sun.

I also really caution people, especially if we kinda line up breeding dates, foaling dates, with when we wanna wean them, I don't like to wean foals when it's really hot.

Because that's just adding another layer of stress onto them.

If they're whinnying and running for mama, they can't help themselves, right?

So it's not like the foal's gonna have common sense to say, "Oh, it's hot.

I shouldn't worry about where my mom is."

They can work themselves up into pretty stressful situations.

So forego weaning until we've got a cooler little stretch of weather, and again, really keep an eye on our age extremes, (laughing) whether they're old horses or young horses.

So remember, horses get hot just like us.

We share the same things, right?

So we both cool ourselves through sweating.

So if you're really hot and sweaty, your horse is hot and sweaty too.

So follow the same advice.

Take breaks, drink water, and keep yourself safe during the summer.

(upbeat country music) - Finally today, what producers across the state are keeping one eye on their fields and on eye on the weather as they progress with harvest.

"SUNUP's" Elizabeth Hokit now takes us to Kingfisher County to find out how one small family farm has been dealing with the rain.

- [Elizabeth] Rain, a blessing for 51 weeks of the year, but that 52nd week, it can be quite the nuisance.

And it wouldn't be an Oklahoma wheat harvest if it wasn't doing the exact opposite of what wheat producers, like Frank Pospisil, want it to.

- We've got chances of rain coming off and on.

And luckily, we've kinda missed a few showers around.

And so we're looking for maybe some sunny days and a little bit of wind to dry things out.

(combine whirring) - The humidity and the moisture has not been favorable to combining conditions.

You never gripe about rain, but this time of year, if you're a wheat farmer, you don't wanna see a whole lot of it.

- [Elizabeth] With storm clouds looming over the fields, it's hard to forget the effects it's had on the past few years.

- You know, we had a lotta 57-, 58-pound wheat last year, not very much of it.

We've had a couple bad years with not very good yield and a bad drought last year, plus some hail.

- [Elizabeth] Drought and hail.

Seems like the wheat and the weather don't ever get along too well.

But maybe this year, they'll forget their differences.

- There's reports of anywhere from 30 to 75, 78-bushel wheat already.

And there is some good wheat in the county, depending upon exactly where- - [Frank] The field was located and if you was under the right rain cloud.

- [Elizabeth] If you're under the right cloud.

(machine clicking) But if you're not, you're gonna need a lot more help to beat the rain.

- [Frank] I've got a nephew and his wife and two daughters and a couple part-time guys that come out after work and help me.

So yeah, kind of a skeleton crew.

- [Elizabeth] For Frank's nephew, Brad Hokit, wheat harvest has come to be his summer vacation.

- Yeah, this is my vacation.

I take time off of my regular job to come out here for a week or two to help Frank.

(combine whirring) I run a combine, work on combines, trucks, maintenance, service things.

Then stick it back in and check it.

- Help is hard.

I mean, even in today's time period, to find people that can operate a machine, drive a tractor and grain car, and then transport this to the elevator, well, when you put all that together, it takes a lotta help to get all of it done.

They've gotta have help.

- [Brad] We have good weather, we can get through in, you know, 10 days, maybe two weeks.

- [Elizabeth] All hands on deck, or combine, rather.

That's where I come in.

(tractor whirring) I've been coming to help with wheat harvest for as long as I can remember.

Frank, he's my great-uncle, and Brad- - Can you hand me that 5/8?

- [Elizabeth] Well, that's my dad.

It was 1080.

Before I was able to run the combine by myself, I was the steering wheel operator.

Then, when I was about 14 years old, (combine whirring) I got a promotion.

My dad grew up coming out here and decided to give me and my sister the same opportunity.

- I didn't grow up on the farm, but my grandparents had the farm, and I spent all my summers out here.

I started getting to run equipment when I was probably about 14, and pretty much been helping every year, at least during wheat harvest, because that's when they need the most help.

- How long have I been harvesting wheat?

(Frank and people laughing) All my life, yeah.

So 50-some years.

- [Elizabeth] You don't really get these kinds of opportunities unless you grew up on a farm.

And what does that kind of opportunity mean?

Well, I think my dad sums it up best.

- I felt privileged to be able to have the opportunity to be on a farm and to learn what it takes to farm and to produce the food that we eat.

And I just wanted to be able to give that same opportunity to my kids to get an idea of what that was.

- [Elizabeth] An opportunity that will not be soon forgotten.

A family of four piling in a 1480 International harvester, a little girl learning to drive that very same combine, trips to the elevator with dad, gaining responsibility of more steering wheels, and some slightly more questionable things.

Like I said earlier, unless you grew up on a farm, you probably don't have these kinds of memories.

But I didn't grow up on a farm.

I grew up in the city limits 2 1/2 hours away from here.

And looking back, I thank God for these experiences, because without them, I wouldn't be where I'm at today.

(upbeat country music) In Kingfisher County, I'm Elizabeth Hokit.

- That'll do it for our show this week from wheat harvest in Kay County.

Now, we wanna leave you today with a few pictures from a stop earlier this week for harvest with the Kisling family and special guest OSU president, Kayse Shrum, and the vice president of OSU Agriculture, Jayson Lusk.

Three combines were rolling, cutting a field of OSU-developed Doublestop CL Plus, the number one planted wheat variety in Oklahoma.

This is a custom crew, Terry Meinke and family from Central Missouri.

Thanks to the Kislings and the community of Burlington for a fun day and such a very warm welcome.

The Kislings have already wrapped up their harvest for the year, but for everyone else still cutting, we wish you the best of luck as you get to the finish line.

And for all the dads out there, including my own, Perry Stout, we wish you a very happy Father's Day.

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

(upbeat country music continues) (machine whirring) (upbeat country music continues) (logo chiming)