Hello everyone, I'm Lyndall Stout and we have a great show lined up for you today on SUNUP.

A first for the OSU wheat breeding team, a promising new variety in a new color hue has the milling and baking industry seeing purple.

From the greenhouse to the lab and a behind the scenes look at what goes into testing a forage sample.

And with the recent tornadoes and severe weather and the season just beginning, we find out about an issue that can seriously harm or even kill cattle after a storm.

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

We begin today on the topic of crop breeding and another milestone for OSU's wheat improvement team.

There's a new wheat variety and this one's different than any that we've ever seen before.

I recently caught up with OSU wheat genetics chair Dr.

Brett Carver in the greenhouse.

Brett, share with us this exciting news of another new OSU variety.

Yes, this is not just any other new wheat variety.

It's very different.

And, you know, we normally talk about harvested winter wheat.

That's the common class of wheat that we deal with in Oklahoma, sometimes hard white.

But this is not either one of those.

This is a class we don't even have.

But I just call it, and a lot of other scientists just call it purple wheat.

And, you know, this is our first shot at a purple wheat that acts like a hard red winter.

It looks like a hard red winter wheat in the field.

It looks like a hard red winter wheat in the bakery.

So explain to me what a purple wheat is.

It actually has a different color than what we're all used to.

Yeah, it is definitely purple.

Only on the outside.

Only on the outside.

So the bran layer has this, what we call a purple pericarp.

That's the outer layer of the bran.

It is a beautiful purple color.

And some strains of wheat have a better purple than others.

So this nutritional piece of that, that has been really important in your research and what you've been striving for.

Talk about that piece of it.

That's what the purple is.

Is this a nutritional benefit for the person eating it?

Yeah, so that nutritional benefit comes through a group of compounds called phenolics.

You know, you may not know it, but if you're eating, consuming phenolics, you're doing your body some good.

And one class of phenolics that give color to fruits and vegetables like, you know, peppers and on the fruits, blueberries and blackberries and for black beans.

Those colors come from a compound called anthocyanins.

And so this purple wheat has those anthocyanins that would be present in common fruits and vegetables that also come to us colored.

So that benefit we get from eating the fruits and vegetables also come now through the wheat.

People are going to be interested in this, I'm sure.

That was some of the uniqueness of the variety.

But talk about the next layer, the research to get here and some of the collaboration that took place.

Yeah.

So we had to really think about, you know, the normal things, you know, breeding a wheat variety that works in Oklahoma.

We took care of that disease resistance and maturity and yield, you know, things like that.

But yeah.

But, you know, doing all these extra things meant we had to branch out a little bit because we just don't have the expertise to measure phytochemicals, the phenolics, anthocyanins.

We just I just can't do that.

But we had the talent on campus.

And I have to give credit to Dr.

in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, who not just did some of the work.

She trained the students who came in to do this work as part of an undergraduate scholar.

Super opportunities that these students have they otherwise wouldn't have.

And so this Purple Wheat Breeding Project was the focus of two of those undergraduate projects by one person.

Love to hear that.

I know their parents must be tremendously proud.

But it's neat, I'm sure, as a student to be connected with faculty doing this type of research.

And then as a land grant, it's getting out there right away.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And this student wasn't disconnected.

She was driving it.

You know, what she was finding really influenced my decision on how to how to move forward.

I mean, she really did help identify this line.

Yeah.

So we had to really think about, you know, the normal things, you know, breeding a wheat variety that works in Oklahoma.

We took care of that disease resistance and maturity and yield, you know, things like that.

But now we have to think about the color and what that that may do.

So to to maximize the color at harvest, we want to make sure we have that deep color that persist.

So and with these compounds, anthocyanins, they aren't the most stable.

But with this one, it's one of our more stable colors, stable anthocyanin weeds.

And so that was a big decision.

It's really, really exciting news.

Last but not least, this is a little bit burying the lead and using a journalism term.

But what is the name of your new variety?

It's a very bland name.

We want the pizzazz of this variety to be in the what you see and not necessarily what you hear.

And we also want to give those who will use this variety to make the bread products or in tortillas.

Let's not forget that to have the center stage.

So we're just calling it OSU P92.

P for purple.

Ninety two was in the selection number, the experimental number.

And and so you will see, you know, a baker put their stamp, their branding on it and call it whatever they want.

I mean, there will be no work for them.

OK.

OSU P92.

That's the variety name.

But it won't be on the packaging of the bread.

I can tell you that.

OK, but we will remember it here.

OSU.

Well, exciting time.

Dr.

Carver, congratulations to you and the team of researchers who who work on these projects with you and the folks who run the greenhouses, especially in the middle of winter.

It really does take a lot of effort, but we can't wait to hear more about this and to see where it all goes.

It's definitely an exciting time for for OSU agriculture.

Well, thanks for wanting to learn about it.

All right.

See you again soon.

We just want to remind you about the upcoming Rancher's Thursday lunchtime series.

This edition will cover the tug of war in the cattle industry and the growing tension between increasing carcass weights and the higher costs of maintaining larger beef cows.

The next edition will be March 19th with OSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist Dr.

Paul Beck, who will discuss cow size and post weaning management effects on carcass weights.

To sign up or learn more about this series, just scan the QR code at the bottom of the screen or go to the sign up Web site.

Severe weather has already arrived with a vengeance in Oklahoma.

Today, we have a few reminders about the dangers for cattle herds after a severe storm has blown through.

Here's Dr.

Mark Johnson.

This week's topic is hardware disease in beef cattle or what we could call bovine traumatic reticuloparitonitis.

How does this happen and how is it unique to cattle?

Well, because of the way cows graze using their tongue to pull in big chunks of forage.

If we're out here in tall grass like this, if there's debris or some other kind of material in this grass, particularly something like sharp metal objects, they end up ingesting it without knowing that they're doing it.

Particularly things like wire, screws, nails.

If it's in our grass, if it's in a harvested forage or feed we're providing to cattle, what happens in the process of digestion is this metal object is heavier and so it ends up in the compartment of the stomach we call the reticulum and the rest of the lighter feed material passes on through the digestive system.

Because of the anatomy of the reticulum and the weight of the metal object, it's a virtual guarantee that it's going to stay there forever and potentially cause problems.

When this happens, muscle contractions, the digestive process, we end up with an irritation in the lining of the stomach or a puncture to the stomach wall and if we get a puncture and a penetration, we end up with hardware down here potentially penetrating the sac of the heart and so there are varying degrees of issues that hardware disease causes.

It can be mild, it can be severe, it can be fatal based on what happens with these metal objects once they're in the reticulum.

Hardware disease in cattle can be kind of challenging to diagnose.

There's a variety of symptoms.

Cattle with hardware disease are going to appear to be in pain.

They're not going to want to move around and sometimes when we get them to move we'll actually hear audible grunting.

They may stand with their head and neck extended out in front of them.

We may just see a gradual weight loss over time in those cattle and they start to get a little unthrifty.

If you're ever uncertain whether or not you've got or you're dealing with hardware disease, it's best to consult your veterinarian and effective treatment is possible by feeding magnets and antibiotics, but you need to do that with a veterinarian's supervision.

How do we prevent hardware disease?

Again, something unique to cattle.

We need to provide the extra management needed to clean up pastures, make sure there's not metal out there, make sure that we haven't got wire sitting around in the pasture that potentially gets ingested.

We can put magnets in our feed mills, in our forage harvesting equipment, maybe in our cube feeder, but in doing so, try to prevent anything that is a potential cause of hardware from getting ingested by cattle.

It's going to take some extra management to do it.

We're going to need to invest that time and effort in keeping pastures and feedstuffs clean, but if we can eliminate the potential sharp metal objects, we go a long way toward eliminating the potential for hardware disease in beef cattle.

Thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner.

Good morning, everyone.

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

I actually have good news.

We have a better drought monitor map.

Well, better in some cases, worse in some others.

Let's take a look.

So, you see that down in southeast Oklahoma, the yellow color, and those are abnormally dry conditions.

So, we did have improvements in those areas that saw about two to three inches of rain over the last seven days.

So, good news there.

Unfortunately, you can see in two parts of central Oklahoma, we had an increase in that D3, the red color.

That's extreme drought.

So, that expanded up from southwest Oklahoma a little bit more.

We also had an increase up in Beaver County of D2 or severe drought.

So, one side of the state got some pretty good rain.

They got some pretty good improvements.

The other side of the state, not so much.

As we take a look at the days without at least a quarter inch of rainfall in a single day map from the Oklahoma Mesonet, we can see much of the eastern and southern parts of the state, also north central up into northwest Oklahoma, relieved or reset that map, but we still see across the central and the west central from 24 to 42 days.

And up in the Panhandle, it's been as many as 110 days without a good rainfall in that region of the state.

So, wherever you see the oranges and reds, that's where we definitely need some better rains than what we received over the last 10 to 20 days or so.

Let's take a look at the rainfall map from these last two storm systems.

Pretty obvious down across southeast Oklahoma, a good two to four inches across the wide ranging area.

Even a little bit more than that in some cases up in far northeast Oklahoma.

But you can see from southwest up into central Oklahoma, much of the Panhandle, in fact much of the rest of the state, generally less than a half inch and in some cases no rainfall.

So, no help for those folks out west and into central Oklahoma.

Let's extend it out to 30 days and we see this pretty much the same.

The amounts just increased by an inch or two everywhere.

Now, of course, again from southwest up into central Oklahoma and the Panhandle, still very little rainfall, generally less than a half inch.

Or in the case of the Panhandle, no rainfall at all, but we do see those good rains across the southeastern half or so of the state.

The departure from normal rainfall map for the last 30 days, we see good surpluses in that southeastern portion of the state, also up into northeastern Oklahoma, a little bit across the northwestern part of the state.

But by and large, deficits remain for the remainder of the state.

When we take a look at the percent of normal rainfall map, it shows up a little better.

The oranges and reds, those are areas basically less than 50% of normal.

And again over the last 30 days, when you get in those red areas, some cases 0% of normal.

So just again, those areas that need some pretty good rains to start to relieve the drought.

Well, if we take a look at the temperature outlook from the Climate Prediction Center for next week, it looks like it's going to be at least a warm spring break.

We've certainly had some cold spring breaks in our past, but this one looks to be above normal.

And if we take a look at the precipitation, it also looks to be significantly dry.

So a dry and warm spring break, not what we need, but maybe we'll take it just this one time.

It's important to note, even though a lot of the state got some decent rains, it wasn't enough to improve the drought monitor map.

We simply need a lot more rainfall, and we need those more quickly.

Not so much time in between those rains.

That's it for this time.

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

OSU Agriculture's Field Day season is right around the corner.

First up is the Wheat and Forages Field Day at the South Central Research Station in Chickasha on April 24th from 830 to 1.

Field days are a great opportunity for the community and for producers to talk directly with extension specialists and see the research firsthand to learn how it applies to you and your operation.

If you would like more information on the event, just scan the QR code at the bottom of your screen or go to the SUNUP website.

We are Thinking Spring with Dr.

Darrell Peel, our Livestock Marketing Specialist for OSU Extension.

And Darrell, as we do think about spring, what kind of things are you thinking about in terms of beef demand?

You know, it is springtime, so we expect to see some increase in beef demand.

You know, we're a little ahead of the summer grilling season, and yet the beef markets start, you know, moving towards that.

So, you know, if you look at boxed beef in the aggregate, it does tend to go up, particularly as we get towards April normally.

We'll see it go up.

It'll peak around late May or June.

But we've already seen a pretty good run-up in boxed beef prices so far this year.

It's a little ahead of schedule.

Maybe that's an indication of stronger demand.

Or maybe we're just moving a little quicker because we know that supplies are pretty tight right now.

So does that translate to all beef demand as well?

You know, the boxed beef price that we see is a composite of all the different wholesale beef products.

And so they don't all move the same way.

Each one of those products has its own seasonal pattern.

So, you know, the reason it goes up in the spring is because we do see some increased demand for the steak, the high-valued middle meats in particular, things like strip loins.

We see some increase in things like tenderloins, but tenderloins are not really a big summer grilling item.

They're more of a restaurant menu thing.

But, you know, as we get towards May, Mother's Day will be a demand boost for that.

So we'll see those kind of things.

Other products like the chuck actually tend to go down a little bit through the first half of the year.

We eat more roasts and crockpot kinds of things when the weather's cooler.

So we'll see that pick back up in the fall.

What does spring mean for the feeder cattle markets?

You know, it's springtime right now.

We've had lots of weather things to watch here lately.

We've had some wildfire issues.

We still have very dry conditions.

Water supplies are low in some areas.

So that's a factor.

But we are starting to green up a little bit.

So, you know, we'll see some increased demand for these lighter weight grazing type cattle.

And that's holding in there pretty well.

The bigger feeder cattle will pick up more later in the summer and into the second and third quarters of the year.

A lot of different headlines every day.

A lot of geopolitical activities around the world.

How is that translating to cattle markets?

Well, you know, there's not a lot of direct impacts at this point in time.

But markets react to uncertainty.

And I think that's the big issue right now.

There's just a lot of uncertainty that are going to affect markets broadly.

Obviously, you know, energy markets, fertilizer markets, those things affect agriculture broadly speaking.

And we just don't know.

So the markets are really reacting more to the uncertainty than they are the reality.

This, you know, obviously we just have to watch it as we go forward depending on what happens going forward.

We'll translate that uncertainty into some sort of reality at some point.

Hopefully it's fairly short-lived.

And it may not have a lot of impacts on cattle and beef markets.

But right now it's an uncertainty.

And it is impacting certainly the futures markets.

All righty.

Darrell, thanks a lot.

We'll see you again soon.

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

Our topic this week is just addressing climate, the weather, and its effect on baby calf health.

And it's interesting here as we move into the month of March, we're already seeing days that are above 70 degrees.

We can see some health issues in those baby calves that we worked to save just a few weeks ago when that Arctic front came through.

Those calves might have been born with snow on the ground or in single-digit temperatures.

And once we saved them then, we want to make sure we don't forget about them now.

Because actually temperature variation and hot temperatures can be even harder on calf health than just the really cold weather.

Calves are typically enjoying a thermoneutral zone of somewhere between 55 and 70 degrees.

In that range, they don't have many issues.

They stay pretty comfortable.

But because of that immature thermostat, it's times of the year like this where it may be in the 20s or 30s overnight.

And getting up to 70 degrees or better during the day, those calves can very quickly become dehydrated.

They lose their appetite.

They feel a little off and a little fluey.

And so as we think about the weather and where we're at and particularly the value of cattle at this point in time, now that those calves are on the ground, think about that temperature every day.

Keep an eye on those calves.

Realize hot temperatures and temperature variation can be more influential on their health than just cold weather.

I hope this helps.

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

Finally today, a special treat.

Dr.

Dave Lalman takes us behind the scenes at the OSU lab to learn all about forage testing.

Hello, I'm David Lalman.

I'm an extension beef cattle specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

You know, 20 years ago, we didn't have available and cost-effective ways to analyze forages for minerals.

But we do have today.

And so we're here.

I'm here with Kendall Henderson at the Soil and Water Forage Analytical Laboratory on the campus of Oklahoma State University.

Welcome, Kendall.

Thank you.

So, Kendall, if you don't mind, just tell us a little bit about the process.

When you receive samples from producers out in the state, what happens next?

Sure.

So most of our samples come through the county extension office.

So the county has these sample bags that the producer can either take home and put them in there or they can do it at the county extension office.

So then the extension office mails us the samples and we log them into our system.

We weigh them.

We dry them.

We weigh them again.

And then we grind them here on our forage grinder.

All right.

So you just got a forage sample in, for example.

Now, how do you go about drying that sample?

So this sample will go into our large oven overnight at 100 degrees Celsius.

100 degrees Celsius.

So what, 12, 14, 16 hours?

16 hours.

Okay.

Yep.

And hopefully it dries.

Very good.

So the next thing we're going to do is grind it.

Yep.

So the grinder not only chops it up, but it also helps homogenize the sample.

Homogenize.

Yes.

So now we can mix it and we'll subsample from this to get the mineral content.

So you mix it up good and then you pull the subsamples for the analysis, whether you're doing fiber, minerals, whatever.

Yes.

All right.

So now we have it ground and we're ready to go into the laboratory and start with the analysis.

That's correct.

Let's go do that.

Okay.

So now we have our forage sample ground.

We've got it dried and we're ready to move to the next step.

And what is the next step then in the process?

So the next step is we take about half a gram of that and we weigh it out into one of these cups here.

And then we'll add nitric acid to it and we'll heat it up in a hot block.

And that's called a digest.

So we'll digest those nutrients and that solid will actually turn into a liquid.

Okay.

So at this point, those minerals that were in the forage sample are now floating around in that nitric acid, which is why you're wearing those gloves.

That's correct.

Yes.

Okay.

So then what do we do with the liquid sample at this point?

So now that we have a liquid sample, we can take it to our ICP or inductively coupled plasma analyzer.

Okay.

So in general, can you kind of tell us how it works?

Sure.

Exactly.

I'd be happy to.

So what we do is we take this sample, we put it on our auto sampler, and some of that sample gets pumped up over the pump.

It comes through this little tube and it comes in here into the spray chamber.

Okay.

So that creates a really fine mist to the sample.

Some of that sample actually goes up into that plasma.

That plasma is 9,000 Kelvin, about the temperature of the sun right now.

Wow.

So when that sample goes up into the plasma, it superheats it, and so it causes the electrons on the outer shell to jump a layer.

And when they do, when they jump that layer, they emit different wavelengths of light.

Okay.

So the light coming off of that superheated sample goes into a little tube right there, and then it shines in here, and we can read that we have a wavelength reader in here that we can read all the different elements.

So it winds up reading the specific wavelengths that are related to that particular element or mineral that we're interested in analyzing.

That's correct.

That is way cool.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So with this machine, we can run about 15 different elements on that one sample in about one minute.

Okay.

Well, I can tell you our producers are going to be really interested in a lot of those different mineral elements.

They're very important in mineral nutrition for beef cattle.

So maybe the last question then, can you tell us what all this costs?

So for one mineral analysis, it's $15.

Okay.

Yeah.

So 20 years ago, that would have been $75, and you'd had to ship it to Michigan or something.

Absolutely.

There are private labs that do it, but they still charge a couple hundred dollars.

So us being a nonprofit, we're here to serve the people of Oklahoma, so we can charge $15.

So, Kendall, thanks for just sharing kind of the fundamentals of what you do here in the laboratory, and we're really grateful for this service.

Today, it's a lot less expensive and a lot more convenient to have an analysis on the mineral concentration in your forages, and that can lead to more confidence in the decisions that you make on the farm.

And so we encourage people to get those analyses conducted.

Work with your extension educator or your area livestock specialist, and they can help you have confidence in your mineral nutrition program.

And if you'd like more information on how to send a sample into the laboratory, just go to the SUNUP website, 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 social media, and stream our content anytime on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash SUNUP TV.

We leave you today with a few sure signs that spring is arriving, and that's the arrival of the baby lambs at the OSU Sheep and Goat Center.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week, everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma agriculture starts at SUNUP.