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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We begin today with some guidance for cattle producers.

Now's the time to think about management strategies for your fall calving operation.

Here's Sunup's Kurtis Hair, with our Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Dr. Dave Lalman.

- Well, it's been a little while since we've talked to our OSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Dr. Dave Lawman, and Dave, for those fall calving operations, you know, you have some guidance that can help them get through this drought as we head into the spring.

- Sure, and you know, severe conditions persist in the western part of the state and so, there are fewer fall calving operations in that part of the state.

But, there are a considerable number of those and yes, you know, we can use this concept of weaning a little early to save substantial amount on the forage requirements for the entire cow herd.

- So, you have some calves right here that you said were weaned about a week ago, right?

- Yeah, we weaned 'em last week.

- So, how do you go about managing that to kinda make it you know, it's, like you said, it's a lot earlier than what producers are usually used to?

- In a fall calving operation it's very common to wean later rather than earlier than the traditional 205 days or 210 days.

Many fall calving operations in Oklahoma would wean you know, June, some push it all the way up to the middle of July and make those steer calves.

I mean, it's the logical thing to do.

Those steer calves, it's easy management, but they'll weigh well over 700 pounds in many cases.

But, you know, this year we just, in those operations to the west, we just don't have the forage abundance availability, at least not at this point in time.

And so, if they can be weaned let's say, right away here, that basically would give you the month of April, May and June where the cow herd is consuming somewhere around 20 to 25% less forage and therefore, you could either take, and that winds up bein' about on an average size cow, around six pounds of forage a day.

For 90 days that amounts to nearly one acre less of native range land required for a cow herd for this entire coming year.

So, that's a substantial savings and should be one strategy to help people kinda get through the current drought situation.

- Yeah, and that's you know, definitely gonna be useful.

Hopefully we get some more rain so it's not somethin' have to be too concerned about.

So, for the calves, you know, what nutritional requirements, since you're weaning so early, what would they require to you know, be healthy?

- Yeah, and that's the challenging part of using that early weaning strategy.

You know, producers are either going to need to sell their calves right away or come up with some sort of a retained ownership program which includes a nutritional management.

Now, a lotta people wouldn't have you know, feed bunks and pens and some way to mix a ration, but if you just think about from at least a theoretical standpoint, if we're gonna reduce the forage intake of the cow herd by as much as six pounds a day, we can take that six pounds and apply it directly to the calves instead of running it through the cow herd, if we choose to retain ownership for a few more weeks or months.

And then, that six pounds, plus some purchased concentrate feeds like dried distiller's grains or corn, a combination of the two, along with a little bit of supplement, those calves can make economical weight gain.

- You know, it has me curious.

You know, if the situation stays the same, hopefully it won't you know, heading into the fall, for those spring calving operations, is this somethin' that's gonna be applicable to them?

- Same principle.

- So really quickly, last week we had Dr. Paul Beck on talkin' about bloat.

There was you know, some severe cases that have popped up in the state.

So, kinda what's the situation happening there?

- Well, I you know, it seems to have died down.

This is generally what happens is when we have these storms of bloat, you know, they occur rapidly and then generally you know, they'll just kinda dissipate rapidly, too.

- And so, you actually have, you're starting back up the Rancher's Lunchtime Series, you know, this is what year three for that?

- Year three and this is series number 14.

This series continues to focus on tryin' to find ways to help folks.

The topic next Thursday will be using summer annuals to help replenish some of that forage inventory.

- Alrighty, thanks Dave.

Dr. Dave Lalman, Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, here at Oklahoma State University, and if you'd like a link to the Lunch's Ranch Time series to to our website, sunup.okstate.edu.

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

I'm Wes Lee.

Spring finally has arrived this past week and with it came some substantial winds.

On Monday wind gusts were seen reaching as high as 52 in Watonga and high 40s throughout the western counties.

- [Wes] They continued into Tuesday with Fairview reaching the severe storm level of 58 miles per hour.

Wednesday was not much better with high winds creating a red flag warning for several counties in the northwest.

High winds are not uncommon in Oklahoma during the spring months.

This 15 year graph shows that the latter half of March and April typically have the highest winds recorded.

The standard height for reporting winds is at 10 meters or approximately 33 feet.

The anemometer that we use at that height, at the Mesonet takes a wind reading every three seconds.

These are averaged together to give us the average wind speed every five minutes.

The fastest three second recording will be reported as the wind gust reading.

We also get a wind direction reading every five minutes.

A simpler sensor is installed at 1.5 meters to record wind speeds important to agriculture.

Looking at a graph of the two heights for this year, we see that the taller measurement is usually about 25% higher than the one closer to the ground due to friction.

Now here's Gary with a focus on rainfall conditions.

- Thanks, Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, like a broken record we're going to talk about more improvements in the drought monitor in southeast Oklahoma, and worsening drought up in northwest Oklahoma.

So let's get right to it.

As we look at the map, we can now see that generally to the south and east of I44, the drought has really abated, we have almost no drought in that region of the state, it's all across the northwestern half of the state.

And some of that drought is getting worse as we see that exceptional drought and extreme drought up in the northwestern corner of the state starting to spread.

So we now have exceptional drought covering almost all of the panhandle, save for the far western part of Cimarron County in the western panhandle of Oklahoma.

If we take a look at the rainfall through March, at least through the 22nd, we see that it's really been quite the dud, but does show the general pattern though of lots of rainfall to the south and east of I44 in general, and very little rainfall to the north and west of that line.

Up in parts of Northwest Tacoma, we've had less than a 10th of an inch in Woodward and Harper County and much of the panhandle.

So certainly way too dry in that part of the state to relieve drought.

If you look at that departure from normal map, well it's pretty telling too that much of the northwestern half of the state, less than 25% of normal rainfall, and in a lot of cases, less than 10% of normal rainfall through the month thus far, at least through the 22nd.

Now, our hope for further relief from the drought does come up pretty strongly as we get into April, May, and June.

This data from both the short term and the long term show that 30 to 40% of our annual rainfall comes during these three months, April, May, and June.

So if this comes through, especially up in the northwestern part of the state, hopefully we can either relieve drought or keep it at bay a little bit.

So we have a lot riding on spring and our spring rainfall, especially across the northwestern half of the state.

We're getting right into it and as we go into the next week or two, so let's hope that we get some pretty good results.

That's it for this time.

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

(upbeat music) - Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist is here now.

Kim, what did the markets talk about this week?

- Well, there's quite a bit of market talk.

You look at the Russian exports, I think, that's continued from the week before, it's just how much Russia has to put on that export market.

Their exports are backed up, their stocks are projected to be relatively high, and they're looking at average crop following a record crop last year.

Then you got the Russian-Ukraine export agreement, it's due to be renewed.

Russia said they're gonna extend it for 60 days, Ukraine wants 120.

That had some little impacts on the market.

A lot going on in Brazil and Argentina, Brazil, record soybean crop, they're talking about not how that it's gonna be a record, it's just how big a record it's gonna be.

And then you've got Brazilian corn, for the first time ever, Brazil will be the number one exporter of corn compared to the United States.

And then the big news is La Nina is dead.

It came out this week, the weather forecasters are saying La Nina has moved over to a neutral position and that, oh, June, July, August, somewhere in that time period, we'll go to El Nino, which means more precipitation, possibly higher production in the spring wheat for sure, the corn, the soybeans, and the summer crops, maybe some higher than expected yields for our winter wheat crops.

- Let's certainly hope so.

We could all use a change in the weather patterns, for sure.

Well, with all of that happening, how did the prices and the market react to that?

- Well when you see more wheat coming on the export market, when you see the potential for higher production, naturally prices go down.

You look at what's going on with corn prices for the 2023 harvest, you go back a month, there's $5 and 75 cents for a forward contract, they're down to five and a quarter, now that's only 50 cents, but that's a 10% decline in price.

- [Kim] You look at soybeans, oh, you go back three or four months, it was at 13.30 and then it got down, you know, around $13.

It's down now around $12, 11.90, I believe is what it was just before this taping.

It's a 10% decline in soybean prices too.

You look at wheat coming up right now, you can forward contract in Northern Oklahoma for 7.50, Panhandle area for 7.55, Southern Oklahoma, somewhere around 7.30, something like that.

So we've had that go down, but you know, when the we got the financial situation, we had 25, 30 cent drop in prices gained back, you know, two days down a day or two back, it was back up.

So, it's around 7.50 now, holding relatively stable.

- So.

I know you run the numbers too.

What is your price outlook?

- Well, if you look at what's going on and let's just talk about wheat, it's too far to predict corn, soybeans, the summer crop prices.

But if you look back, say go back to July of 2010 and look forward, there seems to be two price ranges that our prices move in, from three to $6 and from six to $9.

Right now we're in that six to $9 range.

If you look back over there, when we had the six to $9, we had the stocks to use ratio ratio about 36%.

Right now we're around 40%, so we're in that range.

When they were below the $6, three to six, our stocks to use ratio was up 55 to 65%.

So we got relatively tight stocks and good stocks to use ratio and it'll take us a year or so to get that back up.

So, I'm probably looking at it staying in that six to $9 range right now.

The offer is right exactly, midpoint 7.50.

- Split the difference, right?

- Split the difference.

- Okay, great, Kim, thanks a lot.

We'll see you next week.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and welcome to "Cow-Calf Corner".

This week's topic arises from some phone calls that I've had this week on the benefits of synchronization of the estrus cycle and potential use of artificial insemination in breeding our beef cows.

And so we talk about the pros and cons of some of this and some of the things that I would encourage producers to think through as we're getting pretty close to breeding season and we'll kind of tackle this in two different parts.

First one, what are the benefits of estrus synchronization.

There's some fundamental things we throw out.

A beef cow has got a 21 day heat cycle.

That means that once every three weeks she comes into standing heat, is actually receptive to be mated, ovulates, and potentially gets pregnant.

If she doesn't get pregnant, it's three weeks again before she does that.

Now, as we go into a typical beef breeding season and we keep in mind things like we wanna get as many cows bred early in the breeding season as possible, then we have as many calves born early in the calving season as possible.

We tighten up that calving season, we create uniformity in a calf crop at the time we wean them.

If we got all our cows bred tightly, it does a lot to facilitate management.

Cows that are gonna calve within a short timeframe are easier to manage, feed alike, vaccinate, deworm.

All of our herd health protocol is easier to manage if we've got a set of cows that calve in a really tight window.

Now, estrus synchronization can help with that.

We do a little bit of management and there's many different protocols we can follow as far as synchronizing the heats on cows, but we can bring a lot of cows into standing heat at a given time.

We can concentrate our labor efforts if we're gonna be heat detecting during those times.

And as a result of that, those cows, even if they don't breed off those first heats, will tend to stay in sync at subsequent heats as we go through breeding season.

So, as we look at this at the onset and think about the potential management, most heat synchronization protocols are gonna require cows to go through a chute one to three times prior to us catching them to potentially artificially inseminate.

So we've gotta think through pros and cons.

Do we have the working facilities, a good chute, a good alleyway, to even make that possible?

Do we have the manpower and the labor to actually work and sort these cows as needed and actually go through this process of all those times through the chute in addition to the breeding and because there's many different heat synchronization protocols out there, most all of 'em are gonna involve some prostaglandin F2 alpha, some gonadotropin, and some sort of progesterone.

We hear a lot of people talk about CIDRs.

CIDRs are an implant that we actually put into the vagina of a cow that is a progesterone release, all those things can be used in some tandem to actually synchronize heats.

So second thing to consider is is this time and expense that we're gonna go through in synchronization gonna benefit us from a standpoint, have we identified an AI sire, secured our supply of semen, and have that on hand knowing what traits are economically important to us relative to our marketing plan and our intended use of those calves?

Are we gonna offset this initial time and expense by superior genetics and capture the value of those genetics long term.

- Third thing is we need to consider if we have a trained AI technician available to us.

And going into a synchronization system, whether we're gonna do a timed AI, whether we're gonna be breeding cows in a cluster over multiple days after checking heat, we're gonna need availability of a trained AI technician that is on hand to breed those cows.

Now, maybe that's us.

Maybe we're gonna provide that service ourself.

But the actual heat detection and breeding season for whatever duration of time that that involves, we need to be able to devote ourself or that AI technician to it at that particular point in time.

Consider all those things, and I hope this helps, and appreciate you joining us this week on Cow/Calf Corner.

(upbeat music) - This time of year, you might see trees that have really bright white showy flowers.

This is a species called Callery pear.

And locally, we have a lot of what's called a cultivar of Bradford pear.

This was a species that was brought over from China in the early 1900s, and the emphasis was to try to find a species that was less susceptible to native fire blight on pear trees.

This is a species that we're concerned with because of its aggressive, invasive nature.

So originally it was thought that this cultivar of Callery pear Bradford pear here could not produce viable offspring.

Well, after enough time, we've learned that it can produce viable offspring and now it's aggressively spreading in native habitats throughout Oklahoma.

So Callery pear or Bradford pear can have a lot of nice traits that landowners want on their property.

So it can have really bright white showy flowers.

And in the fall, often you'll get a bright red foliage that's a really pretty fall color.

Problems with the Callery pear include, it can have substantial thorns.

Of course, it spreads aggressively.

It can out compete native species.

And you'll often see it in old fields or even in woodlands filling in gaps left by other native tree species.

So some more negatives to Callery pear include the offensive odor that comes from these trees.

Also, you'll find these trees often in landscape settings in large parking lots around malls.

And what can happen with those, they'll be good cover for birds later in the summer months when it gets hot.

And a lot of birds in these trees will lead to a lot of defecation on cars in those parking lots.

So certainly a lot of negatives to, again, a non-native invasive tree species.

So some ways you can take care of Callery pear.

Of course, a lot of people don't want to cut down a beautiful landscape tree, but you might consider replacing it with something native like red bud or a native pear species.

Callery pear has become so aggressive and invasive that in some states, in some cities, there are buyback programs for an incentive to cut down a Callery pear tree and replace it with something native.

Some states have gone as far as trying to outlaw these trees and try to provide incentives again for homeowners to replace them with something else and for nurseries to stop stocking this particular cultivar.

For more information on Bradford pear, go to the SUNUP website.

(upbeat music) - Finally today, the inspiring group of fifth graders in Garfield County who are giving the SUNUP crew a bit of a run for our money.

(upbeat music) It's a special day at Chisholm Elementary School.

Second graders taking a break from class to learn about crops and animals from FFA members.

And if you look a little closer, a local news crew is also in the mix.

- This is CNC, which stands for Chisholm News Crew.

And it's basically just a news crew inside our school where we just say what's going on.

- [Lyndall] Fifth graders in Mrs. Sarah Dowe's program run all aspects of production.

- My job is the Roving Reporter where I go around the school and sometimes interview people and just go around the school and video.

- So what the anchors do is really just cover everything.

We say the dates, we say quotes, we say lunch.

We just do the important information for them.

And then the reporters get to do all the fun stuff like the announcements and the breaking news and just everything like that, at our school.

- [Lyndall] Like any news operation, workdays begin with editorial meetings.

- A Roving Reporter will, they will, first off in the morning, they'll come in here and talk about what we need to do and get done.

And then we will get our camera tech and we will go outside, and we will move around this class or even the school, and then we can film there.

- [Lyndall] Then it's out the door and on the scene, capturing video, gathering facts and interviews, and coordinating logistics, all on deadline.

Chisholm News Crew is an extracurricular activity that runs throughout the school year.

Students apply, interview, and audition.

Some arrive with public speaking and showmanship skills learned in 4-H, but all of them grow throughout the process.

- Yes, definitely.

I've learned to not be shy on the camera as much.

And I've learned to maintain eye contact and to just speak to the person you're speaking to and not look straight at the camera.

- [Lyndall] Teamwork, first and foremost.

- It's just really fun in all ways 'cause we all have our different parts and it just blends together so nicely.

- [Lyndall] Combined values make good television and good citizens.

- Well, one of the biggest things in my life right now is courage, because I have, last year per se, I didn't have the courage to step up and speak out.

But now this year, since I'm in CNC and 4-H, I can definitely project my voice and talk out loud.

- Well, just overall they have just become better speakers and more confident in themselves.

That's probably the first thing, but I feel like they've really learned how to accept constructive criticism.

At the beginning it was hard because they didn't like to be told how to do things, well some of 'em probably didn't like to be told how to do things.

And I would stop them abruptly and then we'd have to start over and start over and start over.

And they are very comfortable with me saying, stop at this point.

- [Lyndall] Jessica Nickels is the Garfield County 4-H educator.

- Well, one of the big things in 4-H is learning how to public speak.

That's just a skill everyone needs.

And these kids are learning it in their school, getting to talk with their classmates, when they do interviews with other people across the school.

And in 4-H, it's the same way.

Whether we're teaching about our project or talking with a donor or just a community member, those are just skills that are gonna help those kids as they become adults and be successful in their lives.

- [Lyndall] What a foundation.

CNC means fun, responsibility, growing confidence, along with a dash of humility.

Plus an inspiring teacher already planting seeds for the future.

- When I grew up, I kind of just wanna do exactly this.

Be on TV and be an anchor.

- [Interviewer] And where do you think you wanna go to school?

- I think I wanna go to the University of Oklahoma and get my degree in broadcast journalism.

- [Interviewer] Well that's okay as long as you do your master's at OSU.

- Okay.

(laughing) - And also, I'm an OSU fan.

Go Pokes.

- [Interviewer] Hey, yeah.

(laughing) - What great kids and what a great school.

So how did their story turn out?

Let's take a look.

(upbeat music) - Hello, my name is Claire, I'm one of your news anchors.

Today, we're here with the FFA officers.

They're presenting to the second grade different animals that are important to farms across America.

FFA stands for Future Farmers of America.

It's a great program that you can join in high school.

We do all sorts of projects.

In elementary, you can join 4-H. 4-H is somewhat like FFA.

It's just a younger version.

(upbeat music) - Hey.

- Hi Hank.

What have you learned today?

- I've learned about pigs, horses, cattle, and chickens.

- How do you think these animals help you in life?

- Well, most of them give us food, clothes, blankets.

- That's a good answer.

- Food, clothes, blankets, yep.

I think that's the main reason animals are here.

- Yeah.

- In addition to talking with the Chisholm News Crew about what they do to put their show together, the SUNUP crew had a chance to visit with the kids about what we do here at SUNUP to put our show together, as well as our careers in broadcasting and possible future internships.

And who knows?

Maybe you'll see these same kids right here on SUNUP someday in the future.

And that'll do it for our show this week.

We'll see you next time at SUNUP.

(upbeat music)