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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Oklahoma saw the first tornado outbreak of the year, along with record high winds.

We'll have more from the Mesonet team in just a little bit.

But first, some of the dangers for cattle after a big storm.

Here's Dr. Mark Johnson.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to "Cow-Calf Corner".

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

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 are 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 gonna 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 sack 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 gonna appear to be in pain.

They're not gonna wanna move around.

And sometimes, when we get 'em 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 wires 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 gonna take some extra management to do it.

We're gonna need to invest that time and effort in keeping pastures and feed stuffs 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".

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

I'm Wes Lee.

Spring doesn't start for a couple more weeks, but our plants are saying otherwise.

It seems that they are a couple of weeks ahead of schedule this year, like this peach tree blooming in February.

The main culprit for this likely is the stretch of days where we experience warmer than normal temperatures.

For the month of January, we see that all counties except, Texas and Cimarron, came in with highs several degrees above the long-term average.

February was almost a mirror image with highs well above the average, even including the Panhandle counties.

When you look at the individual days during this two-month period of time, we see that exactly two out of every three days recorded temperatures higher than the 15-year average.

Some of these warm days exceeded normal by a wide margin, including Tuesday of last week where 80s were common in many locations.

This was 10 to 15 degrees above the expected average statewide normal high of 58 degrees.

What is in store for us when the calendar says we finally reach spring?

Well, according to the best guess from the National Weather Service, they are expecting temperatures to moderate into what would be seasonable.

- Or normal this time of year, we will have to wait and see.

Gary is up next with a summary of last month's rainfall events.

- Thanks, Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, unfortunately, we had a lot of severe weather, a lot of tornadoes across the state, but we also got some rainfall.

So let's take a look at that latest drought monitor map and see what we got.

Well, our drought map is looking better and better each week.

So again, we had some heavy rainfall across the southeastern half of the state.

A little bit lighter across the northwestern half, so not much improvement there.

But we did continue to whittle down that southeastern part of the drought.

So that line continues to move to the northwest.

Now, we have just about 75% of the state in drought.

That's still quite a bit, but those heavier intensities, those higher intensities of drought are starting to come down.

We see again that southeastern half of the state, really southeast of I-44, we get three, four inches, but then we start getting into the five, six, seven, eight-inch range.

And then down in far Southwest Oklahoma, we get up into the 15 to 17-inch range, but we also see why the drought continues up in Northwest Oklahoma, where those regions have less than three inches of rainfall and out in the Panhandle, less than an inch, so drastically dry out in the Panhandle.

Compare that to normal, again, that southeastern part of the state, southeast of I-44, we have surpluses of one to two to three inches in some cases, up above four inches, a few deficits down in South Central Oklahoma.

But then you see a wide area of deficits, or at least close to normal up in the northwestern part of the state.

It's the driest part of the year, so it doesn't get drastically dry compared to normal, but it still is a good time to get surplus rainfall, or snowfall to help recharge that soil moisture and they just didn't get it much up in that region of the state.

Now, we take a look at the Climate Prediction Center's drought outlook for March.

We do see an an area in central, down into South Central Oklahoma where drought is expected to improve or even be removed.

But unfortunately, to the northwest of there, again, just about northwest of I-44, where that drought is already in place, it's expected to persist through the next month, so we'll have to wait and see what happens there.

So we're now entering the chronological spring, we should be seeing more rainfall events, more snowfall events, at least heavier events, but we really need those to fall in Northwestern Oklahoma.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens there.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on Le Bassinet Weather Report.

(bright country music) - With all of the storm cleanup, we have some chainsaw safety tips for you this morning.

Here's our OSU extension forestry specialist, Dr. Ryan DeSantis.

- With the recent severe weather and a lot of trees down, we thought we'd take a look at some chainsaw safety techniques.

So one thing, initially, take a look at is the type of saw.

I've got a battery-operated saw here.

These are becoming more popular.

You'll notice that there's no starter cord, really easy operation.

But one thing to keep in mind is that these are still just as powerful as a gas-powered saw.

We also wanna make sure that we have the chain brake on, so it's positioned all the way forward.

If you have access to chainsaw chaps or chainsaw pants, these can be really good at binding up material in the saw blade if the saw happens to come back and hit your clothing.

One of the, the biggest safety concerns with a saw is kickback.

You really wanna be wearing a helmet because of that kickback.

Now, the helmet part, you wanna make sure that you have it so that it has a visor, so that when the blade does come back with kickback, it's gonna hit the the visor first before your your head.

For eye protection, I like to think that whatever you have available is better than nothing.

If you have goggles that cover your eyes from the sides as well as from the front, these are best.

Once we have the saw running, it's important to remember to put the chain break on before we start walking around.

So if you're moving from tree to tree, make sure you have the chain break on, you've got both hands on the saw.

A lot of times there's a lot of brush in the area and you might trip over something.

So chain break on is really important here.

Once we get to some of the down brush, one of the most common things you might find with wind events, blow down tornado damage is that you might have trees that are partially knocked down.

We're gonna take a look at some safe techniques for bringing those trees all the way down, bringing the tree all the way down to the ground at that point.

(chainsaw snarls) The tree is gonna wanna come apart like this.

The tension's gonna be at the top of the log or the top of the tree as it's down.

So we want to think about releasing it from the underside after we've relieved some of the tension on the top side of that tree.

So when it comes to kickback, you wanna make sure that your body is positioned out of the way so that the saw is not hitting part of your body.

So if we have the saw at an angle like this.

- Kick back is gonna push it right back up into my body.

So I want to turn myself, position it this way or in some way where I'm comfortable with the cut, but the blade, if it does kick back, is not gonna come back into my body.

Follow these safety tips for chainsaw safety as you're clearing brush.

For more information, go to the "SUNUP" website.

(upbeat music) - Dr. Derrell Peel, our livestock marketing specialist, is here now.

Derrell, let's dive right in and talk about how the markets are shaping up so far in the new year.

- You know, we're continuing to see cattle prices strengthen across the board.

Feeder cattle markets continue to move higher.

Fed cattle markets are kind of grinding their way higher.

A little bit slower, but they are moving higher.

So the momentum that we saw at the end of last year is certainly continuing into 2023.

- How about supply and demand?

Is that shaping up like you expected it would?

- You know, the market fundamentals, I think, are coming to around to what we expected.

Beef production so far this year is falling.

Remember we had record beef production last year.

It is gonna fall this year and we are seeing that now.

Cattle slaughter per se, is actually about even with a year ago thus far this year.

But carcass weights are down.

As we go forward, the slaughter numbers will continue to fall and so we'll see these things tighten up.

At the same time, we continue to see very strong demand fundamentals or demand situation.

Box beef markets are actually moving higher pretty nicely in the last couple of weeks.

- Then the latest Cattle on Feed report.

What did that show?

- Again, it sort of emphasizes those stronger fundamentals.

You know, the Cattle on Feed inventory for February 1st was down about 4%.

Placements were down about 4%.

So that means going forward we will continue to see these feedlot inventories tighten up and that leads to tighter or less beef production as we move ahead.

- Now, we've seen a lot of liquidation.

Do you think that volume of liquidation is over for now?

- Well, obviously we don't know how the drought's gonna shape up for the rest of the year, so the drought may force some additional liquidation.

Assuming that drought doesn't do that, then the question is what could the industry do if we, you know, if we really don't have to liquidate.

I think we probably are likely to continue to see a little bit of liquidation, just because of the number situation that we're in right now.

The replacement heifer inventory that we start the year with is so tight that when you sort of crunch the numbers, it looks like it would be very likely that we'll continue to see a little bit of herd liquidation in 2023 under the best of circumstances.

- So for the next few months, what are you kind of keeping an eye on and how are you guiding producers?

- Well, again, producers that are still caught up in the drought are very much on the defensive still.

So we gotta get through the winter first.

A lot of guys are still scrambling for hay supplies to get through the winter.

We have seen some improvement in conditions.

Maybe wheat pastures in a little better shape for some producers.

But, you know, we're sort of waiting and trying to get to spring and then waiting to see what the spring conditions bring.

Obviously with the market fundamentals that we have, there's a lot of expectation for opportunities going forward, but producers have to get through the drought, think about rebuilding, but also think about sort of managing their forage resources and giving 'em time to recover from the drought as we go through this year and and beyond.

- Let's hope for plenty of rain this spring.

My goodness, we really need it.

- That's for sure.

- Okay Derrell, thanks a lot.

- You bet.

- We'll see you next time.

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

This week, we revisit a classic question in the cattle business, and that is what is a good bull worth?

We do this on an annual basis about this time of year, when we are getting ready to see purebred cattleman market a lot of yearling bulls, and those of us in the cow-calf business are ready to take ownership, charge our bull battery back up, and get ready for spring breeding season.

This is, I always say, an age old and classic question that we ask ourselves time and time again, and I refer back to what I was taught as a student here at OSU about 40 years ago.

A good bull is worth about five calves that he sires.

Now that question and the answer to that question doesn't necessarily quantify this with a value.

So as we take a look at the most recent USDA market report on what calves, yearling steers, and fed cattle are worth, we come up with some values to actually quantify this answer or this response with.

If we take a look at what weaned calves are worth right now, a 523-pound weaned calf last week in Oklahoma City equated to a value of a little over $1,200.

If we take that times five, if we are marketing our calves at weaning, a good bull is worth a little over $6,000 to turn out on our cows.

We take that a step further.

874-pound yearling steers last week equated to a value of about 1,555 a head.

If we do the math on that times five, a good bull is worth about 77, $7,800.

We're just shy of 8,000 by that math.

If we look at the fed cattle price for last week, 1,400 pound finished cattle bringing about 164.50 per 100 weight.

- Equates to a value of just over 2300 pounds on a finished calf that times five equals about 11 seven to 11 eight, or let's just say just shy of $12,000 of what a good bull should be worth.

Now, one of the things that we illustrate as we go through here is that the longer we're gonna retain ownership of the calves and the farther off our marketing endpoint for the calves sired by a bull, the more value that bull has to our operation.

If finished cattle selling operation, that good bull is worth more to you than if you cash those calves in at weaning.

And that also leads to another question that we haven't discussed.

If we're gonna be keeping daughters back out of the bulls we're purchasing, we're gonna be living with them as cows for 8, 10, 12 years down the road.

It further exaggerates the value of what a good bull is worth.

And so, as I always say there's a lot of layers to this onion.

A good bull in your operation is on the job full-time during breeding season of checking heat.

And breeding those cows that are in heat, his life is full apparels and things can happen to him.

If we assume that that bull is gonna last us four to six breeding seasons, we can do some simple math and look at this in another way.

If we pay about $3,000 for a bull and get six breeding seasons out of him, he's costing us about $500 a year that he's in service.

He can take that value on up.

Let's say we pay 6,000 for a bull, it means he costs us about a thousand dollars for breeding season.

If we invest 12,000 in a bull, he's gonna cost us about $2,000 a breeding season.

If you think of all that a bull does, I encourage cattleman, take a look at your particular operation, and in particular, what's your marketing endpoint is gonna be for the calves that a bull sires.

That bull that you invest in the genetic potential he has to increase the performance level for traits that are gonna pay dividends and add value for you at the point you sell those calves.

Whether it is at weaning, as yearlings, as finished cattle, or if you are retaining ownership on females that are gonna become your next herd or set replacements in your cow herd.

That bull actually has a great deal of value.

All of us want the best value for what we're buying that we can get.

But genetics do pay, and I would ask you to consider all those things as you think about what a good bull is worth in the spring of 2023.

Thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner (upbeat music) - Well, the USDA released the first estimates for the 2023, 2024 marketing year.

So Kim, were there any surprises?

- I don't think there were any surprises.

You look at production for wheat, 1.89 billion bushels was the estimate.

1.89 billion bushels is what USDA came And we produced 1.92 billion last year.

You look at corn, 15 billion for the pre-release estimate, 15.1 USDA, well above 13.7 billion bushels last year, so no surprise there.

You look at soybeans, 4.52 billion estimate.

The USDA of 4.51 and last year at 4.28.

So, really, nothing there on production.

Well, you look at it in stocks, wheat, 650 million bushels for the estimate, 610 came in so slightly below that, probably a little bullish there.

Last year or this year, we're looking at 568 million.

Corn, 1.79 billion ending stocks was the pre-released estimate.

USDA came in at 1.89.

Higher than that, little, little bullish, little bearish there.

And last this year is expected to be 1.27 billion.

Soybeans, 391 expected, 290 USDA, and 220 expected this year.

So, I don't think there's any surprises there.

- So, what was the USDA's price projections?

- Well, if you look at what's going on with the USDA on their projections, you got wheat at $8.50.

Now, that's the marketing year of 2023, 24 marketing year.

Right now you can... Oklahoma, if you adjust it to Oklahoma it's about $8.

You can forward contract for 7.60.

Corn, USDA's got next year at average for $5.60.

That transfers into $5.40 to Oklahoma as you can forward contract for 5.50.

Soybeans, 2.90, USDA, that converts to $12.50 in Oklahoma.

You can forward contract for 12.80.

So, relatively good prices expected for the next marketing year.

- So, is there anything else that can happen that can impact prices?

- Yeah, right now the market's looking at what's going on with weather.

Weather is the big driving force for that.

I think if you look at the impact for what this report had on it and the weather, the rain that we've had, you've seen wheat, corn, and bean prices all go down.

Corn, I mean wheat, you know, $8.35 at the top, it's down to around $7.56, $7.60.

Corn, 5.75 down to 5.50.

Soybeans, 13.15.

- 15 down to $12.50.

So, we had negative impacts from that and the rain we've had around the United States and around the world.

- Any expectations that you can think of that can change the supply and demand situation?

- I think the market's gonna watch what goes on the weather around the world.

Stocks are relatively tight, we're in a weather market.

I think you've also gotta look at the Ukraine Russian War.

We had the COVID go back at increased prices from about $4.50 to $8 and the war from $8 to $13.

They're back down around that $7.50 to $8.50 level.

I think the COVID impacts out of the market right now, so it's the war.

If by some chance the war ended, I think we could have lower prices because that Black Sea wheat and corn would flow out, and I think that could have more of a negative impact on corn and wheat prices.

Bean prices?

I think they're gonna watch the weather and plant an acre.

- All righty, thanks Kim.

Dr. Kim Anderson, Grain Marketing Specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

(bouncy music) - Finally today, SUNUP's Kurtis Hair tells us about an OSU ag research initiative to study well water quality.

- It starts out this color, if it has some form of bacteria or coliform, it'll turn light yellow.

If it has E. Coli, you put this under the UV light, and it glows.

- [Kurtis] For environmental science water resources senior Rayna Ellison, knowing exactly what's in the water she's about to drink is pretty important.

- When they say some form of bacteria, they're like I'm getting some kind of bacteria off of the doorknob, I'm not gonna do anything about it.'

For me, I'm very like, if there's any kind of thing in my water, I'd be chlorinating it.

- [Kurtis] To be fair, if you spend a lot of your time testing and finding every microorganism in a glass of water, you'd probably be a little particular too.

But these tests today aren't for Rayna's personal hydration concerns, they're part of a research initiative aimed at studying the quality of well water.

Rayna is one of many rural scholars conducting research under the umbrella of the Rural Renewal Initiative.

- So the Rural Renewal Initiative is a tier one research initiative on campus.

Our whole overall goal is to work with rural communities to solve their problems.

Some of their bigger problems like healthcare, broadband access, environmental concerns like water quality and those kinds of things are the problems that we are looking at and tackling right now.

- [Kurtis] Audrey King worked as the Rural Renewal Initiatives Communication Coordinator.

She says, Rayna's research perfectly sums up what the main goal of the initiative is.

- It's both research and serving community.

She was able to give people real data about what their well water looked like.

Which was really important to give them power, so that they know how, basically what the quality of water is, and then if they do have issues, how they can mitigate that.

- [Kurtis] For 10 weeks last summer, Rayna spent her time in rural communities in southwest Oklahoma testing well water.

- These are what my slides are.

- Okay.

- I took all these results and put 'em in a PowerPoint and presented the people with the PowerPoint so they know, as there's not much water testing that can be done, I wanted the people to have access to their water quality.

And in southwestern Oklahoma it was, like you're seeing still a lot of impacts from the Dust Bowl even.

- Here we have had several issues with salts being in the water, which can have an effect on crops and livestock and obviously human health.

We are a very dry community at the moment, and we don't get a lot of rain, and so it's building up more minerals coming out of the wells that are here, in Hollis and here, in the county.

(water running) - Now, if you're like me and grew up drinking it, there's probably been countless times that you've taken a cool sip of that liquid and thought to yourself, man, there's nothing like well water.

But what's surprising and even concerning is how little is actually known about well water quality.

- There is very little data known nationwide about the quality of well water anywhere, so, no one tests that.

It's not like water that you would get in town, so to speak, or in rural water where you get a report every year about what's in your water.

You really have to have that initiative to go get your water tested, which can be very costly and very time intensive.

I love working with the Rural Renewal Initiative, because I feel like it is the perfect representation of the land grant mission in one tight, compact little package.

- They're a mile apart actually.

- Yeah, they're the same kind of quality.

- [Kurtis] Rayna is finished with her part of the initiative and a new crop of rural scholars will soon take over.

She says, after graduation she wants to continue a career path in water testing, whether that's in wells or helping clean up the water supply chain, which is the most appealing.

- It gets two of my favorite hobbies, cleaning and water quality.

- From Harmon and Payne Counties, I'm Kurtis Hair.

(upbeat music) - That'll do it for SUNUP this week.

Remember, you can see us anytime on our website and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at SUNUP.

(upbeat music ending) (banjo strumming)