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

I'm Lyndall Stout, we begin today with some changes that are coming to the USDA's Animal Disease Traceability Program.

For guidance, let's turn to Dr. Rosslyn Biggs, an OSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist.

(upbeat music) - Animal disease traceability is important as we consider threats of foreign animal disease, as well as outbreaks of certain diseases here in the United States.

One of the primary mechanisms that we have to trace cattle in an animal disease outbreak is through identification means, and in particular, tagging.

USDA recently announced changes to the types of tags that would be accepted when it comes to those that are required to be officially ID'd.

Those requiring officially ID identification are certain classes of animals.

When it comes to cattle, it's only certain classes, again, that are required to be ID'd when they move.

In particular, it's those animals that are being tested for program diseases such as brucellosis or tuberculosis or being brucellosis vaccinated.

Those situations would require official identification.

The other main category is livestock moving interstate.

When it comes to cattle, these rules have been in place for a number of years.

There are only certain classes of cattle that have to be officially ID'd to move interstate.

They are, when it comes to beef cattle, cattle 18 months of age or older that are sexually intact.

So think adult breeding animals.

And then we have cattle, exhibition cattle, for instance, that are going to rodeos or shows.

Those animals are required to be officially ID'd if they're moving interstate, and then our dairy cattle.

Anything at this point, age-wise, has gotta be officially ID'd if they're moving interstate.

Now with this change, we have seen some changes from USDA in the types of tags are accepting for official ID.

These changes again, it's important to emphasize this is not a mandatory identification in any way of all livestock.

It is only, again, those classes of animals, those that are being tested for program diseases, or vaccinated for brucellosis and it comes to cattle or those moving interstate.

USDA has said they are moving the types of tags that they will accept for official ID.

Producers are gonna be familiar with metal tags, commonly called bangs tags or silver bright tags.

Those have been visual metal tags that have historically been used for animal disease traceability and accepted for official identification.

The USDA has now changed in recent rules that they will be moving from metal tags in the next six months to electronic ID tags.

Producers may have seen these as well.

They are round button tags, 15 digits, starting with 840.

For more information on animal disease traceability and the changes in the tags that will be accepted for official identification, please see the Sunup website or visit the USDA website.

(upbeat music) - Hi, Wes Lee and welcome to the Mesonet weather report.

May is continuing with its reputation is being the wettest month of the year for Oklahoma on average.

This seven day rainfall map from Wednesday afternoon shows all 120 Mesonet sites recording a 10th of an inch or more.

A band of mostly one to two inches were seen in the north and south central areas.

Our soil moisture conditions are as good as they have been for a while outside of the panhandle.

This map shows the percent of plant available water from the surface down to four inches.

Near 100% green areas dominate the state.

However, the panhandle continues with its long-term drought conditions.

Looking at moisture levels down to 16 inches starts to show drier soils in Roger Mills, Cato, and Jackson Counties.

At the deepest levels down to 32 inches below the surface, we don't have sensors at every site, especially in the east where rockier soils are more prevalent.

However, there are enough sites to get a pretty good ideal of the wetter and drier areas of the state.

All in all, we are in much better shape than we were this time last year.

Let's hope the moisture continues to arrive as we move into the summer months.

Gary's up next with the latest drought map showing some improvements.

- Thanks, Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, we continue to get good rains across the state.

Some have more than others of course, that's normal for Oklahoma.

However, we have improved the drought monitor map considerably.

Let's get right to it.

Well take a look at this map.

All we have left is some severe drought up in far northwest Oklahoma.

- A little bit of moderate drought surrounding that and then some areas of abnormally dry conditions in the yellow.

Generally areas that are either stuck in that condition or they're getting better out of drought.

So generally, as I said, a pretty good map for Oklahoma.

We just need some more rain up in far northwestern Oklahoma, and then we should have a much better looking map than what we've seen over the last two months as that flash drought has run outta control.

A lot of that improvement has been centered on the last 30 days, the last part of April, the first half of May, we can see these rainfall amounts from the Mesonet.

Out there in the panhandle, those are the areas where we need to get more than just half an inch of rain, less than an inch of rain.

We need to get that a little bit closer to the two, three, four, or five inches that we see to their east and really down across the south central, up into northeast Oklahoma.

Those regions with, you know, eight to 12 inches of rainfall are looking really good over the last 30 days.

And even north central Oklahoma where that drought's been so bad for so long, they've had five to as much as 10 inches of rainfall, so looking really good across those parts of the state.

But when you take a look at the percent of normal rainfall over that 30 day period, then it's becomes a little bit more clear.

We have the panhandle generally less than 50%, in some cases less than 25%, a little bit down across far southwest Oklahoma, up in northwest Oklahoma.

And then there's a little bit of an area over there just to the west of central Oklahoma that continues to miss the good rains.

A lot of this could be alleviated with just one good rainfall.

Finally, let's take a look at the relative greenness map from the Oklahoma Mesonet's OK Fire Program.

We can see a pretty good green up across most of the state.

We still have those areas though, that are waiting on the good rains across the northwest Oklahoma corner and the panhandle, and also down across the far southwest Oklahoma.

These are the areas that need rain to get us outta fire danger if the right conditions crop up once again.

Okay, we still have about a month of good rainfall left at least of our primary rainy season, so we do have that to look forward to.

Hopefully, more rains where we need it the most.

That's it for this time.

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

- Have you ever wondered how much a beef cow actually eats?

Here's Dr. Dave Lalman with some research that aims to answer that exact question.

- You might think that determining feed or forage intake in a beef cow is simple.

As it turns out, it's quite difficult and we are uniquely situated and equipped to do that kind of research here at Oklahoma State University.

Many years ago, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published an equation to estimate feed or forage intake in a beef cow.

And so that work was done 30 plus years ago, or at least the data used in the equation was published a long time ago.

So it turns out that estimating feed intake in beef cows is one of our specialties here at the Range Cow Research Center.

And so we just recently published a paper where we have taken many different experiments that we've conducted here, and others have conducted other places around the country and pulled those together and tried to determine if the old equation the National Academy of Sciences is using is accurately estimating feed intake in beef cows.

What we've learned is that it does a pretty good job.

The old equation does a pretty good job when the quality of feed or forage is very low, but as quality, you know, average quality or high quality forage or a high quality mixed diet, that old equation was really underestimating feed intake in modern beef cows.

What is the difference and why does it matter?

Well, I think, you know, the primary usefulness of an accurate estimate of feed intake is to use it to estimate nutrient requirements of a beef cow, say for winter supplementation, making sure they have adequate protein and energy.

The other use of an equation like that is for some of the breed associations to use, in they're multi-trait selection indexes.

So what is the cost of a cow?

What's the cost of a 1,500 pound cow versus a thousand pound cow?

Well, in order to estimate the difference in cost, you have to have an accurate estimate of feed intake.

So what we discovered is that the old equation is basically predicting that on average, an average quality forage, a cow would consume somewhere in the neighborhood of about 26 pounds per day, 26.3 to be exact.

And the new equation we developed from this work, indicates that those cows are actually consuming, on average, about 31 pounds of feed or forage per day.

Well forage and average quality forage per day.

So that's about a 15% increase in forage intake in modern beef cows compared to what that.

- Old National Academy of Sciences Engineering Medicine Equation estimated having an accurate estimate of feed intake in a modern beef cow is important because, you know, you have to know what an animal is gonna consume before you can determine if they're receiving adequate amount of protein and energy.

So there's a summary of the recent publication that involves a lot of the work we've done over the last few years.

But lemme tell you, that's just the tip of the iceberg on details related to things that influence intake in a beef cow.

And so if you'd like to dig into that a little bit more, just go to the sunup.okstate.edu and we'll have a link there to this publication and you can learn a lot about feed intake in a beef cow.

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

This week's topic is what are the economically relevant traits in your operation?

And, a little bit about the Blueprint for the Future Part 2 conference.

So, we've talked about this over the years on "Cow-Calf Corner."

As you take a look at your own production system and think about inputs relative to outputs and specifically your marketing endpoint, have you identified what is the most economically relevant trait or short list of traits in your particular operation?

For example, do we think about yearling weight as the most economically important trait, if we routinely sell yearlings after we've wean calves and maybe run those calves on cool season grass?

Or, do we look at that as yearling weight produced per acre that it took to run those cows that produce those calves?

If we retain ownership through finishing, do we think of carcass weight, or potentially quality grade, or do we look at that as pounds of beef carcass per acre that we had in production of those cows that actually produced the calves?

These are topics that'll come up in the Blueprint for the Future conference.

We've got some really successful ranchers from large operations that have different marketing endpoints, and in some cases, the same marketing endpoints.

And whether they run cattle in Nebraska, Texas, or Arkansas, it gets interesting to hear them define the most economically important traits relative to their production system.

I think this will be informative for all cow-calf producers who would like to attend.

I think we'll get into that and a variety of other topics relative to the selection and mating part of the program that leads off the conference on Wednesday, May 22nd.

But some other stuff that's gonna dovetail into this as we think of mature cow size, the importance of uniformity of mature cow size, how that impacts our management, our profit potential, and our efficiency.

We have lived through an era in production agriculture over 50 or 60 years.

When input costs are low, reaching a higher level of production is typically the key to profitability.

As we think about production agriculture right now and the input cost of things like feed, fuel and fertilizer, it is gaining all the efficiency we can and taking a look at the value of that output relative to the input that had to go into that.

We'll also address gene editing on day 2.

This is an interesting topic in and of itself.

We'll have the foremost industry leaders on this topic that have been involved with the handful of gene edits that we've seen to this point in the beef industry.

We still take registrations.

You can actually walk in for registrations the day that the conference starts.

I encourage anyone interested to contact me for more information about the conference or go to our website and actually register.

But that's gonna be at the Totusek Arena, starting at about 11 to noon.

We'll have the trade show set up that morning on Wednesday.

We'll serve lunch to kick off the conference.

And on Wednesday, May 22nd and Thursday, May 23rd, concluding at noon is when we will have our Blueprint for the Future Part 2 conference.

As always, thanks for joining us on "Cow-Calf Corner," and we look forward to seeing you soon.

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

Kim, any changes in the markets this week?

- Markets just continue to go up except for soybeans that is, and cotton.

But you look at wheat, they're up to $6.60 for harvest delivered wheat at Pond Creek.

You know, we started down, if you go back to March, it's at $5.

We got up to just below $5.50.

and then, then we've added over a dollar to that market.

And also, that average price for the harvest period is $5.80, so we're 80 cents above average right now for wheat.

You look at corn, it's up to $4.75.

The harvest average price for corn is $4.80, so we're almost at that.

Corn just keeps working its way up, not wheat just popped up.

Corn's working its way up.

Soybeans, we had a little rally in beans, $10.75 up to $11.50, it's backing off.

The beans aren't moving as powerful, let's put it that way.

- [Kim] As wheat and corn and cotton, It's just kind of stable at the lower levels that we've seen.

- The May WASDE report was released last week, so that's looking at supply and demand estimates.

What were you able to glean from that report?

- Well, there wasn't any surprises in the report.

You look at the pre-release estimates, they were right on.

I think what you got to look at is for world, it's record wheat production.

You look at the world for corn, record corn production, the our almost record corn production, on soybeans, record production, cotton, just a average there, but you had relatively high production.

But their prices aren't reacting to that and the number to look at is that stocks-to-use ratio.

Wheat for the US is 41% average, 40% projected.

You look at wheat in the world, 34% average and it a 32% average, 34% projected you'd expect 5.80 wheat, we got 6.60.

You look at corn, the stocks-to-use ratio, the average is 12, it's 14% for the US.

You look at the world corn, it's projected to be 28 and 26 average.

So above average corn, but that corn price is up near average.

Soybeans, 7.5% average 10% projected.

You'd expect your soybean prices to be below 10.80.

It's still up in the 11.50 range and cotton, 23% average, projected 25.

So you could expect cotton prices to be in the mid-70s and that's where it is.

- Let's talk now about how producers should sell their wheat now that we have some of this new information in.

- Well, we got wheat prices at $6.60.

The average 5.80 above average of stocks-to-use ratios.

You might want to take advantage of some of that, but the normal way and the way that I think that producers should sell their wheat is to stagger it in the market from June all the way through August.

The average prices 5.80, if you're looking at the range of prices, if you've got 6.60 for the average harvest price, that'd give you a range, normally, you have plus or minus 80 cents, 5.80 to 7.40.

Now, I personally think wheat prices will be lower than they are right now, but I've been wrong before and I can be wrong again, but I'm gonna stick my neck out.

I wanna call for about $6 for a harvest average and that'll give you a range from 5.20 to 6.80.

Or if you look at, you know, the biggest three month move was around $3.50 and that gets you a range of prices, 4.50 to 7.50 and I think I can make that one.

- Well that's good.

We want you to be able to look in the mirror after.

All right?

- You bet.

- Okay, Kim, thanks a lot.

(upbeat music) Finally today, the pesky nuisance of summer that you absolutely do not wanna get in your shoes and socks.

Of course, we're talking about the sandbur.

Today we have some control options with Dr. Alex Rocateli.

- As everybody knows, sandburs is one of the worst weeds that we have during the summer in pastures.

And believe it or not, but now is the time to start to think on managing and controlling sandburs.

First, sandburs are kind of weed that thrives in low fertile soils and also during drought.

And they start to grow, I would say end of May.

And for they start to rev, the burs is gonna take seven to 13 weeks depending on the weather.

And the first sandburs that emerge in early summer is the ones that's gonna produce the most of the seeds that can stay for five to eight years in the soil.

Therefore, it's very important to control sandburs early in the season.

Of course, late in the season is good to control, but to really keep the population down to the next years is better to control the earliest as possible.

Sandburs is a multi-year and multifacet control management for, we really decrease our sandburs population in a field and we need to use different strategies.

I would say first the fertilization is the first strategy.

Like if you keep your pastures with good amount of nutrients in the right pH for your target forwards, they will outcompete sandburs.

Grazing also a management that we can use to control sandburs.

If you have a pasture that has a good amount of sandburs, you can graze it.

The immature sandburs plants that's still on the vegetative stage, they are palatable.

The animals will eat it and there is no problem on their consumption of those plants.

Just when they start to become mature, they become an issue.

But some producers may think, well, land so overgraze a pasture that I have lots of sandburs, so the sandburs will be eradicated.

Well.

- Don't fall on that.

Actually have a grazing on a area with sandbar will make that the cattle first graze the good ones and after go to the sandbar.

And so, it can even help the sandbars to grow.

So you can graze it to control sandbar, but keep a proper stocking rate.

There are herbicides that can be used to control sandbar.

You can use by late April or even a little earlier, some pre-emergent herbicides such as Pendimethalin, is sold as Prowl H2O.

That can really control the emergence of some sandbars, but that is just labeled for Bermuda grass.

Now, after emergency, you can use some selective herbicides because sandbar will be growing with Bermuda grass or other native forage that you might have.

So, you can use Nico or Methylsulfuron sold as Pastora, or you can use also Imazepic sold as Plateau and Paronamic.

So, make sure that you are using those herbicides according to the label.

Some of them are just for Bermuda grass use.

Some of there can be used on range land and the respect of the grazing and hanging restrictions on those herbicides.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You might see this plant growing in your flower beds.

It might be growing in wooded areas and in the edge of your property.

You really need to be very, very careful when around this plant.

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

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

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

This plant will grow 6 to 10 feet tall, as you can see behind me.

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

This plant gets really, really large and the stems are big, and they have all these little red dots along them, and you can see these really, really well, especially earlier in the season when the stems are really green.

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

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

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

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

In addition, the stalks remain toxic for up to three years, so you really wanna try to make sure that you remove any of the above ground growth after you've done any kind of herbicide treatment.

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

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

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

You know, when we think about problem plants in our yards and in our pasture, we think about plants that might give us a rash like poison ivy or bull nettle, but when we talk about plants like this, this can actually kill you.

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

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

- That'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder, 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."

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