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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We begin today talking about summer insects.

We're joined by our extension livestock entomologist, Dr. Justin Talley, and Justin, let's kick things off talking about livestock.

We're already seeing some flies on cows out here.

- Yeah, absolutely.

This is the time of year that we start seeing an increase in the number of flies and ticks on our animals.

In general, we kind of have an overlap of two major fly species, the horn fly and the stable fly.

And then throughout the summer, we'll kind of have the tick population always present.

- And I think we talk about this every year, but the conditions, the weather conditions of the last few weeks are contributing to some of this, right?

- Yep.

When we think about the weather conditions that are conducive for whether it's flies or ticks, it's high humidities, increased temperatures.

Those allow the reproductive cycles of both of those pests to really increase and make them what we call reproductive efficient, which means they're going through a generation on the fly side, as few as seven days.

On the ticks, it takes longer, but yeah, they're becoming more prolific.

- So for what we're seeing out here, what kind of treatment options do producers have?

- Yeah, right now, there's two major fly pests that they need to be concerned with.

And the one is a stable fly, and that's the one that's feeding on the legs of cattle and of horses as well.

And the main thing we wanna do is try to get some kind of treatment to provide them some relief.

The other fly pest is a horn fly.

And that one is a little bit more dynamic, because you have multiple options.

The options are really, you can do an insecticide ear tag, or you can do sprays, or you can do pour ons.

And then a lot of our producers incorporate what we call insect growth regulators into their mineral feed that prevents that horn fly from emerging from the manure.

- Let's switch gears and talk about the specifics for horses.

What are you seeing and what are the options for treatment?

- Yeah, horses are a little bit more complicated because we don't have that many options.

One of our main options for treatment on the insecticide are pyrethroids, and it's heavily used.

And it's so heavily used, not just in the animal sector, but across the board that we start to see resistance.

There's two main methods that we want to try to attack a fly problem around horses.

The first one is identify where they're coming from, and try to figure out if you can clean some of that area up.

Clean up any hay area.

If you fed hay over the winter, you need to clean that up.

The other approach is trying to attack the fly problem within the barn and on the horse.

And so on the barn, there's several options that you can spray the walls of the facility that kind of targets the fly's behavior to want to land on a vertical surface.

You spray these walls, that can control 'em that way.

There's some baits that can be used that are really good.

Where you position those baits is key though.

And so you don't wanna put 'em right by your horse.

You wanna put 'em right on the periphery of your barn somewhere.

And then of course, the last option is putting a product on your horse.

And the only available products that we have are really repellents, like these natural oils, clove oil, peppermint oil, as well as just pyrethroid sprays.

- And you're also getting questions this time of year about ticks and other insects affecting people.

So just a quick word of advice for the rest of us.

(chuckling) - Yes, absolutely.

When we think about ticks and as people are getting out more often, whether they're working with their animals, horses, cattle, whatever it is, they're in the environment where the ticks are.

And so they just need to think about protecting themselves.

So protect themselves with some kind of repellent.

Areas to target, spray the repellent around your ankles and around your waistline.

If you do not get your waistline, you're gonna have ticks feed on you.

Our main concern is the tick borne disease, and that's what we're trying to prevent people from experiencing because we have a high risk of that here in Oklahoma.

- Some important information, of course, to consider this time of year.

Justin, thanks a lot.

And for more information, you can go to the SUNUP website, sunup.okstate.edu.

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

I'm Wes Lee.

Although we are still in spring, the temperatures lately have been more summer-like.

A multi-day heat wave took temperatures in the west to over 100 from the weekend through Tuesday.

This had daytime highs being about 20 degrees above normal for this time of the year.

On Monday, actual high temperatures broke multiple records, including the high recorded in Altus of 107.

This reset the daily highest temperature ever recorded on that date from the 106 seen at Hollis 11 years ago.

- On Tuesday, the highs still came in above the century mark in the west.

102 was recorded at multiple locations.

Add to that was the advent of a stiff heat index to deal with.

Heat index takes into account air moisture along with the temperatures.

We saw heat index numbers above 100 across most of the western half of the state, but the worst conditions continued to be in the far southwest.

The temperatures changed in April from being below normal for the first part of the year, to higher than normal.

Unfortunately, heat is likely to continue to be an issue going forward according to the forecast maps.

The red shown here for next week means much warmer than normal is likely to remain.

Now Gary gives us some rainfall information.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, May rains came through in a big way, and now we have some great improvements on the drought monitor map.

Let's get straight to it and see the good news for ourselves.

And the good news, most of the eastern half of the state is now drought free.

We still have some moderate to severe drought in the south central and north central Oklahoma, but mostly that eastern half the state, either in abnormally dry conditions, or drought that's going out instead of coming in.

So hopefully we can improve those conditions even more with some more rains.

We even have a tongue of drought free conditions that extends from east central over into southwestern Oklahoma.

So that was that area where storms lined up and trained over and over again.

You look at the Oklahoma Mesonet's rainfall map for the last 30 days, and easily see in those areas with the yellows, the oranges, the reds, where those heavier rains fell from 6 to more than 15 inches of rain in these areas, so lots of improvements across the state.

We still need those areas across western Oklahoma to catch up, however.

And those areas show up quite well on the percent of normal rainfall map for the same time period.

Those are the areas that need lots of more rainfall to catch up to the areas across eastern Oklahoma.

It's that time of year when we start to worry about our reservoirs across the state, mostly, the reservoirs across the state are full or in flood stage.

We do have a few in parts of central Oklahoma and especially west Oklahoma that are a little bit below.

Lugert-Altus, 25 feet below, that's more of a managed lake, however.

Tom Steed, 5 below, Frederick, 3 below.

So by and large, the lakes across southwest Oklahoma are still doing okay.

So we got a great first 10 days of May, lots of rain, now we need to add some more.

That's it for this time, we'll see you next time on the Mesonet Weather Report.

(upbeat music) - It's time to talk beef trade with our livestock marketing specialist, Dr. Derrell Peel.

So Derrell, what's happening with beef exports in 2022?

- You know, we have data now for the first quarter of the year, so at this point, beef exports in quantity terms is up, a little bit over 6%.

Remember that last year, 2021, we set a new record on beef exports, so we're ahead of that pace so far this year, and of course value continues to go up as well.

- So we've had a lot go on in the past couple of years, a pandemic, and just drought right now.

So how have beef exports changed in recent years?

- Well, you know, for many years, Japan was the biggest US beef market.

In recent years, South Korea's been closing that gap, and so far actually, in 2022, South Korea is our biggest beef export market, first three months of the year, Japan is number two.

And then, you know, the big change in the last couple of years has been the combined China-Hong Kong market.

It's been growing rapidly, and it's number three and closing the gap, only, you know, as a share of our beef exports, only a couple of percentage points behind Japan at this point.

- So what about beef imports?

- Beef imports in the early part of the year are up sharply, up over 41% so far this year, it's up really for most of our major suppliers, but the big increase has been from Brazil, and so that's been been the biggest change, but we're getting a little bit more from Australia, a little more from Mexico, a little more from Canada as well.

New Zealand is about equal to last year.

- So why has there been such a big change with beef imports with Brazil?

- You know, there's several things going on with Brazil.

One is that they do have additional access now.

So we expect some increase in imports from Brazil, because they can now bring fresh product to the US.

They were restricted to only cooked product for several years prior to that.

However, I don't think the current pace will probably continue at this point.

You know, Brazil, there's been some movement.

They were kind of knocked out of the China market, which was their biggest market for late last year.

So I think they probably had some product that was looking for a home, if you will.

And the other thing is, of course, the US has tariff rate quotas that kick in now.

Brazil has filled the open market quota already so far this year, so it'll be more expensive to bring that product up here for the remainder of the year.

I expect that it will temper those imports as we go forward.

- You know, has Russia's war with Ukraine impacted beef exports or imports at all in regards to, you know, with our market here in the US?

- You know, on a global basis, I really haven't seen a lot of impact.

Russia was a relatively small importer of beef in recent years.

It's probably affected whoever was supplying that before, a little bit, but in general, we haven't seen a lot of impacts, the US hasn't exported any beef to Russia in a decade.

- And so we've seen no direct impacts.

And really, I don't see a lot of impacts in general, in the global beef trade as a result of there's a lot of other impacts, but maybe not so much in terms of beef trade with the war in Ukraine.

- Yep, before we let you go, pasture conditions you can see right now it's pretty muddy out here.

We got some rain and some parts of the state got a lot of rain, some parts to the state didn't really get any, or get that much.

So was it too far past like in regards to drought for pasture conditions or is there still some wiggle room in there where it can really help producers?

- You know, it was kinda right at the 11th hour, but I think it's in time to do some good, it's still early May here.

So the moisture that we got in Central and Eastern Oklahoma will do a lot to bring on pasture and hay production here a little bit later than we would like, but it'll definitely help.

And even out west, it's still dry that we're not out of the drought there, but a little bit of moisture there will give 'em a little bit of at least some initial growth, and that may provide some very important flexibility for those producers, even if they still face drought conditions in the not too distant future.

- All righty, thanks, Derrell.

Dr. Derrell Peel, Livestock Marketing Specialist here at Oklahoma State University - The SUNUP website is new and improved after a much needed digital facelift.

Whether it's the latest episode or recent show links, you can easily access all of our latest content and information.

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(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

This week on "Cow-Calf Corner," we're gonna discuss the benefits of estrous synchronization at the onset of breeding season, and the potential benefits of artificial insemination, and how they can work to our advantage in trying to improve profit potential.

So, first, some topics that we get into, anytime we're thinking about going into breeding season it's always beneficial to get as many of our cows bred early in breeding season as possible.

It is gonna result in more calves coming early in that following calving season.

And when we wean, we're gonna have a set of older, heavier, more uniform calves.

If we have older, heavier, more uniform calves, it makes it possible for us to better implement management practices, herd health, vaccinations, concentrate our efforts of labor into shorter timeframes.

And so, there's always upside and additional profit potential in doing that.

So when we talk specifically about estrous synchronization if we do that going into a breeding season, the big upside for us, if we go out and we've got those females that are 45 days to two months postpartum, if we begin a synchronization program at the point we're ready to begin breeding or turning out bulls, we see a higher percentage of females coming in initially in those first few days.

And so if we're breeding natural, or specifically, if we're checking heat for the sake of doing AI, we can concentrate our heat detection into a few days there.

And even those cows that don't conceive are gonna remain synced up to a degree, so that even within the first 18 to 25 days of breeding season, we're gonna see more return heats on those.

So if we're checking heat for the sake of AI, it concentrates our labor into shorter timeframes, and we're not out there continuously checking heat over a couple months or potentially three months.

And so, the upside is more of those cows get an opportunity to get serviced within the first three weeks of a breeding season, which relates to more calves coming in a timely fashion that following calving season.

The other upside, if we're gonna go to the time and expense of estrous synchronization, is it permits us to use artificial insemination, or using bulls that have got more genetic value for traits that are economically important to us, than we could necessarily get with just natural service sires.

And so that's kind of the other advantage that folds in to estrous synchronization is potentially catching those cows and doing some AI work on 'em, at least in the early stages before we may turn out a bull to breed natural service.

And so, as we think long-term, define breeding seasons, permit us to manage better.

If we can synchronize estrous at the beginning of breeding season, we end up seeing more calves born earlier that following calving season, which increases our profit potential.

Appreciate you joining us this week.

(upbeat music) - We're making our way into May, and Kim, so, what's the market offering right now for '22 harvest delivery for corn, beans, and wheat?

- Well, if you look at wheat, Pond Creek, Perryton area, $11.50, Snyder Altus, Southern Oklahoma, $11.

If you're looking at corn, Northern Oklahoma, Pond Creek to $7.07, Perryton Panhandle area.

- [Kim] $7.77, and soybeans, Northern Oklahoma right around $14 and Perryton Panhandle area around 13.60.

- So why are prices so high?

- Well, prices are high because stocks are relatively tight.

Let's start with wheat.

You look the five year average, world stocks to use ratio, it's about 38%.

It's projected to be 35%.

Not only a 3% drop, but remember, we're producing 28 billion bushels of wheat a year in the world and 3% is a lot of wheat.

You look at the United States, our five year average stock to use ratio, 50%.

It's projected to be down around 36.

You look at the major exporters.

That's US, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Russia, Ukraine, five year average is 20%, 18% is what's projected.

If you look at the Black Sea area, their average is 11% and it's projected to be 16%.

So there's a lot of wheat tied up in Russia and Ukraine that hasn't got out in the export market and that will sometime down the future come out.

If you look at corn, the world about 29% on a five year average stock to use ratio, projected to be 26%.

48 billion bushels of corn production, so that's a lot of corn.

United States, 13.5% five year average, projected to be 9.6.

Corn stocks in the US are tight.

Brazil, five year average 8.2%, projected to be 4.4, tight.

Argentina, 7% five year average, 2.2%, tight.

But you go Ukraine, the five year average stock to use ratio for corn is 4.3% and they're projected to have 18%.

It's not getting out of the Ukraine and so that corn's tied up there.

- What about beans?

- Well, if you look at soybeans, the world, over at 30% for a five year average, down to 25.

So tight soybeans around the world.

United States, 12% expected to be 6%.

Tight beans in the US.

Brazil, their five year average is right at 25%, projected to be down to 16.

So you've got tight soybeans everywhere around the world.

- So using that crystal ball, what do these numbers tell you and what is your advice to producers?

- Well, I think what producers wanna know is how long these high prices are gonna last.

And you look at wheat, especially, I don't think you can fill the void for wheat even if you do get that wheat outta the Black sea area.

Now it starts coming out of exports and Ukraine and Russia, our wheat prices are gonna go down a little bit.

But you're looking at strong wheat prices for the next two years, I believe.

Maybe three, but at least two.

You look at corn, I think it's close to the same situation.

I mean, stocks are so tight with high nitrogen prices, fertilizer prices, fuel prices, a shortage of equipment.

I think you're looking again another two years or so, maybe three before you can get that supply built up to bring these prices down some, and soybeans is the tightest one of 'em all.

But we've got more acres of beans this year.

They use less nitrogen.

So they could come down a little faster than the wheat or the corn.

- Alrighty, Kim, Dr. Kim Anderson, grain marketing specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

(upbeat music) - Your pond is designed to handle heavy overflows but it's up to you as the pond owner to monitor and maintain those structures to make sure that you don't have an unpleasant and expensive surprise.

The first point at which the water overflows is called the primary spillway.

In our smallest ponds, this is typically a trickle tube that angles through the dam.

In our typical ponds, like the one behind me, this is most often an internal standpipe, and in our largest structures are flood control structures.

These are typically control towers.

The enemy of all of these overflows would be floating debris.

After a major overflow event has occurred, check to see if any floating limbs or other debris have accumulated around the pipe that may potentially be clogging it.

If the overflows are clogged or impeded in any way, one of the major dangers is overtopping.

If water starts going over the top of your dam, typically it's a short order until erosion begins and the entire dam can wash out.

That would be the major failure scenario.

Less dramatic but equally important would be the failure of the structure itself that can be more incremental leakage around a pipe or in like collapse or perhaps something besides floating debris clogging it.

Occasionally we have turtles that get into pipes and that's an especially hard problem to tackle.

Be very careful about trying to clear debris during overflow events, especially on those control towers because that's a major safety hazard.

You can get entrapped and it's a major drowning hazard.

- Another thing to watch out for on these structures is just simply being aware that everything has a limited lifetime.

It may be from anywhere between 20 and 50 years depending on the structure, but things do corrode and do begin to have structural issues.

If you see anything suspicious, snap a picture and visit with your local NRCS office about it.

The second point at which water overflows when the primary spillway can no longer handle the amount of water that's being delivered by the watershed is called the auxiliary spillway.

And typically this is a flat earth and channel around one end of the dam.

You need to make sure that this stays well vegetated and that there is nothing blocking the channel.

No structures, nothing added in there that would impede the flow of water.

Flowing water has tremendous cutting power.

It's well worth your time and effort to make sure that your control structures are functioning as they are intended to do.

(upbeat music) - Finally today, a look at the unique research project that pairs the USDA with the OSU Water Resources Center to study the structural integrity of dams.

Sun Up's Seth Fish put together this story.

- On a sunny windless day, Goose, the UAV, is preparing for takeoff.

Once off the ground, Goose begins an autonomous flight, taking a series of photos that will later be stitched together for a very important purpose.

Mapping and monitoring the aging infrastructure of our dams and watersheds.

- We call it DAM TAGS for short but it's the Dam Analysis Modernization of Tools, Applications, Guidance, and Standardization.

And so it's a way of supporting the aging infrastructure that has been constructed by USDA over the past 80 years.

There's nearly 12,000 flood control dams nationwide, and right here in Oklahoma we have over 2,100 of those structures.

- Kade Shelton is an AG engineer with the USDA ARS and is the remote pilot in command for the DAM TAGS research project.

- So the purpose of this is for dam monitoring.

So we want to verify in rainstorm events that dams are not eroding.

We can monitor vegetation over time.

We're also using this information for our low cost sensors.

We can do radio span spectrums.

So go in on these dams and configure different points.

And we can do flight studies to see where our radios would work best for our low cost sensors.

So the things that we're looking for is a base run for the first to get an idea of what is there.

So the good thing about this software is you have the ability to re-fly.

So once re-fly, month, two months, six months later, you can overlap those images to see if anything has changed.

So you can see if there's been anything eroded, anything breached on the dams, any big large cracks in the spillway.

So that's kind of the information that we're looking for.

- DAM TAGS is a project in partnership with the USDA natural resource conservation service, the agricultural research service, and the Oklahoma State University water resources center.

- Really, we play a supporting role to the USDA Ag research service on this.

They have the scientists that they're doing a lot of the research but we provide a lot of the technical support.

So we have the modelers, the app developers, the database managers, the GIS specialists.

They really make everything come together and make that data available to those decision makers.

And they've been doing fantastic research out here at the hydraulic engineering research unit here below Lake Carl Blackwell for decades.

- Goose is just one small piece of DAM TAG's research.

DAM TAGS is in the early stages of research and development and is projected to be a five year project.

The USDA, with the help of Oklahoma State University are seeking to revolutionize the way we monitor these ever important structures.

- Water is important to human life and the downhill side effects if there was to be a breach or overflow of those dams could be catastrophic.

So we wanna monitor those to make sure that that will not happen and we can include that on our list.

- For Sun Up, I'm Seth Fish.

- That'll do it for us this week.

Remember you can see us anytime at sunup.okstate.edu and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Lyndall Stout, have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma agriculture starts at Sun Up.

(upbeat music)