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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We have a lot to talk about this week, including the release of two new turf grass varieties by OSU, as well as the significant rainfall we saw this past week.

But first, wheat harvest is underway in Oklahoma.

This, as we receive word from the USDA that a significant portion of the wheat crop this year will have to be abandoned to learn more.

Here's our Ag policy specialist, Dr. Amy Hagerman.

Drought conditions in certain counties of the state, are resulting in higher expectations than normal of crop abandonment.

These could range from 30 to 50 percent in terms of the overall crop, but in individual counties that's gonna vary a lot.

Some of our most drought-stricken counties in the state may see very high levels of crop abandonment for our wheat crop this year, versus our Eastern side of the state, where we may see a very good crop for, in terms of yield, and in terms of acreage.

In some of our most drought-stricken counties, many producers have already made the decision of whether or not to abandon a crop, potentially haying that crop and fallowing it for the summer, or even planting a summer crop.

However, there are some considerations for those that are still in that critical point of making the decision.

First, is that grain prices are very high.

You don't need as much yield per acre to still make enough revenue to cover your expenses on the acreage.

This is gonna create more flexibilities for some producers who may still want to go ahead and harvest that crop in their area.

Even if yields are even in the single digits.

Before making that decision, producers need to talk to their crop insurance agent.

This is really critical because a notice of loss needs to be put in place and that crop needs to be inspected before it can be moved into an alternate use.

This includes haying that crop as well, but it also, any sort of summer crop that needed to be planted, that alternate use would need to be approved before the producer actually made those decisions.

So having open communication with a crop insurance agent and your banker is really important before making those choices.

In other parts of the state, we're getting a lot of moisture, excess moisture, to the point that we have flooding fields.

This is also going to affect the ability to harvest those crops.

Again, getting that notice of loss into your crop insurance agent is really critical.

Within 72& hours, have a conversation, do a phone call, go in person, but then also there'll need to be that written notice of loss that goes in as well.

So as we come into harvest, take some time to consider your options.

Talk to your insurance agent, talk to your banker, talk to your local extension educator about what those options are and about the financial impacts to weigh the pros and cons of your different choices coming up.

And just take good care of yourself.

This is a very stressful time in Oklahoma, in general, but the markets and the weather certainly aren't helping.

And be sure to reach out for more resources on our Extension webpage.

(rhythmic music) - This is the Mesonet Weather Report, and I'm Wes Lee.

Finally, we got the statewide spring rain showers that we have been waiting on, with the entire state getting in on it.

It has been a long time since this consecutive days with less than a quarter-inch of rain looked this good.

Even the three at Idabel got reset with over two inches of rain that fell after this map was made.

As of Wednesday afternoon, this was the weekly rainfall totals that had accumulated.

Impressive is the red six- and seven-inch totals from Logan County, up through Payne and Pawnee and into Osage counties.

The dry region in the South Central Arbuckle Mountains, also got a good three to four inches of rain, but probably most importantly, is the rains that fell across the entire drought-stricken Western third of Oklahoma, including the Panhandle.

It had been a very long time since Canton had received a quarter-inch of rain, much less the inch-plus shown here.

Looking at the 10-inch Fractional Water Map for midweek shows there is still a lot of moisture needed to correct drought issues in the West, but it is such a better looking map than when we back up from just a week before, where there were a lot more yellow showing up on the map.

Now here's Gary looking at the longer-term perspective.

- Thanks, Wes.

And good morning, everyone.

Well, finally this spring, we had a statewide rainfall and a statewide significant rainfall.

And it certainly has done wonders for that Drought Monitor map.

Most of the Eastern half of the state and a little bit more, a little bit extra, is without drought completely.

We do have a little bit of those areas with still those abnormally dry conditions in the yellow, that signifies areas going outta drought at this time.

And we still have on the Western half the state a little bit of moderate-to-severe drought, but then we have those blobs of- - Extreme to exceptional drought, southwestern, northwestern Oklahoma, out into the panhandle, so we have had definite relief.

We still have problems, mostly in the western half of the state.

Additional rainfall will start to take care of those areas, if we do get it.

Most of that improvement's come in the last 30 days, let's be honest.

Previous to that, it was touch-and-go.

But we look at that 30-day rainfall map from the Mesonet, we see all those double-digit amounts from over there across east central Oklahoma, up into northeastern and then all the way over into central Oklahoma.

But we do have a large area of the state with at least four inches of rainfall.

A few inches here and there make the difference between drought and no drought.

And that shows up on the departure from normal rainfall map for the last 30 days.

Again, those surplus amounts over in east central Oklahoma, over into central Oklahoma, a little bit outta control, eight to nine inches above normal, but a larger area of the state at least has about an inch to three inches above normal.

And those, of course, trouble spots show up, the western panhandle, much of the southern third of the state is starting to get a little bit drier.

And then, of course, west central Oklahoma close to normal at least, but still a little bit below.

I do wanna skip right over to the last 60 days, the percent of normal rainfall map, to show that we do still have deficits in those parts of the state where drought exists.

So again, over much of the western third of the state, we have less than 75% of normal, and in some cases, less than 50% of normal, so those are the areas we're looking out for where that drought can come back in a hurry and intensify in a hurry.

Okay, I would call this May a good start at getting rid of drought across the state of Oklahoma.

We have a long way to go over parts of western Oklahoma, but at least we did get that start.

(upbeat country music) - We're joined now by Dr. Yanqi Wu, a professor and plant breeder here at OSU, to talk about the new turfgrass varieties that have been released recently from OSU.

Dr. Wu, thanks for being with us.

- I'm glad to.

- And we're actually standing on one of the two varieties?

- Yeah, new releases.

Yes.

- Yeah.

Tell us about those.

- This is the Bermuda grass 79 20.

We just released it two months ago, and this grass is significantly improved in cold hardiness.

- Great, so talk about what went into developing this variety and the other variety that were just released.

- Oh, that's many years answer.

Started from beginning, we need to select the best parents, then crosses them, then testing, testing, evaluation, evaluation.

Finally, we figure out that this grasses have significantly improved cold hardiness compared with commercial standard, so we release it.

- As we stand here, you can really see the two differences.

- Yes.

One difference is, as I said, is freeze tolerance or cold hardiness.

Another one, just happened now, this one, commercial standard, has disease.

Ours, pretty good resistant disease, right?

So that will reduce input or fungicide applications.

- So ultimately save money for... - Oh, definitely, that's a lotta money.

If you look at a golf course management, probably the fungicide or these kind of things is major, one of the major improvement, or one of the major costs.

- So this is one variety.

Tell us about the second variety that was also released.

- Okay, second variety is not here, and we have other plots.

That's improved for water savings.

You know, turfgrass crop in United States cover probably around 40 to 45 million acres.

That's estimated, but pretty good.

Many people agreed with that.

That's basically the size of Oklahoma.

You can see, if we irrigated one inch water per week, that's a lotta water.

That's a major concern.

We developed that variety to save water.

There are, it is drought resistant.

- So you work with an entire team at OSU on this process.

- Oh, definite, definite.

We have big team.

Dr. Dennis Martin, Dr. Moss, Dr.Fontanier, Dr. Nathan Walker.

We have also have new members.

Dr. (indistinct), Dr. Fluharty That's the faculty level.

We have technicians, graduate student, postdocs.

We also collaborate with university scientists from other campuses like Texas A&M, University of Florida, University of Georgia, North Carolina State University, University of California at Riverside, and others.

- So talk about the need to continue to advance the science and develop new varieties.

Why are you doing this?

- Yes.

For this society, we need reduce the input and increase the quality.

That's our long-time goal.

So we continue work on that.

First thing, save water, water, water.

Improve quality, quality, quality.

- And the timing is good because we had a lot of attention in Oklahoma last week with the PGA Championships, and some of the previous varieties that this team developed, those golfers were playing on, right?

- Oh, yes.

That's definite.

Actually, (indistinct), we grow that grasses here.

Great, so the varieties that have just been released now, what steps have to happen before they are available commercially?

There's a few years now before they're actually grown on golf courses, for example.

-Definitely.

We need several steps we need to do.

First we need to grow these grasses for intellectual protection, we work with OSU office of Technology and Commercialization.

Then they look for collaborators.

Then the collaborators say that this grass is licensed to a sod producer to the strategically located farmers.

Then from the farmers increasing the plants, vegetitivally they deliver product to the consumers.

That is two or four years.

-How many years does it take to get the variety to the stage that you can release it and then it advances to the commercial arena.

Normally need ten to twelve years, average.

But every plant is different they are ... -Sure.

And OSU has quite a reputation with turf grass, there's previous varieties that were released commercially years ago that are on some high profile sports arenas, right?

-I'm glad you mentioned that actually this number nine, number two releases and OSU team, they've worked many years here and get a reputation especially improving freeze tolerance and cold hardiness so they use these grasses, several varieties in national football league stadiums like the Kansas Chiefs, the Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens, even in Washington, the Capitol Hill, -Well, we're fans of the Philadelphia Eagles in our house so this news when over big in our house.

Doctor, thanks for visiting with us today and congratulations to you and the team on these new varieties.

-Thank you so much for this opportunity.

-And to read more in depth about the release of the new varieties, just go to sunup.okstate.edu.

-Good morning Oklahoma, thanks for joining us again this week on cow/calf corner.

Our topic this week is safety and facilities in cattle handling.

Facilities are important but we always talk about an understanding of cattle behavior, stockmanship skills and facilities are all key to reducing stress on cattle, efficiency of our labor when we're actually working cattle, and avoiding injury to both the cattle and mankind alike.

So, there's a synergy between understanding cattle behavior, a well set up facility for working cattle and actually our animal husbandry skills all of which hopefully result in successfully working cattle and avoiding things like what has happened to me.

If you are thinking about the facility itself, there's a lot of different things to keep in mind.

Initially,I know anytime I'm going to lay out a facility I start thinking about what are we going to build out of, what is my most cost effective means of coming up with the pipe and materials that I need to put into the thing, there's several things on a checklist we should consider relative to a well done facility.

And in no particular order, what are the size of the cattle that we're going to typically be working in this thing, how often are we going to use it.

Is it something that makes sense to shelter and put inside, should it be outside in terms of the chute, the alleyway, the tub.

What is the lighting situation?

If we are actually going to put it inside, lighting can be an issue.

Getting cattle to travel and work through a facility like we expect them to.

We want to think about things like drainage, we typically want a facility set somewhere where it's going to drain and not stay super muddy.

And we want to consider things like the surface the cattle are going to be walking on.

Is it going to be dirt, are we going to put rock in it?

If it is going to be concrete, we want to get that concrete finished at a rough enough texture that cattle are going to have sure footing when they actually walk on it.

So, chapter 40 of the OSU beef cattle manual actually has a lot of good information on laying out facilities and things to consider.

Other stuff that we want to keep in mind is just the behavior of the animals and all beef cattle regardless if they are a former show heifer or a herd bull got certain characteristics we need to keep in mind.

Cattle have a flight zone, cattle have a point of balance, cattle are motivated by fear, they typically have about one thought at a time, they don't like to be alone.

- And understanding all those things in tandem is what permits us to lay out a facility to capitalize on the behavior of cattle, so they're gonna work through it in the fashion that's most efficient for us and the cattle.

Final thoughts on this topic, and yes, I have recently had an injury to my arm that was a result of some what we're getting ready to talk about.

But past information we have gathered in the College of Ag here shows that about 50% of all injuries to humans when we're working cattle, are a result of bad judgment.

And typically, in those instances where we have exhibited bad judgment and managed to get ourself hurt, is the result of being in a hurry, being tired, being preoccupied or trying to get things done too quickly, which is exactly how I ended up fracturing my arm a couple weeks ago, and all the above would be a checklist for me.

So we wanna think about what we are doing, we wanna be focused on the task at hand, let's give some thought to laying out those facilities so that they work as efficiently as possible, and let's give thought to the behavior of animals so that everything goes as low stress, and everybody emerges from what we're doing with cattle as safely as possible.

Thanks for joining us this week.

(upbeat music) - Time to check in on the market news with our crop marketing specialist, Kim Anderson.

So Kim what's happening?

- I think this week, it's the food corridor.

Russia's negotiating opening up the Black Sea for Ukraine to export food, specifically wheat and corn, out of that market, and that would put more commodities on the market.

Also Russia has already been exporting, but I think it'd free up their exports a little more too, if they'd open that corridor.

Of course you had the rain over the last week, we've got that needed rain that we need.

I think it may have negative impact on some of our wheat, but definitely positive impact on our summer crops, our corn, our soybeans, our cotton, our peanuts and those.

You look at the corn and soybean plantings, they've been going relatively well, and you look at the world's situation, specifically for wheat.

Last year, you had 28.6 billion bushels slightly below the record of the year before, you're looking at 28.5 billion this year.

However, the supplies of bread flour wheat, Hard Red Winter, Hard Red Spring wheat, are significantly tighter than your other classes.

- So let's get into prices, but first let's start with wheat.

- Back in late February, wheat prices in Oklahoma around $7.50, they wallowed around between 8.50 and 9.50 for a good part of time there.

And up to 9.50 to $12, we peaked out at 13.13, we came back down into that 9.50 to $12 range, looks like we'll stay in that for a while, but there's downward pressure, if especially, if the food quarter opens up and Ukraine can export 'cause they've got a lot of wheat in storage they need to get on the market.

- So what about corn and soybean prices?

- Well, you look at corn and soybean, both are planted acres, is probably the key there.

Plus it got dry enough for them to plant lower corn acres this year, higher soybean acres.

Then you got Ukraine.

Ukraine's probably only planted around 70% of their normal corn acres, they're concerned about having diesel for maintaining, working those acres over the production periods and harvesting that.

Ukraine exports 18% of the world's corn markets, so that'll definitely have a positive impact on prices.

You look at the corn prices, you go back to the beginning of the war, somewhere around oh, just below $6, 5.80 in that corn was already on an upward trend because of the lower acres, tight world corn stocks, got up around 6.86, moved sideways above that, up into your almost $8 range, upper 7's and moving sideways now.

Then if you're looking at soybeans, higher acres, slightly below average world stocks, well below average US soybeans stocks, the war hasn't had much impact on soybeans because their stocks were already tight, you don't produce 'em in that part of the world.

You got the range for soybean prices, 13.50 to 14.60, looks like they're gonna stay in that area for a while.

- Well, there's a lot of variabilities, you know, with this current situation.

So how do you think the current market, you know, can sustain and go forward?

- Well, the big question is how long will these high prices last?

How long will this tight situation go on?

And the general consensus is, at least two years, if maybe not three, because COVID set this situation up by emptying the pipeline, by interrupting the supply movement, and then we came into the war situation that strengthened those bad, that made the bad situation worse.

The general consensus is two years, maybe three, for these prices.

I do think they will come down some, but not go back to say the average wheat price of 5.50 and the average corn price of 4.50.

- All righty, thanks Kim.

- Dr. Kim Anderson crop marketing specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

(upbeat music) - Finally today, every year wheat producers in Kay County attend a special field day at Schieber farms to get an up close look at OSU wheat varieties.

Once again, here's Sunup's Kurtis Hair.

- You know, to help neighbor farmers and farmers in the area, they gotta have a test plot somewhere.

Somebody's gotta do it.

And I had a good location to put it.

So we just did it.

Maybe we'll have some seed wheat that can help somebody this year.

- [Kurtis] Just a stones throw away from Don Schieber front porch sits a handful of OSU wheat variety demonstration plots.

During the growing season, it's not unusual for Don to look out his front window, to see fellow wheat producers and curious County Road drivers hop out of their vehicles to get a closer look.

It's the exact reaction Don hoped he would get when he started this.

- And there's a lot of people drive by and walk out in 'em and look at 'em too.

And that's what it's for.

They don't have to come to the house and tell me they're going to be out there.

Just go do it.

It's been a good thing to do and makes my place look better too.

- [Kurtis] Today is the 18th Wheat Field Day on Schieber Farms.

It's the perfect opportunity for north central wheat producers to get a look of how different varieties are performing this year.

- We have years and years of data to collect on the varieties that Oklahoma state has grown or partnered with that has done an awesome job of telling us what does well in our area.

You know, what are things that farmers need to be looking for that do well in north central Oklahoma, it's a much different climate than far out west where we're quite a bit drier.

We're quite a bit cooler up here in north central Oklahoma.

So it's nice to have something that's localized and very, I guess, even a little niche detailed to our area.

- [Kurtis] And this north central wheat crop has had quite a journey so far.

- Well, it's a mixed bag.

We started out last fall with perfect moisture to get the crop up.

We got a good stand on everything, and then it got dry.

And then we were living on sub soil moisture all winter.

- Farming is day by day and wheat is a tough plant.

Late April, we are actually in a D3 drought, according to the drought monitor.

And it's really turned around.

- We kept walking the fields and didn't find any weeds or no reason to put chemical on.

Now, we've had all the rain, some of the fields are thinner, and now the weeds are coming up.

But here our heads are just, I saw some heads a while ago that were making four berries.

- Although the weed is looking promising here in Kay County, it's the exact opposite situation in other areas.

- Yeah, it's really exciting here to be looking at this.

And they think they think it's a bad wheat crop, but, it's by far better than anything we have in the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle.

- [Kurtis] Sam Watson is a custom harvester from Texas who regularly cuts acres throughout the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle.

Though there's not gonna be much to cut this year, forcing him up north to find other prospects.

- Well, it's a really sad deal for most of my dry-land farmers.

Well, it's really gonna affect the bottom line 'cause, you know, I cut 15,000 acres of wheat and outta that 15, you know we might just cut 1500.

Like I say, my people at Hollis and Wellington, I mean they're at zero, can't even, didn't even get to graze or nothing.

So it's gonna be a pretty hard fall.

- [Kurtis] Although this northern wheat crop is looking significantly better than other areas of the state, for Don and other Kay county producers, they're still about a month away from harvest.

The hurry up and wait stage, and wheat producers know it's time to cross those fingers during that period.

- You know, we always worry about hail when we get close to harvest.

Our average hail out here is once in 55 years.

So, and I got hailed out here in 1993.

So, I've got a ways to go before my 55 years is up.

So, we'll see how that holds up.

- [Kurtis] Wait and see.

It's the attitude you have to have on this unforgiving land.

- You know, everything changes every day.

So, my grandpa used to tell me, tell me what the weather's gonna be and I'll tell you how to farm.

Well, that still holds true.

- [Kurtis] In Kay county, I'm Kurtis Hair.

- Thank you, Kurtis.

And a side note to this story, from all of us at Sunup, congratulations to Don Schieber on his induction this spring into the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame.

And 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 Sunup.

(upbeat music)