- Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We've been talking about the rain a lot lately, but as we know, the impact of drought has been far reaching in Oklahoma this fall.

And now we've received word that the Emergency Drought Committee in the state has set up a new program.

To get us up to speed, Here's our OSU extension AG Policy Specialist Dr. Amy Hagerman.

- The Oklahoma Emergency Drought Commission just met to discuss any sort of measures that can be taken to offset losses experienced due to extensive drought in the state earlier this year.

While we're certainly thankful for the rain, we're also thankful for opportunities to take measures that will help prevent additional damages to future droughts.

This is $27 million in total funding that will be put out through the Oklahoma Conservation Commission and the Oklahoma Conservation Districts across the state.

With the exception of the panhandle counties, which are very blessed with rain in this last year, the program itself pays up to 80% of practices or $7,500 per individual.

The practices that are covered are water wells, pipe laying, pasture taps, pond clean out, and watering tanks.

These programs are available on a first come first serve basis, so get into your local office for more information if you think you might benefit from any of these practices.

Take a moment to go talk to your local conservation district office to get more information on the practices themselves.

They'll look at your operation and make recommendations for how to implement the practices.

Now, last time you might remember there was quite a bit of compliance that was done as a result of this.

This time, the Oklahoma Association of Conservation District's offices will simply be looking at 10% of the total applications for compliance checks.

But that means you'll need to have good records throughout the process.

Tracking and monitoring how the practices have been implemented, even if you receive some good rain on your operation, drought is always a risk in Oklahoma.

Take a moment to look around your operation, think about the things that you would do differently, and then take advantage of these opportunities when they come available, either through this funding provided by the state or some of the federal programs like Environmental Quality Incentives Program or Conservation Stewardship Program to address the conservation challenges on your operation.

Record keeping is key for any of these programs, so keep your records in place, track all your expenses, keep your receipts.

The Conservation Commission isn't necessarily going to track compliance on every operation that uses these funds, but up to 10% of operations could have compliance checks.

So keep your records and take advantage of these programs if you feel they'd be useful for you.

For more information on this program and others, visit sunup.OKstate.edu - With the lack of wheat pasture this fall and some challenges with the hay supply.

Lots of questions coming into the beef extension team.

So here's Sunup's Elizabeth Hokit with Dr. Dave Lalman.

- We're here again with Dr. Dave Lalman and Dave, we're still talking about drought topics, sadly, and people are starting to run through their hay inventory at this point.

So what are some of the things we could maybe do to combat that?

- Yeah, when a, when a situational, you know, dry conditions like this come up, there's a, there's a a short list of things that most people can implement if their forced to start feeding their hay supply early and they want to try to stretch it to last longer.

One of those would be using a feed additive, ruminsin is the one that we've talked about before.

We just published a paper on that a couple of years ago that has shown that it reduces feed intake but doesn't reduce animal performance.

In fact, it it slightly improves animal performance at the same time reducing feed intake.

And that's a good thing, especially in times when you have limited forage supply.

The other thing they can do is use an appropriate hay feeder that limits the amount of waste, the, the cattle experience because we, we've done research that suggested there's dramatic difference in hay waste just based on the style of hay feeder that's used.

- The, the other thing is to maybe roll hay out.

There's some people will prefer to do that and, and the way that is managed can have a big impact on the amount of hay waste.

- Yeah.

So let's go back to this rumensin study.

Let's talk a little bit more about that.

- Yeah, so in the, in the meta-analysis that we published, we found 16 experiments that looked at feeding rumensin to replacement heifers.

And in those results where they measured feed intake and average daily gain feed intake was reduced on average by about two thirds of a pound a day.

And average daily gain was actually increased or improved just slightly.

And that's, that's a really good combination.

Can, can save money or help stretch that forage supply.

- Yeah, - We found six studies where they measured feed intake and weight gain in, in cows, mature cows and in in those experiments the average response was reduction of hay intake by about almost two pounds a day and no change in average daily gain in the cows.

So again, it just goes to show that that feed additive will reduce feed intake without compromising animal performance.

If anything, maybe maybe improve it in the cows that actually increase milk production and obviously lactating cows.

- So how do producers get this?

Do they need a veterinary feed directive to get this or do they just walk into the feed store?

- No, it's something that it, you do not require a VFD to add this additive to whatever concentrate supplementation program you have planned.

But, you know, work with, they can, can, should work with their, their feed supplier and or area livestock specialists or extension educators be able to help them, you know, in terms of the feeding rate, in terms of the concentration of the additive needed for their concentrate supplement.

- So I know you guys just started doing this research on monensin specifically, but for other feed feed additives you do have fact sheets on those.

Right?

- There is Dr. Beck and Dr. Biggs published a real nice feed additive fact sheet and you know, monensin is listed in there but also provides guidance on, on a many of the, the additives available.

- Yeah.

Alright, thanks Dave.

Absolutely.

And for a link to that study, just go to sunup.OKstate.edu.

- Dr. Lalman's, regular appearances on Sunup over the years are just one of the many reasons why he was recognized this past week with one of only a handful of excellence in extension awards given nationwide.

Dr. Lalman is this year's recipient for the southern region Individual excellence for his OSU extension beef cattle programs.

The award honors professionals who excel at science-based programming, provide visionary leadership, and make a positive impact on the people of their state.

We are talking now about the recent food recalls that have been making headlines with our OSU food scientist, Dr. Darren Scott and, and Darren kind of get us up to speed of what's been going on in the last couple of months.

It's kind of been a roller coaster.

- Sure.

You know, we've had a lot of recalls for things like Bruce Pack, Treehouse, Boris head provision company, even McDonald's.

So there have been quite a few recalls in the news lately - And get us up to speed on, on what's happening.

It's been primarily listeria and e coli if memory serves.

- Sure.

You know, listeria is one of those things that is ubiquitous to nature.

Same thing with e coli.

It's, you know, everywhere in nature and so it's very easy for it to get into the food supply if we're not careful.

Our food supply today is much more complicated than it's ever been.

There are many different levels, levers, you know, out there for us to be able to get a product from what the food plant to our home.

And so because you have so much complexity, it's, it's just a lot easier than it used to be for us to have these sort of outbreaks to occur - And we, we hear about it more, but it may not necessarily be more than the old days.

It's just the science and the tracking has really advanced over the years.

Talk about that.

- Sure.

You know, you're exactly right.

You know, it's a lot, we're able to track these things a lot faster.

We're able to match the strains genetically, which means if there's an outbreak and I get sick, they can match that strain with maybe if I have a sample of the food leftover and they can then take that sample of the food and match it back if they find the strain in the manufacturing facility.

- And then with something like a pizza for example, there could be dozens of ingredients at work that they have to then then track Oh yes.

In lots of different ways.

Oh yes.

Explain that to in a, in a way regular folks like me can understand.

- Sure.

You know, if you think about a pizza you have, you know, things like the dough which has wheat, you may have olive oil, onions, beef, pork, all of the additional herbs and spices and all of those things aren't going to be grown on one factory in one location.

You know, each one of those things is going to be somewhere else, you know, out in the United States or even imported.

- We, we love the convenience foods make, make life a lot easier but there is some heightened risk there.

Explain that.

- Sure.

You know, for many of these products, especially things that are gonna be ready to eat, you know, we don't treat a ready to eat product the same thing or the same way as we would treat a raw product.

So if I go to the grocery store and I get a rotisserie chicken, alright, I might just heat that up in the microwave if I get a raw chicken, alright, I'm gonna cook that very differently, a lot longer, a lot higher temperature.

Right?

And so hopefully I would be able to kill all of the bacteria in the raw chicken whereas if I just microwave a rotisserie chicken for a few seconds, that's not gonna kill anything.

One of the things to keep in mind is that for example, the tree house or the Bruce pack, those products were caught before anyone was able to get sick.

You know, that was due to routine testing.

That is USDA FDA have people out in the field that are constantly pulling products in grocery stores and testing them.

And so that's the thing to keep in mind.

You know, certainly you want to be aware, you want to be very safe in how you handle your food at home.

But you know, keep in mind that there, the system is holding, the system is working as the way that it should.

- With all that in mind, what can I the consumer do?

- Sure.

You know, there are a few things that you can do at home to help protect yourself, reduce your chances of becoming sick.

You know, one of the biggies, it's an old one.

Wash your hands before and after handling food, you know, number two, make sure that you clean your refrigerator.

If there's spills inside, clean those up immediately.

One thing that sometimes might not necessarily be easily apparent, wash your hands before and after you handle your pets feeding dishes.

It's very important because animals can certainly be a large sort of vector for foodborne illness.

And you also wanna make sure that you follow food manufacturer's information on the package.

You know, often they'll have cooking temperatures.

Make sure you cook to an internal temp of 165 degrees for example.

- Darren, thanks a lot.

Great information.

Thanks for sorting it all out for us.

- That's no problem.

- Good morning everybody.

This is state climatologist Gary McManus with your Mesonet weather report.

And now we are in our wettest November on record across the state of Oklahoma.

Now this is based on the statewide average as computed by the Oklahoma Mesonet.

So these records historically go back to 1895.

Of course the Mesonet started in 1994.

So we are comparing the Mesonet values to those older values based on the national weather service measurements across the states.

But anyway, we are seeing the wettest November on record, which is certainly welcome for most folks after that horrible drought we've had really over the last three years and, and a few months back to August, 2021.

Now let's get to that new drought monitor map and see if we have a lot more changes.

And there you go.

A much better map than what we've seen even last week.

So this is probably the best map we've seen since, oh maybe April of this year or maybe March of this year after we got all those El Nino rains.

Now we do see still a large area of southern Oklahoma and at least moderate drought, a little bit of severe drought down there in southeastern Oklahoma.

Also some severe severe drought up in Northeastern and north central Oklahoma.

But by and large drought is on its way out across the state and that's certainly good news.

Let's take a look at that drought monitor change map.

This is a one week change map and we can see up in north, north central and northeast Oklahoma some rare two category changes.

We don't really see that on the drought monitor, as I told you last week.

We do like to wait a week to, to make those two category changes, at least make them over two week, a two week period because that's how drought works.

It, it takes a long time to get going, takes a long time to get outta here.

But we do see those two category changes but also widespread one category changes, especially across the western half of the state and also the southern, I guess one sixth or so of the state.

Now let's take a look at the rainfall that produced that record November rainfall.

And again, we still have a couple of weeks left to go even a little bit more than that so we can still add to these totals and it looks like we might next week.

But we do see these widespread values of five to as much as nine inches, a little bit more here and there.

Now out in the panhandle they had two or three inches, a lot of snow out in the western panhandle up to 26 inches of snow was reported.

But by and large we still see a great rainfall amounts over the first two weeks of November down in southeastern, southeastern Oklahoma, especially Bryan County.

That total of 3.2 inches is certainly an outlier for the main body of the state and that's where we still see that severe drought down in that part of the, that part of Oklahoma.

Now let's take a look at the departure of normal rainfall map again for November so far.

And we can see those values, those surpluses four to as much as eight inches above normal, close to nine inches above normal in some areas.

So certainly great surplus amounts of moisture which have really hammered that drought outta here.

And even those areas up in the, in the panhandle that saw a little bit less rainfall, those are still two to three plus inches above normal.

So again, great surpluses across the state.

Now some of the benefits we're still seeing great improvement in the subsoil and topsoil moisture maps from the USDA, these are the percent short to very short, a 17% decrease in that short to very short area across the state in the sub soil moisture.

And also we saw a 28% decrease in the top soil moisture and now only 40% of the state is, you know, short to very short topsoil moisture.

I think that number will continue to go down as we get more rain and we start to evaluate those soils a little bit more closely.

So we got a lot of momentum on getting this drought outta here.

After next week's rains we should get some more improvements.

Hopefully it's a little bit more widespread and not what we saw this week and that would certainly be wonderful news.

No drought through the winter months would be a a, a great Christmas present.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet weather report.

- Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to Cow Calf Corner.

This week's topic is cow culling rates and its impact on our cow inventory.

If we look at the United States beef production as a whole, it's about 70% of our nation's cow herd calve in the spring.

What does that mean?

Well, typically we're gonna wean those calves at some point in the fall.

We're gonna preg check those cows and our old and open and ornery cows tend to hit the cull markets as we go into the fourth quarter of every year.

That cycle is repeatable and we've talked about it in past cow calf corners.

We know that historically our cyclical lows for cull cow price are gonna occur in the fourth quarter.

If we take a look at what's going on in 2024, that cow cull rate is actually down as compared to last year and as compared to many years past.

And so because we are sending fewer cows to market as a percentage of our nation's cow herd, we're actually seeing higher prices this year than what we saw a year ago.

In fact, we're at historical high cull cow prices and we expect this to continue on into the winter months and the beginning of 2025.

On the flip side of the coin, if we think about reduced cull cow rate and what it's gonna do to our numbers as we look ahead, well the reduction in cow culling hasn't really been enough to offset the really tight supply of bred heifers that we had on inventory at the beginning of 2024.

So the consequence of this as we look ahead and what do we expect as far as our nation's cow inventory going into 2025, well it's probably gonna be lower once again long term that's gonna continue to offer price support for all categories of cattle and particularly wean calves as we look ahead into 2025.

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for joining us on cow-calf corner.

- Well the news around Oklahoma is it rained, so Darryl, now that it rained and we got a pretty significant portion of it as October ended, is that gonna help wheat pasture - Really at all?

Well, it's late but it is certainly gonna help.

And so, you know, wheat that was planted really jumped out, obviously was ready to go.

You know, some wheat wasn't planted, that's gonna be really late.

But the bottom line is we will get some late wheat pasture for, for some producers.

I think probably the, you know, the biggest stuff I've seen would suggest maybe, you know, maybe mid-December, but I think most of it'll be towards the end of December before we would have anything ready.

- Are you hearing anything from producers maybe trying to, you know, plant another cool season forage like oats to kind of make up for not having wheat pasture at all?

- Well, you know, again, it's late so you know, it really doesn't change it from that standpoint.

Now, you know, for for cow calf producers in particular, if they've got cool season forage like fescue, they probably will also get some benefit from this.

I suspect that that will keep, that fescue going a little bit longer this fall.

- So let's, let's shift it to the stocker cattle.

How's that gonna affect them at all?

- Well, you know, it's, it, it is late.

I don't think you'll see a lot of the sort of traditional stocker demand because we really don't have time for a full blown winter grazing program.

Some producers had stocker cattle that they bought earlier and they've had 'em in dry lot situations or you know, kind of stashed waiting for this.

And so they'll be ready to go.

There'll probably be some additional demand for, for stocker cattle as a result of this and be because the runs were early as far as the auction volumes.

I suspect that even a little bit of demand will really perk up this stocker market.

We'll probably see some, some better prices as we go forward.

- You mentioned cow calf in there with when I was asking about oats, but in with rain in general, how is that hap helping cow calf productions?

- Well, probably the biggest impact for cow calf producers will be on the water side.

So, you know, and, and it's not clear to me, I've gotten kind of mixed stories from producers.

Certainly it helped, I don't it, it filled some ponds, but, you know, and brought some others up a little bit from, from really low levels.

So it, it helps a lot.

I don't know if it's enough to really solve their problems in many cases, but that'd be the biggest thing.

And again, the, you know, the cool season forages may, may provide a little bit more, a little bit more grazing for some producers.

Yeah, you know, there's not a lot left of 2024, just about six weeks.

So how would you assess the cattle markets in general throughout - The year?

You know, we've been above last year's levels.

We continue to grind forward.

It's kind of been a sideways sort of year waiting for some of the fundamentals to, you know, all fall in place.

But, but we are, you know, higher than we were a year ago again.

So in general, these markets are are, you know, very strong still numbers are still getting tighter, so, you know, we're finishing the year on a pretty strong note.

- Alrightyy.

Thanks Darryl.

Dr. Darryl Peel, livestock marketing specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- Hello, I'm John Michael Riley, AG Economist for Oklahoma State University and here to about the recent World Acts supply and demand estimates report, and also some fallout from the recent rains here in Oklahoma.

We'll start with that.

World supply and demand estimates report and the, the headline of the day was the, the, the adjustments that USDA made for soybeans.

Quite a surprise to the market.

Corn, slight surprise, not nearly to the level of soybeans, but still some, some spillover from those, those bean numbers.

Getting a little bit deeper into those numbers, USDA reported soybean yield at 51.7 bushels per acre for the US that was one in a 1.4 bushels per acre lower than the previous month, and 1.1 bushels lower than what the market was expecting.

So quite a drastic change to soybean yield ending stocks for soybeans.

470 million bushels that was 80 million bushels lower than the previous month and 62 bushels lower than what the market was expecting.

So there's the surprise, the surprise is in that fairly significant adjustment, lower for yield and lower for ending stocks.

We were thinking that was gonna happen because of the, the dryness that was taking place across the, the, the Midwest and the corn belt.

And as yields were coming in, we were seeing those numbers drop due to the, the dryness across the, across the, the corn belt.

So on the corn side of things, USDA reported 183.1 bushels per acre, that was 0.7 bushels lower than the previous month, and 0.6 bushels lower than the trade.

So trade was largely expecting USDA to, to keep that corn yield at, at the same number as the previous month.

And it was adjusted lower for those same reasons that we were discussing with soybeans.

1.938 billion bushels of ending stocks, 61 million bushels lower than last month, and 8 million bushels lower than what the trade was expecting.

So overall, I think the message here is that soybeans were a, were a fairly significant surprise and corn while, while a surprise not nearly to the level of beans, looking at, at what we have here in Oklahoma, USDA is reporting 130 bushels per acre for corn.

That's a six bushel per acre drop from the previous month, 20 bushels per acre for soybeans, a five bushel per acre drop.

And then kind of shifting gears, let's discuss wheat real quick.

Obviously the, the wheat crop is largely in, in the bins right now as we think about last winters crop.

But 813, or excuse me, 815 million bushels of ending stocks.

That's a slight increase from the previous month.

A lot of that coming from hard Red Spring wheat and Durham Wheat.

And then finally shifting gears to where we're at with our progress of the crop here in Oklahoma, soybeans are 49% harvested.

That's a 14% increase from the previous week.

And then wheat 72% planted, that's a 13% increase from the previous week.

That's gonna wrap it up for this week on Market monitor.

We'll see you next time.

- The latest USDA crop Progress and Condition report released this week from the Oklahoma Field Office showing things are improving slightly thanks to rain.

Winter wheat is now 79% planned and and 63% has emerged both lower than normal.

Sorghum harvest is now 80% complete.

Soybeans at 59% peanuts harvested at 60% and cotton at 48%.

Looking at pasture and livestock, well much needed rain is helping pasture and ponds, but pasture and range condition levels are still rated at 62% very poor to poor livestock condition was rated at 79% good to fair and that's just a sampling.

We have a link to this week's full report at sunupokstate.edu.

- Finally today it's been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and we might just have to agree with that.

We got a kick out of Janelle Creasey and her husband who dressed up as yours truly, and our retired Sunup colleague, the one and only Dr. Kim Anderson for the recent trunk or treat event at their church in Oklahoma City.

What a neat idea.

That'll do it for our show this week.

Remember, you can see Sunup anytime on our website and also follow us on YouTube and social media and stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.