- Hello everyone and welcome to Sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Despite some decent rainfall in parts of the state in late September, it is dry once again and the extended forecast does not look promising to get some guidance and for an update on winter wheat planting in Oklahoma.

Sunup's Elizabeth Hokit.

Talked with our OSU extension small grain specialist, Dr. Amanda Silva.

- We're here now with Dr. Amanda Silva.

So Amanda, it's obviously pretty dry out here, so just tell me a little bit about what's going on in the wheat industry right now.

People are getting ready to plant art planting, what's going on?

- Yeah, so especially for our dual purpose producers, we are all trying to, to get seed on the ground and it's, it's been really dry.

The, the last storm that we received helped some areas, but some we waited a little bit in the soil has already dried up.

- So how is this going to affect something like dual purpose wheat?

- It will affect, so the more we delay planting from now on, it could affect the amount of forage, the wheat produce in the fall and definitely affect our producers wanting to use wheat for pasture.

As far as grain only, we are still okay.

We still have some time in most areas, so hopefully we'll get some rain by then.

We planted a panhandle last weekend, that's our grain only trials and luckily we were able to, to plant the seed into moisture.

We just had to go a little bit deeper.

But yeah, so in in, like I said in there there is a lot of variability in the state.

In most cases we are very dry, but in some cases, I think in some areas producers may be able to find some moisture, but I think right now most of our farmers are dusting in wheat - And it sounds like there's not really a super high chance of us getting rain anytime soon.

So if that is the case, what's your recommendation for farmers?

- That is always very hard because the, that decision should be made on a farm by farm basis and so in some situations farmers can wait and want to wait for the rain to put the seed on the ground.

In some situations, farmers will just put the seed, will dust the seed and hope for the rain.

And so the recommendation is just look at their own scenario and, and make the decisions that they're most comfortable with.

So in our case, we are waiting in some situations, in some we are going to dust in hoping that we will get rain and we, especially having so many trials in so many locations in the state, we might not get there in, in some locations in time.

So in some situations we'll dust in and some situations we'll wait for the rain.

- So for that dual purpose wheat, what's the optimal time for planting and how late is maybe too late?

- So in general, farmers are in good shape if they can get their wheat established and planted by mid-September up to end of September.

So that is in general a good time.

And, and then if the conditions are good in the fall, if we, we have moisture like last fall, those, those are good years for forage production.

Now as we start getting into October, then the prospects that we are going to have enough forage for them to use to feed cattle, that starts to decrease.

So the more we, we start getting away from that September window, then the more we, we will have issues with fall forage quantity for, for cattle.

- So we've obviously been here before, this is Oklahoma, we've had weather challenges.

What are your recommendations going forward?

- Yes, in fact it was two years ago when we had some, we had a drought in the fall.

Going forward, I think the best decision farmers can make, it's whatever they're most comfortable with.

So like I said before, some people will be more comfortable putting the seed on the ground and waiting for the rain.

Some operations will be better if they just wait for the rain then they can change things.

So yeah, with this weather it's just, there's, it's just hard.

Yeah, so hopefully, hopefully the, the forecast is gonna change and we'll see some, some rain coming to Oklahoma - And as we know in Oklahoma that rain can come out of nowhere unexpected and it doesn't take much to help.

- Yes, at this stage we don't, we don't need a lot of, a lot of rain.

So what we want is a little bit of rain to, to help the wheat to emerge to germinate and emerge in a little bit more range to sustain that seedling.

So that is very important.

A situation that we don't want is some moisture that is enough for seed to germinate but then not enough moisture to sustain that seedling growth.

And so yes, we've, we always face the situations here in Oklahoma and we always do the best we can.

- Alright, Amanda, thanks for the updates.

Amanda Silva, small grain specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- Continuing our discussion on wheat and drought, OSU extension, soil nutrient management specialist Dr. Brian Arnell has some tips for us this week on fertilizing when it's this dry.

- All right, we're rolling into the first part of October and, and typically by this point in time we have a lot of wheat seed in the ground and our grain only producers are also really chomping at the bit to start, start dropping seed.

But of course we're in Oklahoma, we're in the state of haves and haves, not as far as it comes is soil moisture.

And so we've gotta look at where we're setting at on soil moisture as far as our fertility plans going out.

You know, really we're in a late, late season when it comes to our grays out typically like to have that seed in the ground by now and the plant's up and running.

And so we have a lot of grays out in dual purpose acres that are either sitting, dusted in or ready to be planted.

And so at this point we gotta think maybe that that heavy fertility doesn't need to happen when it comes into this time of the year.

Let's just get the seed up if we're seeing what happens and if it stays dry, we probably need to be, start thinking about transition to a spring oat.

And so if we have to transition to spring oats, we've gotta set back and, and recalculate what we did for nitrogen and say that okay, if we've got a nitrogen down for our fall wheat, but you know, it didn't rain so we didn't end up planting.

If it stays dry, that nitrogen's gonna be there for the spring oats.

If we haven't fertilized yet, well then just hold off and let, let's wait until, until we get time to start planting the spring oats for our own grain only.

Guys, I wanna go back to all the data I have.

We've got lots of years of data that suggests that we don't need a lot of pre-plant when it comes to our grain only wheat, our grain only wheat.

If we just get the phosphorous potassium that we need into that system and a touch of nitrogen, it's going to be good through the winter.

In fact, it's okay if it's a little stressed in the winter because it's gonna make that crop root a little bit deeper and explore deeper depth.

So grain only producers, let's hold off on that nitrogen.

I know that it's cheap right now.

If you have a really cheap source, then I understand going with the cheaper source, but that time in and timeout, if that price mark is not great between anhydrous and, and maybe urea or UAN, it's usually better off holding your application into that spring.

Whether it's a January, February or February March application.

You know, this is Oklahoma, this isn't our first dry fall.

We're going to have still a great opportunity to make a good crop.

Let's just make smart decisions when it comes to the economics and, and the application of what we're doing.

For more information about how to manage nitrogen, the wheat system, even in our dry falls, go to the sunup website.

- Welcome to the Mesonet weather report.

I'm Wesley.

Wednesday morning we saw some of the coolest temperatures we have encountered for a long time.

Lows dropped into the forties for most of the state with some fifties along the southern border.

These cool temperatures were a nice change of pace for us as warmer than normal weather has dominated lately.

Looking at the statewide average temperatures for this year, we see that we have had seven months warmer and only two months cooler than average forecast for the near term continue to point towards warmer than normal temperatures for the state.

In fact, warmer than normal temperatures are something we see quite regularly these days.

Here are statewide average temperatures for Oklahoma going back to 1895.

Any dots below the line were cooler than normal and above are warmer than normal.

In the past 25 years, Oklahoma has had five years below and 20 years above the long-term average line.

Is this trend unique to Oklahoma?

Not at all.

As you can see on this continental US average temperature graph here, we see that every year for the past 25 years came in warmer than normal.

What about globally?

The temperatures are even more dramatically tilted towards the warm side in recent years.

It appears warmer than normal has become the new normal for us these days.

Now here's Gary discussing a dismal rain report.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, you don't need me to show you any rainfall maps to prove that it's dry out and we have drought because you know that better than I do.

However, I will show you the change in the drought monitor map.

So let's get right to it.

Well, no shock.

It's worse than what it was last week.

It's worse than what it was a month ago.

It's worse than what it was three months ago.

We now have a larger area of that extreme drought that's D three, the red color down in far southwest Oklahoma, extending up into West Central and central Oklahoma.

Now we also have bigger circles of that extreme drought surrounded by severe drought in North Central and also northeast Oklahoma.

So things are escalating.

Now let's take a look forward with the climate prediction centers.

October outlooks.

First we start with temperature.

We see increased odds of above normal temperatures across all of Oklahoma, but especially about the Western half to one third, those odds are even greater for that above normal temperature outlook.

So that would not be good news for the drought.

Of course, if you have increase in temperatures, you have more evaporation and actually you have those plants growing a little bit longer using up more of that soil moisture.

Now we take a look at the precipitation.

We see greatly increased odds of below normal precipitation for all of Oklahoma safe for just the far far southeastern corner of the state, but still they're elevated in that area as well.

So that combination of above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation for the October period would not be good news for drought that's already in place.

And in fact, if you look at the climate prediction centers hazards outlook for the next eight to 14 days, that is of course October 10th through the 16th, we see a risk of rapid onset drought across basically the, the southeastern two thirds of Oklahoma, but also intensification and persistence in those areas where drought already exists.

So the, the, the outlook for, for the October at least is certainly not good.

You know, it can't, we, we can't take into account some of those extreme events that might come along.

That's it for this time.

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

- Do you have any unwanted pesticides laying around that you need to get rid of?

Well, OSU extension has some good news for you.

There are two pesticide disposal dates coming up in just a few weeks.

The first one will be October 22nd at the major county fairgrounds and the second one will be October 24th at the Atoka County Fairgrounds.

If you would like any more information about this event, just go to sunup dot OK state.edu.

- We're joined now by Dr. Peele, our livestock marketing specialist.

And Daryl, everyone's talking about the dry weather.

How is that impacting cattle producers?

- Well, you know, it's gotten really dry over the last few weeks.

We've actually gotten here in fairly good shape.

I mean all in all things considered, we've had pretty good forage conditions through the year, but as you look around now, obviously we're getting very dry.

So I think producers are, are becoming more and more concerned about that.

Water supplies are getting lower, they're not critically low yet, but I think, you know, again, this time of the year it producers are concerned and, and certainly, you know, paying attention to conditions going forward.

- And then that also is impacting wheat planting and pasture prospects for the winter.

What are you hearing there?

- Yeah, you know, it looks like the window for establishing wheat, winter wheat for, for potential grazing is slipping away pretty quickly.

You know, not a lot of wheat has been planted yet.

Some of the wheat that's been planted is laying there dry, waiting for some moisture.

There's a little bit of wheat up here and there.

Not a lot, I don't think it's growing very fast.

So all the way across the board, and no matter which stage of that we're in, the opportunity to establish decent wheat pasture conditions for, for winter grazing is, is, is diminishing pretty quickly.

- What are you hearing from cattle producers on, on how they're managing this and kind of planning ahead for the, for this growing season and the winter?

- Yeah, well going forward, of course we're late in the season now, so we don't expect to grow a lot more forage.

So from the standpoint that we're dry now, you know, in and of itself, not necessarily a bad, you know, situation.

We do have lots of hay supplies.

We had a reasonably good hay year this year, but we, and we also carried over a lot of hay from last year.

So total hay supplies in Oklahoma are, are, are very good and that's gonna gonna work well going into the winter for producers.

But again, going forward, e even beyond the winter with the, the La Nina conditions, the long range forecast, you know, climate prediction center is the latest conditions suggest really little opportunity for moisture, certainly through the end of the year.

So we're already starting to think about next year and the potential of coming out of the spring dry and dealing with that from the, from the beginning.

- It's fall marketing season, right?

Everybody's headed to the sale barn.

What are you seeing in terms of feeder markets?

- Well, you know, cattle markets in general are, the feeder cattle markets are kind of recovering from the summer slump that we had.

And so, and we're moving a little bit counter seasonally for calf prices.

They normally go down to an October or early November low.

We're actually moving back higher again.

We've been lower, we slump pretty badly late in the summer.

And even without the demand for stocker cattle, for wheated pasture, the markets I think are, are still reflecting the fact that numbers overall are pretty tight.

The bigger feeder cattle didn't drop as far anyway and they normally move up this time of the year.

So all in all, we're probably looking for higher prices as we move into the fourth quarter of the year.

- We're certainly looking forward to the rural economic Outlook conference coming up.

And you're gonna be on the agenda again this year?

- You bet.

Yeah, you bet.

You know, we have a great lineup of speakers coming in, some outside speakers as well as our own folks that provide, you know, a good summary of information at that conference.

- Okay, great.

Gerald, we will see you there.

And for more details on the lineup for this Rural Economic Outlook conference, here's Dr. Rodney Jones.

- This year it's gonna be on October 16th.

That is a Wednesday coming up.

It's an all day conference.

We'll have presenters from our own department and we'll have some keynote speakers from, from elsewhere just to talk about issues that are affecting the ag economy and the rural economy in general.

This year we have a couple of speakers coming in from outside of our department.

We have Randy Daniels, who is the Chief Risk Officer for Triangle Insurance Company.

The focus of our conference this year is going to be on risk management and Randy's gonna be talking about some of those bigger risks that we often don't think about.

And then our other keynote speaker is Kenny Burdine.

He's coming to us from the University of Kentucky.

He's a livestock marketing specialist at the University of Kentucky and he specializes in livestock risk protection insurance and how that ties in with other risk management strategies for particularly our livestock community.

As far as faculty from our own department that, that you'll be hearing from, we'll hear from Dr. Rodney Holcomb, we'll hear from Dr. Darrell Peel, we'll hear from Dr. Alex Schafer, myself, I'll be giving an Ag finance update and Dr. John Michael Riley will be giving a grain market update.

For a link to the conference registration, just go to the sunup website and, and you'll find that link right there.

- Good morning Oklahoma, and welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

Our topic this week is talking about the biological time lag of beef production and particularly how it pertains to keeping replacement heifers.

And at what point in the future are we gonna see impact of those heifers we might keep relative to our nation's beef cow inventory?

We know we're at a historically low cycle as far as the the United States Beef Cow inventory.

We know that that continues to constrict.

It continues to impact cap and yearling and fed cattle prices in a positive way.

And we're seeing some record high prices right now.

It really leads all of us in this business to get back to a couple questions.

And I know I ask myself this almost on a daily basis, should we be keeping back heifers?

How long are these prices gonna last?

And as we do start to keep back heifers on a large scale basis across the industry, are we gonna see calf prices go even higher?

And we'll start with that last question first.

Historically, all of our past cattle cycles pretty much tell us when we get to the point that producers begin to keep a lot of heifers back to develop as cows.

We're gonna see fewer calves go to the market, and we're probably gonna see even higher calf prices at that point with regard to the question of how long are these prices gonna last?

We know in a beef market that is impacted and can and will be impacted by various other factors.

Just that biological time lag aspect of when we're gonna increase beef cow inventory and seeing more calves and yearlings and fed cattle as a result of it gets back to some of the realities of beef production and the biology of the animal.

And fundamentally, what can be accomplished in the broiler industry in a few weeks or in the swine industry in a few months?

There you go.

And our competing protein sources, it's gonna take us as beef producers years to accomplish.

Take for example, if we decide to keep back all of our replacement heifers or a really high percentage of them that were born this spring in 2024, we're looking ahead until next spring when those heifers are 14 to 15 months of age, assuming their property developed and ready to breed and come in heat, we're in the spring of 2025 before we breed them.

And we jump forward another year into the spring of 2026 before those heifers are actually gonna have that first calf.

We keep in mind those calves aren't gonna be sold immediately.

We're into the fall of 2026 before those calves are potentially sold as wean calves.

They're gonna turn into yearlings in 2027 and at whatever point they come out of a yearling or stocker operation, they're gonna go on feed and be on feed for another 180 or maybe 200 plus days if we continue with this method of pushing those fed cattle to heavier weights.

So long story short, and our bottom line consequence of this, all other things being equal, the laws of supply and demand indicate we're gonna continue to see good value of all categories of cattle.

And even if we start keeping heifers back and working toward increasing that national cow inventory at present, we are two to three years away just due to that natural biological time lag of beef cattle.

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for joining us on Cow Calf Corner.

- Finally today, more from Dr. Dave Lawman on cow efficiency.

This time the uniqueness of ruminants and how they convert natural resources to food.

- Let's take just a minute to talk about the role of ruminant livestock in world food security.

A lot of people would recognize, you know, the idea that ruminant animals are, are very unique in that they have the capacity to convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into a high quality human food source and, and thereby doing that, you know, make use of a tremendous resource that we have available here, you know, on our planet.

And so I actually heard a, a really good demonstration on, on this topic and I'd like to share that with you here for just the next few minutes.

I'm gonna give Dr. Frank Mitliner credit for this demonstration, but if you, if you just imagine that my sheet of paper here represents the total area surface area of earth, and then if I fold my paper in half and then fold it again in half, we've got about a quarter of that area left and that represents the total land area, you know, on, on earth surface.

And so surprising that it's that small of an amount, but the rest of course would be water and ice.

And then if I take my business card, you know, this represents the amount of agricultural land available on earth surface.

And so it's a pretty small amount, but I'll take my business card and I'm gonna fold it one more time and use about a third of that agricultural land and we'll call that production or land that's capable of producing crops.

And it's, it's capable of that because it has high enough soil quality and access to water, whether it be through rainfall or through irrigation to produce those crops.

And then the rest of that would be considered marginal land in that area or, or the total amount of, of agricultural land on our surface that would be available.

Well, this is where the ruminant livestock really shine because you know that marginal land produces forage that those cattle can take advantage of and convert into that human edible food product.

And so you can just imagine that if, if the earth without ruminant livestock would not be able to make use of this amount of, of marginal land to be productive in our food supply.

The other thing to consider is that in this third of agricultural land, the highly productive land from a crop standpoint, those ruminant livestock utilize a lot of leftover resources or byproducts from crop production.

And so a tremendous way to increase our food production efficiency.

Finally, the last thing that we ought to consider is that a good portion of the fertilizer that's used to produce crops is produced by livestock.

Not just ruminant livestock, but poultry, swine, and, you know, cattle, sheep and goats and so forth.

So you add all those things together and livestock in general and certainly ruminant livestock are a very important part of world food security.

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

A reminder, you can see us anytime on our website and also stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.