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

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Challenges remain as producers in Oklahoma try to get their wheat seed in the ground and established.

Joining us now is Dr. Amanda Silva, our small grains extension specialist, and Amanda, these hot and dry conditions, things are not looking so great.

- Not so great.

Well, last season we had one of the worst droughts we had in a long time and we were hopeful conditions were going to improve by time of planting, but it doesn't seem to be that way with the current forecast.

- Let's talk about the hot soil and what that means for germination so we kinda understand what the seed and the plant is trying to do right now.

- Yes.

So if you look at the mesonet this week and you look at soil temperature in Oklahoma, we were up in the eighties across the state.

Some locations, 86 Fahrenheit, in some locations, reached about 97, 99 Fahrenheit in soil temperature.

Germination can happen anywhere from 40 to 99 Fahrenheit, but the optimal temperature for germination is anywhere from 54 to 77.

And so, those hot soil conditions, they can really harm germination, especially for some varieties that are sensitive to those high temperatures at germination.

And so usually, in those scenarios, we recommend for producers, if they have varieties that are sensitive to germination in hot soils.

So they learn about it and do not plant that soil in September.

The exception is that this year, we are already mid-late September and soils are really high, the soil temperature is really high.

We could see some delay in that germination.

- [Lyndall] We talk a lot when it's this serious of a drought about dusting in the seed, is that what's happening, and what guidance do you have for producers given these challenges?

- Yes, so there are different ways we can go about it when planting in dry soils.

One of the strategies is to dust in the seed and wait for the rain to drive that germination, or we could try to plant deeper to reach moisture, which it's not really the case here in our state right now as sub-soil moisture is also really limited.

And so, I am hearing from a lot of producers that that's going to be the plan and it's actually going to be our plan as well.

So I would just say, watch for that sitting depth.

Optimal sitting depth for wheat planting is anywhere from one to one and a half inches.

When we are dusting in, waiting for that rain to drive germination, we might plant a little shallower than that, maybe three quarters of an inch to an inch.

I would just be careful with planting too shallow, maybe half an inch could be too shallow in most cases, so just watch for that.

- [Lyndall] Producers are asking some questions about small seed size, What kind of guidance do you have there?

- Well, what we are seeing, it is because of the drought we had last year.

Seed this year is really small.

What we are seeing in our studies is that seeds, even though they're small, we are still having a very good germination rate.

I think that the main thing to keep in mind is that they're sitting rate, especially if they're planting on a pounds per acre, that they might need to adjust it.

And so that's also another thing that we will have available in our blog.

- And you and the team are also working on some fact sheets that we hope to see soon.

- Yeah, so our team is working really hard on that.

So we are really evaluating emergence because we do need to update that information for current varieties, evaluating the emergence of those seeds in hot soil conditions.

So we'll have some information on that on our blog on our website so producers can take a look at it.

- Okay, Amanda, thank you very much for the update.

We will see you again very soon and for a link to the materials that Amanda just mentioned, go to sunup.okstate.edu.

(steady guitar music) - Welcome to the weekly Mesonet Weather Report, I'm Wes Lee.

The weather lately has been more of the same: hot and dry, after more hot and dry.

We normally expect the Fall of the year, September and October, to be the second wettest time of the year, after the spring; However, so far this year, the rain has just not fallen as expected.

- [Wes] Every month this year, except May has came in with lower than normal statewide rainfall.

If May had not been so wet and replenished some soil moisture, we would be in even a more serious situation.

For the last two weeks, rainfall has been very short and the rain prospects look pretty dismal.

This map from midweek shows no station receiving an inch.

The only one close was the .92 inches at Cherokee.

Of course, this lack of rain has our soil moisture at critically low levels going into wheat-planting season.

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

You see a lot of teen and single digits in this zone critical for seed germination.

Unfortunately, the data doesn't get any better when you look deeper in the soil profile.

Here down to 32 inches, the map looks even more red which is the bottom end of the moisture.

Now here's Gary with some temperature information.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, we're in the midst of a really long, hot dry spell once again, and that does nothing for the drought situation except make it worse.

Let's get to the latest drought monitor map and see what we have.

Well, it's pretty ugly.

We have the large area now across central into East central and down into Southeast Oklahoma.

We have that large area of exceptional drought.

That's the D4 Drought.

That's a one in 15 to 100 year event.

That's as bad as it gets.

And we have that other little splotch down there in Southwest Oklahoma.

We have a new one up there in North central Oklahoma.

Unfortunately, it's just continuing to spread.

We have way too many reds and browns on the map.

We certainly hope we get some rainfall soon, but until we do the heat and the lack of rainfall is going to continue to exacerbate these drought conditions.

And these colors are going to continue to spread across the state.

Taking a look at the 90-day rainfall map.

We can see down there in the part of Southeastern and up into central Oklahoma, where the D4 was just introduced.

That area's had basically an inch to three inches of rain.

Couple of places had a little bit more, but in general that's a really hard hit area of the state that's been going out, without rainfall for a long period of time On the departure from normal map, look at that area once again.

Nearly nine inches below normal for the last 90 days.

And up there in North Central, Northeastern part of the state where we also had that D4 introduced nearly 10 inches below normal, for instance, in Osage county.

So, many areas of the state, continuing to go without significant rainfall for a very long period of time.

Now we're in the midst of a little bit of a period with some cooler weather, very little rainfall, however.

And we take a look into the next week.

We start to see things aren't looking great in that period either.

So as we get into the last of September, the beginning week of October, we see increased odds of above normal temperatures.

Again, across much of the center part of the country in Oklahoma.

This is from the climate prediction center.

And unfortunately, to go along with that we see increased odds of below normal precipitation.

So unfortunately, a little bit of the same continuing as we go forth into October.

Now, this isn't really that shocking.

This is how droughts work.

And unfortunately, until we get some significant rainfall across many parts of the state, that drought will continue to intensify and spread.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet Weather Report - Talking wildlife now, and the recent case of a fatal disease in deer, discovered near the Oklahoma border.

SUNUP's Curtis Hare gets us up to speed.

(upbeat music) - We're joined now by Colter Chitwood, who is a wildlife professor here at Oklahoma State University and Colter, we're talking chronic wasting disease right now.

And there was a case that was found recently close to Oklahoma.

So, let's talk about that.

- Yeah, there was a, a vehicle-killed whitetail doe in Texas that was tested positive for CWD and because it was within five miles, it was actually about two and a half miles from the Oklahoma border.

The state of Oklahoma is treating it as if it was inside our borders.

Which is what's activated the chronic wasting disease response plan that folks have been hearing about in the last couple weeks.

- So over the years we've talked about CWD here on SUNUP but let's give a quick overview of what this disease is, and why it's so concerning.

- Yeah, so CWD is a always fatal degenerative, neurological disease of ungulates.

So whitetail deer, mule deer, elk, moose, caribou, they're all susceptible.

The good news is, for folks that are out in the panhandle area, the pronghorn are not susceptible, or at least there's no evidence they are, but it's basically a long term condition, that results in death for the individual.

And there is no vaccine or treatment and it kind of turns their brain to Swiss cheese.

That's what people say, but it's caused by a malformed prion.

And so, yeah, it's it can be heck on deer populations.

- So how does it spread and what are some things that you know, people need to keep in mind when it comes to CWD?

- Yeah so, CWD spreads among deer through direct contact, but increasingly there's evidence that, that it spreads through the environment with potentially through feces.

- Saliva, possibly urine.

So even deer that are in an area where other infected deer have been, could be susceptible that way.

Say like from areas that they're forging in or whatever.

But from a human perspective, the good news is right now there's no evidence that it actually jumps the species barrier.

That said, most places, and you follow the links that we'll provide at the end of this.

Are gonna suggest hunters should not consume meat from a, from a sick deer or a deer that's known to be positive.

- And you mentioned that there was a CWD response to this case that was close to Oklahoma or considered actually in Oklahoma.

So what does that entail?

- What it entails usually is the state is now going to perhaps put more effort into monitoring in that immediate area.

That could be through communications from ODWC with hunters, maybe trying to submit heads.

So say a hunter harvests a deer.

Well, there's ways that you can submit samples to cooperate with ODWC to get additional tests in that area.

That would be one way.

Increase communication about how to dispose of carcasses.

You know, in general it's always best not to just go to the nearest bridge and dump it in a creek.

(chuckles) We don't want you to do that anytime but you certainly don't wanna do that with CWD.

So there's gonna be increased communication about that as well, I'm sure.

- So definitely a concern, but you know, maybe not something to be overly concerned with?

- Correct.

It's early yet, which is good, but increased testing in that area will give the state a better sense of of whether or not CWD is highly prevalent in that area near the panhandle.

And because it doesn't jump to humans we just want to tell hunters to be cautious, to be aware that the human version of this, the fancy term is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.

The human version of CWD, it would be fatal to humans as well.

The thing is CWD has not been shown to cross into humans.

It also has not been shown to cross to livestock.

So for livestock producers in those areas and like pronghorn that we talked about before, there's no known jump yet but we wanna be aware of that because most of the viewers have probably heard of mad cow disease.

Well, that's another one that's in the same family of diseases.

- All right, thanks Colter, it's good to have you on.

And for more information about chronic wasting disease, go to our website, sunup.okstate.edu (upbeat country music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to "Cow-Calf Corner."

This week's topic kind of unfortunately continues along the same theme of dealing with drought and deteriorating pasture conditions.

And today we're gonna talk about the benefits of early culling of beef breeding heifers.

By early culling, what I'm really getting into is as opposed to waiting later in the fall, or potentially keeping those heifers that we intended to be bred heifers right now on hand to find out that they weren't gonna calve on time or came up open by next spring.

We're actually gonna use the technology available to us which is we can determine ultrasound pregnancy status or I should say pregnancy status with ultrasound as early as 30 days along.

We can get our veterinarian to come determine pregnancy status by palpation at about 60 days along.

So by sleeving those heifers or ultrasounding to determine pregnancy status right now those heifers that are open can be marketed.

We can take 'em off the feed bill.

We can reduce the stress on our pastures.

And that's the first big benefit of early culling of these open heifers that we intended to be bred at this point.

The second and third things we get into kind of have to do with holding heifers accountable and what we accomplish long term.

A heifer that's well developed, going into her first breeding season and actually at 65% of her mature weight, whenever we're trying to get her bred for the first time, that should be the easiest time in that beef breeding female's life to actually get bred.

They should be able to accomplish that in a 45 to 60 day breeding season.

So if we can determine their pregnancy status right now those heifers can still be marketed as yearlings, fed out and finish at their compositional endpoint, still in the A maturity group where they're eligible for the highest quality grades, prime and choice, worth the most money.

So they actually have greater value right now marketed as open yearling heifers.

Then they would have down the road.

Third thing that we accomplish by culling our open breeding heifers is just improving the long term genetic potential for reproductive efficiency in our cow herd.

As I said, the most fertile time in a breeding female's life should be getting her bred as a yearling.

She is without the nutritional stress of lactating that she's gonna be dealing with every other year after she's calving and trying to get bred in that 85 day window postpartum.

So by eliminating those subfertile females as open heifers we end up with more genetic potential for reproductive efficiency in our cow herd long term.

We end up with more cows in production that are actually gonna wean off a calf for us every 12 months of their productive life.

Those are the three big benefits of early culling beef breeding heifers.

And thanks for joining us this week on "Cow-Calf Corner."

(upbeat country music) - It's time to check in on the crop markets with our grain mark- - ...marketing specialist, Dr. Kim Anderson.

So Kim, what happened to wheat prices this week?

- Well, they were trending down.

Last week they dropped off a little bit.

On Monday, they were lower.

But then on Tuesday, we had a big increase in wheat prices.

And we got wheat prices going from about eight dollars and 70 cents a bushel to nine dollars and 25 cents a bushel in Northern Oklahoma.

And I think the important thing is, is that those cash prices broke that nine dollar level.

And that's been a resistance point lately in wheat prices.

So we're above that.

We'll just have to see where we're going from here.

- So why the volatility?

- Well, I think the big reason for the increase in prices is what's going on in the Ukraine with Russia.

Ukraine's been taking territory that Russia had captured earlier.

President Putin has been under the gun.

There's been calls for him to resign within Russia, and the way he sees to get his points back up, get back popularity increasing, is to start winning in Ukraine.

He says, he's gonna call 300,000 reservists in, that he may go nuclear, and that he may shut down the Black Sea again.

And when he starts threatening like that, then prices are gonna move.

- Do you think that that's gonna spill over to corn and beans at all?

- We didn't see any spill over into corn and beans.

And I was surprised at that, especially corn with Ukraine, 'cause Ukraine has been exporting corn.

But I think that shows that the world is more concerned with food, with the wheat as the food than it is with corn or soybeans.

You look at corn, oh, around seven dollars and 60 cents.

It dropped off a little bit early in the week.

It came back a little bit.

But not much moves at all in corn, same thing with soybeans.

Up around four dollars and 15 cents, it dropped off, oh, 30 cents or so, which is not much for beans, and it came back and recovered that area.

So not much going on there.

Also in cotton, really no impact.

Cotton has fallen from about a dollar and 16 cents for that December contract down to 93.

It came up to about 96.

The big impact is wheat.

- So, besides Russian and Ukraine, is there anything else impacting prices?

- I think the dollar index, and that increasing value of the US dollar, I think is having an impact on all the prices.

You go back to April, that index was 98, it's up near 111 right now.

That's a 13% increase in the value of the dollar.

And that means our commodities are 13% more expensive on the world market.

And I think you gotta look at exports and the demand for exports.

That's what's been driving our prices.

Four years in a row, world wheat production has been a record.

But also four years in a row, consumption has been at a record, and also higher than production.

So we were losing stocks.

And I think what you gotta look at there, does a consumer, would they rather have an extra bag of flour on the shelf, or be wondering where they're going to get that next bag?

And I believe our use has increased because we're stocking the flour, and the importing countries are stocking the wheat.

- All right, thanks Kim.

Dr. Kim Anderson, Grain Marketing Specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- More concerns as this hot and dry weather continues.

If you've already planted or will soon be planting wheat for pasture, be on the lookout for fall army worms.

OSU Extension Entomologist, Tom Royer offers some guidance.

- [Tom] Anybody that's planting wheat for dual-purpose, or even harvesting for hay, they're gonna wanna make sure they get a lot of forage in the fall, and they don't want to have that forage delayed by insects.

They're gonna have to worry about rainfall and that kind of thing.

But they certainly don't want to have it delayed by insects.

And two of the ones that are really frequent out here now are grasshoppers, and potential for fall army worm.

We seem to get that about every year now.

So for grasshoppers, a lot of times, they tend to hang more around the edges of a field than they do to go all the way through it.

So a farmer needs to probably be looking to make sure that they, you know, the grasshoppers are not overwhelming the edges of the field.

But fall army worms will deposit their eggs anywhere.

So it's really important that they, as the wheat is emerging, that they start looking for signs that the activity by the caterpillars as they're hatching.

And of course, we talk about that a lot of times, that's with window paning, it's an early indicator of a fall army worm infestation.

Then they need to go out and scout to make sure that they have, that they're actually seeing the army worms themselves.

There's a lot of ways to do it, but for me, just the simplest way is to get a coat hanger like this, which is about two thirds of a square foot.

If you get six or nine of these squares and take the counts of the caterpillars in there you're gonna get an idea of how many per square yard or how many per square foot that you actually have.

So, and we usually take a, we usually suggest that if you have two to three per square foot, or two to three per linear foot of row in your wheat, then you need to probably treat.

The key to treating for fall army worms particularly this time of year when the wheat's small, there's not a lot of foliage, is to make sure, if you're gonna make an application of an insecticide to use as much carrier as you can.

If I'm doing ground rig, I wouldn't want to use anything less than 20 gallons per acre, 'cause you gotta get it covered on the ground and on the foliage itself.

- So that any caterpillars that are crawling around get in contact with the insecticide.

We're always dependent on how things happen south of here as they start moving north.

And if we're in an extended drought, that's probably an indication that they're not gonna do as well as they would otherwise.

over Wintering grounds, they won't build up as fast 'cause survival rates are probably lower.

I'm always hesitant to try and predict whether an insect's gonna be a problem or not.

Because weather changes, things changes.

If we get a hurricane that grabs things from the south and blows 'em up, that could make a difference as well.

So but right now it just seems like the Fall armyworm activity's kind of low compared to what it has been (drums beating) the last couple years.

- Finally, today, given the conditions it's more important than ever to efficiently feed your livestock this Winter and limit hay waste.

(upbeat music) Here's Dr. Dave Lalman with some recommendations - We started the year after having used our hay storage and so we didn't carry hardly any hay over in the state of Oklahoma here this year, we had a long, tough Winter and then of course, we had a very dry Spring and then and then a dry, hot Summer.

And so the hay stocks are very limited.

And if you weren't able to raise enough hay it's hard to find and very expensive this year.

Consequently, people are interested, rightfully so in ways to stretch their hay supply.

And just two simple methods that might work for some people to do that.

First of all, we've talked about this a lot on the "SUNUP" program but that is simply use an efficient hay feeder.

We've discovered that there's tremendous difference in the style of hay feeder in terms of hay waste.

And we've discovered that the really good efficient feeders waste only somewhere in the neighborhood of five to 8% of the original bale weight, some of the lower end feeders, and I'll describe those here in just a minute, but some of the lower end feeders consistently have wasted 20 to 21%.

And certainly this is not a year to be wasting that much of the hay crop.

What differentiates a good hay feeder or an efficient hay feeder from an inefficient one.

We think there's two primary features that make the difference that is a solid ring or skirt around the bottom of that feeder about the bottom 18 inches.

You can imagine that keeps a lot of the hay from gradually rolling out of the bottom side of that feeder.

The second feature that makes a big difference is some sort of a modified basket or cone mechanism to hold that bale towards the middle of the feeder until the hay gets low and kind of falls out below that hay or below the vascular or the cone mechanism.

Of course, another very efficient way to feed hay is to roll it out with whether it be a piece of machinery.

Sometimes if the bales aren't too tight, you can start at the top of a hill and roll it down the hill.

It's a little challenging to moderate or control the amount of hay that you feed that way.

But if you can feed just enough hay so that the cattle in that pasture clean it up in that 24 hour period, the hay waste is dramatically reduced.

If you go the rolling hay out route, once you get to the time of year where they're relying primarily on hays or forage source, you have to feed it every day (upbeat music) but it is a way to tremendously reduced hay waste.

- That'll do it for us this week.

Remember you can see "SUNUP" anytime on our website and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Lyndall stout have a great week everyone.

And remember Oklahoma agriculture starts at "SUNUP".

(upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music)