(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma.

I'm Kurtis Hair, and welcome to "Sunup".

Well, we're doing something a little bit different today, 'cause we're hopping in the car, and heading all the way up to the McCaull Research station for the Panhandle Crops Field Day.

So why don't you grab your cup of coffee, and hop along?

(door clicking) (jaunty country music) (vehicle beeping) (door thumping) Well, we're finally here, (door thumping) so it's time to check in on Josh Lofton to see how summer crops are doing in this part of the state.

- And we are very genuine with the company.

We're here at the McCaull Research and Extension Demonstration Farm up here in in the Panhandle of Oklahoma at the McCaull Field Day, and today, we were talking a little bit about grain sorghum, and kind of how it's looking.

This is our irrigated condition.

We were telling the participants here, this is kind of our benchmark, our benchmark location for this side of the state.

We have a couple of those that are just typically one of our best yielding conditions.

We can really go out and look at the true yield potential of some of these sorghum varieties, and how well they can actively perform in these kind of conditions, and good looking crop this year.

We do have a little bit more variability throughout the Panhandle than we typically, than we would typically see, or we would like to see.

A lot of that had to do with we had really good conditions early, and then we kind of went hot and dry very, very quickly, and so a lot of folks weren't ready with the irrigation.

We didn't have everything pre-watered as well as we wanted to, so we do see some variability, and some lower end potential here than we'd like to see, but still really good potential, especially as days start cooling off, and things start filling in.

Do have low amount of pressure from weeds in the plots.

However, that's not what we're seeing across the bulk majority of the Panhandle.

Weeds are an issue, because we were so wet early, before the crop really had a chance to really develop.

We haven't seen any sort of major aphid pressure.

We have heard some indications of some sorghum aphid from here and there, but not a widespread issue.

Really, our pest pressure is fairly low throughout what we've seen, with the exception of weeds out here.

A lot of our grain has historically been dry land.

This, it's one of those that either goes on the corners of our pivot, so as the pivot goes around in a square, (machine whirring) you know, a lot of our fields are square.

Well, if we have a pivot that's circle, then what we have is these corners that are dry land.

Oftentimes, those pivots have historically gone into cotton, or maybe corn, maybe even sunflowers, and the corners have been sorghum, but as you drive around the Panhandle, we still have sorghum in those dry land corners, but we're seeing more and more pivots that have sorghum in it.

So we're starting to see the true potential that that sorghum can have in these irrigated conditions, especially as our well capacity starts decreasing, sorghum starts looking a lot more valuable.

I mean, dry land's dry land, and you get faced with the conditions, and the environment that mother nature kind of gives you, so sometimes that can be a hot and dry condition, like we experienced in '22, and that we're actually experiencing a lot more in '23 than we're talking about.

Being in this situation where we've been hot and dry, basically since July, for the most part out here, we just are now starting to set berries on, and go through pollination on our late stuff, we're starting to change color on our early stuff, and this is typically when we get a wet season.

This part of the state typically goes through a wet period and a wet season at this time of year.

Unfortunately, this year, we aren't experiencing that, and so we are seeing some issues that we don't typically see out here, because it was nice early, and then dry when it's not supposed to be dry, and we'll see what the rest of the season brings us, but I think we can overcome that, we just need a longer season.

We are a little bit behind.

Typically, at this time of year, most of the trial has changed colors or filled berries.

We're just coming outta pollination on some of our stuff, so we are a little bit behind.

We're gonna need an open fall, a delayed first frost date if we're gonna be successful on a lot of this crop out here.

(jaunty country music) - Welcome to the Mesonet Weather Report, I'm Wes Lee.

Dry, hot weather has always been associated with Oklahoma summers, but if you're like me, you have had about all that you can stand and are anticipating a change in the weather pattern about as much as ever.

- Once we make it to the weekend, the forecast looks much improved over what we have had the last few weeks.

We did receive a little bit of rain for a few lucky ones last week, mostly in the central part of the state.

While it was nice, it was not significant enough to have much impact on soil moisture or drought conditions.

Soil moisture remains at a critically low state, especially in the shallowest zones.

This map shows the percent plant available water from the surface of the ground to four inches.

Single digits or low teen percentages are seen in red for most of the state.

This is for soil under sod conditions and would somewhat represent no-till wheat fields.

Deeper in the soil from the surface down to 16 inches, the average percent plant available water does not look much better.

Red single digits are common in all areas, but the northeast where they look a little better.

Let's all hope the forecast rings true and cooler wetter weather is indeed in store for us next week.

Now here's Gary with more on next week's forecast.

- Thanks, Wes, and good morning, everyone.

Well, hopefully we are getting some cooler and wetter conditions than what we've seen our last 30 to 60 days because that flash drought has simply gotten out of control.

Let's go to the latest drought monitor map and see where we are.

Well, once again, we have a wide expansion of drought across the southern half to southwestern half of the state.

Unfortunately we've seen an increase in both the moderate to severe drought, a little bit of an increase in the extreme drought, and we've also seen a little bit of an increase up in North Central Oklahoma and also across the western panhandle.

So, you know that 30 to 60-day period where we got very little rainfall, lots of extremely hot temperatures, that's when we saw that flash drought take hold and start to flourish.

So hopefully, like I said, we get some different conditions in here.

One of the biggest impacts we've seen would be the loss of soil moisture.

This USDA map ending the September 3rd.

We saw the top soil moisture go to 73% short to very short.

Just a month to a month and a half ago, we were at basically 15% of the state in short to very short conditions.

So an extreme rapid drying of our soils across the state.

Can see that pretty well on the consecutive days with less than a quarter inch of rainfall map.

We did get a little bit of a reset in Central Oklahoma, but by and large across the entire state, we're up to basically 25, 30, up to even close to 60 days across Southern Oklahoma.

So a long time without significant rainfall.

Like I said, I hope we're getting different conditions now.

Now for the good news.

Next week does look like we're going to see below normal temperatures, above normal precipitation, especially at above normal precipitation across the western half of the state where it's desperately needed.

So hopefully this is a pattern change that gets us outta this flash drought situation more of into a normal rainy fall pattern.

(lively music) So hopefully with this pattern change, we do get an interruption in the intensification of the drought.

We'll keep an eye on it.

That's it for this week.

We'll see you next week on the Mesonet Weather Report.

(lively music) - We're here with Cameron Murley, the senior station superintendent here at the McCaull Research Station.

And, Cameron, we got a lot going on here today.

But first let's kind of talk about what producers have been dealing with here in the panhandle.

- All right, Curtis.

Thank you for coming out and seeing us today.

- Happy to be here.

- Yes, sir, we've had a very unique year in the panhandle.

Lots of rainfall that's typically it's not this green in the summertime when people have been out here.

With a average yearly rainfall of 16 inches, we're pushing 22 inches here on the McCaull Farm since planting corn.

So one of the big struggles, I guess, looking at this year producers have had and you think you can always pick out something that's, you know, could be better, right?

Well, you're gonna have struggles no matter what.

And every year, this is my 15th year out here in the panhandle and in operations between the two research centers.

But every year, nothing has been consistent between the weather patterns of each year.

And so one of the struggles that we're dealing with this year, yes, we've had all the rainfall in the world, you've been able to turn the pivots down some early on, but from planting corn to pollination, so tasseling and pollination, the reproductive stage in that corn, we have not had to irrigate any, which is great, right?

But what that's done, when you keep your root depth saturated from planting all the way to pollination is that that corn has never had to want for anything the entire time in terms of water use efficiency coming out there.

So what it's done is it's created shallow root depth and they have not, crown roots haven't got fully developed.

And so once the rainfall stopped and the heat turned back on, that corn could not, you know, it couldn't go down, because the water was there, but it couldn't go down and essentially get what it needed.

So, you know, even in these rainy years is what I'm trying to hang my hat on is that a lot of environmental factors, I guess, playing into what's gonna give you success out in the field.

- And you can really see it too driving, you know, driving around, just kinda patchy fields essentially in the corn.

- Spatial variability.

You know, and a lot of people have planted acres and acres of dryland milo out here in the panhandle and it was great early on, but as the rains quit, and really the rains quit and they coincided about the same time with that heat factor coming on and 105 plus and windy and solar's where it's at, you know.

It's been hard on crops and a lot of things have burned up, but.

- And, you know, that's one challenge, but earlier in the year, you were dealing with some really severe drought, right?

- Really severe drought comin' off.

One of the hardest ones we've had since I've been out here in the panhandle.

I think we were just over a year without a quarter inch of rainfall, like 385 days, something like that.

Was the epicenter of the Dust Bowl right up here the McCaull and Goodwell Farms.

It was getting pretty nasty and, I mean, to go from... - Desert on earth, I guess, back to a green wonderland, it's amazing how quick it can turn around and turn people's attitudes around as well.

- Yeah, and I'm sure there's definitely some producers who probably got the corn in the ground pretty early, and they're, might be looking at a really great harvest.

- Yes, looking at really great years.

Producers, definitely, with the higher producing whales they've been able to keep up and stay on top of it.

Yeah, there's gonna be some great yields coming out the Panhandle.

- And what's great about these field days is you really get to come here and see the different management strategies, you know, that can really have an impact on their bottom line overall.

- Exactly.

And really goes to show how diverse, I mean, as you travel the state, you get to see the diversity of moving from the rest of the state out here to the Panhandle and, I guess how we conduct it.

- All righty, thanks, Cameron.

- Thank you, sir.

- Cameron Murley, senior station superintendent here at the McCaull Research Station.

(upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

This week's topic is measure, quantify, and document.

What do we mean by that topic?

Well, basically, if we think about production agriculture, beef cattle production, or cow-calf production specifically it is a math-based enterprise.

And by math-based enterprise, it is basically taking the resources we have, and the inputs that we can put into this production system and trying to optimize, and be as efficient as possible in what we take out of it.

And the reality that if we wanna make good decisions and try to improve our management, or our profit potential, or our genetics that contribute to that profit potential, we need to document performance of a cow herd and the calves produced, we need to collect that data when we can and we need to take inventory of certain things.

First, what exactly is efficiency?

In a big scheme of things, efficiency is simply achieving a goal and minimizing the amount of waste from whatever inputs we're putting into it.

And beef cattle production, we can think of feed efficiency as an example.

If we feed two different pins of steers, it takes one pin, six pounds of feed to put on a pound of gain.

We know they're doing it more efficiently than the pin over here that takes eight pounds of feed to put on a pound of gain.

If we think about this from a standpoint of commercial cow calf production, we want to take inventory of all those different things that we've got.

And it's easy to think about the cow herd inventory, and what have we got out here for pasture land, what kind of plants actually grow, what kind of shape is our soil in, things like that.

But we need to dig a little deeper when we start thinking about all those inputs.

Our time that we have to invest in our beef production system, our level of management expertise are really key elements to what these inputs and resources are.

And we've gotta be honest with ourselves in assessing that, relative to what we're capable of putting in.

It's beyond just looking at do I have a quarter section of pasture land out here?

Let's dig a little deeper and think, is that native grass pasture?

Is that a Bermuda grass pasture?

Let's consider even, are we in a part of Oklahoma that has high rainfall or low rainfall relative to, if that is Bermuda grass pasture.

A question to ask on that is have we soil tested that pasture?

Do we know our NP and K levels?

Do we know what the pH is?

Is there some kind of soil amendment, maybe lime or fertilizer that would be necessary to increase the productivity of that pasture?

And we wanna think about all those inputs that we've got relative to what our goal is.

And ultimately, the goal that we inevitably talk about a lot on Cow-Calf Corner is the goal of profitability.

And there are people that live on farms and ranches for different reasons.

In some cases, it's a way of life, it's tradition and profit potential may not necessarily pertain to those operations.

But if it pertains to yours, and that is the purpose, and that is your goal, I encourage you to collect the data, quantify what resources you've got to put into your beef production system, determine what your goals are and try to figure out the most efficient way to go about that production system and achieving those goals.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for joining us this week on Cow-Calf Corner.

(upbeat music) - Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist is here now.

Kim, let's kick things off, looking at how the 2023 harvest is coming along.

- Well, we've got about a 29.2 billion bushel world crop being harvested at 1.73 billion, here in the United States.

We've harvested about 80% of that world wheat crop and the majority of the US wheat crop, you gotta look at when wheat is harvested, harvest starts in, oh, probably mid to late March in India, Pakistan, North Africa, in that area.

- By the time we get to June 1 we've harvested 25% of the world's wheat crop.

Now that's mostly importing wheat countries rather than exporting countries.

Then you got big relatively large harvest in June, July and August.

When we get to September we've got about 80% of the 2023 crop harvested, and it goes on out, moves to the southern hemisphere.

Right now we got, all that we have left is spring wheat in the northern hemisphere, and when we'll move to Argentina and Australia and Southern Africa somewhere in late October, and it'll go through October, November, December.

- So what are you seeing then in terms of prices when it comes to wheat?

- Well if you look at wheat prices they've been going in the tank, I think the last couple weeks the wheat prices have stabilized down around $2.70 in Northern Oklahoma.

It's about 15 cents lower in the panhandle, 20 cents lower down in Southern Oklahoma.

If you look at forward contracting the 2024 wheat crop, somewhere around $6.55.

A little higher in the panhandle in this instance, and again 20 center lower as you go down to Southern Oklahoma.

- What are you seeing in terms of corn and soybean?

- Well that corn and bean harvest, they're well on their way right now.

You look at corn, the world is looking at harvesting a record 47.8 billion bushels, the United States a record 15.1 billion bushels.

You look at U.S. ending stocks, somewhere around 2.2 billion.

Average is 1.7, something like that.

So corn prices, as you'd expect, the average for a harvest in Oklahoma for corn prices is $4.80, we're around 4.75, 4.77, somewhere in that vicinity.

- How about beans now?

- Well if you look at soybeans, the world's looking at a record, 14.8 billion bushel harvest, but the U.S. harvest is around average 4.2 billion, ending stocks record for the world at 4.4, United States 2.4, 245 million bushels, the average is 445, so tight stocks in the United States.

And we got around $13, just right below that for a soybean price.

And it looks like it's holding in that area right now.

- And then how about in terms of cotton production and prices?

- Remember early in the year that cotton crop looked really good.

We had that hot, dry August, and it just cooked that crop, so price doesn't mean a whole lot in Oklahoma, but what cotton is harvested, the futures price is up around 88 cents, that gets our cash price around 84, 85 for cotton.

- Okay, Ken, lots of information, we'll see you next week.

- Returning now to the panhandle crops field day with our beef cattle specialist, Dr. Paul Beck.

And, Paul, usually at these field tours we don't really have livestock specialists, but what are you here talking about today?

- Well, you know, these field tours are designed to focus on a topic, and whether it's a crop station and all that, but the whole state of Oklahoma has livestock and diversified livestock and cropping operation.

So at this event I was asked to talk about drought recovery from our last two years of severe drought, going into a recovery period where we've had adequate moisture.

I was looking at some of the records, and in the month of June here in Cimarron County, they've gotten more rain than they did for the previous 22 months, so it was severely dry, and then now we've got some adequate moisture, so good growing conditions, so they wanted to hear about how to recover from the drought the most effective way.

- So what are your management strategies to help with that?

- Well, it's the same here as it would be in Central Oklahoma, Eastern Oklahoma or anywhere.

- [Interviewer] That's kind of surprising.

- It is surprising that... You know plants need sunlight, water and nutrients to grow, and so to recover from a drought you need to develop the leaf area, and have a deep root system.

And as you over graze you're limiting your top growth, but that's mirrored by the roots underneath.

So as you graze it shorter the roots get shorter, and that limits the plant's ability to capture moisture at a deep level, and nutrients at a deeper level.

So we're trying to manage the growth of the plant, give it time to recover, and if we've really severely grazed it down it's gonna take more time to recover than if we have just a slight injury to that plant.

The other thing is competition.

We have weeds that can come into thin stands, that shades our crop, it harvests moisture deeper, and nutrients, so there's competition that we need to control.

- Right now producers are in this area, it's kind of looking like (indistinct) it hasn't rained in a little while, so what are some things producers can do during the drought, kind of pre-injury?

- We try to tell producers no matter where they're at to have a drought plan.

And that gives you the ability to set benchmarks, and understand ahead of time we're going into a dry cycle, we're short on forage, so we need to take this step to manage our stocking rates.

We need to take this step to limit the injury to our... - Forages so that it can recover later.

So, you know, we're looking at having a balanced forage system to where, you know, we know what we're producing, we know when we need it.

We're not relying on hay for an extended period, you know, in the winter so that we can, you know, use that for grazing.

You know, having a flexible stocking rate, whether that's using stocker calves as part of your normal stocking rate, or early being the ability to early wean calves to to reduce your forage demand whenever you start getting lower on forage production.

And then having a feeding plan, you know?

When it comes time, you've realized you're starting to damage your pastures, we're gonna move those cattle to the base herd, those cattle we have to keep or really would need to keep to be sustainable in the future.

Move those to a sacrifice pasture, feed them there and have something to feed them so you're not damaging your entire ranch.

- All right, thanks Paul.

Paul Beck, beef cattle Specialist here at Oklahoma State University - [Announcer] In its first year of operation, our state's new 988 mental health lifeline received more than 40,000 calls, no doubt saving lives and helping people find support resources in their communities.

The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services says one in five state residents have a mental health issue.

It is always okay to ask for help.

Call or text nine eight eight.

You can also find resources through OSU extension on our website.

(upbeat music) - And that about wraps it up for us today.

Now remember, you can find us anytime sunup.okstate.edu and follow us on YouTube and social media.

I'm Kurtis Hair and remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at sunup.

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