(upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome to "Sunup."

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Oklahoma sure got a big taste of winter this past week, as we said farewell to January and kicked off February.

The Mesonet Weather Team will have much more on the storms and the much needed moisture straight ahead in the Mesonet Report.

But first, we talk a lot about staying hydrated in the summer months, but as Dr. Janice Hermann tells us, it's also important to stay plenty hydrated when it's cold out.

(uplifting country music) - We think about dehydration more in the summer, because we're aware that we're perspiring, so we're more aware that we're losing water.

But in the winter, that's one thing that happens is, with cold, dry air perspiration evaporates rapidly and so people may not realize that they're perspiring and actually losing water.

And a lot of times we bundle up when we're outside for working in the cold and so, again, the clothing may be absorbing some of that moisture, and so people just aren't aware that how much water they're losing.

A lot of the signs of dehydration we may not realize, of course we think about thirst, but actually thirst follows dehydration.

So you've already lost some body water if you're thirsty.

And in addition to thirst there can be weakness, fatigue, irritability, headaches, and in serious cases of dehydration, it can also become a life-threatening risk with heat exhaustion or heat stroke where the actual circulatory system can collapse.

Cold causes the blood vessels in the body to the extremities to redirect that blood to the core of the bodies.

And so we get more blood flowing to the core of the bodies to keep the organs warm, and that tricks the body to think it's actually hydrated, and that can decrease the thirst sensation.

So actually, thirst response can decrease 40% in cold weather.

And additionally, there's some hormonal changes that cause the kidneys to be less efficient at conserving water in the cold temperatures.

Older adults are particularly susceptible to dehydration.

One thing is they may self-limit their fluid intake.

Another thing is just the aging itself decreases our thirst sensation and thirst response, as well as the kidneys don't function as well as we get older and so they're less efficient at conserving water.

In addition, older adults may be taking medications that increase fluid loss.

Recommendations for fluid intake, if we look at the dietary reference intakes, actual water needs are 3.7 liters per day for males and 2.7 liters per day for females.

When you're looking at replacing fluid or maintaining fluid intake, one of the best sources is plain cool water.

Plain cool water is rapidly absorbed into the intestine and it really helps get that water to the body where it's needed.

You do want to watch beverages that are high in sugar, those will actually cause fluid to move into the intestine and can cause some cramping and bloating and the fluids aren't absorbed as well.

Some tips and tricks are to carry a water bottle with you.

If you have a water bottle with you, it's kind of a constant reminder and you're more likely to continually sip on that and have more regular fluid intake.

It also might be nice to set some goals for water intake and to track your water intake.

There's also a lot of apps you can use on your smartphone or watch (uplifting music) that will alert you to times to consume water.

- Hello, Wes Lee here, and it's good to be back with you here on the Mesonet Weather Report.

We experienced some of the coldest weather this past week that we've had in quite a while.

Single digits and low teens were felt in much of the state on Wednesday morning.

This marked at least three days of winter weather at most sites where the temperatures were consecutively below freezing.

Only McCurtain County fared better, where it took the cold front an extra day to arrive.

However, as cold as it was towards the end of January, the month came in averaging very warm.

Here you can see the average air temperature for most of the state was two to five degrees above normal.

Breaking it down by day, we see that the first three weeks of the month were very warm with some sites as much as 30 degrees above normal.

It was only the last few days of the month where temperatures dropped below the long-term average for the month.

By the weekend, we are expecting temperatures to return to the warmer than normal position and maybe stay there for a while.

- This forecast map for next week shows shades of red over most of the state, which would indicate the probability of warm conditions are likely.

Now, here's Gary with more of an outlook for February.

- Thanks, Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, we're finally finished with January and onto February, so let's take a look back, see what January brought us, and then take a little preview for next month.

Well, the drought monitor, we had more improvements across Eastern Oklahoma.

That's where, again, the bulk of the rain fell and whether it was freezing rain, sleet or even snow, East Central, down into Southeast Oklahoma continued to be the area of focus.

The rest of the state, we still have that moderate to extreme to severe to even exceptional drought on the drought monitor scale.

So we definitely need more rainfall, but especially across Western Oklahoma.

The rainfall totals for February, well, we did see some pretty decent rainfall again across far East Central in Southeast Oklahoma.

A little bit less as you go towards the west, of course.

And then out in the Panhandle, you're down, but less than 1/4 inch in some places.

So again, much more needed across Western Oklahoma.

When we look at the deficits for January, not quite so bad when you look out west, because again, January is our driest month of the year.

So even though you have very little rainfall, that's not too far off from normal, but still we need above normal rainfall to get rid of those drought conditions.

Okay, let's move on to February.

We see from the Climate Prediction Center, the outlook for precipitation, increased odds of above normal precipitation across the, basically the Eastern 3/4ths or 4/5ths of the state, but especially across the Eastern 1/3rd.

So that would be good news if that came to fruition, but we definitely need that to move farther west, of course.

So with that precipitation outlook in mind, the February drought outlook from the Climate Prediction Center shows drought improvement across Eastern, basically the Eastern third of the state.

Unfortunately, across the Western 2/3rds, that drought is expected to persist.

Okay, so we're getting lots of good precipitation across Eastern Oklahoma.

We just need it to move towards the west.

Hopefully we can start to see that come out in February.

And then as we get into spring, even more rainfall across those western parts of the state.

That's it for this time.

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

(bright country music) - Decisions.

Decisions.

It is time now that it's February to start talking about first hollow stem and moving cattle from wheat.

Joining us now is Roger Sahs from Ag Economics.

And Roger, you and the team have put out a new fact sheet to help talk about this process and make some decisions.

- Yes, so we updated a fact sheet Ag EC 241, which is graze out versus harvesting for grain.

And it talks about the possibilities of a graze out situation versus harvesting for grain, a true dual-purpose wheat production system.

And so we really rely a great deal on partial budgeting and that helps, I think, the producer to weigh, say the pros and cons of a plan A versus the plan B.

And it's really important to collect the information that's pertinent to that decision-making process and classify the impacts from those potential outcomes.

So it does a really a nice job of clarifying the muddy water, so to speak, and helping them determine what is in their best financial interest.

- So this concept of partial budgeting, what is that and give us a brief overview of how it works?

- Well, essentially, you're comparing the pros and cons, like I said, of plan A versus plan B, and you're looking at the economic impacts or effects of those particular courses of action.

And so our fact sheet discusses, typically, the case of, we would have stalkers out on wheat, but we have a certain number of producers that are thinking about, "Well, what about the possibility of grazing out that wheat and selling those stalkers at a heavier weight?

Is that in my best financial interest?

How does that pencil out?"

And so this fact sheet goes through that methodology.

And so on the one hand, when you've got grazing out wheat, yes, we'll have some increased revenues from those heavier weight stalkers, but we'll have some cost savings from not harvesting that wheat.

And then on the other side of ledger, of course, we've got two sides of ledger here.

And so on the other side of ledger, we have a situation of, yes, we'll have some increased cost of carrying out those stalkers for another, say, 45, 60 days.

But the big whammy is that we won't have those revenues or sales from stalkers ordinarily sold before first haul of stem, and also the losses in from not harvesting wheat and those sales there.

So we weigh really the total economic impacts of the each side of the ledger, so to speak, and see which side has the heavier weight.

- And that gives the producer I think some indication of what avenue to pursue.

So once again, it's really important for them to collect some good information based on their farm and production records.

And then also do a little price forecasting.

But once again, it does a really nice job I think of leading them to make the right decision at the right time.

- And there is a worksheet or a workbook that kind of goes along with this.

So there's a blueprint.

- Yes.

- [Interviewer] For you to follow.

- There is, yes.

On the very back page of that publication we do have a worksheet that you can go through the numbers.

The methodology I think is fairly straightforward.

But once again, I think it does a really a nice job of clarifying how that decision making framework does work for your benefit.

- And there's lots of factors that go into that.

Of course, it's been a challenging year in a lot of ways for forage.

So these are important things to consider and this is the time of year to do it.

- Exactly.

- Okay.

Roger, thank you so much for your time today.

And if you wanna check out this fact sheet and run the numbers for your operation, we have a link for you at sunup.oksate.edu.

(upbeat country music) - It's been a few weeks since we talked to our livestock marketing specialist, Dr. Derrell Peel.

So Derrell, the USDA released their annual or semi-annual cattle report.

Was the liquidation that you projected did that actually occur?

- It did.

This report confirmed what we've been expecting.

You know, for the whole US the all cattle and calves inventory was down 3%.

Since the peak in 2019, the most recent peak in 2019, we've dropped the all cattle inventory by 5.5, little bit over 5.5 million head.

That's a 5.8% decrease since that peak.

So yeah, we've liquidated quite a bit.

- You know, most importantly the beef herd.

So what did the numbers tell you about the beef, the beef production?

- The beef cow herd dropped another 3.6% last year and that's a pretty big drop for a single year.

In fact, it's the lowest now, we're actually a little bit lower than the low in 2014.

And this makes this the lowest beef cow herd in the US since 1962.

So since the peak in 2019, again, the cyclical peak in 2019, we've dropped about 2.77 million head of beef cows.

That's an 8.7% decrease since 2019.

- So for beef replacement heifers, usually that has kind of a big impact of what we're gonna see on the future.

So what did those numbers tell you?

- Yeah, with a low cow herd and then we look at the beef replacement heifers going forward, beef replacements were down 5.8% this year.

And the number of those that are expected to calve this year.

USDA breaks it into expected to calve and heifers in development.

The heifers expected to calve was down 5.1%.

So beef replacement heifers actually peaked in 2017 as we were building up numbers the last expansion.

And we're down 1.2 million head or 18.9% from that peak in those beef replacement numbers.

- So shifting to feedlot in the feeder situation What's going on there?

- Well again, the calf crop peaked in 2018 so feeder supplies have been tightening up.

The expected feeder supply for this year was down 2.5% year over year.

The total US cattle on feed inventory was down 3.7%.

So again, we see these numbers continue to tighten up.

- So how did Oklahoma's numbers compare to last year?

- In Oklahoma our all cattle inventory dropped 11 1/2% year over year.

So big drop there.

Beef cows were down 6.6%.

Beef replacement heifers were down 2.5%.

The feeder supply for the state of Oklahoma, estimated feeder supply was down 18 1/2%.

Our cattle on feed numbers are down 11.1%.

And the 2022 calf crop was down 4.1% from the previous year.

So big drop.

In fact, we had the biggest drop in all cattle inventory of any state in the country in this report.

- So a lot of this you were predicting a couple months back or even to a couple weeks back, but was there anything in here that really caught you by surprise?

- In general, not really.

I mean, it confirms what we've been talking about.

We're in a very tight situation.

I think the real question going forward is we're still in a drought.

We've got a tough winter.

We have very low hay stocks.

So we have producers that may be facing some additional liquidation here during the winter if they don't have enough hay to get through the winter.

And certainly if the drought doesn't change going into the spring and the growing season, we're gonna see additional liquidation.

So we could be in an extremely tight situation going forward if we take this down even farther than it has already.

- All right.

Well, we'll check back in with you in a couple weeks.

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

- Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist is here now.

Kim, we're one month into the new year.

What's happening with the market?

Well let's start with the value of the dollar that - The value of the dollar against other currencies, currencies that we compete with, it determines our real price on the foreign market.

It's came down and I think that's good.

Also, this last week, the price of nitrogen, I think, took a dramatic drop.

They were talking about, oh, around $950 a ton down to $770, $780, somewhere in that.

So a significant decline in nitrogen prices.

You always gotta talk about the weather, the drought in the United States, the drought in Argentina, it was too wet in Australia.

The question, the quality of that crop.

You look at Australia in wheat production, it was a record 1.35 billion bushels.

That's compared to 900 million for an average.

Argentina, drought, 460 million bushel crop.

Their average is 700 million.

And then you gotta look at the US crop conditions for the winter wheat crop.

In Oklahoma, our wheat is 34% poor to very poor, 39% good or fair, And then good to excellent's only 17%.

And that's all over the hard redwood or wheat area.

And so our crop conditions are on the bottom side of that limit.

- Looking at all these factors then, what are you seeing in terms of the current pricing trends?

- Well everything's, I think, factored into the market.

You look at wheat prices, you can go back to November, they just leveled out, you know, around $8 a bushel range, between $7.70 and $8.50.

You look at corn prices, again, go back to Thanksgiving, slightly higher.

Their range from around $7.00 to $7.50.

They're up in the, oh, the $7.40 level right now.

You go to soybeans, we've had a slight up trend in beans since Thanksgiving, $14.00 to $15.50.

They're in the upper part of that limit.

Some people are talking about 'em breaking out or just moving sideways.

Cotton, right around 84.

So not much going on with prices.

- We're in the time of year when producers are getting their 2023 budget sorted out.

What are you seeing in terms of what the market's offering for 2023 crops?

- Well, just like the, you know, current prices, cash prices, it's been relatively flat.

You can look at wheat though, forward contracts somewhere around, oh, $8 to $8.25.

It's been down as low as $7.50 and up the top there is $8.25 and it breaks out the top, it could go on, but I don't expect to do that.

You look at corn prices, that's for the '23 harvest, $5.60 to $5.85.

25 cent range there over the last couple of months.

It's on the bottom part of that range for the corn prices.

Bean prices, they were up near, oh, over $13 there for awhile as you came into the first of the year.

They trended down to $12.50, and oh, up around the $12.75, $12.80, something like that, for forward contracted.

Cotton, 84 or 85 cents, right at that range.

Cotton just hadn't moved much and they don't expect much change in cotton between now and the '23 harvest.

- So what other things will you be keeping an eye on between now and harvest?

- Oh, we can break out the normal suspects.

So we're gonna watch the value of that dollar.

If that dollar value continue to come down, I think that'll help our exports.

Of course, wheat stocks are tight in the United States and they're tight around the world.

You got the poor crop conditions, so we're gonna watch rain, timely showers.

It'd be good if we could get rid of the drought, but we can still produce wheat with we can get the rain at the right time.

I think top grass and lower nitrogen prices, now, I don't know if they're gonna be lower in Oklahoma because probably most of the fertilizer's already been bought by the dealers and needs to be sold at those higher prices.

So we're gonna be watching some things like that.

If you look at corn and beans, of course it's what's going on in South America, with Brazil and Argentina.

And we haven't talked about the war.

You know, this past couple weeks, Russia's stopped the inspections for Ukrainian wheat moving out.

Russian wheat's moving.

And Russia's got a record crop to move on the export market.

So we'll watch how that's coming out on the market.

- Always a lot to talk about, Kim, thanks a lot.

We'll see you next week.

(jaunty music) - Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to "Cow-Calf Corner".

This week's topic is calf scours, or neonatal diarrhea, and a management system that involves pasture rotation that we have referred to for a long time as the Nebraska Sandhill System, because this management system came about up in the Nebraska Sandhills a while back.

So calf scours themselves, what are we getting into when we talk about that?

We're basically talking about the scours that result in calves that are a week to two weeks of age.

A number of factors are involved here as far as the pathogens that cause 'em and the environment that they live in.

And that's not specifically our topic this week as much as how do we manage calving season to try to avoid calf scours to the extent as possible?

Well first, one of the things we know is that older calves are kind of the enemy of younger calves because they're gonna shed the pathogens in a lot of cases that lead to calf scours.

The adult cow herd probably carries some of those as well.

And so.

- By rotating pastures as we go through calving systems, or calving season, we're tryin' to reduce the incidence of calf scours themselves.

Calf scours result in sick calves, a lack of well being in calves, poor baby calf performance, and even death, not to mention driving up our cost of treatment, medications, things like that.

So, if this has been an issue in the past for you, we're gonna address some ways you potentially alleviate the problem through pasture rotation.

How specifically, is this system set up to work in the state of Nebraska?

Basically, we move into a clean pasture that's been unoccupied by cattle for several months at the beginning of calving season.

And as our cows begin to calve, at the end of two weeks we leave those pairs in pasture number one and we move our heavy bred cows that are getting ready to calve into a second clean pasture that's been unoccupied for a few months.

We calve in that pasture for about a week.

We leave the pairs that have originated there in pasture two.

We take those remaining bred cows to a third pasture, and we continue to repeat this process in subsequent weeks until the end of calving season.

Eventually, we get to a point in here when calves are beyond four weeks of age, they're at a point where neonatal diarrhea is not at high risk and we can start to co-mingle those groups of calves back together and move on.

So, what does this require in terms of planning?

If you're in Oklahoma specific to your operation, it probably requires a little bit of planning going into calving season, but it is a proven system that has shown to reduce calf scours and the amount of time we spend treating.

So, if it's of benefit to you, something to consider.

I thank you for joining us this week on "Cow/Calf Corner."

- Finally today, Oklahoma State University's turf grass development team scored big last weekend when their scientific work was in the national spotlight.

The Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs are headed to Super Bowl LVII after winning their conferences, both teams on their home fields and both on turf grass varieties developed by scientists at Oklahoma State University.

Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia has a base of the variety Tahoma 31, and Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City features a base of the variety, NorthBridge.

They originated in Stillwater, home to OSU's Turf Grass Research Center, after many years of testing.

We caught up with Dr. Yangi Wu, earlier this year shortly after two new Bermuda grass varieties were released.

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

There's a little bit of a, there's a few years now before they're actually grown and on golf courses, for example.

- Definite, normally we need several steps we need to do.

First we grow this grasses to intellectual protection.

We work with the OSU Office of Technology Commercialization.

Then, they're goin' to lookin' for collaborators.

We call master licensee.

The collaborators must licensee going to send these grasses license to sod producers, to the strategically located farmers.

Then, from the farm, increase the plant vegetatively, then deliver the product so it's concealed.

That need two or four years.

- How, about how many years does it take to get a variety to the stage where you can release it and then, then it advances to the commercial arena?

- Normally need 10 to 12 years, averagely.

But, every plant is different.

They are very appealing to deer.

- Sure.

And OSU has quite a reputation with its turf grass.

There's previous varieties that were released commercially years ago that are really on some high profile sports arenas and fields, right?

- I'm glad you mentioned that.

Actually this number nine, number 10 releases and OSU team they work many years here and they get some reputation, especially improvements in freeze tolerance or cold harness.

So, they use these grasses, several varieties, in National Football League stadiums like Kansas Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens.

Washington, the Capitol Hill.

They grow the Tahoma 31.

- Well, we're fans of Philadelphia Eagles in our house, so this news went over big in our house.

That'll do it for "Sunup" this week.

A reminder, you can see us 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.