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(upbeat guitar music) - Hello everyone, and welcome to SUNUP. I'm Lyndall Stout. Springtime in Oklahoma means it's also severe weather and wildfire season. Of course, preparation

is key, but so is being ready should your home or business ever be affected. To begin, let's go to Dr. Gina Peek. - It is April in Oklahoma, and we know that the weather can be

unpredictable. There are some simple things that families can do to better be prepared for this season. One is, you can create a family emergency plan, something as simple as sharing contact

information, making sure that family members know where you are during stressful times, identifying safe places in your home in case you do need to shelter in place in a storm event. The

second thing that families can do is create an emergency kit. This includes the three days' worth of food and water that you can easily transport with you, but then also consider what

documents are crucial to you, what is, thinking about things that are hard to replace, so for example, anything to do with owning property or birth certificates, marriage certificates,

things like that, things that would be a little bit difficult to replace if you had to. If you would like to get more information about the best way to be prepared in your community, visit

with your county Extension educator. Let's say you want to build a three-day emergency kit, but you're not sure exactly where to start. You know you need food and water, but what

else? Your local educator can help you think through your specific needs and help you build that kit. Let's say medications, anything that you might need in order to be not only

comfortable but healthy during those three days. Oklahoma does have unpredictable weather, and there are lots of different disasters that can happen throughout the year, and so family

preparedness is important no matter what day of the year it is. Well, when I think about drought, I think also of the risk of wildfire, and so if there isn't a fire in event, well,

families can also tune into your local, you know, turning into your local TV stations or however you receive your news can help you, you know, determine if there's a fire coming your

way, and in that case, again, if you need to evacuate your property, having that three-day kit is absolutely essential. Grab your kit and go, and then let the professionals deal with the

fire on the property. It helps bring people comfort knowing that they, yes, they are prepared. If they have to shelter in place or leave the property, being ready makes people feel better.

Our whole objective with disaster preparedness education is to help people feel better. We don't want anyone to be scared. We want people to realize that they do have some control, and

that there are very simple things that you can do to help you and your family feel better. OSU Extension has lots of different resources, so whether you are interested in reading up about

shelters on your property or how to build a three-day emergency preparedness kit by shopping in your own home, we have everything. For more information, visit the SUNUP website. (happy folk

music) - Welcome to this special edition of the Mesonet Weather Report. I'm Wes Lee. Oklahomans know that spring is usually severe weather season. While tornadoes can happen every month

of the year, the vast majority of them occur in the spring. Late April, May, and June are the most frequent months according to the National Weather Center. It is also when they tend to be

the largest and the most severe in size. Just like months, tornadoes can occur at any time of the day as you can see on this chart, but they tend to appear most frequently during the

afternoon peak heating hours, with three in the afternoon until eight in the evening being the most common times. Fortunately, we have a very good forecast system nowadays, and we usually

know in advance when to be on the lookout. Storm outlooks are usually put together days before a severe storm occurs. Then, when all the right ingredients are expected to be present, a watch

is initiated, often hours before anything ever happens. And lastly, when the weather ingredients are all put together in the right sequence, a warning is issued. This outlook was the one

for the end of March, when tornadoes hit Little Rock. You can see areas were ranked one, marginal risk, through five, high risk, and given a corresponding color on the map. Now here's

Gary with more on our spring severe weather season. - Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone. Have you ever wondered why Oklahoma has so much severe weather during the spring and even into

early summer months? - Well, Oklahoma is the capital of weather disasters, unfortunately, whether we like it or not. In fact, did you know that Oklahoma leads the country in the number of

FEMA-declared disasters since the year 2000? Those are weather disasters particularly. Well, that takes into account all weather disasters, of course. But the reason we have all that crazy

weather, including our spring severe weather season, is pretty easy. Just like in real estate, the answer is the same. Location, location, location. Cold, dry air from the north is funneled

southward by the Rocky Mountains over the Great Plains, where it meets the warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, rushing northward. Now, this clash of air masses is also met by warm, dry

air off the higher elevations of the Rockies and the Colorado plateau. These colliding air masses over Oklahoma can create the most exceptional conditions that allow for vigorous updrafts or

rising motions in the air parcels that are essential for thunderstorms. Now, add to this, a fast moving river of air in the upper levels called the jet stream. And then you have wind shear,

which allows those thunderstorms to start spinning into what is called a super cell. Now, from these rotating thunderstorms come the worst of what our weather has to offer, which is, of

course, giant hail, damaging winds, and sometimes tornadoes. And let's not forget those other Oklahoma staples like flash floods, squall lines, heat waves, and of course the dangerous

cloud-to-ground lightning strikes that comes with any type of thunderstorm. Now, unfortunately, if we see a spring without severe weather, we're probably dealing with drought and

that's exactly what we're seeing across much of the northern western half of the state right now. So as usual, when it comes to Oklahoma's weather and we often have to take

the good with the bad. That's it for this time. We'll see you next time on the Mesonet Weather Report. - We're continuing our discussion on wildfire and storm season with our

ag policy specialist, Dr. Amy Hagerman. And Amy, you know, after the storms pass that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know safety doesn't need to be a concern. - Absolutely, it

should be the first concern at any point whenever we have a wildfire or a storm. And the first thing is just to make sure it's safe to go back on your property, to check out the

damages. If you're talking about a fire is it safe to get back in that area? Are you away from the line of the fire? If you're talking about a tornado those structures probably

need to be checked out to make sure it's safe to get back into that area. So just that's first consideration, safety before you go in. And then go check the damages because then

you really know what you're working with and you can begin to document those. - So let's dive right in. Documenting, you know, you mentioned going out and observing the damage.

What are some things that people need to consider when doing that? - So the first thing is you're thinking about insurance. You're thinking about your lender and you're

thinking about federal programs. So there's a couple of different kinds of documentation there that you need. The first is your documentation that you have safely stored on some

secondary location. That if some sort of damage happens to your home, that you have a secondary backup of things like your ownership paperwork, your insurance policies, and things like that.

So that's the first thing we're checking out. Making sure we have that paper documentation available. Then we're taking pictures and videos of the actual damages. Again,

safety first. Make sure it's safe to go in and do that. But you need some sort of idea that you can take to your insurance agent or to your USDA agent to give them an idea of the kind

of damage that you actually experienced on the operation or in your home. So videos, photos are great for that. Even just taking 'em on your phone, texting 'em to your agent if

they have that kind of system. - So is there, you know, obviously there's not necessarily a deadline but is there, you know, the timeframe of that like how quickly do people need to

act? - I think you need to bear in mind, especially if it's a widespread disaster, there's gonna be a lot of people reaching out at once. So start reaching out early, but be

prepared to be patient as they deal with multiple people that may have damages. But you wanna be fairly quickly, especially for a lot of the federal disaster programs, that notice of loss

needs to occur within 15 to 30 days. You don't have to be out within the first 24 hours but certainly within the first week. You wanna have a good idea of what those damages are and

start making those contacts. It needs to be done as soon as is safely possible. - You know, for our, wheat producers in the state and for those who are actually able to make a crop and you

know, the crop's starting to probably getting close to heading out, maybe already in some areas. I always say this is kind of the cross your finger stage for the storms because hail is

a big thing here, so you know, what are some things that producers can do to as they are kind of crossing their fingers. Is it more just preparedness and just keeping everything in order? -

Well, hopefully they have some sort of insurance on that land or they have a plan for that. If something happens, if a hailstorm happens and you get... Again, it's that near term damage

effect. You wanna get your notice of loss in very quickly. You wanna get somebody out there to look at the damages, to document it as appropriate for that policy that you have before doing

any kind of cleanup with it. And that's true whether we're talking about wildfire or tornado or hail damage to a wheat crop. Before you do any sort of cleanup, before you do

anything, you know, putting it into another crop or anything like that, talk to the insurance agent. Make sure you've checked every box there because you don't wanna put yourself

in a position where you've voided your policy. - And OSU extension has a lot of resources on the emergency and disaster preparedness page too, right? - We do, we're talking about a

lot of different kinds of disasters and we're mixing them all up here because, hey, it's spring in Oklahoma, but we have specific segments for different types of disasters, and so

they cover everything from that documentation, cleanup, safety and cleanup, and then also different kinds of recovery programs because recovery programs are gonna be different for any one

of these kinds of disasters and what's available to a producer. - All right, Thanks, Amy. Dr. Amy Hagerman, AG Policy Specialist here at Oklahoma State University. And if you'd

like a link to the emergency and disaster preparedness page, go to our website, sunup.okstate.edu. (upbeat music) - Dr. Derrell Peel, our Livestock Marketing Specialist is here now. Derrell,

it sounds like it's been a historic first week of April for fed cattle markets. Tell us what's going on. - Yeah, these cash fed cattle markets, the first week of April on

Thursday, we set a new daily cash market price level. The previous record was in late 2014. On Friday, it moved even higher. So the weekly average was also a record for all time at this

point in time. - So given that's happening, what do you think's next and what does the rest of the month hold? - (laughs) Well, you know, we're moving into tighter supplies.

This is just the beginning, I think. Now, in terms of the time of year, normally we would expect, in a more stable market, fed cattle markets would peak about now. They would drop off

seasonally a little bit into the summer and then come back in the late part of the year. I'm not sure with this uptrend in the market that's in place that we'll see a lot of

drop off this summer. Maybe it plateaus a little bit, it might drop slightly, but in general, these prices are going to be poised to move higher, if not over the summer, certainly by the end

of the year, we will continue to see new record prices as we go forward. - Are you seeing some of these same trends when it comes to feeder cattle? - The trends are there. We have not

reached record price levels. Now, again, the previous prices for feeder cattle prices, Oklahoma auction prices, for example, peaked in late 2014. We're not at that level yet, but we are

moving higher. We're at the highest level since sometime in 2015. And as we go forward, certainly at some point in the next few months, we will see feeder cattle prices exceed those

previous records and move, I think, even significantly higher than that at some point in time. - We talk a lot about drought, of course. What's the latest on the drought situation and

how that plays into all the things that we're seeing? - Yeah, you know, the drought situation in Oklahoma is really kind of sharpening focus right now. We've had a significant

amount of moisture in the southeastern part of the state that has removed drought in many areas. It's moved the drought line just a little bit farther west. The areas north and west of

there have continued, in fact are getting a little bit worse in terms of serious drought, and the line between them, which runs basically in Oklahoma southwest and northeast up the I44

corridor is very narrow in many cases. So there's a very limited gap between the haves and the have-nots, if you will. There are places in Oklahoma right now where within 60 miles you

can go from an area that has no drought through all of the drought categories to an area that has D four or exceptional drought in just an hour's time of driving. - And we see those

maps all the time from the Mesonet and always hope for the best. But for those still dealing with that severe and exceptional drought, what's going on with those producers? - Well,

again, time of year, it should be, we should be greening up and growing. Without the moisture, they're not growing. They're trying to green up a little bit in those dry areas, but

producers in that area recognize that they're losing pasture and hay production on a daily basis at this time of the year. And I've talked to a number of producers now that

recognize that they're very likely facing some additional herd liquidation and some additional culling here in just the next few weeks. - Well, that's certainly tough to hear.

We'll hope for rain that hopefully can save things. Well, Daryl, thanks for the update. - You bet. - And we'll see you again soon. (upbeat music) - Good morning, Oklahoma, and

welcome to Cow-Calf Corner. I'm Mark Johnson, and this week's topic is to give you a little more information on the National Beef Cattle Conference that we're hosting here on

campus in May. The dates of this conference are gonna be May 24th and 25th. This is a big event that is co-sponsored between we here at OSU and OSU Cooperative Extension, the

Cattleman's Congress Show, and the Noble Research Institute. This program is literally gonna have something to offer for someone from any segment of the beef industry, consumers of

beef, commercial cow-calf operations, and purebred breeders alike. And today we're gonna visit a little more about the topics that are gonna come up on May 24th and 25th during that

conference. We're gonna begin by addressing - Grazing lands and managing our cattle, and grazing systems for the health of the soil, the plants, and the cattle over the long term.

We're gonna have reports from speakers talking about what we're finding out right now in terms of national beef audits. We're gonna take a look at emerging trends in the

packing industry and consumer demand. Later on that first day, we're gonna get into some panel discussions with regard to selection. We're gonna talk about the effectiveness of a

lot of the dollar values or selection indexes that we see in the genetic prediction profile of a lot of our beef breeds. We're gonna have another panel discussion on the importance of

continuing to collect and turn in phenotypic data, relative to genomics and DNA, and its impact on genetic prediction. We're gonna have a lot of question and answer sessions.

You're gonna get the opportunity to ask questions of these speakers. That first evening, we're gonna have a certified Angus beef steak dinner. We're actually gonna have our

headliner keynote speaker, is Dr. Frank Mitloehner from UC Davis, who's gonna speak to us that first night. And then the next day, we'll start off again at the Totusek Arena, and

we'll get into the concept of selection for extremes. You know, this conference follows up the blueprint for the Right Kind Conference we did in 1988. The actual title of this

conference is the National Cattleman's Conference Blueprint for the Future. And we always get into the concept of selection for extremes, and we're gonna handle this from a variety

of different topics. We're gonna look at late day morbidity, the selection from marbling, the selection for depth of body. We're gonna take a little deeper look at some of the

things we think we know about dry matter intake on cows and how that relates to what they actually eat. We'll move into another panel discussion and we'll talk about ethics in the

show ring and ethics in marketing. We'll discuss things like the use of Photoshop as we run pictures, and putting together promotional materials for sales. Got a great set of speakers

on that one, as well. We're gonna have some experts come in from what we refer to in the beef industry as our competing protein source industries, and talk about what they see relative

to now and the next few years, with respect to consumer demand, our economy, and how that's gonna impact how we market beef, or more effectively market beef, in the future. One of the

important things about this conference that we're doing, it's gonna meet in person, it will not be live streamed. We've all lived through covid in the last few years and we

have worked at this one for a while, and look forward to hosting an event where we all get together, meet at the Totusek Arena, have the opportunity to get engaged in thoughts and

conversation, bounce ideas off of each other. And the conclusion of that two days as we wrap up, we hope that everybody gets the opportunity to take something home, some ideas and some

thoughts to literally give them a blueprint for the future. So, you can actually go find out a more detailed schedule for this conference at the CattlemensCongress.com/conferen, and

we'll actually include that information as this video plays on sunup. So, you can go check out that website and see the detail conference schedule. You can also make registrations at

that. This is gonna cost $200 to attend for two days, which will include dinner the first night of the conference, and some other meals as well. So, a lot more information available to you

there. We look forward to hosting this. We've got a history of doing these at Oklahoma State University, and feel like we're gonna cover a variety of topics and current challenges

in this industry right now, and present some information that's gonna help everybody as we move forward in the future successfully for the financial benefit of our cattle operations.

Thanks for joining us this week on Cal-Calf Corner. Look forward to seeing you next week. (upbeat music) - Dr. Kim Anderson, our crop marketing specialist, is here now. Kim, the latest WASDE

is out. Did you have any surprises? - I think there were some surprises in this WASDE, and that was that there was really no changes. You look at wheat, they increased ending stocks. So,

about 50 million bushels. The hard red winter wheat ending stocks, they lowered about 5 million bushels. And the offset in of higher US wheat ending stocks was offset by foreign ending

stocks being lowered just a little bit. Corn and beans. There was no change in US corn and beans. And if you look what happened in the market after the report, nothing. Just walling around.

So the surprise, nothing. However, in May we could have a surprise, because in May they release the 23-24 marketing year estimates. The first estimates to come on that and the market will be

watching those real close, both for the United States and for the world. - What is the market now offering for harvest delivered grain and cotton? - Well, if you look at wheat, somewhere

around $8 a bushel. If you go to southern Oklahoma around the I-40, 20 cents less, $7.80. You go down to Snyder, Altus, it may drop another 10 cents from that. - [Kim] The panhandle about 10

cents higher. You're looking at corn, $5.30. The Panhandle $6.20, Southern Oklahoma around Weatherford that area around $5.80 and soybeans $12.20 cents. And if you look at those

charts, we just haven't had any changes in those prices over the last couple weeks. - Keeping a close eye on the wheat crop in Oklahoma is it getting any better or any worse? Where are

we at? - If it's going any direction, it's probably getting worse in Oklahoma. You look at Kansas, that's 61 poor to very poor, 61%. You look at Oklahoma, 46%, the crop's

just in bad shape. You've got little areas, little spots that's gotten rain and the crop looks relatively good. Well, I talked to one producer and he said it's too late for

rain right now. Now you go up into Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota those areas, you've got 10% poor to very poor. 1% in Wyoming. So it's relatively good in those northern states.

But down here in Oklahoma and Kansas, where the wheat has grown, it's not very good and the price reflects that poor condition. Soft red winter wheat, it's in good shape and

it's probably improving as we're getting closer to harvest. But this part of the world, we're hurting for certain. - For sure, hurting for certain. Last but not least, given

all the things we talked about your guidance for producers. - Oh, producers I mean, it's their time in the barrel and it's a hard time to face farming. I think they just gotta work

their way through it. What we're being offset with with the yield we have a relatively higher price. If they can't harvest it we got a relatively good insurance price and

hopefully they bought insurance last fall. So they've got some protection there. But you know, like you get up in Montana, in those areas where they have the high price and the

production they're gonna come out smelling like a rose. But these producers they just gotta work their way through it. We will survive. - Okay, Kim, thanks a lot. We will see you next

week. (upbeat country music) Finally today, talking Oklahoma politics in something most of us can agree on, celebrating our favorite topics at AgDay at the state Capitol. - [Announcer] 5, 4,

3, 2, 1. Welcome to AgDay! (audience cheering) - Today it was AgDay at the Capitol. So we're here in Oklahoma City and at the Capitol Building we get to have the experience of going

and talking to different legislation as well as having different vendors come out and promote their business. And just understanding all the different aspects that agriculture is so

prominent here in Oklahoma. - [Announcer] 3.8 billion. - We have an opportunity to be a part of different organizations that I wasn't aware of. So I've joined the Oklahoma Cattle

Women's Association as well as the Beef Council. So there's a lot of different entities that I know are out there to support farmers and ranchers that I think everybody needs to

know about. - Well, we have AgDay at the capitol occurring here today. It looks like we've got a lot of traffic down there already. And this is an opportunity I think for Oklahoma

agriculture to be on point and to be really noticed by not just us but some of the legislatures that come through. And so we have a really great opportunity to showcase a lot of the

activities that are going on in agriculture. A lot of commodity groups are here. Of course, our agency is here from Agri-Search along with OSU Extension and Ferguson College. But we have

just a great opportunity to showcase agriculture for one day. - I hope that the general public and the legislators are able to understand just how many people are involved in the different

entities of agriculture, from forestry all the way down to canning and growing your own food and selling it out at farmer's markets. - A big thank you to everyone who was able to stop

by and say hello this week at AgDay at the Capitol. And that'll do it for our show. Remember, 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. (upbeat country music)