The brand new Agricultural Hall is not quite ready yet- but getting close- as Professors, Researchers and Staff prepare to start moving in literally a few more days even as construction folks are finalizing things.at the site where the project to build a new Ag Hall began back in May 2021.(our pic here is from Tuesday of this week) Classes start on campus in a month on August 19th.

One challenge is that a significant number of folks within the Division of Ag that have been housed in the existing Ag Hall won't make the move- as the new facility will not accommodate everyone that is the old building. The existing building will be renamed Legacy Hall and a good part of it will remain space for the Division of Ag.

OSU Vice President and Dean of the Division of Ag and Natural Resources Dr. Jayson Lusk has announced that a chance to see the facility is coming- telling our KC Sheperd "We will have a Grand Opening in October, so those who are on campus for the West Virginia football game, need to stop by the new Ag Hall and have some ice cream and look around.”

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Meanwhile on Wednesday- 4-H and FFA students across the state submitted harvested wheat samples for the 2024 State 4-H and FFA Junior Wheat Show competition. Visual placements from today can be found by clicking here.

The 4-H/FFA State Wheat Show Production and Milling scores, to date, do not contain the Protein and Kernel Hardness scores. Therefore, the current Excel score sheet does not represent final Production and Milling rankings. The Bake portion of the competition will be carried out at FAPC over the next few months with final results awarded at the Junior Wheat Show Banquet in OKC on December 4th.

The Oklahoma Agriculture Mediation Program knows this is a hard time for farmers and ranchers. We want you to know we are still open, and we are still here for you. The Ag Mediation program is a free service that provides mediation to agriculture producers who may need help with ag-related disputes.

At Oklahoma Ag Mediation, we have been helping people in agriculture resolve conflicts since 1987. We know firsthand about working together to resolve conflicts, so you don’t have to go through the court systems. Let our professional mediators help you. Mediation is allowed for lease issues, farmer/neighbor disputes, family farm transitions, and more. These services are available at no cost for Oklahoma farmers and ranchers in all 77 counties. For more information, you can go to ok.gov/mediation, or give us a call at 800 248 5465.

At the Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting, I talked with the Vice President of Governmental Affairs of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Ethan Lane, about the possibility of moving forward with additional resources for the dollar per head Beef Checkoff.

Our coverage from the 2024 Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting in San Diego is being powered by Farm Data Services of Stillwater.

For years, supporters of the Beef Checkoff have longed for an additional dollar per animal to help with research, education and promotion, but, that could be problematic, as it would likely require opening up the original authorization language that established the Checkoff in the 1980s. As a result, Lane doesn’t see it moving forward at a national level. “You still have this unholy alliance of radical animal liberation activists and groups like R-CALF and Organization for Competitive Markets. Those latter groups, sort of ends justifies the means. They seem to say, ‘yeah, we’re in bed with some of the worst people in the country, but we hate NCBA and the Checkoff so much that it’s worth it to us to do it,’” Lane said. “So long as that cloud is hanging over this stuff, I don’t think there is a lot of folks that are going to have a terrible amount of interest in opening the Act and getting into that process.”

NOTE- Ethan is on the program at the 72nd Annual Convention of the Oklahoma Cattlemen- he speaks Saturday afternoon in Norman.

NAWG’s Keeff Felty Details What NAWG Has Been Doing for Wheat Farmers

Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Intern Kate Munson had the chance to talk with Oklahoma farmer and National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) President Keeff Felty about what NAWG has been working on for the nation’s wheat farmers.

Felty said that despite some unfavorable weather conditions during harvest, overall, the quality was good and the crop was better than last year. One condition that might be mitigated is drought. He said, “Drought is an ongoing condition. We have experienced it for the past 2.5 years or longer in large parts of Oklahoma. It also goes into Kansas and Colorado and various places at different times. It is something that we need to find better ways to adapt to.”

Another item that NAWG has been working on is representing wheat farmers in the 2024 Farm Bill. “Our main priority is the crop insurance program and protecting it from any adverse damage and to, hopefully, make some improvements in the different policies and programs that are available through the crop insurance.”

Regarding his recent fly-in at the capital, he said, “The fly-in was definitely a success. We were following right on the passing from the house ag committee’s bill, which is now waiting to go to the full house. We’re working on that momentum to have progress going forward and hopefully, completing a farm bill in this calendar year.”

A big rain system with cooler temperatures is currently a welcome sight for folks across Oklahoma. According to State Climatologist Gary McManus, “We’ll have a nice big trough camp out over the eastern half of the country for the next week, and the Heat Dome of Doom gets pushed to the west, away from the Southern Plains. That means very, VERY, VERY unusually mild (and wet) weather for Oklahoma through that time.”

Check out the rainfall we have received thus far this week in the Mesonet map above- it's clickable - so you can follow it back to the Mesonet website and see exactly what each site has received.

Portions of the state have already received over an inch of rain, with more on the way. The cooler temps have also been a welcome relief from the highs s we have seen over the past few weeks. McManus says we won’t see those triple digits for awhile thanks to this latest storm system, and we could see a week to ten days of 80’s and a few lower 90’s.

On today’s Cow-Calf corner, Paul Beck, Oklahoma State University State Beef Cattle Nutrition Specialist, discusses the effects of drought on cattle numbers.

The articles for this and upcoming weeks are based on the thoughts that I put together for a symposium at the American Society of Animal Science meeting held in Calgary “Increasing the Resilience of the Beef Cattle Feeder Supply”.

It seems like the climate cycles have turned against us. Figure 1 shows the NOAA extremes in Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) from 1910 to 2023. Since the early 2000’s droughts have become more frequent and more severe than any time since the 1950’s. In the era from the late 1960’s to the early 2000’s, we had been in a long-term wet cycle, one that appears to be abnormal compared to our historical climate since 1910. The environmental conditions from 1970 to 2000 is the only thing many of us ever knew. This 30-year span also corresponds to the evolution of our modern beef cattle production system. Leading to the question, would the production practices we developed from 1970 to 2000 be sustainable in the 1950’s and 60’s? If we are returning to that weather pattern, will they be sustainable in the future?

Along with the increasing severity and frequency of droughts, other weather-related events have become more common and more costly. Extremes in heat during the summer and winter storms in the winter, 1,000-year floods, out of control fires, and other disasters have become more frequent impacting human life and agricultural productivity.

When Wyatt DeSpain began work at the Noble Research Institute, he knew his work would require a long-term view.

DeSpain is a research associate on Noble’s transitions team of scientists, which monitors changes in wildlife, soils, vegetation and water on Noble Ranches. The team compares the data it gathers each year to the baseline conditions of “year zero” or 2022, the year Noble began its transition from conventional to regenerative management.

His focus is limnology – the study of inland waters. He has spent the past two years collecting and analyzing more than 100 samples each year from stock ponds on Noble and cooperator ranch properties to search for indicators of how water quality changes in response to management choices.

“Most of the changes we expect to see will occur over the course of 5, 10, 20 years,” DeSpain says. “It’s not something that happens right after a management change. It’s something that requires a lot of repetition and requires a lot of waiting to see what time will tell us.”