According to the latest Oklahoma drought monitor report, exceptional drought remains at zero percent, unchanged from the start of the calendar year.

Extreme drought or worse remains at zero percent, unchanged for two weeks.

Severe drought or worse has decreased to 1.85 percent, down from 9.38 percent last week.

Moderate drought or worse, decreased to 17.90 percent, down from 47.05 percent last week.

Abnormally dry or worse have decreased to 52.78 percent, down from 81.78 percent last week.

As for our neighbors, dryness and deterioration was confined to central and southern Texas where little or no rain fell, but farther north, moderate to heavy precipitation prevailed, especially across western Teas, much of Oklahoma, portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and western Tennessee. A large part of these areas saw a 1-category improvement, nearly eliminating severe drought (D2) in western Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma, and adjacent Texas, and also decreasing D1 coverage substantially across the northern and eastern tiers of the Region. Significant parts of Kansas were counted with those areas of the High Plains that received the heaviest precipitation (1.5 to approaching 3.0 inches).

Kansas Drought Monitor shows Moderate Drought shrinking from 33.05 percent last week to 31.19 this week. Texas Drought ratings saw a decrease from 59.66 percent a week ago to 48.51 percent.

Click here for the Kansas Drought Monitor Page and Click here for the Texas Drought Monitor Page.

National Livestock was founded in 1932 in Oklahoma City. National’s Marketing Division offers cattle for sale weekly at the Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City. The Finance Division lends money to ranchers across several states for cattle production. The Grazing Division works with producers to place cattle for grazing on wheat or grass pastures. 

One of the newest additions to the National Family is Dakota Moss- and Livestock Risk Services.

National also owns and operates other livestock marketing subsidiaries including Southern Oklahoma Livestock Auction in Ada, Oklahoma, OKC West Livestock Market in El Reno, Oklahoma, and the nation’s premier livestock video sale, Superior Livestock Auction. National offers customers many services custom made for today’s producer. To learn more, click here for the website or call the Oklahoma City office at 1-800-310-0220.

Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is talking with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Chief Counsel Mary-Thomas Hart about the outcome of the election and what it means for the beef industry.

“My first four years at NCBA were the four years of the first Trump administration,” Hart shared. “I’m happy to be back in a position playing offense, working with an EPA that really understands the needs of farmers and ranchers, and will interpret some of these supreme court decisions that we’ve gotten in the last few years in a way that is very workable for agricultural producers across the country.”

In 2018, during Trump’s first tenure in the Whitehouse, he enacted the Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR) which the Biden administration subsequently recalled and replaced with their own. Biden’s version of the rule was vacated by the Supreme Court in the Sackett v. EPA ruling in 2023.

“Looking forward, we have a couple of terms that were in the Sackett decision that need to be effectively defined,” Hart detailed. “EPA has crafted the rule that implements those standards, but they haven’t done the work to define the standards yet.”

Oklahoma and Kansas Dominate at National Collegiate Livestock Judging Contest

The North American International Livestock Judging Exposition (NAILE) is the largest all-breed, purebred livestock show in the country. Every year, livestock exhibitors from around the globe come together in Louisville, Kentucky to compete on the green shavings for purple banners. (OSU's team is shown above)

The 119th National Collegiate Livestock Judging Contest was run in conjunction with NAILE on Monday, November 18, 2024, and three Southern Plains colleges claimed big titles from the prestigious event.

The Kansas State University team, composed of top placing members Jacob Klaudt, Cole Murphy, Logan Buhrman, Kyla Mennen, and Ty Knodle, took the National Championship. While each earned individual honors, the team placed first in Swine, Sheep and Goats, and Reasons and second in Cattle judging. Other team members include Benjamin Archer, Alex Scovill, Zane Redifer, Emerson Tarr, Ethan Hyers, Blake Bruns, Logan Topp, Olivia Gerloff, and Hailey Gillespie.

The Oklahoma State University Livestock Judging Team earned the Reserve National title. The top-placing individual team members were Anna Hannon, Kale Campbell, Ashlyn O.Brien, and Jed Sidwell. Additional team members were Clay Brillhart, Kale Campbell, Hailey Coggins, Emma Eldridge Emma Farmer, Parker Fleming, Anna Hannon, Ryan Hegland, Delaney Hemann, Doug Hewitt, Mckenzie Layton, Shaylee Maddox, Ashlyn O’Brien, Jed Sidwell, and Braylon Spears.

After earning the inaugural National Junior College Livestock Judging title in 1974, Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Miami, Oklahoma, earned a Junior College National Title after their second with high-scoring individual members Tyeson Gravenhof, Avery Kimble, Jayce Smith, and Dustee Hollenback. Other team members are Brighton Lane, Cooper Frazier, and Chloe Mabry.

This week on SUNUP, OSU Agriculture Economist Dr. John Michael Riley discusses the highs and lows of current grain and cotton markets.

As it turns out the release of the latest WASDE caused a bit of a rollercoaster in the grain markets. “The Soybean market was elevated, and corn rallied as a result. Wheat picked up a little bit of that as well,” Riley detailed. “After that report, we tended to fall back. I don’t know it was that proverbial ‘dead cow bounce’, but instead of bouncing, it kind of fell. Also, there was a little bit of pressure from exports, but since then, we’ve seen a little bit of improvement for corn, wheat, and soybeans. Some of that is coming back to exports. There is some concern about what is going on globally, as well as some improvements in trade overall.”

In Oklahoma, despite significant rainfall, the soybean harvest is progressing nicely with 70 percent of the crop harvested, up from 59 percent last week, and on par with the five-year average.

Wheat conditions have improved greatly overall with a 37 percent good to excellent rating, up 16 percentage points from last week. Ninety-four percent of the nation’s wheat crop is planted, compared to 90 percent in Oklahoma. Eighty-four percent of the nation’s wheat has emerged, while 75 percent of Oklahoma’s is up.

Riley said that the basis is weaker for soybeans, corn, and wheat relative to normal for the time of year, so he advised producers to either hold on to their grain in hopes of an improvement in the future if they can with tax implications at the year’s end. 

A new wheat variety released by Oklahoma State University will help eastern and northern Oklahoma farmers combat the small grain fungal disease fusarium head blight, also known as head scab.

“It’s not a common disease in Oklahoma, but it’s dangerous enough that we needed to have something in place for it, especially in the area of Oklahoma east of I-35 and further north,” said Brett Carver, professor and wheat genetics chair in the Oklahoma State University Department of Plant and Soil Sciences.

Head scab affects wheat and other small grains and is most common in wheat crops planted after corn crops. Corn residue is a major source of the disease, which poses the biggest threat during high moisture conditions when the wheat head develops.

Carver said the new OSU wheat variety, called Scab Stryker, was bred from the combination of the 2011 OSU variety Garrison and a University of Nebraska experimental line with a scab-resistant gene.

The Center for Veterinary Medicine at the Food and Drug Administration first issued Guidance For Industry (GFI) #191 in 2009. Over the last few years, the CVM asked animal health manufacturers to update growth implant labels in accordance with the production phases outlined in GFI #191. This created some confusion around how growth implants could be used in the beef industry.

The defined production phases for beef cattle left some lingering questions for many in the beef industry, especially with the production phase of dry lot and how it differs from growing on pasture and the confinement for slaughter production phase. GFI #191 and associated documents from FDA have helped define the dry lot production phase.

A summary of the FDA documentation defines dry lot by four criteria:

• Diet: majority being harvested forage/roughage
• Environment: dormant or completely grazed pastures OR dirt floor pens
• Growth expectations: similar to cattle on pasture
• Subsequent phase: cattle move to the next production phases to continue growing whether pasture or confinement for slaughter

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