Teff: New Potential Crop for Oklahoma
Good morning and we will come to SUNUP. I'm Clinton Griffiths. Today is the one-year anniversary since SUNUP returned to the airwaves. We begin this morning with a look at a new potential crop for Oklahoma, a dual purpose grass called teff and while many of us here may have never heard of it, as kathy shelton reports, in other parts of the world teff has been grown for thousands of years.

Teff is believed to have originated in ethiopia between 4,000 and 1,000 b.c. the seeds were discovered in a pyramid in 3359 b.c. since then, it has been widely cultivated and is used not only ethiopia, but neighboring countries as well. It was introduced to the united states in the late '50's, early '60's, but still largely remains an experimental crop. We caught up with osu's kefy desta to learn more about it.

It can grow to be about 3 foot, and it will start to flower. It has this pinnacle actually and there are on spikelet on this one, and on each spikelet there are flower heads here, and this crop is self-pollinated, strictly self-pollinated.

What do to the sees look like? We have some of them here. They look really small. Teff obviously belongs to that agronomy group, with tiny seeds, but like many it has two different varieties, you have either a white one or a brown one, and nutritionally it's not much different except the brown one is a little bit more rich in iron.

Not only is teff rich in iron, it's also high in calcium, protein, carbohydrates, fiber and is gluten-free. It can be used in a number of things such as cereal, bread, cookies and other snacks. This is the first year the crop has been tested in Oklahoma. They're trying to see if it'll grow well in the state's climate. If it does, producers can use it for a summer forage alternative, and possibly make a little money from it. Tim taylor in noble county wanted to try it out, and a portion of his land was used as a test plot.

It's a really easy crop to manage. I really haven't had any troubles with it. The only challenge that I see with it is the seed is so small, you almost need actual grass seed equipment to get it planted but other than that it seems to be, the soil bed preparation, about the same as wheat or alfalfa.

Besides the small seeds, there are a couple of other challenges to face.

In the field there are several factors that affect the growth of this crop. Primarily it's affected in the specifically southern states, Oklahoma. If you have too much heat it's going to cause it to lose flowers.

And like a lot of other crops you have to deal with weeds.

Two weeds are major problems, one is this crab grass here. It is a no. 1 problem and then we have the barnyard grass.

There are a couple of ways to control the weeds, one is to use a herbicide to kill those particular species, or you can plant early, around april or early may, since those weeds don't come in till june. Teff has a yield potential of anywhere from 1 to 6 tons per acre, depending on location. More testing will need to be done to get a better idea of potential yields in Oklahoma. Tim says he's willing to give it another shot.

I'd be interested in trying it again to see how it's going to work, and see how the market is going to be for it. As far as a forage crop that's going to be my big factor to see how the market responds to it.

If proven successful, it could make for a great niche market.

There are immigrants who came to this country from east africa, sudan, ethiopia, kenya, cuba. These people, their bread actually comes from this crop, they make their food. They call their bread engera, and engera is actually made from teff flour, with some mixture of maybe wheat. They do this because of the availability issue. The preference is clean teff flour, but the don't have it available so they mix it, they make it out of that grain largely, so a lot of grain that's produced in the u.s. and a lot of grain that's imported from ethiopia is used for that purpose today.

Kefy says it'll take at least four more years of testing to see which counties will be able to grow teff successfully, but believes it has great potential for smaller producers in Oklahoma.

Supplementing Cattle on Warm Season Pastures
Dave, it looks like you have happy cows out here.

Hi, Clinton, welcome.

It looks cattle just finished some grain.

They finished their supplement for the morning and they'll probably head out and graze the grass we've got.

Lots of grass this year. Been a good fall for growing forage.

It's been tremendous. We've got a lot more rainfall than we've had in late july, august and early september and the grazing has been outstanding.

Yet you're feeding a supplement. Tell us about that.

Yeah, you wouldn't think so when the grass is so green. Years ago the classical research done at Oklahoma state showed that in late summer on warm season native type pastures you can get a nice response from a protein supplement. That series of studies and research turned in what we call the Oklahoma gold program and it's pretty well known across at least the southern great plains and that's what we're doing here in this experiment, is find kind of fine-tuning the Oklahoma gold program.

What kind of proteins are you looking for and what kind of response can we expect?

Cottonseed mill is the industry standard. It's on an as-fed basis 40, 45 percent crude protein, and we'll use about a pound a day of that cottonseed mill in the traditional Oklahoma gold program. What dr. Gerald horn and I decided to do starting about two years ago, a collaborative project to look at incorporating some of the by-products from the ethanol industry and primarily distiller's dried grains because we can put the dried product in a cube or pellet. The response, you wouldn't expect to get one with this much green forage but the controlled cattle that aren't getting supplement are gaining 2 and a quarter a deal. The cattle getting standard cotton feed mill are getting 2 and a 6 and with the distiller's are 2, 7.

Cattle that are getting it versus not getting it are almost a half pound a day.

Tremendous. Normally you would think cattle without a supplement this time of year would do good to gain a pound-1/2. They're gaining 2 and a quarter, and supplemented cattle might gain 2, and they're gaining 2, 6 to 2, 7. Response has been very good.

Even in a year with a lot of rain and a lot of forage in the pastures, it's still a good idea.

Absolutely, a feeding rate of a pound a day and to get that response, it's economical.

Thanks, Dave, for coming out.

Soybean Rust

Good morning, John.

Good morning, Clinton.

It's a beautiful morning out here. Looking at soybeans, I guess you found soy bone rust.

We do. We have a good-looking soybean crop but last week we found soybean rust finally move into the state this year in three locations in eastern and southeastern Oklahoma.

So is that a typical disease that producers are going to find in the state?

No, it's not. It's actually an invasive disease. It came from china and japan and was trail ya, moved into south africa and south america and four years ago it found its way into the united states. It's hard for growers to identify so the usda has a program for monitoring for soybean rust in the different soybean-producing states, and in Oklahoma we have ten monitoring sites. Last year we found it right before the first freeze in late October, but this year we found it in the third week in september.

How severe is it for yields? Will it affect our plants?

It can knock the yield back 50 percent if the plants get foliate before the pod. Plants planted in april have already been harvested but we have a large bulk of our acreage that are planted with later matureing or full-season maturity groups, group five or group six soybeans planted in june or early july, and some of those are still vulnerable.

But we need to look at the maturity.

We need to check what growth stage we're at before we get concerned about rust. If we're at this growth stage right here, these are group five beans that were planted in early june, so these are basically almost full. You can see these pods are -- those beans are almost touching, so this would be at the r-5 growth stage, late r-5, almost r-6, and at r-6 with no longer have to worry about soybean rust affecting yield. We found the rust in two fields that were at the r-4 growth stage. That would be before we even feel a small pod, a small seed in that pod. That would be r-4. So growers that have field in his those counties and surrounding counties in eastern Oklahoma at r-4 would want to consider putting on a fungicide for controlling rust.

As far as fungicides to recommend, are there any?

There are two groups of fungicides that we have registered on soybeans for soybean rust control. One would be a strobelern such as headline or qwaris and another would be a dmi or trizil fungicide such as fol icu re, tilt, but the dmi's tend to do better where the rust is already present in the field.

Is there anything producers can do maybe next year to prepare for this or is it something you need to watch for or monitor?

No, we just need to watch for and monitor because the rust doesn't overwinter here in Oklahoma. We'll keep check fog rust each year and let the producers know when they need to worry about t

Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

Okay, Clinton.

Cow-Calf Corner
There is a longstanding, valuable educational program through the cooperative extension service that can be helpful to cow-calf producers throughout okay called the okay steer feed-out. A cow-calf producer can enter five or more steer calves that are taken to a feedlot in western Oklahoma, they're fed out in the normal feedlot environment. The calves after finished are taken to one of the packing facilities, harvested and the carcass information is obtained on the calves. This gives the cow-calf producer an excellent chance to learn more about the genetics in his herd, how well his calves are performing as they go on to the other segments of the cattle industry. The calves must be entered by October 15. There are calves been born since last November and must have weaned by september 25. The calves will be delivered in mid November this year. This is giving you an excellent opportunity to learn about the genetic merit of the cows and the sires in your herd so if you need to make adjustments down the road, you'll have the base information. Learn more about it. Check the link on the sun up website at www.SUNUP.okstate.edu. Look for the link about the okay steer feedout and that will be a good source of information to help you improve your beef cow herd. We'll visit with you again next week on SUNUP's cow-calf corner.

Market Monitor
Kim, it's that time of year again. We're outstanding in a field and wheat is coming up. How is planning going?

I think planting is going relatively well. I talked to producers and they're halfway done and they're backing off the planting because of the dryness on the top soil. There will be moisture next week and they'll see what happens.

The usda released the grain stock report. How has it impacted prices?

Not much. Probably more on wheat and corn or beans. Corn was slightly higher and wheat slightly higher and I think the big news, the wheat use from june through september was 28 percent less than last year, and that goes a along with the massive stocks that we've had and that's why it's weighing so heavy on prices.

Wheat has been trading on the sideways pattern for a while. Do you expect it to break out of the top or bottom?

It's hard to tell. If you look at what's going on in the market, we're trading at a 40-cent pattern. On July 1 the prices were trading between $5.60 and $6. We broke out in early August about after $5.00 weeks, it went down and we started trading from $5 and $5.40 pattern. That lasted 3-1/2 weeks and we broke out the bottom again and the sideways pattern signals a bottom and we started another bottom 3-1/2 weeks ago and it's between $4.60 and $5. That sideways pattern normally signals a bottom. So far we haven't. We have so much movement to come out the top, I give it 40 percent chance to come out the top. I think we'll continue to trade sideways. We have more potential to move the bottom because you've only got to go down 48 cents. If you come out the top, it's almost a dollar. I can't see that dollar happening.

All right, Kim. Thanks for being here as always. Hopefully prices will move through an upward trend through the rest of the year.

Shop Stop
Hi. Welcome to Shop Stop. This week we want to talk about something that you should have in your shop and hopefully never use.

Yeah. What we have here, a couple of different fire extinguisheders, both rated for different type of fires and that's important you understand what type of fire that you're going to have in your shop. Each one of them, these extinguisheders have a different rating for whatever fire you're trying to fight. What you want to do is identify what type of fire you might have in your shop which would probably be, you know, gasoline, oil and possibly electric.

So the thing you look at is making sure that you have a fire extinguisheder that will cover the things that could potentially go wrong and in most shops those three items are the things we should be concerned w we talked about extension cords in the past and fuel storage and any potential fire with trash, so the a, b, c fire extinguisheder is the one you probably want to look at the most.

As far as size, check with your local fire marshal and see what size you might need for your particular area. Also you might go to your fire marshal and get some training in how to operate one of these units.

The other thing you want to think about is where you're going to put this in your shop. You need to put it where it's easily accessible and not going to be blocked. When you do need it, you need to get to it as quickly as possible.

The first thing you want to do is call 911 and try to get the fire department on the way before you try to fight it. If it's out of hand, get out of there and make sure everybody's safe.

Fire safety is a big deal. Make you're your --

AGWEATHER
I'm here with your Mesonet AGWEATHER report. Living in Oklahoma means there is no such thing as average on rainfall and we frequently Octobers with either no rainfall or intense flooding events. Looking ahead to this coming week, there is the slight chance of below normal temperatures in the panhandle and near normal temperatures for the rest of the state. As for rainfall, the entire state will likely see above normal amounts with the best chances being over central portions of Oklahoma. Well, that's all we have for this week's Mesonet AGWEATHER report. We look forward to seeing you next week.

Pumpkin Art
Cool air, changing leaves, and friday night football are all indicators that fall has arrived. It's also the time of year pumpkin patches begin opening their fields for pickers hunting that perfect pumpkin. SUNUP's austin moore takes us to a patch just east of perry, where one pumpkin grower just can't wait for those pumpkins to be harvested before carving into them.

We have some days where well -- we will be really busy for, you know, the whole time we're open on a weekend. This is a lumina, but, it's been scarred about a week and a half ago. We had a pumpkin patch for my daughter's 4-h project, and my niece happened to be dating a young man at Oklahoma state, and he made a comment one time that when he was little, his grandma would scratch his name into pumpkins, and I thought, well, that's kind of interesting. So the first year I just did our last name, bolet, and put it in the pumpkin patch for people to see and comment on, and from there it just kind of grew, and I started experimenting with different ways to carve and learning when to carve them. You've got a window of about four or five days on most of them to really get in and get a good design put on them. If you pick them too small like this one right here, back out and look at this little one, this pumpkin's probably going to get about this big around. He's going to be about the size of a bushel basket. If I were to put a design on him now, as he grows, the design will be district courted. You need them to be about the size they're going to be when they're mature but with the skin still soft and immature. I'm just going to come in and start taking away. You don't want to go too deep because the deeper you go, the longer it takes for it to heal, and it's just going to scar like your skin scars. Sometimes i'll do part of the design, and then i'll give it a couple of days to heal and to start to show that -- the little, fine carvings or the fine etchings on there, and then i'll come back because I can see what i've already done a little bit better. Well, this variety is called aspen that I just worked on. The big macs which are like that one right there, that real buttery, yellow color, they work real well as well because they've got a good, relatively smooth surface to work on. This is a sinned rely a. When it gets completely mature, it keeps that shape, and it's a french variety. So for these they scar really well with an exacto knife. Look at it and decide what I want to do next. Do a little stem on that one and he's done.

All right.

They'll last much larger than a carved pumpkin. I had one that I did last year, and I threw it out six weeks ago. There is a real advantage to having something that's got a scarred image on it because if it's carved, it's really just going to last maybe a week if that long. But if it's scarred, then it's going to last a really long time.

SUNUP's Anniversary
And that wraps us up today on SUNUP. In honor of finishing year one, we thought we'd finish with a look at show one from 23 years ago, the first SUNUP show ever to air on oeta. Have a great week and remember to keep your eye on the sky and your boots on the ground.

From Oklahoma State University, this is SUNUP for Tuesday, January 7.

Now, here's your host, Kevin Wagner.

Good morning, Oklahoma. And thanks for joining us this morning for our Tuesday edition of SUNUP.

Calving season is upon us and with that can come a number of calving difficulties. I've asked Dr. Wiess to explain.

Whenever we were in 4-H club we did all kinds of music and me right now, I'm basically in country music. All my music, music is just something I love, no matter what kind it is. 4-H club really enhanced it.

This Pittsburgh County 4-H member is regarded as one of the top country performers around. She says her success comes from following the 4-H motto, to make the best better. In Atoka, I'm Marla Barns.

Farmers check the moisture content from the calf. That means farmers can know for certain when the grain is ready to harvest, allowing better use of time and labor and avoiding penalty losses at the elevator or excessive moisture. From the OSU Cooperative Extension service, this is Ron Dahlgren.