 Welcome to this month's Navigating Drought on your Ranch webinar. Just a couple of things before we get started. If you do have questions, please put them in the Q&A box at the bottom so we can keep track of them. Sometimes things get lost if we just put them in the chat box. And so we'll make sure that those get addressed as we go along. Thank you to everyone that has submitted questions. When they registered, we use those to direct our conversation, so we really appreciate your input. We'll start out by introducing ourselves. I'm Miranda Meehan. I'm the Livestock Environmental Stewardship Specialist and the Extension Disaster Education Coordinator. And I'm here at the Carrington Research Extension Center with Carl Hoppe. Good afternoon. Carl Hoppe, I'm the Extension Livestock Specialist here at the Carrington Research Extension Center. We have other participants too. Would they like to introduce themselves? I'm Mark Hughes, North Dakota State Climatologist and Professor of Climatological Practices at NDSU. And then Zach? I'm Zach Carlson, Beef Cattle Specialist here based in Fargo on campus. Jana? Hi, I'm Jana Block. I'm the Extension Livestock Specialist based out of the Headinger Research Extension Center. Lisa? I'm Lisa Peterson. I'm the Extension Livestock Specialist at the Central Grasslands Research Extension Center near Streeter. Travis, please. Hello, Travis Hoffman, Extension Sheep Specialist based in Fargo, America. And Kevin Sadovic, please. Are you there, Kevin? Yes, you hear me? Yes. I'm Kevin Sadovic. I'm the Extension Rangeland Management Specialist out of NDSU in Fargo and the Central Grasslands Research Extension Center Director located near Streeter. Next, Ron? Ron Haugen, Farm Management Specialist at NDSU in Fargo. And then wrap up with Jerry? Yeah, I'm Jerry Stalker. I'm the Extension Veterinarian at Livestock Stewardship Specialist with Office at NDSU in Fargo. Well, thanks to all our panelists for joining us today. We're going to get started with a drought outlook and update from Adnan to set the scene for what things look like moving forward through this drought. Hi again. I am going to start my presentation with the non-presenter mode and I will jump to whatever I need to go to from here quickly. The first one is the drought monitor that was published this morning at 8am. You're looking at the United States map with the D4 and D3 are having the largest extensive coverage on record since 2007. And you're looking at the other drought stricken areas in the United States. The map on the right-hand side is showing the four-week change. And as you see, not much change happened during the past four weeks other than the improvement of the drought conditions parallel with the amount of precipitation the areas are getting. For example, Southwest and Northwestern portions of the state having the greater than six-inch of rain eliminate the one-category improvement in those areas, except for a small portion of a darker green color indicating two-category improvement. So if you are looking for the entire PowerPoint presentation, it is going to be available at NDSU Droughts. The correct address would be egg.ndsu.edu forward slash drought. And now you're looking at the North Dakota. You're focusing in there and 18% of the state is experiencing D4 or exceptional drought. The three-draught drought is introduced in North Dakota three times this year, 2017 and 2006 to show you how rare that intensity is. The three-draught is covering at least 63% of North Dakota and still is the largest coverage on record since 2000. As a result, 100% of the state is experiencing some kind of drought and the people or the population in drought area is 672,000 plus. One of the reasons that led us to forming that kind of 12-monitor map is the 30-day precipitation on the left-hand side, the actual amount. You'll see a big bullseye between the Burke and the Divide County amount is 6.48. And if you compare it with the normal, these are the percent of normal, 200% is indicating twice as much precipitation falling in the area. And you're looking at some of the other bullseye of heavy precipitation falling denoted by the green and the blue colors. Next slide is going to take me into the longer periods, 60 days on the left-hand side, 90 days on the right-hand side, percent of precipitation. And again, most of that precipitation that come during the last 30-day period is going to impact a much longer period of drought. And again, blue colors are indicating above normal as the red colors are indicating below normal precipitation. And even when we look at the six-month, this is the six-month periods, percent of precipitation. And again, during that past 30-day periods of precipitation is contaminating the data back to six-month periods. We talked about that before, and so I am going to go directly into drought severity and coverage index. There is a one composite index that shows you the coverage as well as severity in one number. And 375 is the current number. That is one point improvement compared to the previous normal. And the previous highest numbers are 295, that was in 2017, and 329, that was in 2006. And all the three incidences, North Dakota ended up default or exceptional drought. And when I calculate the area underneath the curve, it gives me an accumulated impact of the drought starting in 2020 in North Dakota. And the number is, that is a 58 consecutive week accumulation. And compared to the other drought years, and we surpassed 2017-2018 drought already. So some of the other droughts that mega drought years that left to be comparable with the 2004-2005. And this is a longevity, the part of the equation, but not the intensity. We have never been that intense before since 2000. So if I wanted to compare kind of economical impact of this current drought, we said we just surpassed 2017 drought that caused North Dakota between $1-2 billion. And this is for since 2007. I had questions before, how would you compare to current drought with the previous drought going all the way back to 1900s? And here's a nine month SPI or the standardized precipitation index that allows me to go 100 years on the record. And the current number is negative 2.64. Negative numbers that indicating drought and positive numbers that indicating wet periods. So that would be compatible with the 1979-1980 drought and the SPI number was negative 2.72. So we are not quite there yet. And the next one is going to be comparable to 1977-1988 and the SPI number is 2.77. And another number that is going to be 1935-1936, and that number is 2.95. And you got to keep in mind these 1930s droughts was uninterruptedly extended. We are only looking at this nine month period, and that was 2.77. This would be a great way to look at the current drought if the drought lasted only nine months. However, we've been in drought for a longer period, looking at the 12 months SPI. We are not as bad during this time of period, some of the other numbers. The next question would be, is this going to be another mega drought? Are we getting into a mega drought? So here where we are, when we look at the 24 month SPIs, just a little sliver. And it is a good process for us to determine the separating of the wet periods with the dry periods. It looks like, and here the wet period that we started in early 1990-1993 actually, it just ended several years ago. And the question would become, are we getting into a dry period? And the answer is yes, we are, but are we getting into a mega drought period is really unknown just because of that little sliver just we just started. And what stands out is the 1980s drought, 1950s drought, and 1930s drought stands out the big one in this in the scale. Coming to a soil moisture ranking percentile for this drought is the surface soil moisture to four inches and brown and the red colors are indicating much drier than normal conditions. And only near normal conditions are the portion that received a significant precipitation. To look at on the right hand side, it is soil moisture to three feet. Red and brown, darker colored browns are indicating much, much drier than normal soil moisture conditions. I am going to skip this one for the interest of the time. And this one too. And you are going to be reading whole bunch of client, the county impact, drought impacts. Then you'll look at the actual power presentation in the website. I want to talk about the forecast on the left hand side it is a seven day quantitative precipitation index. Two days ago when we looked at this it was pretty much a dry but now looking from here into the next seven day period into July 1, you will see some pockets of blue colors indicating a precipitation on the order of 0.75 to one inches, and the rest of the other location and state is indicating there is going to be some precipitation events. On the right hand side, it is the next seven day period that's going to take me into July 1, average temperature departure from normal. Some of these numbers are ranging from four to eight, meaning that the eighth degree Fahrenheit above normal on average, daily into July 1. Looking further into the future, this is going to take me into July 1 through July 14, the second week, precipitation on the left hand side is indicating below normal precipitation expected. On the right hand side, it is showing significantly warmer than normal conditions can be expected during the second week. So week three and four, what is this way? Precipitation is still below normal as the temperatures are still above normal. This is updated on July 17, the forecast for July. July is indicating a spatial arrest in portions of the state where the drought is most ricken is having a greater chance of getting below normal precipitation and temperature wise it is the pattern. It is the warmer or much warmer than normal conditions are expected. Looking further into the three months, outlook July through September, equal chance of having above, below, or near normal precipitation. So as you're looking further into the future, our skill level falls down, therefore you are going to see a whole bunch of areas in the white indicating no skill in the forecast. Temperature wise, the model is more skillful to tell us about normal temperatures or warmer than normal temperatures can be expected. And now this time I am I showing you a little further into the future, September through November that is going to take us into the end of growing season. warmer than normal conditions again. This this might be a bad news when you have coupled with the drier than normal conditions, especially on the southwestern portion of the state as the remaining of the state is in equal chance of having above, below or near conditions. That's all I have. Miranda. Thank you add none. I wish you had better news for us but thank you for joining us and sharing. Yeah, really appreciate that type of insight. Miranda extension agents have screened over 500 livestock watering samples this year. What are they documenting in the screenings that they're completing. The screenings are really all over the place, but we have documented several potentially toxic waters with high elevated levels of total dissolved solids, and, and our sulfates and sulfates tended rate as of now tends to be a more sensitive measure we've been seeing when we've been doing those screenings. And then. Yeah, and right now they're starting to see the other thing is with the above average temperatures and water being a little lower increases the risk for cyanobacteria blooms and we're starting to see those reports. There's been a handful reports of cyanobacteria blooms across the stage in the past week. So, as we move into the fourth of July, which is when we traditionally see those blooms, I expect that we're going to see more of those reports. What do researchers do if they have bad reports. Well, I think first thing is if you're concerned, and is contact your local extension agent they can come out help you with that screening. And depending what that screening results are they can help you collect a sample and get that submitted to the lab and interpret that that sample and will and and working with your local veterinarian as well, not just with your extension as in a partnership there to make those decisions. Good Jerry, we like to include somebody else here Jerry stuck up what producers with water quality concerns what should we were looking for for herd health and what type of steps should they look to to keep their herds healthy. Yeah, you mean beyond water quality Carl I'm assuming. Oh, I'm really referring to water quality issues. Well, well, Miranda touched on some of those already and you know the total total is all solids which just means essentially the water's gotten awfully salty, a lot of particulate matter in there and and most of the time it doesn't cause trouble the cattle don't like it they'll drink it but they'll get diarrhea from it. And that's something you see but she mentioned sulfates as well. And sulfates is a whole another story because health sulfates combined with hydrogen to produce hydrogen sulfide gas which is very toxic to sales, particularly cells of the brain and and we get a condition that we call polio. There's actually two kinds of polio but when we're dealing with sulfates. It's usually due to a hydrogen sulfate hydrogen sulfide gas and cattle will exhibit signs that there's something going on in their brain they might fall over they might go into convulsions. They just act like something's not quite right upstairs and I mean if you see things like that. There's a whole list of things you need to think about but if you're dealing with water that that's not of the greatest quality and you've already tested for told is all solids and you really need to get them out of there and find a different water source or fence that stock pond off or in some ways provide a different water source because you're going to have trouble. So those would be the two big ones and then of course she mentioned already the cyanobacteria thing. I guess the other thing too is when water gets the calves probably start suffering first really because sometimes the calves won't go into the deep water drink they'll just drink along the edges so not only do you have and have higher algae blooms along the edges but it's just dirty or along the edges as well. So you know that water whole water quality thing and the health of livestock it's a paramount importance especially during this year and this time with the temperatures being what they are. So is one of those solutions to move cattle away from that water source even if it means moving them out of that pasture. Well either that or fence it off and you got to put tanks out there and start hauling water and I know what a job that can be if you have any number of pastures and no eastern North Dakota we tend to have smaller pastures and many of them. So now you got one person committed almost every day or at least every other day all day long to just water cattle but if that's what it takes that's what it takes and and I you know there's been some I'll say this. Many ranchers have been proactive on this water thing and I see many more tanks out there that are supplied by well water sometimes supplied by rural water. And that's made a huge difference and for those that were proactive and have those facilities now you know them and water quality isn't an issue but for many of us still they're dugouts and water holes and that we depend on and they're not going to be very good this year. Miranda you have anything to add to Jerry's comments. I think Jerry covered the most of it but I think just looking forward to past this how can we build our resilience and for future droughts so we can get through them and be more prepared and, you know, working to develop additional water sources. Obviously the media does excluding animals and looking at different off water options and hauling water if necessary. Ron, is there any type of assistance programs that could be available for water quality issues for producers. Indirectly, there's not really programs just for quality of the water but if your quality is bad there is assistance for getting water to livestock and there's a about three programs that I wanted to touch on here. It's hard to keep all the acronym straight with FSA but one of them is called ECP emergency conservation program. And that's where there's emergency funds to help rehabilitate land and conservation structures damaged by natural disasters kind of a kind of a catch all it's a cost share program. The other one is called ELAP ELAP stands for emergency assistance for livestock bees and fish. And that's for if there's livestock that are diseased, or there's adverse weather that are affecting them. And this does include some funds for water transportation for hauling water. The loss must be in the physical county, physically in the county where it occurs. You need to apply 30 days after the event ends or the deadline, ultimate deadline is January 30 2022. And there's also FSA emergency loans that have kicked in now. They're 2.875%. So if producers need to to drill wells, run lines, there is some emergency funds. Contact your local farmer farm service agency for any of those programs for all the details. There's also a program run by the state. I thought it was actually run through the North Dakota Department of Ag but I called there this morning and it's actually run by the state water commission. And they have funding on hand for new wells for tapping into rural water for piping for past tapping pastures into water systems. And that's of course be approved that you're a livestock producer and 50% of your income is from the farm, but that does not include any money for hauling water, just for wells and such. So those are the programs that are used for helping water the livestock. So indirectly, if you have bad water and you want to get good water there, something you should check into. Thank you. Well, we spent a lot of time talking about water. I'd like to move to another area that's talk about forage production. Miranda in the past you've stated that the window for forage production is closing. Can you explain this and discuss the current state of forage production across the state. Yeah, so in North Dakota 80 to 90% of our forges are cool seasons. And the, with those growth curves for those grasses. They, their peak growth occurs with from rains in conjunction with rains that occur from April through the end of June. And we're July one is quickly approaching us and so by the time we hit July one, the majority of our forage in the state has been produced. And this actually, we already know in terms of hay production that those grasses have gone to seed once the grass goes to seed and is out of the vegetative state. There's little potential for additional growth. And from the reports that we're hearing from farmers and ranchers across the state that are in the process of paying now. There's a lot of reports of 25% of normal. And those are in the areas that aren't as as hard hit when we get into that d4 area. We're looking at no, no hay for a lot of a lot of producers in that area. So some really significant impacts to hay production on the native forage. Those grasses are just starting to get to that reproductive stage our native cool seasons so they're still growing. If you are able to get out there and start grazing before they headed out. We might be able to capture some and make take advantage of some rains that do occur in July and get some regrowth. So that is a positive that if you're out there grazing and can keep those grasses in a vegetative state. We're looking at in d4 areas 25 to 30% of normal. And then the rest of the state around 50 to 60% of normal so significant reductions in forage production and looking at addons outlook, our potential for regrowth might be limited as well. Well with that in mind if we're going to have long term stability of our grasses and maintain production in the future. What's what do we do. Yeah, we know things are going to get hit a little heavy. We really want to be careful about allowing recovery time on those right those those pastures that have do get a little extra pressure. Hopefully can have a system in place where we aren't stressing out all our pastures are grasses are very resilient in North Dakota their use of these they're adapted to these type of disturbances. And so they will recover. But we want to we know this, I mean, we've seen from addons data this drought started last fall and a lot of pastures got hit hard last fall so I'm trying not to hit those same pastures again and giving them a little extra time to recover. And then making sure that you're not overgrazing those same pastures two years back to back because we're going to see the increased reduced production. After this drought is long term impact so reduced production after the droughts over increases in bare ground and you're going to start to see undesirable plants move in as well. We're really just trying to not overgraze repeatedly monitoring that utilization, the best you can, and trying to get creative when you take advantage of some other forage sources. So, kind of on that lines. I'm going to turn it over to Zach and see if he has anything to fill in in terms of, you know, given that where we're at with our current state of forge. What should we be expecting in terms of forage quality. And if we do get some timely summer rains how is that going to impact our forage quality. As I stated, obviously forage yield is something we can visually see and know that we're having reductions there in terms of what drought can do for forage quality and what we're experiencing right now. We should consider what the natural seasonal decline is in forages we know, as you highlighted that with a predominantly cool season. We're going away from that vegetative state, we're getting more mature plants so we're going to see protein and energy values decline in these forages throughout July and into August. So, with that in mind though, and having dropped situation, we can actually see forage quality isn't altered as much and nearly to the extent as what forage production is so quality should be relatively similar to a normal year. It's not possible even to have elevated levels but I would expect forage quality to be similar to a normal year, but as we move into July here, we know those those protein values are going to decline in those forages. And I guess we can kind of hope for a little bit of summer rain here as some has been giving us some relief, and as you highlighted that giving us that potential chance for regrowth. And of course at that point having some vegetative material for the for those animals to work on. And yeah. Yeah, when we see that green up we tend to see that little burst boost and in quality for sure and when one of the strategies obviously when we're working with reduced forages is is decreasing that stock in rates somehow. And one way producers can reduce forage demand is early we need just how much forage can that's that strategy save. Yeah, there's some good research out there that indicates about a 300 pound calf is consuming around five pounds of forage dry matter on a daily basis. So if if we talk about moving our cow herd from a lactation standpoint to a dry cow herd through early weaning. We can expect there to be an equivalent of about three to five pounds of decrease and forage intake on a dry matter basis for those cows so that if we kind of put those together then that's we're looking at somewhere between eight to 10 pounds on a dry matter basis forage per pair per day. So really what that means though is essentially through early weaning, we can be looking at possibly reducing our grazing pressure by about a third. So it's really can be a great way to relieve some of that pressure when we talk about longevity of these pastures can really give us an opportunity here, especially as some of us are moving into breeding. If we have to try to maintain condition on those cows as well. Thanks Zach. Jerry to follow up with that if if we're concerned if someone's considering early weaning when is the optimal optimal time. How can we reduce the stress the calf and keep them healthy during this. So what's interesting about early weaning is that sometimes we think it's going to be a disaster taking those calves off the cows and from that milk diet, then they are that they're used to and put them on a different diet. And in truth what it seems like based on observations is that early weaning actually works pretty well. The key is as to how to do it. And if you want that already had some creep feed out for calves, and they've gotten used to it. That's that's a really good start, where you can actually just move the creep feeder right into the pan and the calves continue to eat on something that they've been used to what's going to make it a little bit harder for this this year though is as I introduce him to a forged diet. Beyond the grass they've been eating. Where's that come from, right. I mean our hay crops have. They're almost non existent at this point. And so that's going to be the challenge. I don't know I don't necessarily think you want to keep my creep feed forever they tend to get a little bit fleshy from just creep feed itself you need something in there that fills that room and up and puts them on a good start to the gaining, you know, respectable amount of pounds each and every day, health wise though. As I kind of said earlier, health wise weaning those calves and a part part of it's because passive immunity that they picked up through the cluster Michelle with them. And it seems like when you mean calves at that age health, health is a pretty good. They don't seem to have a great deal of health problem and that's really related to respiratory disease, we can get into other issues with health besides just respiratory disease. I mean we can run into pink eye outbreaks you can run into foot rot outbreaks not necessarily just associated with weaning but even on pasture as well but having the facilities making sure they're designed properly making sure they're, they're designed so that they keep in small cows which is always a challenge making sure that the bunks are suitable so calves can eat out of them without escaping. It takes some, it takes some creativity to wean really young small calves, but it sure can be done and just to feed off of what Zach was talking and Jan and I have been have talked about this before that the neutral requirements for the cows decreases by quite a bit. And of course now you're putting on a calf on a, on a plane of nutrition that should result in good things so. Yeah, I, and then I suspect that this summer we're going to see a fair number of calves weaned early doesn't mean necessarily early weaning but they're going to win them earlier than we normally would have in the past. I'm switching gears from our shortage in forging pasture and kind of focusing a little bit more on the hay and what we've been hearing concerns about getting that first cutting alfalfa and there's research out that this that shows hey and alfalfa that's less than 10 inches can have negative impacts the health of that stand. And so we know grazing can be a good option to utilize this alfalfa and keep it in a vegetative state so we have that potential for a second cutting. Because once they flower out obviously we're we're losing that once they go to seed. Jana, what precautions should we take in it so we can safely graze alfalfa. Yeah, so I've talked to a couple producers around the state and also some extension agents for this is being done. Obviously it's one way to kind of salvage a little bit of value. If you can't get a hay crop at least maybe you could get some livestock out there grazing. Most of the time we're not too concerned about health risks as far as bloat until we get into that 30 to 50% of alfalfa in the pasture. Many times our our pastures with alfalfa are grass dominated and and it shouldn't be too much of a concern but if you do have a high percentage of alfalfa that's where the risk obviously is going to increase. So, you know I'm sure we're past the point of the bud stage that's what we usually recommend that that where people kind of wait to get to that bud stage. Your forage quality is going to be good and the risk of bloat isn't quite as high. Usually it's higher earlier in the growing season. As that plant starts to mature and put out buds and then flowers that risk is going to decrease a little bit. I'm sure most of the alfalfa across the state is is already in flower flowering mode so that risk will will be decreased already. But it is still something to to be aware of that you can have issues so just some of our standard management recommendations when we talk about alfalfa. If you're not about hungry make sure they've got a good full feed of some dry hay or they've been grazing, you know another pasture where they where they're not hungry. Don't turn out when it's raining or when there's a heavy do that can increase the risk. And then a lot of people will use the bloat blocks or plexiline blocks. You need to have them out a couple days before the animals are going to graze the alfalfa and then you need to have them out the entire time that they are grazing because once you remove that block there's no protection. So that is a potential strategy but just be aware of that. Another kind of nutritional tool is ionophore that can be provided through a commercial supplement or mineral that can also help with digestive issues like bloat. So that's another potential tool and then I would say just monitor and continue to watch those animals and make sure you're not having issues. Thank you Jana. Ron, we've been talking a lot about forge production shortages. What assistance available to producers that are short on forge. So there's a couple programs CRP and LFP. And also, as I mentioned previously, there is emergency loans available, FSA loans, if producers are so inclined to have to borrow money to pay for for forage as well. So first of all CRP, there is emergency grain grazing that's that's happening right now that's immediately ongoing you can you can go and apply and graze livestock right away. And any county in the state that's that's eligible for LFP which I'll get to in a bit are eligible there's only two county there's three counties in the state that are not eligible Richland ransom and sergeant. In every other county, the CRP is open for the emergency grazing. You can only do what you need to submit an application 50% you can only raise up to 50% carrying capacity not for more than 90 days. The emergency hanging will will come into effect, but not until August 1 bails need to remove be removed by September 15, and there is no reduction on the CRP payment. As far as the LFP program, some of you are probably familiar with that. We do have a map on our drought page. As I mentioned, there's three county, there's only three counties that that do are not eligible for LFP. The payments are based on the drought monitor. There's a formula based on the number of head and the number of acres. And then then there's a formula that's basically 60 60% of the lesser of the, the number of the head or the cattle or number of head or the acres, based on the formula and we do have a calculator online on our on the farm management website and I believe it's a link on the drought page that will producers can enter their information and come up with an estimate but contact your FSA office for either of those two programs. That's great. Miranda, there's been a lot of producers that are thinking about planning annual forages, mostly because their field crop has already been so short, and they're thinking maybe we get some rain later on, can they plan something. What's your thoughts there is there an opportunity for this. Yes, there isn't, there isn't, there's still this opportunity to get an annual forage established if we have adequate moisture. So if we're moving forward in the growing season depending on how what we want to do with that forage depends on what we would dictate what we want to plant. So if we're looking at Hain, we really best options are going to be your millets are a sorghum or sedan grass Sorghum sedan as well but that has a higher nitrate with risk than your millets are your sedan grass and so that's something to be aware of and during drought we know that that nitrate risk is going to is going to increase and I know Janna will talk about that more. The other thing though is if you're grazing we still would I still recommend doing some type of mix some that has cool season warm season, and some brass cousin it just being careful on a selection of those species again. But when we have a mix, it reduces the risk associated with planting that that cover crop is something is likely going to take if we have moisture available. But as we move through the growing season that's kind of a rat and then if we do get fall moisture there is that opportunity to put in winter cereal as well so looking at our trick hail our annual rye are good options and I know Kevin if he's on Kevin you might have more to add I know you've done a lot more this research to me. Yeah, I appreciate the question there and it's a great question, and I think you're right in that there is still time to plan up any kind of emergency annual forage and and I agree with you on the cover crop mixes to raising purposes and in the winter serials are going to be looked at more this year than we've seen the past. We'll get that opportunity to plant something in August and September, whether you look at a winter rye or winter triticale, even a winter wheat in terms of those varieties are great options for forage that will fit you for next spring at least because I think most people are going to run to feed. They're going to purchase feed and then they're going to need something for next year as well and it's a great opportunity to look at these winter serials that can be seen this fall. And I think, you know, it's important that we talk about it being dry but you can't grow an annual forage. You can't grow an annual forage if you don't plan it. And so even at the research dates and we're putting in some millet this week and next week and we are going to put a full season cover crop in just trying to keep the cost down as best we can, but knowing that if we do get some moisture at least we can have something to either put up in a bale or graze it later this summer. Kevin, I've had some people ask about planning. Hey, but a forage barley instead of millet. What's your thoughts on that at this time of the year. That's a great question, Carl. And I think your risk in terms of success will be going down on these cool season crops. If I was going to pick any of the cool season serials, I would do a forage barley over a forage oat or a triticale. It tends to do a little better in terms of the droughty conditions. But in terms of a hay crop, your lowest risk will be your foxtail millet since they are the best scavengers. They also take the least amount of water. And so I would, unless that was your last option, I would not be doing any cool seasons right now, unless I want to graze it. And then I put that cool season in a mix with a brassica and a warm season. Sure. Thank you. Janna, much of the spring wheat across the states in pretty poor condition due to the drought and producers are considering harvesting a forage if it's more than three inches tall. What steps should be taken to utilize it as a forage? In other words, should we do nitrate analysis forage testing? What should we be looking at? Yep. So just like with every other drought that we've been through, I'm sure we're going to start getting a barrage of questions about how to utilize all these failed crops as forage. So first of all, you definitely want to check with your insurance people and make sure, you know, if you're looking at an alternative use, that's an important first step. With most of these crops, there can be a variety of nutritional concerns. You know, like canola is one that gets widely grazed during drought years. Canola can kill livestock multiple ways. We can have polio issues because it has high sulfur content. We can have bloat because it's extremely high in energy. And we can also have high nitrate. So there's lots of stuff to test and check out ahead of time being proactive and knowing what you've got is definitely important. With many of our cereal grains, those are all potential nitrate accumulators. Most of the county offices across the state have a nitrate quick test that can be used out in the field. So if you can sweet talk your extension agent into coming out and taking your sample for you, that's an option. Or producers can take the sample themselves. You would just basically kind of walk some transects in like a W or M shape across your field. Just 20 stems, get them close to the ground, take it into your extension agent. And they can tell you with that quick test whether nitrate is present or not. If it is, and you're looking at a grazing situation, you might want to wait a couple days and then retest so that test can be done again. Or you can take a few more days and send that sample off to a lab so you know exactly what you're dealing with. A grazing situation versus harvested forage is that we don't know exactly what the livestock are going to consume. We don't know where they're going to consume and there are hot spots out in a lot of fields where the concentrations might be higher. So producers should think about maybe providing some additional forage that's that has no nitrates in it. So some grass hay. And also providing some type of energy supplement can help with that conversion process and make sure that the nitrate is getting converted to amino acids and protein in the rumen. It's just when that nitrate piles up and the bacteria get behind that we have a problem so energy supplement can help with that it's not going to prevent all your issues. It's, it's definitely best if we have that opportunity to get the sample sent off to the lab so we know, you know, on a quantitative basis, exactly how much we're dealing with but again the grazing situation is the most challenging. If they have already bailed crops. I would definitely just go towards getting a hay probe and getting core samples of those bales the quick test isn't going to be the best route for that but getting 10% of your bail sampled or a minimum of 20 core samples should give you a good representative sample. Zach I know, Jana covered some of this but what other steps can producers take to reduce the risk of nitrate poisoning when feeding drought stress crops or I can even ask what about grazing. Yeah, so the goal in all of this is to know what you have by testing through testing, and then slowly intake of those high nitrate feeds so if it's forages, and you're grazing a light in the stocking rate. Maybe go to half of what you would normally allocate for a UMS and as well as start. If you do have a map of your fields, because you've tested them now has start in those lower nitrate fields. Like Jana alluded to you may have some of those hotspots so proper sampling and moving across that field to try to cover as much randomness as you can is important for those that nitrate quick test. But starting with your lowest fields and working towards those higher fields can helps those cattle adapt because you really want those microbes to adapt to that higher nitrate so start with your low. And that applies really into feeding situations as well. If you've tested your feeds and you know what your forages are providing. Grinding is your best bet. If that's not an option and you can't grind your higher nitrate forages with your low nitrate forages and do a blend. Then at that point what you would want to do just as Jana alluded to is fill them up on those low nitrate forages first before offering a higher nitrate forage and so but but keeping in mind doing an appropriate blend and moderating how much you're actually allocating that high nitrate so always be on the safe side and providing more of that forage that safe and that safe level of nitrate then in the higher portions but it you can blend those and utilize that way and yeah in siling might be another option possibly depending on what your moisture status is currently if you're still operating at 70 maybe even 60% moisture. You can still entertain the idea of ensiling those small grains and that is a great way to reduce nitrates you can actually reduce your concentration to in by about half maybe even so it's a it's a great way if you can utilize that. I would also can I jump in here Carl. Don't assume that your ensiling has taken all the nitrates out and you're at safe level because if you are extremely high and you take them down to half you can still be toxic so still please test. That is a good point Jenna thank you I have to follow up with a question with Jenna. I mean with Miranda here asking about grazing high nitrate crops are nitrates located in certain parts of the plant that could be higher toxicity than lower. Can we graze the tops. Yeah, that's part of the stocking rate. That Zach alluded to is it nitrates tend to be lower in the plant and actually because of how plants uptake nitrates. They actually might be in the lower parts of the field where we actually have some what moisture that has allowed that plant to utilize the nitrate in in the soil surrounding it. So it's though with our drought stress that the moisture availability might actually increase nitrate levels in those plants so that's another thing to be aware of but that's why we recommend lighter stocking rate so that we're not grazing those plants as low and we're reducing that potential health risk. Thank you. So speaking of random forges that will probably be getting put up and we've been getting some inquiries on harvesting cat tails. And are they worth harvesting and how can they utilize Carl do you have any insights on this. Sure, my first comment is usually. Make sure you don't get your tractor stuck when you're out harvesting the cat tails some slews might be deceiving. While they appear to be dry they might have some moisture in them even in a drought situation like we are. On the other hand, cat tails are usually of poor quality and a lot of lignin involved in them, although a short cat tail can be fairly palatable and actually have some nutrients to it. One of it comes down to in your drought situation if you're looking for feed by all means please put up the cat tails it'll be something we can feed to the cows and at least blend with other feeds perhaps it's the high nitrate feeds that you have as you put up someplace else at least there's some forage there that you can can do it with cat tails will make great bedding if you need to bed so that might free up some other feed sources to do it. Cat tails should probably be tub ground if you're going to be feeding them otherwise cattle will sort and move them around old cat tails are pretty woody, these young lush plants are pretty wet, they're kind of actually might take a long time to dry. It all depends upon what your cat tail slew is like. Now there's another direction here a guy can go. If you do put up the cat tails, maybe it's old growth and it's been there for a long time and you can get a lot of poor quality forage in. In the moisture you could actually add cover them and use ammonium anhydrous ammonia, not ammonium but anhydrous ammonia to try to break down the lignin bonds and make a better quality feed that requires some moisture. If you don't have moisture you can look at alternatives like calcium oxide hydroxide and add that into it it's a fairly caustic reaction but it'll increase the feed value of the feeds. We had one down in Nebraska a few years ago and we had droughts maybe Zach is familiar with some of that and could talk a little bit more, but those are options they have a cost, but ultimately cat tails normally would say, don't bother, but this year. If you can get in there and put them up by all means please do we can make use out of it fall things fail be sure to go ahead and and feed test it to know what we actually have, but there's options. There's a range of all the options available this year for sure. So, following up as many producers are starting to hey we know production is going to be significantly less than normal we already discussed that. So, the drought though is expanding as well. I'm sure a lot of people know that it's expanding to the east of us so almost all of Minnesota's expect is experiencing some level of drought now as well as Iowa. So, currently 65% of our hay within the acres in the US are in in an area of drought. So that's really going to reduce our ability to source hay and find us and finding other feeds with how widespread this drought is. What other options are available to producers. Well, remember, we tend to think cattle need hay, but they can get by with a lot of other feeds to and one of the first feeds I think of our co products that are produced through our milling plants whether it be an ethanol plant or a flower milling plant or a soy crush. There's five high fiber feeds that can be utilized in those in our cattle rations are usually high in protein and high and digestible fiber so they're actually a fairly decent source and they're easy to truck. So if you need extra feed those are one way a person go if you're going to do that, you should be sure to be talking to whoever you're going to be supplying it from at least three months in advance. Because everybody's jockeying for position now for feeds and your supply might be if you wait until the last week your supply won't be available. You need to really look much more in advance than what we have been training ourselves over the past years. There are other feeds we can put up that we haven't put up yet, and I'm referring to our corn crop that's out there that's in some stages will say struggling to make a crop and other places well I don't know we don't know yet. But keep that in the back of your mind is something that could be inside or haid or grazed. All the toxicity issues you talked about nitrates but that is a feed resource that is still out there growing things are going but there's not much. Okay, there's one more thing to look at as an alternative to and that's shipping our cattle someplace else to be fed, we can either retain the ownership or sell them cows are probably going to go someplace but there are places that have pivots under your corn and they raise corn, and there's a phenomenal amount of forage produced underneath those. There's dry land corn in Iowa, and I know for us in North Dakota if we don't, if we have a 200 bushel corn crop we're thinking we probably had a great production, and in Iowa some of those places say we just had a failure. So there's a lot of forage there they don't have fences and they may not have water, but those are two things that can still be overcome. And so that's our choice is to ship out of state if we need to might have to go a long ways away. There are places with rain. So following up on that Lisa that's a option that people are looking at pursuing what steps do they need to take if they're moving those animals out of state. Thank you Miranda. So as we look at maybe moving some animals out of state. So first of all, we need to think about the regulations and moving livestock back and forth. So you need to think about the brand inspection requirements of animals leaving North Dakota and talk to your local brand inspector or the North Dakota Stockman's Association and North Dakota manages the state brand program. So they can help you with those regulations. Then you need to look at the animal import requirements and both to the state you're going to in the state and then coming home as well. And so the place to start with looking at those requirements is your local veterinarian and then the North Dakota Board of Animal Health or our state veterinarian in the state capital they can share those requirements now there's management that I would encourage producers to look at as they are considering moving their stock particular well even in state but out of state to being for being fed. I would make a visit to those operations, talk to them about how they would manage their livestock. From personal experience they may not manage livestock the way you do, but they still may be managed well and those are tough pills sometimes to swallow and Carl's kind of giggling about that. But that as long as they're well managed and you know things with bio security are fine and they're on a nutritionally balanced diet. I think those are good things I would always ask for references and then try to find some references that are offered. And so maybe that means calling around in the community and see what these people, what their reputation is are they known to be really producers or they known to kind of be maybe not the best in the country. We have two publications at NDSU extension that might help, especially if your livestock are going to a dry lot situation or a feed yard situation. One is the cattle producers guide to feedlot terminology. The other is, and I got to look up the true name, but I think it's like a cattle producers or cow calf producers guide to feeding cattle. And both of those will help it help a producer in understanding the things like yardage, shoot fees, some of those things that come with that and then finally, before I ever moved cattle or even sent them there, I would have a signed contract with what's going to happen. Some of the, the toughest questions I get are from really, really good cattle producers on the owner side and really good cattle feeders on the feeding side that have not had a contract and there's disputes about care, disputes about paying, disputes about all kinds of things. And so I know we all like to operate on a handshake basis, but there's some places that we really need to operate on a contract basis and this is one of them to protect you and your assets. Lisa, a lot of guys are looking at producers are heavily culling their cow herds. What tips do you have for culling beyond our standard criteria that you've shared in the past is there anything else you'd like to share. So, you know, I, I think one of the steps of resilience that we see in producers that are getting through this drought a little easier than some others is that they have kept really pretty good records production wise the trait wise of cattle that are in their that are in their care that they own. And so instead of mass culling all old cows or all young cows or whatever the story maybe they are strategic what I like to call strategically culling and so you know they're getting through their list of the old honorary open bad feet bad udders and those things and so once you've gotten through those easy culls I encourage producers then to start looking at things like a production if they have those records and maybe things such as time of breeding so for our herds that are you know January February and February we probably can tell who is bred right now and who is open right now and save some significant forage and as we move into what I'd call our later spring cavers, we will have that opportunity as well so get your date on the preg check calendar for your veterinarian and help save some forage there's no reason to keep open cattle around especially in a tough year like this we do not need to feed them any longer. Secondly, you know I think then when we get into these situations where we're going to have to go even deeper into the herd. I would look at moving your replacement heifers your open replacement heifers so those yearling heifers typically and see if you can find a dry lot situation for them. And then I would look probably at trying to maintain our nucleus herd of four to eight year old cows five to eight somewhere in there, because those are cows that are in their highest level of production. And that's a really painful thing for me to say because I'm a fan of old cows we know that it usually takes a cow somewhere six, eight years to pay themselves off. And so every cow that's been in your herd longer than that is making you more money right, but they also take more care they oftentimes take more feed and some more TLC and we know that our younger animals certainly need more feed to re breed is we look at our first for example. And so they might be candidates for going down the road is I have alluded to in the last several weeks. I think before I sold my young stock, I would try to find a market where maybe I could have a contract so I can make sure that I'm getting the value back out of them, because they're the ones who owe us the most money, typically in terms of development and replacement costs. And so, you know, making sure that I can get my money out of them and they're just not being split into a cold cow that's going to go to slaughter in a calf that's going to be early weaned but actually sold as a pair. And, you know, every operation is different Carl, every need is different every calling strategy is different every production strategy and production goals are different but as a, I guess the general basis that's where I would start. Thank you Lisa I certainly understand the issue of the compassion we have on selling that 16 year old cow that's still raising the gas. Just kind of appreciate and still being around Jerry I'd like to ask a question. I can say one other thing. Just a minute here Carl. If you are having trouble deciding which cows to go in your herd. Ask somebody who doesn't have any attachment to the cows in your herd. Ask somebody to come help you make those decisions. Sometimes the second set of eyes is really good and you know when I tell people, you know when you're other scoring feet scoring by a condition scoring all those things to always have a second set of eyes because when you see your cows every day, you probably don't see their faults right. And so, bring in a second set of eyes whether that's your county extension agent the veterinarian even a neighbor. All of those people can really help you out in that predicament and take some stress and pressure off of you, because I know that I would pick cows differently in our herd than my husband would. And so that's, I think that that's a good strategy as well sorry Carl go ahead. Thank you Lisa. Dr stuck. Can you share any producer health concerns that are currently ongoing or that we should be very acutely aware of her at this point. Yeah Carl maybe just a couple things one thing to follow up with Lisa. When you're moving cattle across state lines, she did mention health certificates and of course these cattle have to be permanently identified it's not like you can write a health paper on a group of 100 cows going someplace they have to be individually animal identified so sometimes it's a challenge sometimes they need to be receive a metal silver metal tag or they have a remaining banks tag or even electronic ID tag but they have to be individually. Some things that come to mind for me. A couple things that come to mind. As we get into the season fly pressures going to increase. We're going to have synchronization programs that have already taken place and some you'll still to take place so you got animal movements from pasture to pasture you got sorting going on you got separation for a while. And sometimes all of those things can trigger and actually trigger clinical disease. We tend to see summer demonious. When we're moving pastures from pasture to pasture, or when we've got synchronization programs going on or cows and calves are sorted off and I don't know what it is you wouldn't think it'd be that big of a stress on animals but it seems to trigger sometimes you can call summer demonious which just simply means that you got calves that are experiencing respiratory disease while they're nursing their mother. It should be the least stressful time in their lives. The other thing that happens at that age of a calf to is a passive immunity is declining and they become more susceptible to some of those organisms. Another thing that crops up now with hot weather with flies is that cattle can to congregate much more so whether it's in a water hole that you actually got water in or whether it's under shade. They're usually fighting flies when they congregate real close together. And so you start seeing some eyes that look a little teary eyed and all of a sudden you're in the middle of a pink eye outbreak that can happen as well. Some of those that are that are gathering up pretty close together and when you see that happen you have sympathy for them because you know they're trying to get in the shade and they said they think they fight flies better when they're all gathered up that way. But if you can apply some fly protection at that time you'll probably get them to spread out a little bit more and decrease the risk of some of those pathogens that associate with pink eye to be transmitted from animal to animal. So if you have cases of pink eye it's pretty crucial to get out there and treat cattle just as soon as you can and I know that's an issue because a lot of pastors not that easy to treat individual animals, especially when facilities maybe several miles away. So, visit with your veterinarian about what antibiotic you want to use and maybe how to accomplish some of those difficult circumstances for treatment is not easy. That's true for foot rot. That infectious disease that occurs between the toes, the toe, the hoof, not the hoof, but the soft tissue above the hoof swells up to a great degree. Those cattle become lame, extremely lame, almost overnight, and that's a classic case of foot rot and they need antibiotic therapy as well and so visit with your veterinarian about how to accomplish that and what antibiotic you use. That's really the three things I think of and of course what we oftentimes experience is all of a sudden we found a calf dead or we may all of a sudden find a cow dead. And then, and then that becomes a little bit of a mystery until we start digging. Every veterinarian involved if you find a fresh dead make sure that animals posted always be thinking about things like anthrax especially with cows. There are other diseases that can occur during these summer months as well. So, please involve your veterinarian to get those taken care of and investigated just as soon as you can in this kind of weather. Doesn't take long for a carcass to go bad in a hurry. I've already wrapped up for today. I just want to thank everybody for joining us. Thank our panelists for participating and providing their insights. And please reach out to your local extension agent with any drought related questions. They'll, if they don't know the answer, they'll get ahold of one of us and we'll find an answer for you. And I know this is the really stressful time such as we're making tough decisions and selling animals that we really don't want to part with, but have no choice to so be checking in on your neighbors and check in on each other. We have a lot of farm and ranch stress resources through NDSU extension so check those out if you're not sure how to talk to somebody about that or who to reach out to those resources are available and join us again. July 29 for our next navigating drought webinar. Hopefully we'll have some better news for you as then. And again, just like to say, be sure to ask your neighbor, how are you doing? And then wait for a response and see how they are doing. Take care.