 Well, good morning, everyone. Glad you could be with us and taking on the challenge of implementing the Lynx Skype technology that some of you have used frequently. And some of us are just getting accustomed to it. I want to welcome everybody here and keep in mind just a few housekeeping things. Keep your mics on mute until which time you are going to present some information simply because it causes too much feedback and bleed over for others that are trying to listen. I would suggest you also keep your video turned off until which time you're going to present. I think that probably uses up too much bandwidth. So we'll leave the video. When you're talking, we'll leave a video portion up to you. If you're new to the link, there is the chat box on the left side. And I encourage you to jot a note in there if you have a question. And let's see. I'm looking for my agenda unless there's any questions. If anybody have any questions, thank you, Lisa. And we know that indeed you're out there. It's good to see. We do have a participants list on the screen here. I'm not sure what you see on that end. J.J., do you mind if I interrupt and just ask if anybody's having audio trouble? That's often the problem we have is not having audio set correctly. So if anybody has audio trouble, and Jerry just left the room, telephone Jerry or John or Blair, their phone numbers were in the email that came out. Since nobody's typed anything in, I assume it's working. Is it just typed in the chat box? Well, that's true if they can't hear. Or you can put the number in for them. I don't know those numbers though. So if you're having any trouble, put it in the chat box or give those guys a call directly if you're really having trouble. Thanks, Sonya has them memorized. OK, just want to make sure apparently everybody can hear. And in a minute, you'll be able to see. So thanks. I just wanted to check. Thank you, Becky. That's why we're just a little slow to get started, just to make sure everybody is on board. First, people I want to thank is Jerry, John, and Blair for being on standby. If you are having some trouble, remember the attachment that I sent out, had all the contact information on there, as well as instructions that Becky and others put together to send out. And then Jerry put online the link that I added to that email where you could go in and get a little more detail about using the link Skype. Some of you will still be link. Some of you have been pushed to the newer Skype. As you know, Microsoft purchased Skype. And so your instructions will note that it's calling it link, but it's Skype. And we'll all get used to using the same terminology very soon. Well, just to review the agenda quickly, the purpose of this session is to overview the analysis of statewide conditions. And so we're not looking for a lot of detail, nor even though I have an hour and a half blocked off, I don't foresee this meeting lasting near that long. But we do want to, we want to hear what's going on out there, your eyes and ears. And we want to, you can help us help you in preparing for this pending drought. And I, in the past, we've had calls that seem to have an issue. And we're hoping that indeed is the case today as well. So before we get started with Adnan, Adnan, you're getting ready to come online there. Is there any questions at all? Anybody have? And I would also indicate before you respond to somebody, just a short pause simply because unlike the telephone, this isn't synchronous and we need to just allow enough time for somebody to go on. Now, I would suggest if you want to say something, if you could put something in the chat box and I'll try to recognize you and I'll help organize the traffic that way if you so desire. So anything in the chat box there? And I've got the technical support here checking things. Anybody got anything? Just give me a moment. Can you raise their hand on that? Oh, where's that at? Do they have a feature like that? Yes, it does. But I. OK. The other suggestion was you can raise your hand. Well, we're learning on the fly here too. So forgive me. The new Skype looks a little different than Lincoln. So we're still getting accustomed to that. OK. I don't see any hands raised or any interjections here except out of state. We do have one around the table. Charlie? I just want to say thank you to everyone for tuning in for our new agents out there. I think I just want to reinforce what J.W. had said. Adnan and others rely on your reports from what's coming from the ground out there. So I would suggest that I think Adnan is going to be first. And then I think what I'd suggest to J.W. is instead of confusion is call on the list that's on link or whatever so he knows who's there and go and just ask if you have anything to report. And you can say yes, I do or no, I'll pass. That's up to you. So anyway, thank you to everyone who's here. Hopefully, having these early calls will avert any dryness out there and we'll go on. So thanks, J.W. All right, Adnan. I'm here. Good morning, everybody. Good morning from Fargo. I asked J. to put me up first because I have to catch my class at 9.50. And until then, I will be on call to see if there's any questions or I may have to inject something or I may hear. I am going to talk about the process in which the drought monitor, it's a weekly map, done by National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA and NOAA and a couple other agencies that puts together. And that map is very important. How important that is, is that the latest Farm Bill Act of 2014, it delineates on page 124 about the assistance for losses due to drought. And it is indexed to drought severity that you see on that map. There are four different categories starting from D-naught, D1, D2 and D4 is the most severe one. It is called the exceptional drought. For example, some of the impacts that... Adnan, this is Becky. Sorry to interrupt, but your desktop isn't showing yet. We can't see the map yet. Did you share your desktop so we can see it? I haven't shown my desktop, but I can show. Okay, well, we're all trying to visualize what you're talking about. Okay. So if you don't mind going ahead and doing that. No problem. Thank you. I hope you can see it right now. It might be a little small, but I am sure you have seen US Drought Monitor map. And currently I am looking at the map as about 21% of North Dakota is being under moderate drought. Becky, can you see the desktop yet? Yes, we can. Okay, well, I'm going to continue. I am sure you have seen it and you might wanna know how this map is generated and how important that is. It is so important that, for example, if a county, it's a county-based assistance program, if the county is under D2, that county becomes eligible if the county is at least eight consecutive weeks in a row during the normal grazing period and it becomes eligible for certain amount of assistance. If it is D3, for example, D3 being the extreme drought conditions and it becomes eligible if the county is under D3 conditions for at least four weeks and as the conditions get worse, the consecutive week preference gets lower and lower. And I am going to convince with this call that you are not the information and user about this map and you are the information source. And this map is highly subjective. Yes, there might be some metamac, mathematical formulas that might take into account, but it depends highly on the 350 local expertise in the United States that it relies on. For example, every Monday, I gathered information using national weather service and sometimes you see me emailing you and asking you to make input in your county and thank you very much if you have already provided some input. If you haven't, you know that I am relying on your local eyes and ears that you're hearing from the sources. That's, I compile that information and make recommendation to the person who is making this map, we change this every week. And that person who is making this map consider these recommendations very seriously. For example, D1 might be dealing with some kind of drought damage to crops and the pastures and the streams and the reservoirs might be low or if the crop pasture losses likely water shortages are common, we might elevate that to D2 or major crop losses, widespread water storage and reservoir levels that we might elevate that to D3 or exceptional and widespread crop losses. We might have to elevate this to D4 and D4 is very rare. We only had D4 conditions in North Dakota, only once that was in 2006. But again, you are not the information recipient in your field, you are the information source. What kind of information that I am looking from you is not the amount that rainfall received in your county. I can look at end on center, I can look at the precipitation totals starting from certain dates and I can look at how less that is compared to normal. I know the normal amounts. I may be able to look at, for example, soil moisture conditions as I am looking right now. This is indicating that the soil moisture conditions are drier, especially to the eastern North Dakota or western North Dakota might not be as bad. But what I am looking from you is an anecdotal information that I don't see or people from Washington DC don't see that you see. For example, it might be drought related, fire danger or burning ban or low water availability in your reservoirs or dugouts and et cetera. Or you might be seeing some kind of municipal water restrictions in your area that I am not aware. Or you might see some dry vegetation, row crops and pastures, the curling leaves that you might see. Or you might see impacts on the livestock, blowing dust and debris and its impact on the livestock. Several years ago we had dust pneumonia that people didn't see or didn't report, but you only saw that in your field. You might see a wind erosion. You might see some economic and social impact in your region that we might wanna know about it. I am dealing with a court settlements that a farmer in central North Dakota has claimed losses due to the drought conditions. But that person did not qualify for appropriate assistance. And that person or the farmer is taken, the insurance company to a court and they just contacted me as a settler. You don't wanna get to that point and you wanna make sure that your area is represented fairly. So what I am looking for is that you don't have to wait for me to solicit input from you. If you see anything bad, if you see anything that needs to be take notes, I am willing to take that information and be a conduit between you and the drought monitor author for the weekly. And together you and I can help your farmer in your area. So I'm gonna stop at this point and I'm gonna stop sharing my desktop. If you have any question, I am here until 9.50. And thank you very much. Thank you, Adnan. Anybody have any questions at this time? Any observations anybody would like to make before we move on, I'll state first and then we'll go around the table here. All right, locally, Tim. Yeah, this is Tim Petra. I just wanna reinforce what Adnan said. You know, maybe wasn't that dry but this was approved in the last farm bill. But in 2012 and 13 alone North Dakota, I have the numbers back left, but we received several million dollars the livestock sector and forage losses. And so it, but we have to hit those D statuses like Adnan said. So for your county, it's very, very important that you put this information in because that's what USDA uses to determine the amounts and they have been paying off and that's the only way they will pay off. So it's very important to get that information to Adnan. Right, and the other thing to add to Tim is remind your producers out there to keep records. The LIP, we didn't used to have that. If they document livestock losses, they just need to document them the day they died, whatever losses they have and just keep a record of those because sometimes these programs come back nine months or 12 months later and come into effect. Yeah, that's the case. And even for some, Jerry can talk more about this but for some disease like anthrax that might be caused by drought conditions that then animals are covered more than average losses. And it's a weather related event but it's due to anthrax. Normal disease isn't covered on the farm bill but if it's caused by a weather related event, it is. And anthrax is one. Right, heat stress. Heat stress. And the other thing that I'll mention about that as long as Charlie brought up records in a year like this, the impact records can really be magnified in terms of identifying calls if it gets to the point where we've got to come in and we've got to reduce stocking rates, we've got to do those things. Having those records, what happens through the calving season, things like that, they can really help out when it comes down to lightening the pasture load if we need to remove some animals. Not just written records, photos I would encourage too. Okay, good points. As you could tell from going around the table, I haven't introduced who was sitting in Moral 5A and specialists that are in the room or in the house include Jerry Stucka, Tim Petrie, Miranda Meehan, Carl Dahlin, and myself along with Charlie Stoltenau providing technical backup support, recording and notes, of which records we just talked about, the ever popular Alan Crawford who keeps our stories in presentable form is with us. And of course, Rich Mattern and Becky Koch. Any questions from anyone now? Each time I will pause just a moment to allow opportunity to raise your hand or send in a type in the chat box or conversation box, see if you have anything. By the way, before we go any further, we are recording this and we'll post it on the drop page so you'll have a chance or you'll be able to refer others to it that may not been able to attend. I did receive a few emails of schedules and we know everyone's schedule is dynamic and best laid plans can change over the weekend and so we certainly understand that not everyone could keep the schedule. We have a nice array of people online and it looks like it's going pretty well so far. If you're having any challenges with this, again, put it in the chat box or send us an email on the side. We do have our cell phones here, we can check that, make sure that everyone is having a reasonable experience. So before we go on, I would set the table as it were. We'll go along this table for some quick reports and we'll just do it clockwise starting with the Northwest, Northeast, Southeast and end up with the Southwest. So that's my plan at this point. Before going there, any more comments around the table from anyone or anybody out state seeing none? Is anybody from the Northwest that would like to give us a quick update of what's happening and again I would remind you that once a feature has been shared there would be no need to continue to repeat that, to repeat that, just try to bring some new information online that helps us manage this time, allotted to this and keeps things moving along. Who from the Northwest would like to speak up? Your silence is definite. Daniel. Martin, this is Chris, can you guys hear me? Sure can, go ahead Chris, thank you. We've gotten a little bit of rain this weekend. I just looked at the total, we got about a 10th of an inch in, mine it and as I've been going about doing some sampling on that, the top eight, 10 inches, six inches or whatever, that seems to be pretty darn dry but once you get down into the subsoil I've been kind of impressed or surprised by the amount of subsoil moisture there actually is. So stuff on top looks kind of bad but we've still got some good reserves in our subsoil moisture that appears. Thank you Chris, anybody from the Northwest like to add to that? Daniel, Carla, you're calling, call on. Call on, call on. Thank you. Daniel, anybody? I see you're on from out at Williams, got anything you're out in the extreme Northwest? Unless I'm muted, I see that they're muted. I see you are all muted. So if you are talking, we're not hearing. She says, nothing comes. No, I think what Chris said is correct. Okay. Oh, I see your comment now. Thank you, Daniel. One more time. Anyone else from the Northwest as we slide East anything up in the Batonoma, McKinney, Pierce area? Well, I guess looking at the map that now includes Sheridan Wells, Eddie Foster County, anything from the Carrington Research Extension Center? I think I have it unmuted. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you for logging in, Carl. This is Carl at Carrington. Two items, three items to share. First would be the, it appears the water table in the streams out in this area is what it normally is. About a month or so ago, these streams were dry as the frost came out of the ground. Now these streams are filled up. Unfortunately, the water's not moving through the streams. They're just there. So there is some, I reinforced what Chris was saying. It looks like there's some groundwater out there. We do see a lot of evaporation occurring in from the soils. So in other words, those saline areas are getting larger in size and whiter in color. So that's something I haven't seen for quite a few years. John Doovetter and I wrote a news release last week talking about dugout ponds and they need to test them this year, especially if they're runoff dugout ponds that are filled from runoff water because we haven't had much runoff to fill these up this year. And other, since there's a lot of groundwater evaporation, perhaps the other stock ponds need to be tested as well for total dissolved solid content to see if there is too much minerals in these waters. And that's about it. Thank you, Carl. And I appreciate that you introduced yourself as you go on and give some report. Somebody like to respond around the table here and look at those questions. Tim? Are we on, as I like, Lou? Carl, this is Tim. Are the pastures greening up at all or are they still pretty brown? The pastures are greening up. They really changed yesterday. However, two inches tall really isn't that much. They haven't grown much. Where it's more detected, the grasses might be four inches tall. But in general, it's all, cattle are trying to graze green grass, but there's not much out there for them to pick at right now. I think we're a little ways off before turnout time myself, but I'm not the expert in that one. I'm sure it's nice not to be calving in the mud, but the timing is so, gonna be so critical here. Anyone else from the Northwest in the county, if you'd like to- Is it the Raquel route? Isn't that ironic? Sorry. Raquel, did you have- Nasser is rising. Jack box. Jack box. Look at your chat box. Mouse River is rising again to threatening levels in the lower Ceres River basin. Interesting. Canadian water? Must be, yeah. Okay. Any other observations from the Northwest? You're all welcome to add to the conversation. Thank you for those that have. Going once, twice. All right, thank you Northwest. We move to the Northeast District, Northeast District. Roll that toner or caliber down into Steel Trail County. Anybody like to respond there? I guess I need to see what's going on. Our list of participants scrolls way off the screen so I'll have a tough time seeing who all is there, but we can do that. Move up and down. Well, I have to be Amandekstras to do that. Left and right brain. Okay. It's Alyssa from Trail. Can everybody hear me? Go ahead. A little echoey so if you could be a little closer to your speaker. Otherwise we can hear you. I was having a rest. It's a little better. So a couple weeks ago we had some visibility issues actually from blowing dirt out of the town, but over the 18th weekend we had about half an inch of rain, so it's cooled down a little bit with that blowing dirt, but we definitely could use some moisture to keep these crops going. Alyssa. It's okay. It's okay, sure. Thank you Alyssa. Anyone else from the Northeast like to chime in? Like to add? We understand from the chat box and the tisping, all of you can see that while the mouse river evacuated some Canadian water, indeed the Devil's Lake has dropped. Anybody from the Devil's Lake area want to add to that? We see that Page has added a Ward County update, the received heavy snowfall, one to 15 inches, so sure that was welcome. Thank you. One more time for the Northeast. Anyone from the Northeast district like to add to the discussion? This is Caitlin. Caitlin Hain in Nelson County, just east of Devil's Lake. I think that there is fairly good moisture here. It's somewhat dry compared to like last year, but we've got a half inch of rain about a week ago. I think there's more rain tonight, hopefully. So I think we're far enough off of Devil's Lake where we're still getting some moisture. I don't think a lot of producers, crop producers are super worried about the moisture yet. It is somewhat dry, but I haven't talked to any livestock yet, which is something that after this call I realize I should. But that's just kind of all that I have to say about here. Thank you, Caitlin. Nice to have you add that information. And certainly we acknowledge that, and now this is an alert, not an alarm. We, it's too soon to tell, and Mother Nature's in charge, and things can change very, very quickly. Let's move on to the Southeast. Anyone from the Southeast like to begin? Julianne. Julianne, I see you've typed in. Are you at your computer, or can you do have access to audio? She's a little more. I'm not in New York County, she is. A little more. We'll keep up with everybody. Oh, okay, well, we hope you find your voice and find it soon. She reports it's been dry around here two weeks of burn bans, and you can see evidence of water levels are down, and we'd welcome some rain. As I've driven through just this country here from Cass over to my home country, the last two weeks we've got a lot of seeding done. There's a lot of small grains, corn, soybean in the ground, and my neighbor in church on Sunday indicated that while he's been out doing some working, frost just came out of the ground for him, so he's avoided putting it in the ground. He's a smaller operator, so he doesn't have to have to get in there quite as soon, but around this country, a lot of it's turned black and seed is in the ground. I haven't stopped looking to see anything that's poking its head through, but you can't row it yet, so I would assume that cold temperatures have retarded any growth there. Anyone else from the southeast in the Jamestown area? Alicia, or if we get down into Emmons County? Anybody like to add anything? That's Alicia, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead, thank you. All right, well, I pretty much don't have it more to add than what everyone else has been talking about. In Jamestown, I think we got about two-tenths of rain. I think it was last week, or maybe 10 days ago now. Around the Rogers area, we got about four-tenths, so it seemed like the farther east we got the more rain there was. But it's kind of interesting the attitudes of farmers. It seems like some guys are kind of welcoming a little bit of a drier spring because they're not fighting the water, and so some people, you know, have that attitude, oh, well, it's always gonna rain in June, so, you know, this is great. And then some people are really worried because they, you know, they typically it's always the wet in the spring that they're worried that it's setting up for a really dry year, because it also seems like whenever we get rain, it follows the same pattern. So they're hoping that we do get rain throughout the summer, and it doesn't keep missing us. So it's kind of interesting how I think people have a little bit different attitudes towards the drier weather. Thank you for those comments. Anyone else from the Southeast can add to the discussion? Yeah, this is Kelsey Eglund from Emons County. About 10 days ago throughout the county, we had just some rain, I mean, in areas under half an inch to an inch, I mean, and it was very welcome. We, I'm kind of gonna go along the same thing as Lisha. I mean, the attitudes of the farmers, they're, you know, we do have some moisture in the ground, the subsoil moisture, but we are welcoming the rain as much as we can to, so. Well, certainly some of the financial strains of this past year have added to some of the concerns. I guess as agrologists were perennial warriors, knowing that Mother Nature is gonna pull the, as the final card, as the final say here. Thank you for those comments. One more chance from the Southeast. Anybody else like to add? This is Farah, can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay, good. This is Farah from Central Grasslands. We had about 73 100s last weekend, so quite different from Jamestown, which is not very far from us up north. That being said, there's one case of dust pneumonia. I know that has occurred already in the area here. And those saline soils that Carl talked about, we see a lot of that here too. But the farmers, you know, I've been talking to, they don't seem that concerned yet. They're glad for the rain we did get last weekend and they're going about planting pretty normally. Corn seems to be going in, I think, this week and the next week. Very good, thank you for that. And that brings us to the Southwest. Anybody from the Southwest like to start? I know that you did receive some snow, especially in the Southwestern, extreme Southwestern Bowman County, at anywhere from five to 15 inches of snowfall, which I'm sure was welcome for the pastures. And the moisture situation didn't sound too critical there yet. That was a nice drink for them. This is Becky in Dunn County. Go ahead, Becky, good morning. You know, we've been having, I guess, this weekend we got 3,500 so far and it's still raining. It's kind of been a nice, slow, soaker rain we've been able to get, which is much needed for our pastures and everything. You know, we still have farmers that, it's dry, we have dust blowing around, but yet they go out and they find a wet pocket and it's not even, you know, in a low spot and they're getting stuck. So we still have some reserve moisture, but I do know a lot of our ranchers are starting to get concerned for our hay and pastures. We've been like everybody else in a burn band for about a month now and we've really been watching that a lot, just with a lot of the wildfires and stuff that's been around here. But you know, we're having a lot of saline seeps showing up from the moisture that we've had the last couple of years. So there's a lot of guys getting concerned about that. So far, nobody's in panic mode, just everybody watching it. Thank you, Becky. Next from the Southwest. This is, go ahead, Jackie. This is Jackie in Morton and we continue to be under our burn band. We've gotten a little few showers, but very little. I would say most of the small grains are in the ground. And I suppose maybe this week, if it warms up, maybe some corn will go in. We sure could use some moisture. Most of our guys have lots of feed available. And so their concern now is that the pastures so that we get some rain so they can get started. Otherwise that's about it. Go ahead, Rick. Okay, we're probably not an awful lot different. One of the things that we're seeing here, we've had farmers that have backed off on planting because of the fact that our soil temperatures don't seem to be that warm yet. They're making such serious ruts down the field and then they're getting to the, basically the frost is keeping them from sinking a tractor in in a lot of places, which is odd. The top two, three inches are dry, but we have I would say a really pretty adequate subsoil moisture all the way down. We did some soil testing here at our office and the SCD and from probably three inches to 24 inches, we aren't really seeing any dry spots. So I would agree that pastures are maybe our biggest concern. We've had some pretty large fires in our area as well. And the grass just seems to be off to a real slow start. Thank you, Rick and Jackie. Anybody else from the Southwest? This is Julie Cramlich from Adams County. I just could say pretty much everything that everybody has said, the moisture in the ground, we've got good moisture. The only thing that's concerned is the grass. It's kind of purple out here. With this past week, we've gotten down to 12 at night. That's kind of heard the grass growing. So the more our concern is for the livestock producer getting those cows out to pasture. It's just not growing. It's kind of green, but it's just not growing very well. To be expected. Thank you for those comments. Anybody else in the Southwest going once, going twice? Anybody else at all out in state that might have heard something that triggered a comment that you'd like to add at this point? Just one thing, J.W., maybe, and Miranda's here and Carl's here just to remind you to talk about his turnout time. Right now, what's, Miranda and Carl, do you have your weather recommendations on height or what we should be looking for? You know, looking at turnout time? General, with turnout, you wanna wait until your grasses are at that third leaf stage. So that would be, normally, that's early June, but you're just gonna have to watch what precipitation does. Right, so if they have feed reserves, I mean, that's kind of the decision is what shape are they gonna keep their pasture lands in? You know, if they turn out too early, we know that it can have some pretty devastating effects, long-term and even short-term. So what type of information would you, what would you like out there? Are there certain things that you'd like to be able to put into your local county newspapers or things to get out? Are there some things you'd like us to turn out for you? Charlie, most of the reading might have hand them. Go ahead. The oldest offense that's gonna keep cows in once they get their first taste of a two-inch tall glass of bladed grass. Yeah, and I agree with you, Charlie. We've had, I mean, we've seen a lot of cattle that are out on pastures already, and it's because I don't know, there's different genetics in cows, but you can't keep them in. And four-wire fences do not keep cows in once they get some grass in their stomach, some green grass. But I agree that we are turning out way too early. We know we're gonna suffer from the consequences here too, but I see very few cows that are, they're still being supplemented, but there's a lot out on grass already. We make a very good point, reality always trumps science when it comes to this time of the year. Anybody else around the table like to make a respond? Add to that. Jerry, you think it is? Yeah, no, just a couple of things perhaps. I mean, Carl and Miranda are right. You can try and delay turnout, and because it's been dry this spring, you kind of feel like you wanna get them out of your hair and out of the yard. But the longer you feed them, even supplemental, I know they're gonna eat some of that grass out there, but they will eat some hay besides, especially if it's good quality. So that's at least take some of the pressure off the pastures. And that's really the main goal here is to protect the forage and pasture base. Really, that's what we're talking about. The only other thing is on the flip side, if you keep them in the lot longer, and Farah referenced dust pneumonia, in some respects there's really no such thing as dust pneumonia. Dust can be a contributor, temperature changes can be a contributor to bacterial and viral infections getting to the lung. And that can happen as we get dry conditions in the lot, or sometimes even on pasture situations where you got a lot of dirt blowing and it overloads the defense mechanisms and it contributes to some pneumonia in those calves. There may be other conditions that are also contributing to it. So just a couple of things to keep in mind about these calves going out early and in dry conditions, supplemental feed is still an important part of taking care of those cows. And I think to remember on those turnout dates, that's for native range. So if you have cool season and pastures, brome, crusted, Kentucky bluegrass, that you can graze those earlier. You know, Miranda, that's a great point because I know a streeter is carrying out some issues trying to control Kentucky bluegrass or what we call Junegrass, and they're doing it by turning cattle out early so that Junegrass doesn't take over some of those pasture situations. And I know there's a lot of pasture in North Dakota that has become overwhelmed with Junegrass. I just, this is Farah. I just sent a comment on that with our early turnout here and we'll be doing a press release on that too for the bluegrass-nominated pastures. Thanks Farah. Hey Farah, are you gonna confine that to bluegrass pastures? I think it would be good to expand that to native range pastures. And if that release is going out to get some of that perspective in there as well. So those releases cover a big area so we can get a good mix of the pasture types in that release, that'd be great. Farah, this is J.W. You've been doing some nice work out there training agents on forage, the value of forage, how to interpret forage values. And I didn't think to ask you in advance on putting you on the spot perhaps, but is there anything else going on at the grasslands, straighter grasslands that might be pertinent to the discussion here today even though it's research that's in the making? You know, I think the bluegrass study is interesting. I just put that on the comment too. It's interesting. The rest of the pastures I look at, you know, that have not had a real thick stand of molded bluegrass. They're like what others have commented puny, kind of small, green, but not tall. But these bluegrass pastures under that layer, that thick layer of old stuff, you know, it's retained quite a bit of moisture and that grass is tall under there. So it's actually a good time to turn out on those heavy, heavy dominated just bluegrass pasture. So it looks like those are taller under that dove. Other than that, you know, we're watching hate prices, I guess, and seeing how that may shift in turn this year if resources get narrower and hate prices may subsequently go up. Very good, Farah. Thank you. I would like to move into anticipated programming needs starting with some of our currently available drought related programming information. So while you're thinking about that, one last call for any comments, out state or here in the room that are pertinent to the discussion as we prepare to talk about programming. You know, JW, I'll just jump in here again a little bit, I guess, and Carl can too. There's really no problem. So for some of us, it's very non-traditional, but dry lotting cows entirely. I mean, if it stays dry and we maybe need to think about dry lotting those cows and diets can be formulated to meet the needs of those cows that are lactating in the cows as well. And so that's always an option if you can carry it out, Carl. Yeah, I guess that really comes down last year was a wonderful year for grass growth and hopefully there's some grass that's still out there and in the yard. I see Lisa made a comment in the little box there about people coming to our hay list looking for feed supplies. And if it's dry other places, we may just want to do a reality check on what our weather conditions pending might be before we unload a bunch of that hay. But if we got it, there's nothing wrong with feeding it now and dry lotting those cows. From the communication side, the hay list is up and going and they've already reviewed a lot of the drought materials that are there and we as specialists need to review those. We have a lot of information here and frankly, a lot of it really hasn't changed as far as recommendations, but we'll, there probably will be some updating going on. If it's obsolete, it'll be removed. If it needs major revision, some of our new faculty will be rewriting them and taking authorship, leadership on those. And so if you're seeing a need for something or what we've had in the past while it's good information, we miss the mark because it was really something else you would like to know, please pass that information on to all the specialists. We could benefit from that now hearing your feedback. Anybody like to respond to comments about what is it currently available? As Sonia put in the box, she gets the credit for updating the drought webpage, but we really do need your feedback on is that the information you need? Is it up to date? Granted, most of this stuff was done in 2012, but still we really appreciate it if your name's on it to review it and just make sure it's still accurate or are there obvious gaps? Are we missing something? Why don't you pull the website up? Well, that's okay, we can see that. Sonia, wasn't there a typo? It's D-R-O-U-G-H-T. I thought I saw a typo where you typed it in there, but maybe I'm just too far away from the screen. But yes, we would really appreciate your feedback on any needs in the website. And feed list for you newbies, you've known this all along, but for the other staff is remember, producers can enter information themselves now. They don't have to go through a county agent, lend them a car here in our office. That's my mouse. Reviews, reviews all of them, it's moderated, so we don't have any junk, nobody can really doop it up. So it is moderated before anything can go live from a producer or somebody who wants it. I'm on the wrong, please. It's just ag.indysu.edu slash drought. Can you all pull up the drought website on your own computers? Drought. You need the www.internet.org? So do you have suggestions on what should be featured? Already to me sounds like we should focus on this turnout, because that seems like the hot issue. So Ellen's taking notes here, I assume. She's got a news release half written in her head. We've been working on several, actually. Oh, okay. This is far again, I just have a quick question. Is it too early to be thinking about nitrate toxicity issues that might result or questions on those? Well, really far, I guess. In terms of from forage crops, yes. I mean, you still could have some leftover forages that could cause you issues. And then, of course, there can be water sources, but I don't know that we have great deal of nitrate issues in our waters unless it gets really dry and then we run into some other total dissolved solids issues as well. I was just thinking with the drought, you can bring on nitrate toxicity and some, you know, especially cereal grains and that. Yes. They're losing your nitrate also. I don't, it might be too early to put out something on that. Yeah, it's down a little bit. Yeah, certainly later, Farah. Any more comments regarding the present drought list? You should be able to see it up on the screen at this time. Did you share a screen? Could you put it here on the desktop? I don't know. Do you want me to share it on this? You have to go back to Skype right now. Bear with us, I'm learning how to run this too. We're trying to share the screen. Right one, there you go. Okay, now, click on the screen. It's not the video to the right, the third one. There you go. And now, present desktop. And now, go back to, or have you all pulled it up on your own computers already so we don't need to worry about it? I'm trying to learn on the fly here, too. I don't see it. Just go down a little bit. You have to open your screen after. So you want me to go here? No, just go to Chrome. There. So any suggestions on what type of resources you would like to see that maybe aren't there or are we just kind of ahead of the game? Sonya figured out how to make that drought map automatically update when they update it. Took a while, but thank you, Sonya. So whenever you go there, you know it's the most up-to-date map. I don't know how often they release those. It's released every Thursday morning about eight o'clock, but it's as of Tuesday of the week. So Adnan does all his work on Monday, sends it to Nebraska. They do it late Monday, and Tuesday morning at her. They do the work Tuesday, but not released till Thursday morning. And so that's why we've historically had drought calls on Mondays, so we could get the latest information to Adnan so he can update the maps. Good to know, real information. Heard a click out there as somebody trying to speak? I don't want to rush you, I want to give you a chance. Does anybody like to respond to the last question regarding anticipated drought needs? Next call. Yeah, you should probably schedule the next call. Wait a minute. Sounds like it should be on Monday. Hearing none, at least we can start thinking about the next call. Is there a question? The next call? Well, as you heard, there's good reason for Mondays. Is there a reason to try to get it on a day other than Monday? Please speak up now. And then... Please go ahead, Lisa. Come on, Lisa. Hey, I put in the chat pod that it seems like water issues and particularly blue-green allergy issues have been cranial issues the last three, four, five years. And I know that Rothstein isn't on staff, but who do we go to for those water issues? Maybe we move away from blue-green allergy or still have them, but other issues as well. Well, Lisa, you've got a number of specialists here. One is if you're looking on the toxicology stuff, Dr. Mostrom at the Diagnostic Lab is more than willing to help anybody field calls or things on those types of issues. If we're looking at general water, I think Miranda Meehan is one. The other one is Tom Scheer. Tom is actually our water specialist for the extension system. So... And what am I missing here, Lisa? What else do you need? I don't know. I was just genuinely asking because it seems like I field some of those questions from staff and producers. And I know that Rothstein had put together a pretty nice presentation on blue-green allergy, but I just didn't know who we were to go to to be honest with you. I didn't know if those were questions that Tom answered or we should direct maybe towards Dr. Stucka or Diagnostic Lab kind of where to go. Right. And animal health issues. Really, Dr. Stucka is the one who's kind of the go-to person here and he'll also look at referring them where they need to go. But if people have direct testing questions, the Diagnostic Lab can handle a lot of that. Okay. I guess I would be not surprised if we don't have some issues there. It might actually be the first ones we see aside from the pasture turnout thing. I don't know that any of us really thought we would seek blue-green allergy issues, and I know they had them up in Warb County area in the South Central part of the state last year. I don't know whether they'll be prevalent or not, but I think history tells us that if you've had that problem once, you might have it again. So I was just thinking ahead, I guess, a little bit. Thanks for those comments, Lisa. Yes, you are thinking ahead, and that's great. Speaking of thinking ahead is we have a new resource now that you're all available. Miranda, me and on board. It brings a whole slate of skills to the table here, and we're all learning about how she fits into our programs. So I would challenge you to get on the phone and call her or think about how her skill set might play into that, and we're extremely pleased to have her on board and anxious to put her to work. Now, previously to the last comment, I had asked about future programming, or I'm sorry, future conference calls. Has anybody got anything they'd like to offer on that? It's been suggested Mondays has a time factor that probably you are into your scheduling as well as the drop monitor. And how frequently? Two weeks from now, are you thinking? Just trying to get a general consensus. We don't have to do a doodle poll every time. I'm sorry, if it rains right now. I was supposed to hit 80 this week, and I don't see what, maybe it was a Sunday, Wednesday possible. Well, I haven't muted the mic, so you can hear some casual discussion going around the room here. But how about out state? I see a few of you have dropped off. I'm satisfied with what you've pulled so far. Somebody fell off there. I hope you're okay. Just another example of why to keep the mics muted in case something happens in your office. Several of them are saying every couple weeks. Okay, we're trying to read the comments now. They're coming across every two weeks would be good, especially if newer agents seem to be a general agreement for that. And so is this timeframe as fit most people? I'm looking around the room here. I see general nods. We can plan for Monday mornings about nine o'clock. So that's where we're leaning. Going once, going twice. You see Chris's comment there. He said there's a soil science agent training from May 11, 15. Is that going to get in the way of the first meeting? Okay, I've got a calendar in front of me. Chris, you want to speak to that since you made the comments. Good to know. This is all out West. That whole week we're going to have some soil trainings for county agents. So any time that week, they're going from about nine in the morning or 930 in the morning to like 334 o'clock in the afternoon. So, you know, if we did it early in the morning, that probably would work. I'm just letting you guys know that I have a number of county agents committed for every day that week for these trainings. Monday. And what time does that start on Monday the 11th? Like 930. Okay, at the station? One's in Minot, one's in Carrington, one's in Taliner, one's in Williston, one's in Headinger. So which is that on the 11th? Where are you going to be? Minot. That would be possible to start your meeting with a 9 o'clock drop conference call and just go from your office. That would probably be doable. Would you be up for taking the leadership on that? Yeah, I got the big meeting room checked out and we got the computer and all that sort of stuff so we should be able to call in for that. Sure, we'll just have you go first and we'll accommodate your schedule. Thank you for accommodating ours. Any other comments out there? I'm looking around the table. Carl, go ahead. Hey, Chris, it's your trainings. Are you going to go out and do a whole bunch of soil cores? So you're saying at the end of the week we'll have a pretty good idea about subsoil conditions at all those locations? We should. Morning stuff's going to be classroom in the afternoon. There's going to be a road trip and digging soils. I'm not going to have a big bucket auger going down six feet if that's what you're wondering. But yeah, we'll be digging some holes and going down a couple of feet here and there throughout the area. So yeah, we should have a good idea of what that subsoil moisture is anyways. That'd be awesome. You can share that information as you go. Like I said, this is more Northwest District stuff. Very good. Thanks. Anybody else have something coming up that would be, you'd like to mention it this time since we do have just a couple of minutes? You're obviously tuned in to hour-long meetings. It's been just about an hour. Everybody's on track. Anything else for the good of the order? Anything else? I think you can put on your calendars that the next meeting will be 9 o'clock on Monday, May 11th. Shame on me, I walked off and off my calendar, but I used to have it on my desk right in front of me to look at. So it's 9 o'clock Monday, May 11th. And if you wouldn't mind, give us some feedback of how this Link Skype conference went. If there were some weaknesses or some things that didn't suit you, shoot Becky or me at email. We'll see if there's ways that we can fine-tune it. Otherwise, I would guess next week we'll probably have fewer people sitting around the table and more people calling in from their desk.