 All right, we'll welcome everybody to our first navigating drought webinar today. Just a few housekeeping items for those of you that are joining us, and thank you for joining us. These webinars are all being recorded, and they will be posted on the NDSU drought website under the navigating drought webinars, and we'll post a link for that in the chat so you guys can refer to that and find that later. And let's start by introducing ourselves. So I'm Miranda Mihan. I'm the Livestock Environmental Stewardship Specialist at NDSU, and I'm based in Fargo. And I have here with me, Kevin Sedevic. Hello. So I'm Kevin Sedevic. I am the Extension Rangeland Management Specialist based out of Fargo, and the Director for Central Grasslands Research Extension Center located near Streeter. And joining us on virtually, we have Adnan. Adnan, would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, thank you. This is Adnan Akius. I am the North Dakota State Climatologist and based in Fargo location. And we have Lisa Peterson. I'm Lisa Peterson. I'm the Extension Livestock Specialist housed at the Central Grasslands Research Extension Center near Streeter. And Carl Hoppe. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Carl Hoppe. I'm here at the Carrington Research Extension Center, servicing as the Livestock Extension Specialist in Beef Kettle. And Jana Block. Hi, I'm the Extension Livestock Specialist based out of the Heddinger Research Extension Center. And then we have Gerald Stucka. Good afternoon. I'm Gerald Stucka. I'm the Extension Veterinarian and Livestock Stewardship Specialist. My main office is in Fargo on campus at NDSU. Tim Petrie. Good afternoon, everybody. Tim Petrie, Extension Livestock Marketing Economist. I'm in downtown Berry Hall on the second NDSU campus in Fargo. And then we have a new face joining us today of Zach Carlson. Hello, everybody. I'm Zach Carlson. I will be the new Beef Extension Specialist, kind of jumping in early. I start next month, so happy to be here. So we're going to start out today's discussion with an update, a drought update from Adnan. And I'm sure a lot of you have seen that the new, the drought monitor came out today that we're still 98% of the states under drought. 83% now is in severe drought or the D3. So that expanded a little bit into the Northeast, which Adnan will discuss some more. But then along with that is that according to USDA, that 39% of the cattle inventory in the US is impacted by some level of drought. And 55% of our alpha acres are in an area impacted by drought. So that's really going to impact our ability as ranchers in the state to access feed resources, which I'm sure many of you are already encountering. And so once at, I'm going to hand it over to Adnan and once he finished up, we'll follow by visiting about implications of the current drought situation outlook and what that means for our ranching community and answer questions that you have. So again, thank you that for everyone that submitted questions during registration, we'll be trying to address all of those. And if you have questions, be sure to put those in the Q&A. Okay, Adnan. All right. Well, thanks for passing the baton to me, Miranda. And you kind of talked about what happened for North Dakota, the coverages. I wanted to start with the United States so that you know that where North Dakota is with respect to the other states and most of the states that are in equal or worse conditions are to our Southwest. All the colors that indicating, of course, the red color, you're well aware that the extreme drought. And we have a brown color that is here that North Dakota was in only two times in the past. But much of the Southwestern states are really suffering from long-term drought. On the right-hand side, it is the four-week change. Yellow colors are indicating the one and two category change with respect to the last month. And the green colors are indicating improvement. And even though the drought conditions in the Southwest are looking much worse than it is in North Dakota, however, you have to keep in mind that it looks like drought has been stabilizing in these states. So North Dakota is the one that is getting into a higher degree of drought. This slide is going to tell us how we got here starting from October, where the water year starts. October through March, it is a six-month period. That is a lot of months to stay dry. And you see here is the first, it is the first, that means the driest October through March period on record. When you consider that there is 126 years in this record, it really is dry. On the right-hand side, it is also, you already know that it's been very warm during this period. October through March period in North Dakota, for example, was the 11th, actually 118th coldest. That means it is the same as ninth warmest on record in this period for 126 years. And if you wanted to pay attention to where you are in the county, and I know where you are, and most of the state is, first meaning is the driest period. And again, this is an October through March through this period. And the second dry is then, and I don't see any county that is lesser than or greater than 16th. It still is the very dry compared to the right-hand side, dry and warmer than normal conditions. Another than 22 would be the sixth warmest. Still is a lot of warm, the weather warm, and the dry are really a bad combination to suffer from drought. Some cities that I selected, the big cities, Bismarck, Williston, and the far-going Grand Forks. I have to explain what this accumulation graph is starting from October 1st. The green color, green line is the current 2020-2021. And the red one is the, where my cursor is pointing, is the driest on record. So it is almost a driest, not quiet, but it is the fourth driest October through yesterday period. It is three inches below normal, and the lowest on record is that red line, that is the 2000, I can't quite see that. Let me move to 1926, 1920, 2027 period. On the right-hand side, it is Williston. And again, the green color is an accumulation of this year. It is very close to the driest period. And that is how you gauge where you are compared to normal, which is the brown line, and the wettest on record. We are nothing anywhere close to near normal, any of these two locations either. The next slide is going to tell me, between Fargo and Grand Forks, you kind of calibrated your eyes. Fargo is not looking too bad actually, it is due to the past three week periods of precipitation to the south. East corner of the state, and unfortunately, it is the only part of the state that had appreciable precipitation. But still, Fargo is experiencing the 16th driest, the period on record, and if the record starts in 1881, that is 134 years of record. That is very dry. If you look at the Grand Forks, for example, it is the driest because red line and the green line, in fact, green line doesn't exist. Green line is the red line, which is the driest, the period since 1892. So it is pretty dry in Grand Forks as well. Next few slides are going to show me how much precipitation North Dakota received at a given location. You know your location, I know you're looking at paying attention to those locations. The blue colors are indicating less and the green colors are indicating more precipitation and also yellow and the orange colors are indicating more precipitation and during the last 30-day period, guess what? Only the southeastern portions of the state did receive appreciable precipitation. When you compare that with normal, actually, some of the other locations such as south-central and the north-central portions of the state did receive some appreciable precipitation. They were actually above normal on 30-day period, but if I go in a longer period on the left-hand side, it is a 60-day period. That above normal conditions just melts away. Even in 90-day period, you will see a bunch of red colors indicating between 10-25% of normal in these areas. There is a little area up in the northern Cavalier County, even less than 5% of the normal in that portion. And again, the dryness continued much earlier, starting from October, for example. This is 180-day from yesterday percent of normal, and most of the states, except for the southeastern portions of the state, is much drier. In fact, some of the locations during that 180-day period between 25-10% from normal. If you look at the soil moisture on the left-hand side, the map shows the shallow layer. It is 2-4 inch from the surface. It is the calculated soil moisture from the NASA. Dark brown colors are indicating much drier than normal conditions, and in fact, that is the percentile at the surface. When you look on the deep, looking at the surface versus deep portion of the soil gives us some kind of indication how short-term during the past three-week period only impacted the shallow layer soil. When you look in the deep soil to the right-hand side, most North Dakota is covered with that brown color between 1-2% tile. That means if I rank 100 years of soil moisture data from driest to wettest, this year's data soil moisture is going to be on the top of that list. And because of that, now you're looking at the dot monitor map just published this morning, 8am, and D3 is indicating 83% of the state is covered in D3 or what we call extreme drought. That is the largest extent on record. So in case you might understate that, at least D2 is North Dakota is in D2 in 93%, 98% of the state is in some kind of drought. That would be about 660,000 people in drought. Compared to the D3 extent of the current on the left-hand side with the second highest, I need to go all the way back to August 15, 2017 on the right-hand side. We had some D4 conditions in 2017 and look how wider that red area or extreme drought compared to 2017. And on the right-hand side, it is the second or prior to this week, it used to be the largest extent in the past. So it looks like we doubled that area. There are some D4 areas and DSCI is the drought severity and coverage index used to be 293, that was the previous record. But this year, right now, it is the highest drought severity and coverage index on record. And if you wanted to see it in the time scale starting from January 2000 all the way to this week, the lines are indicating the magnitude of this state coverage and intensity as one index. It is the highest ever since 2373 and the previous high was in 2006, that was 329. And that number is going to increase as we put more droughts next week and the following weeks throughout this growing season. However, if I wanted to get some idea what the accumulated impact of the drought is going to be, what I need to do is I need to calculate the area underneath this line. And that is exactly what that is. And so I can compare that accumulated number, which is 9457 with the previous drought. And that is telling me that is how it compares in the drought years in the past. So it is indicating that drought hasn't ended and that number is going to be one of the largest on some of the records in 2008, 2012, 2013, and also 2017, 2018 drought. So I wanted to put some money impact onto it and current drought of 2020, 2020, 2021 is already 9457. And that is compared to the other year $7.4 billion in 2001, 2017, and the latest one 2017, 2018 drought created $2.6 billion of economic impact due to three states, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. So that is where we stand. So drought impacts are producers are transporting water to livestock toxic water. Some of the TDS and sulphate numbers are very high. And in fact, in one incident in Williams County, six head, six heads actually dead due to the toxic water, reduced pasture forage and environmental feed, purchase of hay, decreased stock, the weights, animal stress and less water, and some of the buzzword this week that came through the wire. And if you wanted to see some visual impact, Mercer County's 2019 versus 2021 from the same location is indicating how bad conditions are in the field. The picture is showing that Walsh County, what needs to be with the water cover and, of course, supplement is coming from the tankers moving water. McKenry County, what needs to be the Snake Creek bed and water, but it is not on the right hand side the slope county tame pasture grass needs to be there but it's really doesn't exist there. Similarly, the grasscast is showing me if the precipitation is above normal in the left hand side what would be the productivity. The production grassland production on in the middle if the if the rainfall from today into August 31 is near normal. What would be the the productivity. The red colors are indicating lesser productivity and the map on the right hand side is most likely what is going to be right, which is the below normal precipitation from now into August 31. The red colors are indicating the productivity is going to be greater than 30% less than normal and the normal in our definition is 30 38 years of average, looking at the outlooks in weather. This is a seven day outlook into April 22 green color here is indicating some precipitation and the white color is indicating no precipitation and that green color correspond to 0.01 to 0.1 inch or 100 of an inch to 110 of an inch rain in these portions of the North Dakota. You go just a little further into the the following week that is going to cover me from April 28 to May, May 6. The map on the left hand side is indicating precipitation and the green color is about normal. So this is good news and actually this is the best news that you will see in the the forecast. And there is a better chance of having about normal precipitation in much of the the state at the same time and you look at the temperature near normal conditions in the temperature wise. You're looking at the week three and four that is going to take care of the the farmers from May 8 through May 21. Equal chance meaning that the forecast doesn't have any skill to break the tie between above or below normal. It is not equal chance of near normal. It is not equal chance of having any of these outcomes. On the right hand side, on the other hand, the forecast has some kind of skill to break the tie towards the cooler than normal. So there is a greater chance of having a cooler than normal week three to week four period and looking into a further into the month and even the three month period the forecast really doesn't have any skill. Now for precipitation, it is equal chance again of having above low or near normal conditions and the temperature wise for May the month of May is still equal chance. However, when you get into the next three month period May through August, I'm sorry May through July 2021 temperature wise, we are more sure that it is going to be about normal. However, on the left hand side precipitation wise only southwestern portions of the state is included in skill forecast that is showing below normal precipitation. So that concludes my presentation. I'm not sure if you are answering question right away or later Miranda. We'll we'll hold we'll answer any that come up but otherwise we'll hold them to the end and I'm not seeing any right now so we'll direct any to you that come up as we move along. So add not kind of alluded step us into our next question or next areas, Kevin following the falls route you were predicting a 20 to 25% reduction in grassland forage production under normal spring precipitation. What are you seeing now in terms of forage production and development following our cooler and drier conditions in April. Well first, I'm a little bit depressed after watching odd nuns talk. It doesn't look good for moisture. But I think looking at at the current status for rat for the spring terms of dry conditions I don't I don't see us swing it at all the way from where we're looking at for predictions in the past. In fact, it looks more like it'll be even worse than 2025% if we stay dry in May so the beauty is we're still in the month of April for a couple days. But we're going to get into May and May is that month where we start to grow grass. And so if the predictions are we get some moisture in May. Let's say we get normal moisture in May. We're still going to see a loss of production I don't really doesn't really matter. Unless you think about this for the month of May and June, we should receive about six inches of moisture. To even get us back to where we could probably expect normal forage production, we would need to receive about 10 inches of rain. And so the odds of you getting 10 inches of rain, and hopefully we can get that are pretty low. So I would expect producers to at least plan for less production in 2021. And, and if we stay dry in May, it's going to be even worse than 25%. So taking that into consideration, what are some strategies or answers should be considering to get the most production out of their pasture land and hayland this year. So, you know that I'd love to answer this question by say, saying, you know, I have the silver bullet, you know, but if we don't get rain, you're just going to produce less grass. So your strategies are in terms of one, you know, you can delay turnout in the month of May, which you're going to probably have to do anyway because we lost those fall tillers last fall due to the fall fall drought. It turned out to be later this year. The grassland station we've all moved our turnout date back a day. I'm not a day. I'm sorry, a week for now and we may go a little later, but I'm going to turn out a week later just to compensate for that loss of production and know I'm going to have a delay in production. Think about some opportunities to grow more forage. You know, if Audnan's forecast is right, and we can get average precipitation in the months of May and June, you know, we should be able to grow an emergency forage crop. And so think about ways to add some forage to your system. So you have some feed to carry you. And if it gets really dry, if it stays dry, you know, it's always a risk, you know, it's going to be a little optimistic. But I'd look at some opportunities for forages to seed and delay your turnout at least a week if not two weeks this year. Thank you, Kevin. So, as we talk about that shortages forage on April 15, the USDA livestock forage program was activated and 47 counties within North Dakota, qualify for that that are within the D three category category. Tim, can you share more about this program and other programs for ranches short on forage. Good afternoon, everybody. Most of these programs are administered by the USDA FSA office and, you know, first of all, I'd like to commend the FSA their short staffed and then with COVID couldn't have all the people at the offices and they've been very, very busy this past year with the CFAP programs and whip plus and so on. Now they've got drought to deal with but I'm confident they'll, you know, be able to do these programs in a very exemplary manner. I don't officially represent FSA and so I'm just going to give you some highlights and the details of course would have to come from them. And we'll likely be holding webinars joint with them in, you know, as we progress but first program was mentioned was the livestock forage program actually the last couple of farm bills is really streamlined the process for eligibility for these programs. Some of you remember it used to be that county by county had to apply and then to the state office and finally up to the feds to get approval as long drawn out process but now most of these programs are triggered by the US drought monitor that add on just showed you. And so that livestock forage I'm just going to refer to it as LFP program for now on is based on a monthly feed cost set by USDA. And as far as I know they have not set the monthly feed cost yet and but will likely do so very soon they did last year and just a week or so from now but anyway, the livestock forage program then again is based on the drought monitor and and so one month payment if we're in D2 for eight weeks, three monthly payments if we're in D3 for at least one week and actually now 47 counties in North Dakota would apply for three months payments. Four months payments would be possible if we go to D4 for at least one week which you know if it stays dry that's a possibility probably or D3 for at least four weeks we've already been in D3 for three weeks for many Western North Dakota County so one more week still in D3 would qualify for four and then to get the maximum five monthly payments we have to be D4 intensity for at least four weeks and so again we don't know what the payments are going to be last year. You know when that information comes out that that will be a monthly payment last year. Three counties in North Dakota were eligible and the payment for a cow and a calf was according to the USDA was 3189 but if you read the small print on the program they pay 60% of that, which would bring it down to a little over $19. And then there's another 5.7% for sequestration and I won't get into all that and also brought it down to about $18 per cow that would be for a monthly payment. And so, you know, only six counties now do not apply or do not are eligible for three and that's simply cast, Dicky, Ransom, Rich, and Sergeant Trail as Adnan showed you. The process is quite a bit more complicated than the CFAP application program was and we'll be talking more about that in the future. We do have a spreadsheet on our NDSU farm management extension farm management website just Google NDSU extension farm management go to tools, but we haven't activated that yet because we're waiting to see what the, the payments will be and so on. And I'm not going to get into all the nitty gritty there because there are other issues there that maybe we could take up if there are questions. The other program probably many of you are thinking about is the CRP emergency hang and grazing also an FSA program. Again, that is triggered by the 12th monitor. And so any counties reaching D2 status, which again are all but three counties in North Dakota, all but Ransom, Rich, and Sergeant qualify for that. However, the stipulation is it has to be outside the primary nesting season the primary nesting season North Dakota is April 15 August 1. And so we would not be eligible because of that. However, to get the date moved up. Then we still then have to go to a secretarial designation. And, you know, it looks like that may happen. I can't speak for FSA and, and for Washington or anything, just to put it in perspective. In 2017, emergency grazing actually was okayed as of June 23 and emergency hang was okayed as of July 16. We don't know what it'll be this year but we do have that precedent. So let's hope for rain. And again as we progress and and and see how the drought does. I'm sure that we'll be providing more webinars jointly likely with FSA to explain these programs so I'm going to stop there Miranda and we need to move along and and back to you. Thank you, Tim. And just as a clarification, there has a secretarial disaster designation through USA DA has been granted in North Dakota. And so we will see that CRP opening but we haven't we don't have any details on that yet and so we'll be we look to be receiving those within the next month or so. So we've talked about the impacts of drought on forage production and it you know we also got to think about the matter of wherever you graze you have to do with water. And so I think the droughts can have another effect on water quality and water quantity. So Miranda I know you've been doing some work with the with the extension agents can tell us a little bit about these issues with water quality and the programs you guys have been doing. So right now we're doing a live stock water quality monitoring program we're actually in the third year of this. And so that's where some of the pictures that add none had shared we're from as far from Mercer County was that water and 19 when we were as part of that program and the same surface water locations dry this year. And that's something we heard from a lot of the agents participating as they went out to monitor location monitored and there's no water there and as a result people are looking for alternatives or hauling water. I'm another concerned and we've been monitoring their monitoring total dissolved salt and sulfates which are two potentially toxic things so the total solid is the mineral or salt component of the water. And it can be deadly when it gets above 10,000 parts per million. We see performance issues above three and depending on the animals and what they're adapted to. And so the agents are going out screening and anything above 4500 and they're screening because there's some variability in that just because the accuracy of handheld monitoring. And so they're recommending those be submitted for additional analysis. In addition to that we're they're using sulfate tips and our test strips only go up to saying that it's greater than 1600 parts per million. So you can see performance issues above 500 and calves and 1000 and mature livestock. And depending on their diet. Toxicity is going to vary it'll be on a forge based diet which most of us are going to be obviously in a grazing system that's going to be our situation is that we can see an increased risk for bovine polio at above 2400 parts per million. So, when, when we get that when we're screening and we see that above a greater than 16 or 1600 parts per million we're recommending additional analysis on those samples. And we've, there's been several that have reached that threshold and have been submitted for additional analysis right now. I know there's three counties that I've heard of livestock losses related to toxic water issues and it so this issue is pretty widespread and if things continue like they are it's going to get it's going to get worse that it's important to be monitoring because conditions change quickly too. I know site in Mackenzie County was borderline end of March and was very high levels of nearly toxic levels of portals of salt solids and toxic levels of sulfates by the end of end of this month so it in a very short period of time those those levels are going to watch those closely, whether you're working with your county agent, or if you have those those tools a handheld EC TDS meter and sulfate test strips of your own. So Dr stuck, you know for producers who may not realize they might have poor quality water other symptoms that a rancher can watch for to see if they have high levels of TDS or sulfates in their water that may show up in the cattle, or livestock as a whole. Thanks Kevin. Unfortunately for things like polio. It's what we call a pretty sudden sudden onset of the symptoms associated with polio and polio causes a CNS condition. And really it's the result of the production of hydrogen sulfate gas that is very toxic issues, particularly issues of the of the brain and so that's it's a sudden onset when you see that sort of thing. And those all solids and of which sulfates are part of it of course creates what we call an osmotic diarrhea and really cattle don't like to drink that water, they would refuse if they had other choices but when they do the first thing you see is some some diarrhea with for those things. So anything that comes into play here with these dry conditions and lack of water. I mean it just puts a little extra stress on cattle, and not only just the adult cattle but the calves as well. Once those calves reach a little, little, a little with a little more age on them, where the milk production is less and of course milk production will decline with a cow that's not drinking enough water especially poor quality water so then they start eating more and more for themselves. So now you got a calf that maybe not only vulnerable to the effects of high sulfates but you get these dry conditions and temperatures that go along with it. Then you might also start seeing things like respiratory disease or pneumonia in calves that are that are nursing the mothers we, we've kind of put a title on that and call it summer pneumonia so that that may be one of the things that will come along with it. What you'll see with those things unfortunately you'll, you might find the first calf that's that's dead. But if you look carefully you'll see calves within a year down, maybe breathing fast trying to seek shade, not staying with the rest of the herd away from the mother. So, and in those cases those calves need they need antibiotic treatment. Thanks Jerry, you know, and Miranda you talked a little bit about, you know, testing for water quality so what can producers do if they need some help on getting water water tested. So, first up, you know there's, you can either contact your county extension agent for help with the screening are your local veterinary as well. And if, if you have any concern there, excluding the livestock, until you can come up with a different option maybe moving them to a different source that has a better quality water until you can get something else in place. Obviously we have you know hauling waters and option even though it's not ideal. And now there's some several programs that have been at or that are available. I mean the emergency assistance for livestock, honey bees and farm raised fish or elapsed through FSA on that one. There is potential to for it to cover water transportation costs if you're hauling water. So the big one in North Dakota that was recent this this past month was reactivated as the drought disaster livestock water supply project assistance program to the state water commission. And that one approves up to three projects on an individual ranch and up to $4,500 per project and those projects can be range from tanks wells, tapping into rural water supplies, pasture taps pipelines pipeline extension so we've had some comments that I don't won't be able to get a weld somebody out to drill a well necessarily but there are other projects that you can apply for under that opportunity. The best thing to do is reach out to your local FSA, because for that program you do have to be excluded from assistance through FSA. So reach out to them and they can step you through the process and find the program that's the best fit for you. Now, another thing that we've been hearing a lot of is that there's many ranchers are buying hay and other feeds to compensate for reuse forage production. Jana, what do you ranchers need to think about and consider when they're when they're purchasing feeds. As you guys all know that's a complicated question I could probably spend about an hour talking about that but I guess, you know, first and foremost, you need to consider what your goals are for your supplement are you truly looking to supplement or make up for some type of a nutrient deficiency or are you really looking for something to substitute for lack of forage and so that will really dictate what type of supplement will best fit your needs and so that's really important to evaluate what your goals are and how much you're, you know, what your overall needs are going to be. I think it's really important to get a good inventory of things as quickly as you can figure out what your culling list is going to be how many animal units you're going to have to support and what those different production groups are. And I talk about this more as we go but we have a lot of people in the state in the same boat just because this thing is so widespread. And so, as everybody knows when there are a lot of people looking for a limited resource the price just keeps going up and we already have high commodity prices and therefore there's no indication that that's going to change. So I think just really be an honest with yourself about the situation, figuring out what your options might be and getting some pricing and availability options figured out early is going to be better than trying to wait. Obviously, types of supplements will vary based on those forage conditions, and we do have some good resources as far as figuring out whether you need a protein or energy supplement or both if animals need to be completely removed from the native pasture, you know, we always need to be thinking about range land health. So you don't want to just keep them out there and and keep hammering your native grasses. If you're trying to do a total replacement maybe there's an option to get them into a dry lot situation or something like that so I guess just you know it's really important to try to think creatively, talk to neighbors and other people in the area see if there might be some options for some crop residue grazing or maybe there's you know at later on in the season there's some unharvested crops that people might be willing to let you graze or hay. We will have that CRP option hopefully sooner rather than later so I guess just looking around and trying to find those maybe hidden gems as far as what your resources might be. Thank you Jana. So Carl, when we're, when we're talking about buying hay and lots of people buying hay but maybe with the costs of hauling costs of hey, what other feed sources should people be considering? Well, we're lucky in North Dakota we have a lot of feed resources that are being produced through our mills and plants on a routine basis, whether it's a drought year or not we're sending semi loads and rail car fulls of product out of state and these are like wheat midlinks or wheat mids, distillers grains, dried distillers grains. We produce almost enough out of these plants in a year to feed half of our cow herd in North Dakota. It's amazing how much production we have unfortunately that product also has to be shipped to other locations because we don't normally use it in the year like this. So while the product might be here it's already spoken for and while there's people are looking for other products they're pricing it up accordingly just like corn prices going up. So when we're, usually this conversation starts with the issue of feed price getting pretty high what else can I find? And at one time used to be co-products would be the thing to go ahead and look at. Well, co-products have increased their price. So they're not really getting any more competitive. Corn at $200 a ton matches wheat mids at $180 a ton and they might be trading at $200 a ton. So all of a sudden the price of these feeds are no longer the consideration of such it's really high for all of them. So then we come back to the issue of what can we just get for feed and now becomes a supply issue and a lot of these feeds are already booked for other locations. I had a producer call this morning trying to think about feeds that he could get in six months from now because the current demand is taking product away right now. So he's hoping he can get squeezed in when somebody drops off for whatever reason. So to sum it up we need co-products. We do have a lot of co-products available in North Dakota. That's if you want to go to the mill to get it. The other option is to go to our feed manufacturers. They're usually the consumers of these feeds and they pre-priced and pre-book and they've been able to somewhat keep their prices down but their prices have gone up to just like the corn price adds. So we ask about alternatives to hey alternatives can be co-products, it can be manufactured feeds, although certainly work. But there's one more thing I think you need to put a little bit of hope in this whole thing is farmers are out planning right now and if there's filled crops, those filled crops can turn into feed reinforces for livestock producers. We don't know what they'll be. We don't know how well they'll be. We might be concerned about nitrates in those feeds but at least the opportunity's there. So we don't need to completely lose it overnight here knowing that we've got a drought sterness in the face. There is an option to do. And the other option that you need to think about is the selling cows which nobody likes to visit about. Unless they're old dead cows or excuse me old killer cows or those types of things that need to be gone out of the herd anyway but your option is to reduce populations and that's a difficult decision. Most people rather buy feed and unfortunately feed prices are high. You've done a lot of research on annual forges for grazing in Hain. What options do you recommend for producers to consider and what considerations should they make during a drought? Sure. I mean there are a lot of options for annual forges whether it's a small grain type of forage like an oat or barley, your warm season forage is like a millet or a sorghum sedan. This year and I've had a number of calls the last two weeks on what should we seed when we know that water's going to be short. And so there are a couple of species or forage types that do better under dry conditions. We know we need rain to grow any kind of forage but the ones that seem to do better in the trials, forage barley tends to be one of our better options. It tends to be a little bit less more efficient in using water and that would be the one you'd be looking at seeding now. I mean and so think about if you're going to be short of forage think about what you're going to seed now because you want to try and capture what moisture we do get in the month of May. So the forage barley seems to be my one of the one choice for a cereal crop, followed by forage oats. The one that seems to be very effective on using water is the millets. And so whether you look at a foxtail millet, the one that I like the most in dry conditions is Siberian millet. The other one that followed that would be the German millet. So my two go to right now are a forage barley and a foxtail millet Siberian will do my best options to scavenge for water if I was to make a choice right now. Thank you, Kevin. Janna, are there any other consider, oh, no, we're going to backtrack. So Zach, what should ranchers consider when providing supplemental feed on rangeland. Yeah, I think producers really have to keep in mind what their physiological stage of their cow herd is particularly right now. If we're talking about cows that calved in January, February, March, we're entering the 60 to 90 days post calving. That's going to be peak lactation requirements and our highest energy and protein requirements occurring now so as we talk about delaying turnout on pastures and availability of whatever hey we have if we haven't utilized a lot of the resources already last fall. Really have to keep in mind what what stage you're at bit and then kind of match that with your resources so for those that may be calved in April and May, you're going to be looking at peak lactation. At pasture turnout, which which might be okay in this in these drought conditions early on but but as we know that that plants going to mature a little bit earlier potentially with these drought conditions and so having an idea of where your physiological stages going into the grazing season is going to help you make those trigger points when when we talk about supplementation and when to start that supplementation so you using body condition scores score of you know the scale one to nine, helping you establish where your cows are post calving right now as we look into going into the breeding season and trying to understand if we're at that five five and a half. Right now, of course, we may lose some condition after calving but certainly don't want to be in a situation where we have thin cows going into breeding and if we do have that situation. We really do need to incorporate some supplementation to help those cows into breeding as we know if we elevate that plane of nutrition, going into breeding and keep that energy balance positive, regardless of that condition we can help those cows in that breeding season help with that exception right so I think having a good understanding of some timely body conditions for as we move through this, these drought conditions is critical in order to kind of help evaluate when we need to supplement and then it really comes down to what are we going to try to supplement and is that going to be something we try to extend our grazing season with. I think about co products such as such as distillers grains, we can sometimes see distillers grains will actually that high protein is actually what's limiting in those forages on pasture and so as we move through that grazing season, supplementing high protein feed is actually the limiting nutrient, and so we can actually increase digestibility on pasture which increases intake so for talking about trying to stretch our grazing out. We have to consider that that that high protein source may actually increase intake on pasture and so utilizing maybe wheat midlings or some other co products that are actually high fiber digestion or really digestible fiber is going to increase that energy content for those cows which is going to help producers through the breeding season potentially adding condition, if we're already lacking condition from last fall going going out to grazing now so I think kind of keeping in mind the source of supplementation whether that be that high fiber or a protein source as well as we talk about corn supplementation and low levels of corn supplementation may be okay at certain times, but but we do know as we increase that corn supplementation really counteracts some of the digestion that occurs out on pasture so kind of limits our energy intake at those higher inclusion levels so really kind of talking about sources you have available and basing that on those prices relative even though all those prices are high, and kind of understanding those times that you're going to need some supplementation and working through that, and then I think stretching and getting the most needs to as Jenna alluded to, possibly some some early weaning or dry lotting situations, and so utilizing that and then we're really talking about going from supplementing the cow to supplementing the calf so that's going to very based on the producers, you know, facilities and what their capabilities are, whether you can utilize that but maybe something of interest, especially for younger females that might be battling some condition as we go into breeding, consider feeding or early weaning and when I say that around that maybe 90 days of age or 150 days of age something, maybe that 90 days prior to breeding game those calves off those younger females at least, feeding those calves separate which will require feed resources, but overall would, you know, benefit and hopefully improve those young females in terms of conception rates as we look at possibly a long term drought situation. Zach, could you provide an example of a high fiber feed source. Yeah. So, maybe some producers are familiar or probably I imagine several, you know, could be supplementation of some alfalfa that that tends to act in a way that similar to some high fiber supplementation or high digestible fiber, as well as providing, as we know, higher level of crude protein, soybean holes can also be a high fiber supplement that that provides that energy as well as wheat middlings or wheat mids. And so those are kind of some of the, the, yeah, some of the basic energy, high energy, without without increasing that starch content that we might get with with corn. Thank you, Zach, Jana. Are there any other considerations for rancher selecting a supplemental feeding strategy. Obviously it always comes down to costs right so it's really important to think about not only cost per ton, but when thinking about, you know, whether you're looking at protein or energy or what, or both or what your primary nutrient is that you're trying to supply. A really direct comparison of your different options based on cost per pound of nutrients is important and we do have a feed cost calculator available on our website that will help you do that. That one also does include transportation costs which is important, especially if you're looking at getting things from out of our region, or even just a distance across the state. And other things that you need to factor in, are there going to be additional costs, you have to create some storage of some kind. What about delivery costs, I mean how far away are the cows going to be, how frequently you have to supplement and things like that. You know, there's a lot of research on frequency of supplementation and, and there's some advantages with protein supplements because we don't have to eat those daily as you would with. You know, more of an energy supplement that might have a little more starch, we can have to supply that on a regular basis, just to keep that, that rumen functioning. Those rumen microbes functioning at, at normal levels and avoid disruption. So, but with protein they can recycle nitrogen back to the rumen and those bugs and then create microbial protein which the cow can use so don't have to feed protein supplement every day. So that's something to kind of factor into just depending on what your needs are. And I guess just a couple other things. This might be a great time point to think about, maybe incorporating an ionophore. It's not something we think about a lot in a forage situation but it has been used with grazing cattle and you typically see around eight to 12% improvement in feed utilization. So you can utilize those through liquid feeds or a lot of times in a mineral mixture. Some commercial feeds also contain an ionophore so there's lots of options for that and they're really pretty cost efficient and they will definitely give you a return, just in terms of efficiency and performance in your grazing cows so those are a couple other things to keep in mind. Thanks, Jana. You know we've talked a lot a bit about strategies for extending our feeding. But we're going to look at calling strategies and some producers are already calling their herd, getting ready for the drought and so Lisa, can you give us some some strategies that producers can look at and developing a good solid calling program. Kevin I think there are several strategies producers can use and I really encourage producers to think about a long term calling strategy, one that it not only suits their needs today in a very stressful time but one that suits their herd in a long term to improve that herd. And when you do that it helps you build a list of potential calls depending what's going on and so on that list you'll have some cows that are going to go no matter what. And then you'll have some cows that go depending how bad it gets right and so I think it's a really nice way to improve the quality of your herd and you know, potentially the economic viability of your herd well as you improve that quality for whatever your goals are and so first I would encourage producers to establish what those goals are. You know all of our herds are different we're all in different spots. What's, what's a goal for my herd may be different than Dr stuck is as is different for our herd at Central Grasslands. And so you need to establish that. And then I start with the stuff that's easy. So the easy things for me are the open or dry cows, and then the honorary cows and you know I dislike cows that have bad dispositions enough that they're always first on my list I don't care how good their calves are. The cattle with bad dispositions hurt people hurt other livestock and cost us money in the system, and they have increased bruising and in decreased efficiency throughout and so I just think that they're the easy call. In times of dry drought, or flooding, however you may want to look at that because we typically deal with the opposite during flooding right. We're still short of feed and we're still short of other resources, those cows that are open or not bred or dry, I think are the next easy thing then I start to look at cows that aren't paying the bills. So they're they're not doing their part to return something to the herd. And in the scheme of things if cows are all given the same chance to be productive and some are less productive, especially over time. It's just one year but several years. I start to look at that. I would look next probably a cow's teeth and Dr. Steckel will say nobody wants to mouth cows Lisa yes I know I grew up in an auction market did not love ever mouthing cows in an auction market, but when you're in a tight situation not all old cows should go to town. And if some of those cows are still productive still have decent teeth, I would keep them in the herd and get rid of those that are becoming poor mouthed or gummers, having poor teeth situations, especially if they're going to have to fight to get some forage. You know those teeth if they're if they're pretty much on the gummer track. That's going to be a bad situation. We need to look at our thin cows, Zach and Jana and Carl have all talked about what the consequences of thin cows are in times of abundant feed and abundant forage. Maybe we can give them a few more groceries and sort them out but in times of shortage. That becomes a bigger challenge and we know that those cows are less zapped to rebreat in a timely fashion. Chances are their calves are not going to wean off at the same weight and so they're going to add some stresses to the system. Then I move into what I call convenience traits though I never think of them as convenience traits and those are cows with poor udders and poor feet. And you know in some herds we can't get rid of every cow with bad feet and bad udders because it's most of the herd. So you need to establish what your goals are for the short term and you know work on that and say okay this set of cows that having had udders that didn't meet my my plan, their feet are bad and you know I know that's tough and it's a long long long term strategy. And then personally for me, I would start looking at the cows that cause me troubles. When you're having to haul water and maybe supplemently feed or move cows to pastures that are far away farther away than you're used to being in. I, I would get rid of those cows that are fence crawlers. You know, those that like to mall their calf like to not take their calf like to take their buddy's calf on a repeated basis and move them out of the system. I've talked about you know, liquidating our entire herds and I that's an easy step to make and I think for some producers that's maybe where they're thinking but I saw a meme on Facebook here a few days ago and I actually have it on my phone so if you'll give me a chance to look at it so I don't screw it up. Because don't do something permanently stupid because you're template temporarily upset, and I'm going to rephrase that to don't do something permanently or long term poor. In terms of economics to your herd, because you're temporarily stressed out maybe in a bad place and you know I think you need to think about the economics of culling a significant part of your herd. Because you're still going to have fixed costs that you need, need to cover. And so, in the economic world we call that contribution margin, and you know I just ran some numbers and so if you really have a revenue of $100,000 in the of a herd of 100 cows and a net income from that $100,000 and some variable costs that are about $40,000 and fixed costs that are $50,000 and these are just numbers I picked. For every herd number that you remove from that herd, you're taking significant amount of income out. And so, if you go from 100 head down to and remove those and go down to 99 head that net income really drops quickly. And so, I encourage people to really think long and hard about what those numbers look like in your operation before you start making those big decisions because trying to cover your fixed costs. And if you're in a low fixed cost operation, maybe that's easy but if you're in a higher fixed cost operation. That's going to become an expensive route to covering those. So, I probably went a little beyond how I'm going to call but I think, thinking long term about that's pretty important for the viability of your operation. Thanks Lisa and you kind of led into our next question which is looking at the economics of calling and so you know at the research station we already sold all of our heifers and cows that lost their calves or something happened so our strategy was the open ones went first and so Tim, you know we want to talk about we had producers that are selling replacement heifers, but should they think about the markets or look at strategies. We can look at when it comes to herd reduction, and think about as a drought goes farther in the season. Well that change as with the drop continues through the summer months. Okay, well you know there's both long term and short term issues you yeah we are selling a lot of heifers right now and actually this time in the year we usually do sell a lot of heifers because the steers are have already went to feed lots but we are selling more normal due to the drought. The number of cattle produces North Dakota are developing replacement heifers is a value added enterprise. It's interesting on January 1 we had the fifth largest number of replacement heifers ever since 1920 records and five out of the last 10 years we've had top 10 numbers of replacement heifers but one of the reasons producers are doing that is because it gives us a lot of management flexibility when we have good moisture we keep them and breed them maybe have even more than enough for North Dakota hopes of going to other states in a drought year like now we sell can sell them to feed lots before they go in with a bowl and the good news that there is that there's a good market for feeder cattle we're down 700,000 head from last year as of April 1, but the bad news is the price is going down probably more so to the increase in corn prices than forced selling but you know a couple of issues there then we get into the shorter term one is when you do decide to sell something for sure check with your auction market as early as possible and don't just haul them in there and dump them at a sale more and more now we're going to see auction markets holding special sales and maybe at some of these they just want cow calf pairs or or bread cattle and and maybe will hold the special way up cow sales later and all these issues so check with your auction market they can give you tips on appropriate sorting what they need information they need to to help them merchandise your cattle they even like to advertise particular the pairs and so on in advance and then you know as we go along I agree with the others we need to sell our least productive animals first and and the main thing is like the others mentioned that we have a goal in mind and some a step by step process depending off the drought gets worse so you know have a have a plan and and I agree with Lisa we need a goal of keeping a productive base of a cow herd for when it starts raining make sure that what we have out there in grass has a productive calf with them to sell so I'll quit there I see we're you know running short on time. Thank you Tim, so shifting gears Jerry we discussed water quality of it and the health concerns with that but what other livestock health concerns are you hearing about from veterinarians and ranchers right now. Well, I don't mind Miranda. We still always keep our eyes especially in certain geographical areas about anthrax when it gets really dry cows kind of try to find whatever plant they can find sometimes and sometimes that uncovers these spores, or eggs that these anthrax bacteria produce and and so anthrax is going to be. The other thing that happens in dry conditions when cattle graze closer to the ground, their ability to pick up a greater number of parasites enters into this equation. So that can be an issue in certain places parasites not only suppress appetite but performance is hindered milk production cows is hindered. And then they actually can tend to be a little bit immunosuppressive at the same time. So those are a couple other things that that come to mind. One of the things we've learned some from some work we did a couple years ago with going back to the summer pneumonia issue is that whenever there's some type of sorting or synchronizing cows for heat. I mean synchronizing cows for AI programs. When you're sorting separating cows and calves. It kind of occurs at the same time, when much of the passive immunity that a calf is acquired. There is decline to the point where they're a little bit more susceptible. And so the stress of the sorting that the decline in passive immunity is kind of the time when we see things popping up regarding summer pneumonia. I will say one other thing too and I'm a little bit skeptical of diving into some of the bacteria and viral components of some of these things one of the, one of the pathogens it's kind of trying to make a name for itself if I could use that terminology is a is just like it did in human beings we've had coronaviruses for a long time in, in livestock and in cattle. But coronaviruses was always kind of relegated to the enteric system in other words cost calf scours tend to see a little bit more on the, on the respiratory side with coronavirus. I don't know what to make of it. There's always something that sets these gives those pathogens a chance to express themselves with an animal so I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but you might hear a little bit more about coronavirus as it relates to respiratory disease, going forward. Are there any other things that we should be watching for as a drought persists I think you touched on a number of them but is there anything else. Um, yeah, some of the, some of the bad things that happen are when cattle are searching for water and the drier it gets and the deeper the mud gets, you know, even things like when we don't check cattle often enough. You can actually have cattle stuck in wet spots, and they can't extricate themselves whether it's an adult cow or, or a calf so so crazy things tend to happen under these circumstances and so I guess in times like this Miranda, we need to be a little bit more diligent about checking as often as we can and I know for for many of us that's almost a one person job every day. In order to see all the cattle you want to see but it probably behooves us in years like this to be very diligent on checking these livestock. Great point. Jerry when we're marketing cows to you might want to mention you know we didn't think we were going to be we have to so may talk about withdrawal. Oh yeah good point Tim thank you. So what Tim's referring to is that when we use products and probably the one that we think about and cattle there out of grass is something like a pour on a deck to Max for I'll just use that for an example. The withdrawal time in that it's like 45 days. And so let's say something happens from the time that you put that product on an animal and for some reason that was the one with the bad foot Lisa are the one that you call on rate I use the term ornery I don't know if there's a difference between ornery and ornery but anyway. Before you send that to market because you don't know where that cows going. If for some reason he goes to slaughter. And you've got deck to Max or on board you got a 45 day withdrawal that needed to be adhered to so Tim thanks for that reminder it's very important. When we are calling livestock, even calves for that matter, but certainly for these cold cows going to market. There was a question I know for another Jerry as a follow up as you touched on pneumonia. Have you heard of any cases of pneumonia yet. I'd say that I have yet doesn't mean they're not occurring already it is a little bit early for us to see some of them on us. You know as many cab for many producers the calving season and shifted. Many have shifted to a later calving season. So April and May calving so it's a little bit early to see some of these summer and ammonia is that I'm sure we'll we'll see a little bit later on so just be aware of that. Maybe even make provisions for treating those calves and I know that's not an easy situation to get in because sometimes a calf is several miles away from a treatment facilities. So if you're an expert roper, you can treat it right where it is. If you're not, and you're just guessing where the role, you're going to cause more stress on those calves. Then they're not leaving alone. So it, it, it, I mean that's where we end discussions about using other methods of treating calves on pastures like dart guns which I'm not in favor of, but sometimes using them appropriately and that's a whole different discussion, maybe necessary to treat the calf right where he's at. Very point Jerry, you know we had a did have a question that come through and I want to take this question because I actually experienced this. So for Adnan, the question was, do you know how this year's index compares to 1988 drought which I did actually a mold enough I experienced the 88 drought. So as a question to go back to some of the older. How do you compare this to the 8889 drought. A kind of answer that question written but I can say it verbally as well. The reason why we don't have that index for 1988 that index depends on the drought monitor drought categorization. Since that's the strategy is implemented in 2000 and on and 19 any years prior to that, unfortunately we cannot implement that algorithm. So, in other words, I don't have any. Well, I can tell you it was dry and it was hot in 88 and so hopefully it's not quite as bad. But I tell you what, in 8887 was not a dry fall. So we are in the worst condition this year, because we were much a driver for dry fall and last last fall. Kevin I might jump in here just a little bit as well as old as I am Jerry. Yes, I do remember that summer. Yes, and there was consequences from that summer but anyway, I do want to mention things like pink eye and foot rock, where you get cattle that are searching for water and money, money conditions and maybe that increases the risk of foot rot and when cows cows gather together. Now add none did say it may not be all that warm early on but once warm temperatures calm and sometimes humidity along with that, we had a bunching up and that the transmission of some of these pink eye organisms from animal to animal, certainly increases and both those diseases both those bacteria infections are not easy to manage on pasture, but again it's just being very diligent diligent. If you have to treat an animal because if you can treat an animal that cuts down the risk of spreading it to others as well so those two other things can sure occur and in any summer and maybe even more in a dry summer. One more quick thing in conjunction with that Jerry, you know a lot of people I was thinking about costs and feed costs and how everybody's probably going to be spending a lot more, and then they'd probably like to, but one place not to skimp is on your mineral and vitamin program. Because of those health concerns and other potential issues that go along with low quality forage, making sure that that you've got a good mineral program in place can really help prevent some of those things, obviously some of them are really tied to environment so we can't completely eliminate the risk of those things but but just knowing kind of what your pastures might contain and making sure your supplement is complimenting your forages is really important. As a plug we do have a mineral program offered through NDSU and SDSU that will be available this summer where we can help you evaluate your forages so that would definitely be something to contact me about if you'd like more information on that. So as a follow up channel I'm reminded of the vitamin A issues surrounding dry forages that are drought stressed pastures that are drought stressed. I'm convinced we have seen some things related to vitamin A from poor quality forages that were fed throughout the winter and so to Miranda's point, we hope that these mineral supplements were providing contain the vitamin A that's available to the animal because this is one of those years That was a great point and I think as we end the webinar this afternoon and Trish I do agree with you as well. So I do want to thank you for joining us today and thank all the panelists for their time and their expertise in these in these just so much to cover on the livestock industry during a drought and we do appreciate your time. So we want to join us again for our next one is planned for May 27 the same time so please reach out to your local extension agent with any drought related questions and for any any other information you may need related to the next webinar and this webinar as well.