Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are proud to have KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for the free market quote page they provide us for our website or call them at 1-800-256-2555.

We are also excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they handle, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.

And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the just concluded Southern Plains Farm Show, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show. Click here for more on the December 2010 Tulsa Farm Show, including information on how you can be an exhibitor.

If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here.

When you look at the last two to three days- and you widen your focus- there has been HUGE amounts of rainfall from southern Oklahoma northward all the way into Nebraska. Several locations have matched those ten inch rainfall amounts found in Oklahoma County- including some spots in the Texas Panhandle just south of Perryton- as well as up north in Nebraska.

For the Texas Panhandle, northern Oklahoma and Kansas- the rains knock out harvest for one or more days. These are locations that had wheat ready to go- and will likely have a negative impact on wheat quality when we do get the combines into the field.

Further north in Nebraska, the excessive rains won't hurt the wheat, unless fields end up flooded or have standing water for multiple days- but it could help bring a flush of weeds into play which could make it more difficult to harvest a clean crop.

Click here for a snapshot of the last 72 hours across Oklahoma and the rainfall amounts seen at locations on the Oklahoma Mesonet.

We did make good progress on harvesting the 2010 wheat crop- jumping from 20% done the week before to 38% complete as we start this week. Oklahoma is lagging the five year average on wheat harvest, which is 46% by this date. The crop that remains is still being called in good to excellent condition- 70% in good to excellent condition. 22% fair and only 8% poor to very poor.

On wheat harvest numbers beyond Oklahoma- Texas has now completed 29% of their harvest- versus 36% a year ago and 39% the five year average. Kansas had just begun before rains have shut their farmers down- and they have just 1% of the crop done- versus the five average of 6%.

Click here for the USDA Crop Progress Numbers for a National Look at Crop Progress through Monday morning.

The problem was discovered in March when internal lesions were discovered on a Southern Colorado cow at a slaughter facility. Subsequent tracing and testing has led to the discovery of the additional positive cattle.

Officials says meat from the infected animals did not enter the food chain; commercially sold milk is pasteurized, killing bacteria with heat, so there is no public health concern when consuming pasteurized dairy products.

According to statistics released by the USDA and compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF), April pork/pork variety meat exports totaled 156,211 metric tons (344.4 million pounds) valued at $400.95 million, bringing the cumulative January-April total to 625,004 metric tons (1.38 billion pounds) valued at $1.51 billion. April beef plus beef variety meat exports totaled 82,827 metric tons (182.6 million pounds) valued at $311.3 million, bringing the cumulative 2010 total to 307,949 metric tons (678.9 million pounds) valued at $1.1 billion.

We have the details of both the pork and beef exports from the month of April- as exports continue to help underpin domestic live animal markets in a significant way. Click on the LINK below to read more.

Click here for more on the USMEF's analysis of the latest Meat Export Numbers for the United States.

Dr. Selk writes in his weekly Cow Calf Corner- "Many Oklahoma ranchers choose to breed the replacement heifers about a month ahead of the mature cows in the herd. In addition, they like to use a shortened 45 to 60-day breeding season for the replacement heifers. The next logical step is to determine which of these heifers failed to conceive in their first breeding season. This is more important today than ever before.
"As the bulls are being removed from the replacement heifers, this would be an ideal time to call and make arrangements with your local veterinarian to have those heifers evaluated for pregnancy in about 60 days. In two months, experienced palpaters should have no difficulty identifying which heifers are pregnant and which heifers are not pregnant (open). Those heifers that are determined to be "open" after this breeding season, should be strong candidates for culling. Culling these heifers immediately after pregnancy checking serves three very economically valuable purposes.

1) Identifying and culling open heifers early will remove sub-fertile females from the herd. Lifetime cow studies from Montana indicated that properly developed heifers that were exposed to fertile bulls, but DID NOT become pregnant were often sub-fertile compared to the heifers that did conceive. In fact, when the heifers that failed to breed in the first breeding season were followed throughout their lifetimes, they averaged a 55% yearly calf crop. Despite the fact that reproduction is not a highly heritable trait, it also makes sense to remove this genetic material from the herd so as to not proliferate females that are difficult to get bred.

2) Culling open heifers early will reduce summer forage and winter costs. If the rancher waits until next spring to find out which heifers do not calve, the pasture use and winter feed expense will still be lost and there will be no calf to eventually help pay the bills. This is money that can better be spent in properly feeding cows that are pregnant and will be producing a salable product the following fall.

3) Identifying the open heifers shortly after (60 days) the breeding season is over will allow for marketing the heifers while still young enough to go to a feedlot and be fed for the choice beef market. The grading change of several years ago has a great impact on the merchandising of culled replacement heifers. "B" maturity carcasses (those estimated to be 30 months of age or older) are very unlikely to be graded Choice and cannot be graded Select. As a result, the heifers that are close to two years of age will suffer a price discount. Currently non-pregnant, yearling 875 pound heifers (shortly after a breeding season) are selling for about $91 per cwt (Oklahoma National Stockyards). Therefore an 875 pound, culled replacement heifer is worth about $796. Non-pregnant two-year old cows are selling for about $65 to $70 per cwt. Open two-year old cows (those that could have been identified shortly after the breeding season) that weigh 1000 pounds would only sell for about $700 next spring.

The average expense for owning the cow is about $1 per day. So the total loss of keeping the open heifer would be about $200 in feed and forage and another $91 in lost value. The grand total expense for not culling open replacement heifers in today's market is about $291 per head. Therefore, it is imperative to send open cull heifers to the feedlot while they are young enough to be fed for 4 to 5 months and not be near the "B" maturity age group.

The meeting is designed to provide an understanding of the MIDAS project goals, strategy and approach to USDA senior level management, agency management, contract partners and FSA employees. The kick-off meeting, which is open to the public on the first day, Tuesday, June 29, will be in the Jefferson Auditorium in the USDA South Building, starting at 8:30 a.m. The meeting continues through July 1.

In announcing this meeting, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said - this upgrade will arm FSA employees with the tools, information and training they need to make it easier for those eligible for FSA programs to receive prompt, first-rate service.

Here are a few more details of the upcoming meeting that will detail how they will be getting up to speed on better customer service through technology.

In our Value Book- we look at some of the really BIG events of summer here in the state of Oklahoma- as well as having some really BIG deals from our advertiser partners.

Check out your copy of the RON Value Book- and if you have not received it yet- you can click on the LINK below and check out an electronic copy of the Book as well.

Click here for our Mid June Issue of the RON Value Book from the Radio Oklahoma Network.

We also invite you to check out our website at the link below to check out an archive of these daily emails, audio reports and top farm news story links from around the globe.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

Here are some links we will leave in place on an ongoing basis- Click on the name of the report to go to that link:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. <
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.