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 welcome Big Iron Unreserved Online Auctions as our newest sponsor of the daily Email. Their next auction is Wednesday, July 14- featuring Low Hour, Farmer Owned Equipment. Click here for their website to learn more about their Online Farm Equipment Auctions.

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.

It's widely believed that the estate tax - commonly known as the death tax - disproportionately hits agriculture. Ninety-seven percent of American farms and ranches are owned and operated by families - and the tax is considered one of the leading causes of the breakup of multigenerational family farms and ranches.

"This is not a tax on the 'wealthy elite.' The wealthy can afford accountants and estate planners to help them evade the tax. This is a death warrant for small-to-medium sized family businesses," Foglesong continued. "Farmers and ranchers are often forced to sell land, equipment, or the even the entire ranch just to pay off tax liabilities. This is money that could otherwise be reinvested to grow the family business and hand it down to future generations."

Click on the LINK below to jump to our website to read more- and also hear from Colin Woodall of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Woodall is their lead lobbyist on the Hill- and is very concerned that the votes won't be there to anything done on the Death Tax until after the first of the year- when it will become very expensive to die if you have a farm or ranch to pass to someone else in the family.

Click here for the latest Beef Buzz- this one focusing on the Death Tax.

The 2010 meeting is including cutting edge research and technology, and meeting planners promised to convention goers that they would be exposed to new and progressive concepts as well as traditional Oklahoma agriculture, showing them a diversity of agriculture enterprises, amazing them with breathtaking landscapes, and leaving them with a clear understanding of Extension done the Oklahoma way.

There are some 32 tours planned for extension personnel coming in from all across the United States- from showing off the ecology of the Illinois River to the Angus and Limousin Cattle of the Express Ranch to the in Tulsa tours that include a visit to National Steak and Poultry. Convention coordinator Bob Woods has done an incredible job putting all of these pieces together over the last couple of years- with all of that work now coming together and heading for the home stretch of being done.
Many Oklahoma commodity groups are a part of this event- helping welcome these extension professionals to the state this week.

Click here for more details of their program that is underway in Tulsa- running through July 15.

For our spring planted crops- "Crop conditions improved slightly from the week prior due to the ample rainfall which also provided for considerable crop progress. Corn silking reached 82 percent complete, a 29 point increase from the week prior and nineteen points ahead of normal. Virtually all sorghum was emerged by Sunday, 19 points ahead of the five-year average. Sorghum headed reached 16 percent complete, seven points ahead of normal. Virtually all soybeans were emerged by week's end, 15 points ahead of normal, while 21 percent of the crop had bloomed, a 14 point increase from the week prior. Peanuts pegging reached 60 percent complete by week's end and 18 percent of the plants were setting pods. Cotton squaring increased substantially to reach 74 percent complete, 23 points ahead of the five-year average. Eighteen percent of the cotton crop was setting bolls by week's end."

Click on the LINK below for this week's Oklahoma Crop Weather update- which also has a statistic that is near and dear to the hearts of those of us that love watermelon- harvest of the green melons is now underway- 5% done here in the state for 2010.

Click here for the latest Oklahoma Crop Weather Update- as issued on Monday afternoon.

The US Cotton crop also is looking is really good shape- 67% in good to excellent shape versus 65% a week ago- and again, like milo, much much better than last year in early July when the rating for our US Cotton was just 43% in good to excellent condition.

The US Soybean crop ratings slipped one percentage point from last week- 65% this week versus 66% one week ago. Missouri seems to have as many problems as any state with soybeans this year- 21% of their crop is in poor to very poor condition.

Click here for the entire rundown from the USDA Crop Progress Report from Monday July 12.

Big Iron is now starting to gain international attention, in fact, the second highest bidder on a 2008 Claas 900 Forage Harvester was from Israel. Other items included a John Deere 9500 combine with 1383 separator hours that sold for $62,000.00, as well as over 130 tractors. Auctions are held on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month which sets the next sale date for tomorrow- July 14, 2010. That auction will feature 436 items including late model 8420, 8320, and 8400 John Deere tractors plus a Ford MX-150 loader tractor and a 5240 International tractor.

Click on the LINK below for the Big Iron website- and one of your choices there is a link to learn how you can sell on the next Big Iron sale at the end of this month. You can also call 1-800-937-3558 and get set up for a Territory Manager to come get your equipment consigned for the next Big Iron sale.
For this week- the first of the closing times for the Big Iron auction tomorrow is at 10 AM- so be sure and go and check out what's available for this month.

Click here to jump to the Big Iron site and details of their July 14 sale.

It does pay to precondition your calves- "As producers are weaning their fall-born calves, it's a good time to look at retained ownership options. Utilizing OSU's Retained Ownership Decision Tool, we looked at retaining fall-born, long-weaned steers through preconditioning, grass stocker and feedlot. Calves are assumed to be weaned on July 15 and weigh 641 lb. Last week's Oklahoma City price was $115.36 for unweaned calves weighing 622 lb. after shrink. Subtracting expenses for sales, weaned steers are expected to return $711/head to the cow-herd. If instead those steers are preconditioned for 45 days, the producer can expect to sell a 698 lb calf, after shrink, at $120.94 (August) plus a $3 premium for preconditioning. So, the calf earns an $856 check after a 1% death loss. The producer will have another $87/head in expenses, so preconditioning nets about $59/hd. There is an important lesson to be learned from the price difference between a bawling calf and a weaned calf. The market is currently discounting bawling calves by over $6/cwt. compared to weaned calves of the same weight. Even waiting a week post-weaning can make you money."

It's very uncertain if you can make money running weaned calves on pasture as a retained ownership strategy right now- and you almost certainly lose money if you retain ownership into the feedlot. Click on the LINK below to read what Peel and DeVoyst have to say about these scenarios here for the summertime of 2010.

Click here for more on your retained ownership options for 2010.

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Ron Wayland, longtime Limousin breeder and a fellow classmate of mine in Class One of the Oklahoma Ag Leadership Program. Jim Bob Hendrickson, President of the Oklahoma Limousin Association tells us that "He died suddenly Saturday night from heart problems. Ron has been battling heart problems for almost 2 years. He had 2 very serious surgeries done in Houston in the last year or so." Services are in Shattuck at the High School this Thursday at 2:00 PM. A Ron Wayland Scholarship fund has been established at the Shattuck National Bank, PO box39, Shattuck,Ok 73858.

Finally, as we write this- Jeff Krehbiel is prepping for surgery at MD Anderson in Houston- a surgery that will take about 6 hours as they attempt to remove more cancer that has come back after surgery last September. Pray for this Oklahoma wheat industry leader, his wife Karen and their entire family during this crucial day in Jeff's fight to beat this disease. Click on the link below for the Care Pages that tell of this almost year long battle now by this wonderful Oklahoma farm family.

Click here for the Check on Jeff Care pages.

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.