Presented by

 

Here is your daily Oklahoma farm and ranch news update. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Featured Story:

Prospective Plantings Catches Trade Off Guard with Five Million More Acres of Corn Than a Year Ago

 

 
American farmers expect to plant an additional 5.6 million acres of corn in 2016, a six percent increase from 2015, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Prospective Plantings report released on Thursday. If realized, total corn plantings in the United States would total 93.6 million acres for the highest planted acreage since 2013. Notably, it would also be the third-largest U.S. corn acreage planted since 1944. The USDA number is well above trade expectations for this report.

Beyond the surprisingly large corn number- there is a lot of other information in the two reports released by USDA yesterday- click here to go and read more- and grab our links to the actual reports- Supply-Demand as well as the Prospective Plantings.

Some of the Oklahoma numbers released within this report are very illuminating-

Oklahoma will increase corn acres 16% over last year to 360,000 acres.

That may come at the expense of grain sorghum acres- Oklahoma is the third largest sorghum state in the US, with expected plantings of 420,000 acres this year, off five percent from 2015.

The honeymoon for Oklahoma canola plantings is over, with canola acres pegged at 90,000 acres this spring, off 36% from the 140,000 acres of a year ago and off 67% from the 270,000 acres of 2014.

Oklahoma farmers are looking to cut soybean acres this year by 11% to 350,000 acres.

The Oklahoma hard red winter wheat plantings total five million acres this year, off six percent from a year ago.

Oklahoma is one of several states expanding acres for cotton, with water available from Lake Altus Lugert a major incentive for farmers in that irrigation district, after several years of having no water available. The Oklahoma cotton acreage is predicted to be 270,000 acres, up 26% from 2015.

OSU's  Kim Anderson Discusses  Huge Jump in Corn Acres- and More From USDA Reports 

 

Oklahoma State University Extension Grain Marketing Specialist Dr. Kim Anderson says that the pair of USDA reports released of interest to the grain markets on Thursday showed the market watchers right on target with portions of the reports- and badly off on several of the key numbers in the Prospective Plantings Report.


Dr. Anderson, in talking with Dave Deken for this weekend's SUNUP broadcast that will be seen on OETA, says the acres that farmers are saying they will plant to corn are far bigger than what the trade was expecting- over 93 million acres predicted by USDA versus the pre report average guess of just over 90 million acres.  The estimate from USDA was five million acres more than what was planted in 2015.

Click here to read more- and to listen to Kim's view of the USDA reports, the condition of the 2016 winter wheat crop and price prospects for Oklahoma wheat as we near harvest.

AND- we also have the details for this week's SUNUP program that you will be able to go and see on OETA.

Drought Monitor Creeps Up to Almost 20% Drought This Week

 

Drought continues to expand in Oklahoma, as you can see in the graphic below. The latest Drought Monitor shows that almost twenty percent of Oklahoma now sits in Moderate Drought, the lowest level of drought measured by Uncle Sam. Another 39% of Oklahoma has abnormally dry conditions, which is almost twice as much land mass in the abnormally dry status as just one week ago.


Oklahoma does remain in much better shape than a year ago, when over 68% of the state was in moderate or worse drought- and over 37% of the state was in extreme to exceptional drought as we ended March in 2015.





Click here for our Drought Monitor update- where we also have the latest graphic on possible rain amounts the next seven days.

Just Call Oklahoma the Sow State- Roy Lee Lindsey Explains All

 

The Oklahoma pork industry is making a strong shift from market hogs to breeding stock according to the recent USDA Hogs and Pigs Report released March 25. The state's breeding herd increased nine percent since March 2015, making Oklahoma the fifth largest sow state in the U.S.


Oklahoma Pork Council Executive Director Roy Lee Lindsey said this is an expected trend as more processing capacity - up to 10 million head per year - is being proposed in the Midwest.


"We know we can raise baby pigs, and then we can ship them to the Midwest to have them finished," Lindsey said. "Our goal is to make Oklahoma the best state in the country to raise baby pigs."

We sat yesterday and reviewed this continuing trend with Roy Lee- and also talked about the discussion with USDA over their unwillingness to fight to protect the sale of the "Other White Meat" assets from the National Pork Producers Council to the Pork Board- and we got a quick update from him on State Question 777 as well.

Click here to go and hear our full conversation with Roy Lee- and be watching Saturday morning as he is our guest during the regular In the Field Segment as seen on KWTV News9 at around 6:40 AM.

 

Governor's Awards Handed Out at Ag Day in Oklahoma

 
A total of four awards were handed out on Wednesday afternoon this week- in our Thursday email- we featured the Ag Hall of Fame Award Winner- Dr. Clint Roush of Custer County.

We have feature stories on the other three honorees this morning on our website that we wanted to point you to- including:

Dr. Brett Carver, winner of the Outstanding Public Service in Agriculture Award.

Randy Davis, winner of the Agriculture Environmental Stewardship Award.

and Quintus Herron, winner of the Outstanding Legacy in Agriculture Award.

Want to Have the Latest Energy News Delivered to Your Inbox Daily?

In Case You Missed it- Ted Schroeder Talks Volatility and Variability in Cattle Markets

 
Cattle buyers and sellers have been experiencing a fluctuation of sorts, not just in the live cattle markets over the last eight months but also in their within-day trades.


The live cattle market volatility in the last year, but particularly in the last eight months, shows a major downturn in price, explained Kansas State University livestock economist Ted Schroeder. For example, live fed steers have gone from selling in the mid-$160s per hundredweight (cwt) about this time a year ago, dropped all the way to $115/cwt in late December 2015 and averaged $137/cwt the week of March 11, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service.


"That magnitude of price movement across just a few months and that kind of volatility is something we haven't seen historically in terms of total dollar magnitude in fed cattle markets," Schroeder said.

To read more about that Dr. Schroeder is seeing in the cattle markets in the next few months, click here.

Congrats to Kalyn!

 

The College of Agriculture at Oklahoma State University announced yesterday several top honors as the academic year is rapidly coming to a close.  Among the honors- CASNR has named Kayln McKibben the 2016 Outstanding Senior.

Kayln is a rancher's daughter from Wyandotte- and is planning on returning to the family operation- our paths have crossed multiple times- including when she was named first the Oklahoma State Beef Ambassador- then competed and won a spot on the National Beef Ambassador team.

Earlier this year- we caught up Kayln at the Noble Foundation booth at the Cattle Industry Convention in San Diego- where she gave a presentation on why she, as a Millennial, is making plans to go back to the ranch.

Here's a picture from that day- and you can click here to read our story from that day and hear our conversation with this extremely bright and personable young lady.

Our thanks to Midwest Farms Shows, P & K Equipment,  American Farmers & Ranchers, Stillwater Milling Company, Oklahoma AgCredit,  the Oklahoma Cattlemens Association, Pioneer Cellular, Farm Assure and  KIS Futures for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked here- just click on their name to jump to their website- check their sites out and let these folks know you appreciate the support of this daily email, as their sponsorship helps us keep this arriving in your inbox on a regular basis- at NO Charge!

 

 

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  

 

 

God Bless! You can reach us at the following:  

 

 

 

Oklahoma Farm Bureau is Proud to be the Presenting Sponsor of the Ron Hays Daily Farm and Ranch News Email