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- and their IPHONE App, which provides all electronic futures quotes is available at the App Store- click here for the KIS Futures App for your Iphone.

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 ofthe recent Southern Plains Farm Show as well as the Tulsa Farm Show held each December. Click here for the Midwest Farm Show main website to learn more about their lineup of shows around the country!

We invite you to listen to us on great radio stations across the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network weekdays- if you missed this morning's Farm News - or you are in an area where you can't hear it- click here for this morning's Farm news from Ron Hays on RON.

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.

In the case of the 2011 winter wheat crop, Charlie Swanson, General Manager for Coop Services out of Lawton reports that their Grandfield location in Tillman county took in a load of wheat (250 bushels) on Monday evening. That first load of 2011 wheat was 61.2 pounds on the test weight, 15.1% moisture and the farmer indicated that it was yielding 12 to 15 bushels per acre.

Gene Neuens with PCOM provided us the first report on winter canola. He tells us that the first load of canola was harvested in southwest Oklahoma on Monday and arrived this morning at the PCOM facility in Oklahoma City. Moisture was checked at 6%, there was 5% foreign matter and no green count.

Meanwhile, with the harvest of the 2011 Oklahoma Wheat Crop getting underway- it appears that includes the harvest of some wheat hay if there is enough plant material out there to mow down and bale up. Sasha Koch with Korner K Farms in the Weatherford, Oklahoma area sent us pictures of trying to get something out of their situation after the insurance adjuster predicted that if you tried to harvest this field for grain- you would get .2 bushels per acre- that's two tenths of one bushel per acre!

Click on the LINK below to take a look at their fields here at harvest time 2011.

Click here for pictures of the "Bale" option for the 2011 Oklahoma Wheat Harvest

The number we are most interested in will be the Crop Production numbers for the 2011 winter wheat crop. This will be our first look at how many bushels Uncle Sam thinks we are growing this year. Local estimates in Oklahoma and Texas predict that both states will have half as much wheat to harvest this year as we did a year ago, while the Kansas crop was predicted to be off 100 million bushels from a year ago, a drop of about thirty percent from 2010.

We will have details on the USDA reports on our website a little after 8 AM- including comments with Tom Leffler of Leffler Commodities- plus our own analysis of what the numbers may mean.

Click on the LINK below for our front page- be looking there for the crop report details later this morning.

Click here for our website's front page- www.OklahomaFarmReport.Com where we will be posting Crop Report information later on Wednesday morning

Nearly 300,000 acres of rice may not be planted due to flooding in the top U.S. rice producing state and 120,000 acres of winter wheat, representing about 22 percent of the state's wheat crop, may be abandoned just weeks from harvest, it said.

"We are seeing flood levels never seen before," said Randy Veach, a cotton, rice and soybean farmer from Manila (Mississippi County), who is president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau. "The effect to our state's commodity crops is staggering, and the entire impact can't be adequately determined for several months."
Veach noted the Farm Bureau's estimate does not include costs to repair infrastructure, farm equipment, loss of grain in storage bins, and repairs to farmland, which could reach well into the tens of millions of dollars.

Click here to read the full news release from Tuesday from the Arkansas Farm Bureau on the losses due to flooding

This year the live steer byproduct value as reported by USDA-AMS has been trading at record levels, with weekly values reaching a record high of $13.72 per cwt. (live steer basis) the week of April 22nd. On a monthly basis, byproduct values have increased each month since January 2010, with the average value for March at a record $13.35 per cwt. and $3.25 per cwt. above last year's. Thus far this year, the byproduct value has averaged 33% above a year ago. The driver behind the higher byproduct value is the hide, which accounts for about two-thirds of the total value. As of late-April, the year-to-date hide value was more than 20% above last year, with the value posted in March 25% higher than 2010's.

Click on the LINK below to read more- and to listen to today's Beef Buzz with Erica Rosa regarding the drop credits and the role they play in keeping cash cattle prices well north of a dollar per pound.
The Beef Buzz is heard daily on great radio stations across the region from the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network- and we have previous Beef Buzz shows on our website- click on the Beef Buzz button on the left hand side of any page on our website.

Click here for today's Beef Buzz with Erica Rosa of the LMIC- talking hide and offal values.

Fuel and feed are at the heart of American ethanol production today. As one of the largest feed producing segments in the US, the ethanol industry contends they are providing large volumes of highly nutritious livestock feed for domestic and international markets alike, this according to a new analysis from the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) entitled "Fueling a Nation; Feeding the World."


The RFA report points out that one third of every bushel of the corn used for ethanol comes back to the livestock industry in the form of mostly dried distillers grains (if you are close to the ethanol plant- they can be wet instead of dry which some people prefer to feed). Ethanol production requires only the starch portion of a corn kernel. The remaining protein, fat, fiber, and other nutrients are returned to livestock feeders.

According to the RFA report, America's ethanol producers supplied nearly 35 million metric tons (mmt) of livestock feed in the 2009/2010 marketing year (the agricultural marketing year is from September 1 to August 31 of the following year). By volume, such production is greater than the total amount of grain consumed by all of the beef cattle in the nation's feedlots.

Click here to feed more about this report- and we have the link to the full report in our story as well.

The trick is- Congress can't vote on these deals until the Obama Administration sends enabling legislation to Capitol Hill which would become the vote for ratification. The Chairman of the House Ag Committee, Congressman Frank Lucas, says "While we wait for passage, U.S. market share is slipping because our competitors are gaining ground with their own trade agreements."

In his weekly commentary from the House Ag Committee majority- Congressman Lucas promises to give the Obama Administration a take home message on Thursday regarding these free trade deals- "Get Er Done."

Click here to listen to and or read this week's Ag Minute on the status of the Free Trade Agreements which have still not been delivered to Conress for a vote.

Under the proposed work plan, the Service has laid out a schedule for making listing determinations for species that have been identified as candidates for listing, as well as for a number of species that have been petitioned for protection under the ESA. Once approved, the plan will enable the Service to again prioritize its workload based on the needs of candidate species, while also providing state wildlife agencies, stakeholders, and other partner's clarity and certainty about when listing determinations will be made.

Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes says that for the first time in years, this work plan will give the wildlife professionals of the Fish and Wildlife Service the opportunity to put the needs of species first and extend that safety net to those truly in need of protection, rather than having their workload driven by the courts.

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.