Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are pleased to have American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click here to go to their AFR web site to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!

It is also great to have as an annual sponsor on our daily email Johnston Enterprises- proud to be serving agriculture across Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. Johnston is proud to be an outlet for Trimble GPS Guidance and Precision Agriculture Solutions- Call Derrick Bentz at 580-732-8080 for details. For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website!

And we are proud to have P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy as one of our regular sponsors of our daily email update. P & K is the premiere John Deere dealer in Oklahoma, with ten locations to serve you, and the P & K team are excited about their new Wind Power program, as they offer Endurance Wind Power wind turbines. Click here for more from the P&K website.

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

As we move forward with canola and into these upcoming meetings, Peeper said it is important for those considering planting canola to know that it is no longer a risky crop to grow and prices are strong and holding for 2012 crop contracts.

Click on the LINK below to listen to the rest of our conversation with Dr. Tom Peeper on how canola finished up this crop season and the Canola Conference meetings. AND- we hope to see you this morning in Enid at the Hoover Building on the Garfield County Fairgrounds for the Winter Canola Conference. Remember- you can also attend the event in Lawton- it's set for tomorrow, July 20th.

Click here for more on Canola Conference and more from Dr. Peeper

You can hear Peterson's comments on the current wheat valuation- as well as how good of a year our wheat marketing efforts were last year- plus his thoughts on the Russian grain industry- click on the LINK below and check it out.

Click here for more information on wheat from Vince Peterson and US Wheat Associates

We also talked with the President of US Wheat Associates, Alan Tracy, about a variety of subjects as the 2011 US Wheat Summer Board of Directors meeting wound down in Tulsa on Monday.

Among the topics that Tracy covered-

The importance of Market Access Funds in keeping several dozen US Wheat Associates operatives in place all around the world;

the importance of the Free Trade Agreements to be ratified with South Korea and Columbia;

the 2010-2011 Marketing Year;

the remarkable year that US Wheat had in Egypt and

what other key countries are out there that the US Wheat Associates team is finding success in moving US wheat into.

Click on the LINK below to hear our full conversation with Alan Tracy as conducted on Monday, July 18, 2011 in Tulsa.

Click here to hear more from Alan Tracy on wheat marketing

As we look forward to the planting of the 2012 wheat crop- optimism is in short supply. "The extremely dry weather has made the ground too dry to plow in some areas. Wheat ground plowed reached 76 percent complete by Sunday, 11 points ahead of normal."

For our spring planted crops- "Lack of rain has negatively affected row crops across the state and has left many producers with some tough decision making. Crop conditions continued to decline as a result of the drought. Corn silking reached 94 percent complete by week's end and 46 percent of the crop had reached the dough stage. Sorghum emerged reached 95 percent complete and 30 percent of the crop was heading by Sunday. Soybean blooming was 37 percent complete by Sunday, four points ahead of the five-year average. Peanut pegging was 80 percent and five percent of plants were setting pods by week's end. Cotton emerged reached 77 percent complete by Sunday while cotton squaring was 31 percent complete, both significantly behind the five-year average."

Pasture and range conditions also continue to be just plain awful- a lot of cattle continue to come off of ranches where there is just not enough forage to keep them going- here's the Monday July 18 report from the Oklahoma National Stockyards in OKC where the numbers being sold this July are almost double the numbers at the market one year ago.

Click here for the complete Oklahoma Crop Weather Update as released on Monday afternoon, July 18.

Lessons from history can be instructive. 2006 was a good example of a market emphasizing calf production. The major market conditions at that time were cyclically low cattle numbers and cheap corn. The result was high calf prices, similar to current levels, but a sharp decline in prices for heavy feeder cattle. The price of a heavy feeder was less than 80 percent of the price of a calf. Thus, the value of forage marketed through weaned calves was high but the value of stocker or backgrounding gain was relatively low. With cheap corn and low cattle numbers, the market was encouraging cattle to move into feedlots quicker and lighter and the potential for stocker based gains was limited.

The year 1996 was a good example of the other extreme. Cyclically large cattle numbers and drought-induced, high corn prices resulted in low feeder cattle price levels, thus discouraging calf production, but relatively high value of stocker gain that encouraged more forage based feeder production to stretch limited corn supplies. The price of a heavy feeder was approaching 90 percent of the price of the calf price. In this situation, the returns to cow-calf production were low but the returns to stocker or backrounding gains were relatively high. The value of forage was higher when marketed through fewer, but heavier, feeder cattle.

Click here for more information on forage marketing from Dr. Derrell Peel

Pork belly futures allowed producers to hedge against price fluctuations. Today, with an increase in year-round consumption, consolidation of the industry, and the use of fresh, not frozen bellies, the pork belly future has become obsolete.

Back in 1970s and 1980s, Pork Bellies was one of the marquee traded agricultural commodities- and it was the object of a lot of jokes as well.

Click on the LINK below to watch a Youtube video from the movie, Trading Places, where Billy Valentine learns commodity trading from his mentors, the Mortimers. We also a have a link to that Chicago Tribune article that takes a nostalgic look back at Belly futures. On a personal note- some of my "city" friends used to kid me in a gentle way about my reporting about agriculture- and one former Pastor always would ask me how the "sow bellies" were doing. Those days have now passed us by.

Click here for more on the demise of the frozen pork belly ag futures contract.

We also got an email from Dana Bessinger from Ag in the Classroom fame- she's riding on what we hope is a very cool bus with 46 teachers in north central Oklahoma- educating as they roll about how to use ag in the classroom materials in Oklahoma classrooms. Dana writes about what the Tuesday plan "We are starting out at the Cimarron Valley Research Station. It is the most diverse station in the state. We had planned to look at peaches, but the crop was destroyed by the hard freeze. (Do you remember what that felt like?!?!) Chris Kirby with Farm to School is going to meet us there and discuss eating local fruits and vegetables.

"From there we are heading to the Morrison Event Center to meet representatives from Made In Oklahoma, Southwest Dairy Farmers, Oklahoma Farm Bureau Women, Farm to You Exhibit, and Morrison teachers. We will tour Head Country BBQ, the BAR (Blubaugh Angus Ranch), and supper at Head Country Barbeque. Jeff Scott with Great Plains Canola is going to meet us for supper to discuss Oklahoma's Other Oilfield." To learn more about the Ag in the Classroom experience- click here for the Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom website.

Finally, we wanted to give you an update from Hydro where our friend Jeff Krehbiel continues his battle against cancer. Jeff, former President of the Oklahoma Wheat Growers and currently a member of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, is now under regular care at the Maple Lawn Nursing Home in Hydro. Yesterday, Jeff suffered his first seizure that he has had in some time- he's already back awake and conscious but has not gotten his speech back from this latest episode as of yet. Pray for Jeff- and pray for his wife Karen and daughter Brittany as they continue down what has proven to be a very long and tough road.

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.