OCA Annual Convention and Trade Show Next Week In Midwest City 

The 62nd Annual Convention and Trade Show of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association will take place on July 24-26 at the Reed Conference Center in Midwest City, Okla.


"Carry on the Legacy" is the theme for the 62nd annual event. An exciting piece of the convention will be the Cattlemen's College sessions. Cattlemen's College will provide participants opportunities to hear presentations pertaining to important information and issues.


"If you are in the beef business in Oklahoma I don't care if you have five head or 5,000 head - this is your destination for cattle information, for cattle networking, and for cattle policy," said Michael Kelsey, Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association Executive Vice President.   


The Annual Convention features educational sessions with the Cattlemen's College, a jam packed trade show and business meetings addressing state and national policy and the overall state of the beef industry.  

Click Here to read more about this year's convention to listen to Ron Hays and Michael Kelsey talk about Cattlemen's College.

Southerland Introduces Legislation to Sink EPA's Land Grab

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corp of Engineers continue to be in hot water on Capitol Hill over the proposed rule expanding federal jurisdiction over "waters of the United States." The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Public Lands Council applaud the efforts of Rep. Southerland today to invalidate this rule.


Under the proposal, nearly all waters in the country will be subject to regulation, regardless of size or continuity of flow. Southerland's bill H.R. 5078 Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protect Act halts any action of the EPA and the Corps regarding the proposed definition of "waters of the United States."


"The EPA continues to claim that their proposal does not expand the reach of the Clean Water Act," said Bob McCan, NCBA President and Texas cattleman, "but the way the proposal is written, there is no other interpretation. The vague and subjective wording gives regulators the authority and access to nearly any water, and with it, all land use activities including ranching."  

Click Here to read how Southerland's bill could stop the 'Waters of the US' legislation- if only the US Senate and the White House would cooperate(which is not going to happen.)   

We also featured comments from Congressman Southerland and other lawmakers from a hearing in the House Transportation Committee yesterday over WOTUS- as many House members- Democrats as well as Republicans- agree with those who are critical of the EPA 's proposed rule.  Click here for our morning farm news as heard on radio stations across the state on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network.  

Wheat Scientist Honored with 2014 World Food Prize

Op-Ed Authored by Hope Pjesky - Her family are farmers / ranchers in northern Oklahoma where they raise cattle and wheat. Hope volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology.


Some nights it's stressful enough to put dinner on the table for my family. Imagine being responsible for feeding millions of people.


That's the achievement of Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram, announced as the winner of the 2014 World Food Prize. His wheat varieties have boosted global wheat production by 200 million tons.


Dr. Rajaram would be a fitting recipient of the World Food Prize at any time, but this year it is even more poignant and appropriate because it also marks the centennial of Dr. Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution. As Borlaug's successor at CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Rajaram is one of Borlaug's most accomplished students.  

Click Here to read more about Rajaram and his efforts to increase wheat yields to feed a growing world population.  

US Beef Exports Strong With Increasing Imports with Tight US Supplies

US beef exports and imports are both increasing this year. Livestock Market Information Center Director Jim Robb says exports are growing with a strong demand component, while domestic beef demand also remains rather good.


"Beef export tonnage was up fully four percent from last year," Robb said. "The other meat items didn't fair quite as well, pork exports were essentially unchanged from the prior year ago and chicken exports were up a rather modest two percent year over year."  


The US is also importing more beef this year. US beef imports for the month of May were 20 percent above a year. Part of that can be attributed to very tight overall cattle and beef supplies. Robb says record prices for cow cutout value and the low slaughter levels is also pulling more beef into the US especially from Australia, New Zealand and other countries.


"We are really the highest price meat market in the world in the United States and we're going to attract some of this meat to fill the void that is being caused by low cow slaughter in the US and again rather strong demand for hamburger and other relatively less expensive beef items," Robb said. 

Click Here to read or listen to more of Robb's comments in how feed costs will continue to decline in 2014.

USDA Checkoff Referendum Shows Farmers Support Soy Checkoff

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the results of the request for referendum on the Soybean Research and Promotion Program (soy checkoff). USDA received 355 request-for-referendum forms, of which only 324 were valid, from Farm Service Agency offices. The 355 forms represent 0.06 percent of all eligible U.S. soybean farmers. That result falls short of the 10 percent needed to prompt a referendum.


"These results show that U.S. soybean farmers overwhelmingly see the value in our soy checkoff," says Jim Call, soybean farmer from Madison, Minnesota, and United Soybean Board (USB) chairman. "It's more important than ever that the volunteer farmer-leaders of USB continue to invest soy checkoff funds to maximize the profit potential for all U.S. soybean farmers."


If 10 percent of the 569,998 U.S. soybean farmers had requested a referendum, with no more than one-fifth of the 10 percent coming from one state, USDA would have conducted the referendum on the soy checkoff within 12 months. USDA conducts the request-for-referendum vote every five years, as required by the Soybean Promotion, Research and Consumer Information Act. The most recent period took place from May 5 through May 30. 

Click Here to read more about the soy checkoff referendum.   

Kudzu Could Be Moving Into Your Neighborhood

For a plant that is not supposed to be in Oklahoma, kudzu is doing quite well for itself.  Karen Hickman, professor in Oklahoma State University's Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, said there are approximately 45 to 50 confirmed locations of active and healthy populations of this extremely invasive plant in Oklahoma. One such location is in a residential neighborhood in Stillwater, Oklahoma.


The new homeowner purchased the property without knowing the kudzu was already established in an old, mature series of holly plants used in the landscape. Upon bringing a section of the plant into the Payne County Extension office, horticulture educator Keith Reed thought he was looking at some very large poison ivy.


"He said it was kudzu," Reed said. "He was absolutely right."


The plant, listed on the Oklahoma Invasive Plant Council's invasive species list, is usually spread by a cutting, or a person who is uneducated about kudzu and not aware it will do more harm than good.


This aggressive vine will resprout every year. There will be a compact leaf with three leaflets at every node, which will root wherever there is an opportunity and create a new individual plant. Its fuzzy leaf texture protects it from predation by insects and it has a lot of rusty brown spots along its very elastic stem.


The opportunistic vines produce runners that travel along the ground, up structures and even around itself to gain support to reach another structure and engulf it, as well, Hickman said. 

Click Here to read more about Kudzu.

Rain and Temperatures in the 50s and 60s- and it's What Date?!?!?!?

Today is July 17, 2014- and by this point of summer- we are often starting to really get hot and dry- with more of the same expected non stop until Labor Day or later.
Going forward- that could be the case- but for today and tomorrow- the temps will be at or below record lows for this date and rainfall amounts are crazy.

Click here for the latest Mesonet Rainfall totals in real time- I am using their 2 day rainfall total map to help you capture all of the rain from this current storm system over the next several hours. Notice that Altus has hit the mid July rainfall jackpot, with over four inches of rain over the last 48 hours- and many areas have logged more than an inch of rainfall.  To this point, only the far northeastern corner of Oklahoma has not received some of this moisture.   

According to Alan Crone with the News on 6 in his morning weather blog- "A stationary boundary is located near the Red River this morning with a surface area of low pressure along the boundary across the western areas of North Texas.  This boundary will slowly move northward today as a warm front, but is exacted to remain south of the Red River Valley. The upper air flow will bring a disturbance out of the Rockies and into the state today.  These features will bring copious amounts of moisture into the state setting the stage for continued rainfall for the short term.  Any severe thunderstorm threats of wind or hail will be confined to extreme southern OK and points southward across North Texas.  Our main issue of concern will be the flash flooding potential due to some multi-inch totals across far southeastern OK.

"Pockets of moderate to heavy rainfall will continue for the next several hours across part of the state.  Heaviest axis should be confined to southern OK and north TX.  But a few pockets of heavy rainfall will occur along the I-40 corridor this morning into the midday time period.  The probability for rain (the window of opportunity) will be continuing for the entire day, but there should be some breaks at times across the northern third of the state.  We may see rain all day across southern OK and part of north Texas."

Click here to read the entire blog for this morning from Alan.  

The question right now is- how close does this latest dose of rainfall bring us to "Making" our spring planted crops in the state- we'll be asking that question to our crop scouts in the days ahead.