Southern Plains Crops Progressing

Oklahoma's row crop development continued to make progress last week and all crops were rated in mostly good to fair condition.  Corn condition was rated 73 percent good to fair.  Corn silking reached 92 percent complete by Sunday and 67 percent of corn had reached dough stage, 16 points behind the five-year average but 7 points ahead of the previous year.   Sorghum headed reached 59 percent complete and 28 percent coloring, both on track with the five-year average. Soybeans blooming reached 57 percent complete by week's end.  Peanuts pegging reached 93 percent complete by Sunday.  Seventy-five percent of cotton was setting bolls.  Hay harvest was in full swing, with good yield reported. Second cutting of alfalfa hay reached 96 percent complete and third cutting was 68 percent complete.  Pasture and range continued to be rated in mostly good to fair condition.

Click Here for the full Oklahoma report.

Hot, humid weather was experienced across Texas last week.  In areas of the Northern High Plains, some irrigated corn was cut for silage, while in the Blacklands corn continued to mature. Producers in South East Texas anticipate corn harvest should begin in the coming weeks.  Corn continued to mature ahead of normal with 88 percent in dough stage, 76 percent dented and 50 percent mature.  Sorghum had 82 percent mature and 46 percent harvested.  Soybean blooming has reached 78 percent and setting pods at 72 percent.  Cotton continued to progress with 78 percent setting bolls.  Peanuts continued to peg in areas of South Texas.  Many livestock producers across the state continued to provide supplemental feed due to drought conditions in parts of the state.

Click here for the full Texas report.

Widespread and much needed rain fell across most of Kansas, but reports indicated that additional moisture was needed.  Corn silking was 97 percent and corn in the dough stage was at 66 percent, both nearly equal to average.  Sorghum headed at 43 percent.  Soybean blooming at 83 percent and setting pods at 52 percent.  Cotton squaring at 73 percent and setting bolls at 28 percent.  Alfalfa hay third cutting was 59 percent complete.  Pasture and range conditions are mostly rated in good to fair condition.  Topsoil moisture rated 10 percent very short, 30 percent short, 58 percent adequate, and 2 percent surplus. Subsoil moisture rated 18 percent very short, 33 percent short, 48 percent adequate, and 1 percent surplus.  Click Here for the full Kansas report.

National Crop Progress Reports Continues to Show Above Average Corn & Soybean Crops

With the U.S. Department of Agriculture's important crop production and supply-and-demand reports due to come out this morning at 11 AM central time, the weekly crop progress report released Monday shows that corn is holding steady, with 73 percent of the crop rated good or excellent (as of August 10), 20 percent fair and 7 percent poor or very poor.  The condition of the crop dropped one point move from excellent to good condition and otherwise remained unchanged over a week ago.   Last year at this time, 64 percent of the corn crop was rated good or excellent.  As of Sunday, 96 percent of the crop was silking, 54 percent in the dough stage and 11 percent dented.


"Except for a few areas, corn growers are seeing a good crop come in," said NCGA President Martin Barbre, a corn grower in Illinois. "This perceived abundance can drive corn prices down even further, below the cost of production in some cases. And this is why it's critically important that we not take any action that negatively impacts the markets for corn any further, such as cutting the Renewable Fuel Standard, or that drives up the cost of production, such as overly burdensome regulations. At the same time, modernized trade promotion authority legislation would improve our nation's ability to advance trade agreements that open markets for U.S. farmers."


In last month's supply-and-demand report, USDA projected 2014 U.S. corn production at 13.86 billion bushels, based on harvested acres from the June 30 Acreage report, with the national average corn yield projected at a record 165.3 bushels per acre. Both these numbers are widely expected to rise in tomorrow's reports, with a new record crop signaling a further possible reduction in corn prices.


This week USDA reports 92 percent of the crop is blooming and 72 percent of the nation's crop is setting pods, which is seven percent of the five year average. Soybean crop condition gained one point in the excellent category, dropped two points in the good category and gained one point in the very poor category.

Click Here for State-By-State details of all of the major crops. 

Derrell S. Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, writes in the latest Cow/Calf Corner newsletter

Record high cattle prices leads to new questions about risk and production management. Actually, the questions are the same but the answers may be slightly different. High cattle prices have significantly increased capital requirements for stocker cattle, feeder cattle in feedlots or breeding animals for cow-calf production. The large dollar requirement means that overall financial risk is higher now in the cattle business. Market (price) risk and production risk are both important components of financial risk.


High cattle prices lead naturally to concerns about market price risk. The need for price risk management depends on several factors, including the producer's financial vulnerability and capacity to handle price volatility. Overall market outlook is also an important consideration. Short run market volatility is always a concern and, at current market levels, a modest market correction could mean price changes of $10 to $30/cwt. depending on animal class. However, underlying market fundamentals suggest that prices are likely to generally stay strong or move higher for the next couple of years and downside market risk as a trend will be generally low. In this environment, minimum price tools, such as Put options or Livestock Risk Protection (LRP) contracts, are likely more preferred to fixed price tools, such as futures hedging or forward contracting. However, adding a call option to a short hedge or forward cash contract will also maintain upside market potential while providing minimum price protection. Price volatility is likely to be short lived in the current market and production agility which provides flexibility in marketing animals can also be an important means to counter short term price volatility. At some point, markets will top and market price risk management with more downside risk will take on renewed importance but that time appears to be many months away at this point.

Click Here to read more from Dr. Peel in protecting yourself from production risk.
 

Three Star Chapters Named by National FFA for 2014- 28 From Oklahoma 

Twenty eight Oklahoma FFA Chapters have achieved the highest level of excellence that is rated by the National FFA organization and will be honored at the 2014 National FFA Convention in Louisville this October. Based on the total number of FFA chapters in the state, Oklahoma was eligible to submit 36 Chapters for a national star rating here in 2014. Twenty eight have been declared Three Star Chapters, while 8 have received Two Stars in 2014.

The National Chapter Award program recognizes FFA chapters that successfully complete an annual Program of Activities (PoA) which includes a series of activities designed to encourage its members to grow as individuals, to work as part of a team, and to serve others. Chapters that receive a gold rating by their state FFA associations are eligible to compete for National FFA their 3-star, 2-star or 1-star ratings.

Oilton FFA has earned two extra honors, becoming a Finalist in the National Model of Excellence Award as well as a Finalist in the Student division of the National Model of Innovation Award.  National winners in these competitions will be named on the stage of the Convention in Louisville.  

New Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) For Winter Wheat

The new Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO), available through the federal crop insurance program, will be available for corn, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, soybeans, spring barley, spring wheat, and winter wheat in selected counties for the 2015 crop year. The first enrollment deadline is September 30, 2014 for winter wheat. Producers will have the option to purchase SCO through a crop insurance agent along with their underlying individual insurance policy.


According to Dr. Jody Campiche of OSU, SCO is designed to cover county-wide losses and complement a producers' individual insurance policy which is a new concept as producers have not previously been allowed to stack insurance policies for the same crop. To be eligible to purchase SCO, producers must also have an individual policy for the crop enrolled in SCO. The individual policy can be a Revenue Protection (RP) policy, a Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion (RP-HPE) policy, or a Yield Protection (YP) policy. SCO coverage is tied to the individual yield or revenue insurance policy. So a producer with an individual Yield Protection (YP) policy would only have the option to purchase an SCO yield protection policy (as opposed to a revenue protection policy). SCO will cover losses from 86% minus the coverage level of the producer's individual policy. For example, if a producer has a 70% RP policy, the SCO coverage level would be 16% (86% - 70%). As shown in the figure below, SCO is only offered in certain counties/states for 2015 winter wheat and spring wheat crops.  

Click Here for the list of counties with 2015 winter wheat coverage and the SCO expected county yields 

Dr. Plain Says Record Prices Put Cattlemen at Crossroads 

Cattle producers are enjoying record calf and feeder prices. Speaking at the 24th Annual Southern Plains Beef Symposium in Ardmore Saturday, University of Missouri Ag Extension Economist Dr. Ron Plain said that's a result of several factors. The nation started the year with the smallest cattle herd in the US since 1951, beef supplies are down because of the smaller calf crop. With good summer rains that has improve grass conditions and the outlook for cattlemen to sustain their herds.


"Looks like heifer retention is picking up and cow slaughter is down, Plain said. "That also tightens up the supply of beef on the market." 


Plain said slaughter steers are averaging $1.50 - $1.60 a pound on a live weight basis, making phenomenal records. This will be 5th consecutive year with record cattle prices, feeder calf prices also at records, it's a good time to own cattle. With the record prices, its very tempting to sell heifers, instead of holding them to expand that cowherd. Plain said that is one of the challenges cattlemen are facing.


"When you're looking at record prices for feeder cattle deciding to hold onto that heifer breed her is a big decision," Plain said. "It's only those cattlemen in it for the long haul and got few enough gray hairs that they want to stick around and do more work, cause more heifers, more cows in your herd means more work for these cattlemen, so not everybody is going to be doing that." 

Click Here to read about how higher prices bring additional challenges to cattlemen or to listen to my full interview with Dr. Plain.
 

This N That- Crop Production Numbers Out Today; Machinery Pete Offers Price Guide on Classic Tractors and Tips on What Cattle Judges May Be Looking For

USDA will be releasing both the September Crop Production numbers as well as the WASDE report at 11 AM central this morning.  While the September numbers are not the final word on the size of this year's corn and soybeans crops- it always helps to really define what is really going on in the fields out across the farms of the US.   

We will have details on the report shortly after 11 AM and then on into the afternoon on our website- OKlahomaFarmReport.Com. Check out site later in the day to see links to the numbers and analysis of what they may mean.

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I have never figured out why it's not Machinery Greg- but Greg Henderson has released a new price guide that is really a one of a kind reference for Classic Tractors under the Machinery Pete Banner.  We have details of what Greg has created- tap here for our webstory of what Old Pete has pulled together on those John Deere Bs and a lot more.

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Finally, we thought we might share a video from last month's Big Three Livestock Judging event put together by the SUNUP folks.  Jeremy Leister(who is a herd manager for the Lake Carl Blackwell Beef Herd for OSU) explains what cattle judges look for. Here's the video for your enjoyment:

Cattle Judging (7/19/14)