Pro Farmer Crop Tour Suggests Smaller South Dakota Corn Crop Versus Year Ago and USDA Guess- and a Bigger Ohio Corn Crop 

Scouts on the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour headed to the fields Monday fueled by rumors of a big crop. Although big numbers were recorded, scouts found a lot of variability and evidence that hail and winds had severely impacted some areas.

Scouts in Ohio estimated an average corn yield of 182.1 bushels per acre. Yields ranged from the 120s to well above 200 bpa. Concerns about the maturity of the Ohio crop were noted. That Ohio tour estimate is above the latest USDA estimate of 177 bushels per acre.

Scouts on the western leg of the tour also found a variable crop, reporting an average South Dakota corn yield of 152.71 bpa, compared to 161.75 bpa in 2013 and a 125.70 bpa average over the past three years. The South Dakota estimate from the tour is also under the 2014 USDA estimate from last week.

Although most of the western crop looked healthy and lush, scouts reported erratic emergence. Freezing temperatures in May were blamed for some of the uneven stands. Wet, cold planting, freezes, hail, tornadoes, and more hail are making for a tough growing season in the west. Some parts of Nebraska suffered hail again Sunday night. 

Radio Oklahoma Ag Network's Leslie Smith tracked through South Dakota on one of the scout routes on Monday- and says that the South Dakota Corn and Soybean Crops are in decent shape, but no better than a year ago.  She talked with Chip Flory at the report session last night in Grand Island, Nebraska and you can hear her full conversation with Flory about the day on the western leg here- along with other comments about day one of the week long tour.

Forrest Roberts on Increasing Beef Checkoff- We Need More Checkoff Dollars- State or Federal- Not Less

Efforts to possibly double the current federally authorized dollar per head checkoff continues- and Forrest Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, believes that progress has been made in moving closer to that second dollar to spend on promotion, research and education on behalf of cattle producers. The NCBA is one of nine organizations that have ties to the cattle industry that have been meeting for three years in an effort to find a way for all of these groups to endorse the legislation and then hold a referendum for cattle producers to vote their minds on that additional dollar.


Roberts talked with me at the recent Summer Cattle Industry Conference where it was decided by the NCBA Board of DIrectors- both the Policy side and the Federation side- to continue to allow the Beef Checkoff Task Force Reps from the group to continue to work with other organizations as a MOU- Memorandum of Understanding is finalized which will flesh out the details of a tenative agreement that came together earlier in the summer. The Board instructed the producers and staff working on this proposal to bring the MOU, once complete, back to the full Board for consideration. 

Click or tap here to read more or to listen to the comments offered to me by Roberts about the process and how he believes that even with states starting to move toward a second dollar at the state level- a second federal dollar makes sense. 

Stocker Calf  Values Versus Feeder Cattle Prices- Derrell Peel Sees Lots of Variables in Current Market

In his latest article for the Cow Calf Corner series, Dr. Derrell Peel of OSU says "The rollback in price between stocker purchase price and feeder sales price, along with overall price level, is the principal determinant of the gross margin, i.e. value of gain, for stocker production.  For example, Oklahoma feeder prices last week indicate that the value of 250 pounds of gain for a 450 pound steer was $1.24/lb. for a steer sold at 700 pounds.  An additional 200 pounds to a 900 pound ending weight has an average value of gain of $1.28/lb. for the entire 450 pounds of gain.  

"The value of gain is actually a bit stronger for gains towards the heavy end of feeder weights.  A 600 pound beginning weight has a value of gain of $1.37/lb. for 300 pounds of gain up to 900 pounds.  These values suggest that stocker producers have considerable flexibility about what weight to buy and how much weight to put on stocker cattle at this time."

You can read Dr. Peel's full analysis of the feeder and stocker market here.

Nation's Largest Farm Group Says EPA Continues to Ignore Basic Privacy Rights 

The Environmental Protection Agency's public release of farmers' and ranchers' personal information violates basic tenets of federal law, the American Farm Bureau Federation told a Minnesota federal court late this past Friday.

The EPA surprised the farming and ranching community in early 2013 when it publicly released a massive database of personal information about tens of thousands of livestock and poultry farmers, ranchers and their families in 29 states. The information was distributed to three environmental groups that had filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The database included the names of farmers, ranchers and sometimes other family members, home addresses, GPS coordinates, telephone numbers and emails. 

"The EPA is displaying a callous disregard for basic privacy rights," AFBF President Bob Stallman said. "EPA believes that if information about you can be found somewhere on the Internet, or if you own a closely held family corporation, you have no interest in protecting your personal information. All citizens should be worried about that, not just farmers and ranchers."

Read more here- and in this story on our website, there is a link to the full filing by the farm organization.

Spring Planted Crops in Oklahoma Remain Solidly in Good to Excellent Condition

The latest crop weather summary for Oklahoma shows the spring planted crops in generally good to excellent condition, even as hot and dry has grabbed ahold a good bit of the state.  

Volume Rises as Cutout Value Falls in Weekly Boxed Beef Trade Summary

On a regular basis, Ed Czerwein of the USDA Market News Office in Amarillo, Texas offers a review of the previous week's boxed beef trade. Here is the weekly boxed beef trade for week ending Aug 16:


The daily spot Choice box beef cutout ended the week last Fri at 255.54 which was 4.91 lower than the previous week.  There were 841 loads sold for the week in the daily box beef cutout, one of the biggest weeks in some time, and was about 12 percent of the total volume.  

The Comprehensive or weekly avg Choice cutout which includes all types of sales was 254.75 which was 3.94 lower, and followed the daily cutout downward.  However the big news for the week was that the total volume jumped almost 1000 loads. 

Go here to read the rest of Ed's report and to listen to his analysis for this past week's boxed beef trade.

This N That- AFR/OFU Youth Team Up With Kids Against Hunger; Irrigation Conference Today and Express Ranches Big Event This Friday and Saturday

More than 130 American Farmers & Ranchers/Oklahoma Farmers Union (AFR/OFU) 2014 Leadership Summit attendees teamed up with Kids Against Hunger recently to help fight hunger in the United States and abroad. Kids Against Hunger is a humanitarian food-aid organization with a mission to significantly reduce the number of hungry children in the U.S. and to feed starving children throughout the world.
 

This year's Summit project was to prepare and package "fortified rice-soy protein meal packages" for hungry children. Teen Session attendees packaged 23,112 meals during their service project and Senior Session packaged more than 51,000 meals in under two hours. Between the two sessions, Summit attendees packaged more than 75,000 meals for children in Oklahoma, the United States and the world.

Learn more about the efforts of these young people by clicking or tapping here. 

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Last call for the Oklahoma Irrigation Conference that gets underway this morning at the Caddo-Kiowa Technology Center in Fort Cobb on Tuesday, August 19th, registration begins at 9:00 am and the conference begins at 9:30 am. While they were asking for folks to register by a couple of days ago- the organizers have said if you can make it today- come on down!

We have more on the speakers and topics for this event-

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The great folks at Express Ranches have some of the finest Angus females ready for their 2014 edition of The Big Event- coming this Friday and Saturday at the ranch in Yukon, Oklahoma.  

Bob Funk and Jarold Callahan tell us in sale catalog that "We will be selling approximately 190 fall-calving females on Friday of which several have been donors at Express. The females are lotted 501 through 691 and will sell in sale book order. On Saturday, we will have the traditional Big Event offering comprised of over 300 head. This offering will also sell in sale book order and will include donor cows, fall-calving 2-year-olds, bred heifers, fall opens, heifer calf splits with spring-calving cows, and as always, show-heifer prospects that are eligible for the Express Scholarship program which has paid out over $3.5 million in scholarships to youth across the United States and Canada."

Click or tap here for more details and links to the catalog and the video of many of the bovine ladies that will make up the sale offering.

And- you can always call Express Ranches for last minute information at 405-350-0044 in central Oklahoma- or toll free, the number is 1-800-664-3977.