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The Legislative Committee of the National Farmers Union is recommending to the full board of the NFU that they end participation with the working group of several organizations that have been meeting for three years in an attempt to find a way to improve the beef checkoff to everyone's satisfaction and to be able to have a referendum that would ask cattle producers to support a second dollar to be collected on every sale of an animal.


Roger Johnson, President of the National Farmers Union says the recommendation is "strongly supported" because he says many of his members believe the process has become a waste of time, being controlled "largely by NCBA who doesn't want any reforms to the checkoff" while NFU members have been insistent that there needs to be reform and that "we need to separate that organization from the checkoff."

Disagreeing with Johnson is Terry Detrick, President of the American Farmers and Ranchers.  Detrick tells us that he has communicated with the Legislative Committee, NFU Leadership and their lead lobbyist Chandler Goule on this issue, going point by point with the resolution that the board will be voting on in September- saying it is not the right thing to do. 

You can read more and listen to our full conversation with Terry Detrick on this issue- just click or tap here.

Derrell Peel Says Best Prices of the Year May Be Behind Us- OR Maybe Not  

OSU Extension Livestock Market Economist Dr. Derrell Peel joins us for another edition of the  Beef Buzz, and offers his take on whether the cattle markets have finally established a top price for 2014. He acknowledges that we are off the highs but says it may be too soon to be saying that we won't see higher prices yet later in 2014.

Peel also talks about strategy that ranchers who want to run stockers this fall may want to consider, given the high price for stockers and the apparently very cheap prices ahead for feed grains. 

The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on great radio stations across our region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network- and they can also be heard on our website as well- just click on the Beef Buzz button on the left hand column of any page on our website.

AND- you can click or tap here for this Beef Buzz and enjoy Derrell's insights into the cattle market right now and what may lie ahead.

The final day of the 2014 Pro Farmer Midwestern Crop Tour found Associate Farm Director Leslie Smith going down the road in southern Minnesota. She and fellow scouts saw a crop that was good but not necessarily great. On Thursday evening, the tour released the yield results for Iowa and Minnesota.

Iowa's corn averaged 178.8 bpa, compared to 171.9 last year. USDA pegged Iowa's crop at 185 bpa in its August 1 Crop Production report. 

Minnesota's corn yield was expected to average 170.8 bpa, compared to last year's 181 bpa. USDA pegged the state at 168 bpa. 

So far on the tour, all states' estimated yields except Iowa exceeded USDA's initial crop estimate.

For some great insights about the Day Four work done by the scouts- click here for our story that features Leslie's conversation with Western Leg leader Chip Flory.

Vesicular Stomatitis Continues to Be Active in Texas and Colorado- State Vet Rod Hall Offers Update

Oklahoma's State Vet, Dr. Rod Hall, continues to watch the development of VS this summer in a couple of neighboring states, Colorado and Texas.   

According to Dr. Hall in an email circulated on Thursday, "The updated VSV situation report reflects that fifty-five (55) new VSV-positive premises have been identified (53 in Colorado, 2 in Texas) since the last situation report (8/13/14). "

Click here for more details from Dr. Hall on how Oklahoma is monitoring this virus and working to make sure it does not make it into the state.

Talking Wheat- Canola Rotation with Kim Anderson of OSU- Plus SUNUP Info For This Weekend!

Canola has surfaced as a tremendous rotational crop for winter wheat here in the southern Great Plains- and Oklahoma State University Extension Grain Marketing Economist Dr. Kim Anderson says that for a variety of reasons, it's a tool that winter wheat producers need to seriously consider utilizing on some of their most weed infested acres. In this weekend's SUNUP as produced by the OSU Ag Communications team, Kim Anderson explains to Austin Moore the economic advantages and disadvantages of a wheat-canola rotation.

You can listen to Kim now as he talked with Austin Moore during a break at yesterday's Ag Weather Symposium in Norman by clicking here- or you can wait until the weekend and Kim and Austin on the SUNUP program.

You'll also find the full lineup for this weekend's show in our webstory as well.

The Debate is Still Not Over Regarding How Many Acres of Corn and Soybeans We Have in 2014 

According to Extension Grain Market Economist Dr. Darrel Good of the University of Illinois, "The debate about the likely size of the USDA's final estimate of the 2014 U.S. average corn and soybean yields continues, with the market apparently anticipating that those estimates will exceed the August forecasts, particularly for corn. At the margin, the size of the crops will also be influenced by the magnitude of harvested acreage."

The question of the season is how many corn acres were switched over to soybeans this season- and Good says nobody really has a good handle on that- at least not here in August.   

Dr. Good adds "For the current year, a larger than average percentage of the corn acreage in the 18 major corn producing states was planted late (defined here as after May 20). Much of the late planting was in northern and eastern states. A late planted crop along with the historical tendency for the final estimate of planted acreage to be less than the June forecast suggest that the final estimate this year will likely be below the June forecast of 91.641 million acres."   

Many of the corn acres that were not planted to that crop were planted- and in the midwest, the switch was to soybeans. 

He offers his latest thoughts on how the acreage numbers may play out- and you can read his weekly analysis on this subject here.  

This Weekend- In The Field Saturday Morning With Tom, Express Hosts The Big Event and OCA Rodeos at State Fair Park  

Our guest for this Saturday morning is scheduled to be Tom Buchanan, President of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau.  Tom and his staff have been logging lots of miles as the general farm organization is in the process of wrapping up their August Area meetings today at noon in Ardmore.

We will be talking with Tom about those meetings- and what is on the mind of their members as they broke bread and talked issues across the state.   

Our In the Field feature is seen Saturday morning at about 6:40 AM on KWTV, News9 in Oklahoma City.  We will be posting the video of the segment later in the weekend on our website, in case you are out of the OKC TV market or you sleep in on Saturdays!

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It's one of the best female sales in the country for the Angus breed today and tomorrow as Express Ranches hosts their 2014 edition of The Big Event.   

About 500 head will be offered over the two days.  The sale begins at 1:00 PM today with an offering of fall calving females.

The Big Event on Saturday starts at 11:00 AM- and you don't have to be there to participate- you will be able to see it live on the internet as well as on satellite.

We have details in our Auction section of our website- tap here to learn more about the Express Big event for 2014!

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The 30th Annual Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association (OCA) Range Round-Up is coming up TONIGHT and Saturday evening. This year's event is being partnered with Oklahoma Ford Dealers at the State Fairgrounds Jim Norick Arena in Oklahoma City. Performances will begin at 7:30 p.m each night.  

The annual event raises funds for charity. This marks the 18th year the selected charity has been the Children's Miracle Network. To date OCA has donated more than $441,500.00 to the Children's Hospital Foundation in Oklahoma City. 

Last weekend, we talked with Michael Kelsey and Dallas Henderson about the annual ranch rodeo event- and you can go back and here our conversation with Michael and Dallas and

Tickets will be available at the door- doors open both nights at 6:00 PM.