Drought Impacting State's Water Supply and Quality 

"Every drop counts" speaks to the importance of water in Oklahoma. On Thursday, the Governor's Water Conference and Research Symposium wrapped up in Oklahoma City. One of those attending session was Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Tom Buchanan. Buchanan said he doesn't think this discussion about water will ever go away.


"In Oklahoma our demand for water is growing significantly over what it was just a few years," Buchanan said. "There are many more of us, there are more needs, more demands on that. Both industrial, oil and gas, agriculture, municipal, recreation, tourism, wildlife. Everybody wants a share of that pie any more and with what's recently occurred here, certainly with drought is impacting Oklahoma greatly, there's not as much as there used to be to go around." 

 
There is a tremendous amount of interest around the state's water supply with more than 500 people in attendance of this week's convention. One session featured Oklahomans who are making a difference in water worldwide. Buchanan said several Oklahomans are working in areas that truly don't have enough water like the African continent.  Click here to read or to listen to my interview with Buchanan on the water challenges the state is facing.    

Fantastic Prices Make It an Exciting Time to be a Cattleman- Kelsey Offers State of the Industry

Strong demand with limited supply is making it an ideal time to be in the cattle business. In visiting with the state's cattle producers, Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association Executive Vice President Michael Kelsey said cattlemen are excited to be in the beef industry.   


"Bull prices and the full bull sales have been unbelievable," Kelsey said. "Replacement heifer sales are fantastic. We hear a lot of comments about producers saying I wish I had more to sell at these prices levels." 


While there is concern that these high prices may be short term, Kelsey said in listening to Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist Dr. Derrell Peel there is a optimistic for the longer term. Peel has forecasted cattle prices should hold strong for the next several years, barring any major catastrophes. Even with that optimism, Kelsey said Oklahoma producers will be slow to rebuild their herds.


"I think people are being realistic," Kelsey said. "Hay is in good supply, but runoff in terms of pond water is very much lacking and so I think cattlemen are just being realistic."  

Our own Leslie Smith talked with Kelsey in a wide ranging interview that included producer's attitudes, WOTUS, COOL and Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack's stated intention of creating a second parallel Beef Checkoff. Click here to listen to the full interview with Kelsey.

AND- Michael will be my guest tomorrow morning for my In the Field segment as seen on KWTV, News9 in Oklahoma City- at about 6:40 AM.

Are Weeds Robbing Your Pasture's Potential?

Do your know your pasture's carrying capacity? Do you know your pasture's carrying capacity if you manage the weeds on your ranch operation? Oklahoma State University Beef Cattle Specialists Dave Lalman said the weeds in your pasture make a real difference in the number of cattle you can carry. Weeds are competition for your pasture, as weeds utilize nutrients, water, sunlight, they shade out grass and eventually they impact your carrying capacity.


"The average carrying capacity in this area of the state on strictly native grass pasture might be eight or ten acres per cow year round with very little hay," Lalman said. "If you ignore those invasive species and the brush encroachment and so on, eventually you'll wind up with having to have to 15, 20, 25 acres per cow."


Lawman and OSU Ag Engineer Randy Taylor were featured in a recent SUNUP piece talking about the need to manage weeds in your pasture operation. Taylor has been developing a small sprayer that works off a three point hitch that has both booms but can also go boomless when you get into rougher pasture situations.  Click here to read more about pasture weed management by listening to this Beef Buzz feature.  You can also watch the full feature on OSU SUNUP TV.  

Drought Holding Steady Across Much of Oklahoma

Drought continues to hold strong across Oklahoma. The latest US Drought Monitor reports shows drought was lessening across the eastern third of Oklahoma, while remaining constant for western Oklahoma and the panhandle.   After making a large improvement last week, drought levels remain unchanged this week.


As of Tuesday the US Drought Monitor report had 4.84 percent of the state in exceptional drought (D4), 16.03 remains in extreme drought (D3), 34.57 was in severe drought (D2), 9.06 is in moderate drought (D1) and 13.35 was abnormally dry (D0). That leaves 22.15 percent of the state in eastern Oklahoma not receiving a drought designation.


The drought looks to be worse this fall than a year ago with about 78 percent of the state in drought. Last year at this time about 57 percent of the state was receiving a drought designation. The latest report shows 1.9 million Oklahomans are being impacted by the drought.  Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus said the drought is the most intense across the southwest corner of the state.  Click here to read about the long-term impact of the drought in that part of the state and the 14-day weather outlook.     

NFU Says WTO Ruling Means a Tweak or Two- and Congress Should Keep Their Hands Off COOL

National Farmers Union (NFU) President Roger Johnson said that the World Trade Organization's (WTO) recent ruling on Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) clearly shows U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is headed in right direction.


"This ruling demonstrates the legitimate nature of the COOL objective and finds that the current labeling rule is an improvement over the original rule, but it remains unbalanced between consumer information and production costs," said Johnson. "This decision, as it has been issued, will likely be modified on appeal and NFU strongly urges USTR to appeal the ruling."


On Monday, the WTO released the long-awaited, 200-plus page ruling that found the regulatory goal of COOL was WTO-compliant, and that the new 2013 labels provided better, more accurate information for consumers.  Johnson said the ruling gives USDA and USTR the opportunity to redefine the rule without the need for Congress to get involved.  Click here to read more from Johnson on the ruling.   

Kim Anderson Address Stagnant Wheat and Corn Prices

Wheat and corn prices have tapped resistance levels over the past week. There has virtually no price movement this past week with wheat prices moving about 10 cents and corn prices moving 8 to 10 cents. In this weekend's edition of SUNUP, Oklahoma State University Grain Marketing Specialist Kim Anderson corn and wheat prices are pounding up against very strong resistance levels.


"If they can break that, then we can get a little run in these prices," Anderson said. "Those resistance points are $6.20 for wheat and $3.60 for corn." 

Those resistance levels are being caused by the lack of news in the market. Wheat harvest in the US has wrapped up and in the southern hemisphere with Argentina or Australia there is no news coming out of on changes in expectations for wheat production. With corn, the US Department of Agriculture has forecast the crop will average 174.2 bushels per acre. Ending stock are well above average with over 2 billion bushels. The average ending stocks are 1.2 billion bushels. Corn harvest is running well behind average with 31 percent harvested this past week, well behind the five year average of 53.


"That's old news," Anderson said. "Until something changes I don't think the prices are going to change very much." 

Click here to read more(and to be able to hear all of Kim's comments) about the outlook for wheat and corn prices.  You can also find the full lineup for this weekend's edition of SUNUP.   

This N That- Kris Black Cream of the Crop Sale, TCFA Begins Sunday and National FFA Convention Ahead

Coming Monday, October 27th- it's the Kris Black Cream of the Crop Bull Sale- the sale starting at 1:00 PM central time at the Black Hereford Ranch, Crawford, Oklahoma. You don't have to go to the ranch to participate in this year's auction- they have made arrangements with Superior to have it on their website and on RURAL TV, Dish Network Channel 232.

On offer this Monday will be 100 Stout, Powerful Bulls that have a world of potential.

For more details, click here for details about the offering and links to the full catalog and to the Superior website to learn more about registering as a buyer.

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Southern Plains Cattle Feeders will be gathering this weekend for the 2014 Texas Cattle Feeders Convention in downtown Oklahoma City.  As we talked about earlier in today's email- it's both an exciting time and a nervous time to be in the cattle business- with sky high cattle prices offering a shot at profitability but also demanding lots of capital to continue to be a player.  

TCFA has a great lineup of speakers for their 2014 meeting- including their current Chairman Jason Hitch of Guymon, who will be offering a State of the Feedlot Industry address on Monday morning.  Jason will be joined that morning by Randy Blach of Cattlefax, NCBA Vice President Tracy Brunner of Kansas and retired Navy Seal Eric Olsen for a jam packed Opening General Session.

To see their full program- click or tap here.

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This coming week- we will be heading to Louisville and the 2014 National FFA Convention and Expo- it looks like over 1,500 FFA members and supporters from Oklahoma will be among the over 60,000 in attendance at this year's gathering of the Blue and Gold.

We have had a couple of preview stories already up on our website in the Blue-Green section- and will have a lot more coverage all next week, a service of the Oklahoma FFA Association, the Oklahoma FFA Alumni and your Oklahoma Ford Dealers.  

We have set up a National Convention FLICKR photo album- and already have a few pictures from the pre convention "workout" for Oklahoma FFA members who will be competing in many of the contests that will be happening in Louisville.

AND- I am also excited about spending a few days in my native state- and enjoying at once or twice some Burgoo along the way.