Corn Planting Surpasses Five Year Average, Southern Plains Wheat Crop Shows More Improvement

Rain isn't slowing down corn planting nationally as progress continues well ahead of schedule. The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture crop progress report has planting up 20 points over the past week with 75 percent of the nation's corn crop planted. Monday's report has planting was well ahead of the five year average of 57. USDA reported 29 percent of the crop has emerged in the top 18 states that plant 92 percent of the nation's corn acres. For the complete USDA Crop Progress report, click here.


Drought conditions continue to improve with heavy rainfall across Oklahoma. According to the Oklahoma Mesonet, the statewide precipitation average for May 1st through May 11th was 5.13 inches. That's 3.5 inches above normal and the 3rd wettest period since 1921. In the weekly crop progress report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has the wheat crop condition unchanged from last week's report with 38 percent good to excellent condition, 39 percent fair and 23 percent poor to very poor. Winter wheat jointing reached 99 percent and headed was 96 percent complete. The canola crop rated 60 percent good to fair. That's up one point from last week. Click here for the full Oklahoma report.


Measurable rainfall fell across Texas this past week, slowing planting progress. Areas to the north of the state received the highest amount of precipitation with parts of the Southern High Plains and the Cross Timbers receiving upwards of ten inches. Several regions received hail and wind damage. The latest USDA report showed had the wheat crop gaining five points in the good to excellent category this past week with 57 percent good to excellent condition, 29 percent fair, 14 percent poor to very poor. The wheat crop has 89 percent headed. Corn planting only gained only one point this past week with 71 percent of the crop in the ground and 64 percent emerged. Sorghum was 64 percent planted, soybeans were 60 percent planted and cotton was 16 percent planted. Click here for the Texas report.


The Kansas wheat crop showed slight improvement after precipitation was received statewide this past week. The latest USDA report has the state's winter wheat crop gaining one point in the fair and poor to very poor category. The crop rated 27 good to excellent, 42 percent fair and 31 percent poor to very poor. Winter wheat jointed was at 96 percent with 70 percent of the crop headed. That's well ahead of the average of 46. Corn planting was 66 percent complete with 38 percent of the crop emerged. Soybean planting was at 11 percent and cotton planting was at five percent. Click here for the full Kansas report. 
 

Improving wheat production and wheat quality continues to be the top priorities of the Oklahoma State University Wheat Improvement program. OSU Wheat Breeder Dr. Brett Carver said he looks for varieties that out yield Gallagher and Iba, but he also has to consider the demands of miller's and bakers in his program.


"We have to meet certain expectations and we're not going to cut those short one bit," Carver said. "It may not be such that they can translate that to yield. That's ok. It translates to the economy and the success of a product downstream from the field and that's very important." 


One experimental line that continues to stand out is OK09125. Carver said this variety stems from Texas A & M University's line TAM303 and Overley developed by Kansas State University. The line offers disease resistance, yielding ability and broad adaptation. The experimental variety can rebound from grazing and shows resistance to freezing temperatures. Carver said sometime this year they will decide if this variety will be released by OSU.


In looking at the future of wheat breeding, Dr. Carver is very optimistic.  Click here to read more or have the opportunity to listen to the full interview with Dr. Carver.  

One of the Best Fields for New College Graduates? Agriculture.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Monday announced a new report showing tremendous demand for recent college graduates with a degree in agricultural programs with an estimated 57,900 high-skilled job openings annually in the food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment fields in the United States. According to an employment outlook report released today by USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and Purdue University, there is an average of 35,400 new U.S. graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher in agriculture related fields, 22,500 short of the jobs available annually.


"There is incredible opportunity for highly-skilled jobs in agriculture," said Secretary Vilsack. "Those receiving degrees in agricultural fields can expect to have ample career opportunities. Not only will those who study agriculture be likely to get well-paying jobs upon graduation, they will also have the satisfaction of working in a field that addresses some of the world's most pressing challenges. These jobs will only become more important as we continue to develop solutions to feed more than 9 billion people by 2050."


The report projects almost half of the job opportunities will be in management and business. Another 27 percent will be in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas. Jobs in food and biomaterials production will make up 15 percent, and 12 percent of the openings will be in education, communication, and governmental services. The report also shows that women make up more than half of the food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment higher education graduates in the United States. 

Click here to read more about this report and the great outlook for graduates of food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment programs.  

Peel Finds North American Cattle Trade Impacting U.S. Cattle Supplies

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

  Canada and Mexico have been a source of feeder and slaughter cattle for many years. This is in addition to bilateral trade in beef, with both countries among the major markets for U.S. beef exports as well as major sources of beef imports. In 2014, U.S. imports of Canadian slaughter steers and heifers represented 1.7 percent of total U.S. steer and heifer slaughter. These yearling slaughter cattle imports were up 13.9 percent from 2013 and included a 24 percent increase in slaughter heifers compared to a 7.4 percent year over year increase in slaughter steer imports. With the latest trade data for March, year to date slaughter steer and heifer imports from Canada are down 40.6 percent from last year based on a 49.5 percent decrease in slaughter steer imports and a 27.4 percent decrease in slaughter heifer imports.


Total feeder cattle imports from Mexico and Canada in 2014 amounted to 4.8 percent of the total 2014 U.S. calf crop. This was the largest relative contribution of Canadian and Mexican feeder cattle to U.S. feeder supplies in data back to 1992. U.S. imports of feeder cattle from Canada are up 11.7 percent year over year from January to March. This follows a 37.8 percent year over year increase in Canadian feeder cattle imports in 2014. Canadian feeder imports in 2014 consisted of a 60 percent increase in feeder heifers from the previous year. However, year to date imports of Canadian feeder heifers are down 10 percent compared to the January to March period one year ago. In contrast, feeder steer imports are up 57.1 percent so far this year. The weight of Canadian feeder cattle imports is also quite different this year compared to last. For the year to date, imports of Canadian feeder cattle over 700 pounds are up 58.0 percent from last year while imports of Canadian feeder cattle less than 700 pounds are down 10.6 percent.


Click here to read more about U.S. imports of Mexican cattle and the outlook for herd expansion in Mexico and Canada. 

NCBA Waiting for Congress to Address Comprehensive Tax Reform and COOL

Presidential campaigning is ready underway for the 2016 election. That makes it difficult for Congress to focus on areas like tax reform and Country of Origin Labeling (COOL). National Cattlemen's Association Vice President of Government Affairs Colin Woodall is hoping something will get done with tax reform this year, but it won't be easy.


"It's going to be really hard to get comprehensive tax reform done this year, I'm afraid, but I think Congress is going to go a long ways in getting pretty close," Woodall said.


The House of Representatives has already passed legislation making the section 179 -expensing permanent, the Conservation Tax incentive permanent and last week the House passed legislation to repeal the death tax.


"All of that is great activity, activity that I think really helps build a case for comprehensive tax reform," Woodall said. "I don't think any one of them will get a standalone vote, or be signed as standalone pieces of legislation, but they all could be very well be in a bigger tax package."


I featured Woodall on the Beef Buzz. Click or tap here to listen to today's Beef Buzz. 

Award winning broadcast journalist Jerry Bohnen has spent years learning and understanding how to cover the energy business here in the southern plains- Click here to subscribe to his daily update of top Energy News.

Oklahoma Wheat Commission Presents "Staff of Life" Honors

The Oklahoma Wheat Commission recently honored two outstanding individuals with the Oklahoma Wheat Commission's "Staff of Life" award.  The Oklahoma Wheat Commission honored Dr. Liuling Yan and Tom Glazier for their contributions to the state's wheat industry.  The "Staff of Life" award is the highest award honor given by the Oklahoma Wheat Commission to an individual who meets the criteria of dedicating many hours of service to our wheat industry when it comes to helping market and promote.

Yan is an assistant professor, wheat molecular geneticist and breeder for the Oklahoma State University wheat breeding program. Dr. Yan has been instrumental in increased advancements made in wheat variety development at OSU, and his efforts have also been influential in other parts of the United States. With his laboratory work in gene selection and using marker assistance to find specific traits that combat foliar diseases such as leaf rust, stripe rust, or finding genes to increase wheat yield, Yan no doubt, has been a major contributor to the work being accomplished with the breeding program at OSU. Billings, Duster, Ruby Lee, Garrison, Gallagher, Iba and Doublestop CL Plus are just some of the wheat varieties that have come out of the OSU wheat breeding program while Dr. Yan has been a member of the Wheat Improvement Team (WIT) as a molecular geneticist.  Click here to read more about Dr. Yan.  

Glazier is a former board member of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission and has hosted many foreign and domestic wheat buyers on his family farm in Loyal with his wife Shortie. Tom has also been instrumental in promoting the State 4-H and FFA Junior Wheat Show, in order to give students who might be interested in careers within the wheat industry an idea of all the different segments involved with wheat production. Tom has also served on the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association Board, the National Association of Wheat Growers Board of Directors and US Wheat Associates Board of Directors.  Click here to read more about Tom Glazier. 
 

This N That- Crop Production Report This AM, Boxed Beef and Land and Range Judging Results

USDA will be releasing a couple of reports that the grain industry is looking forward to this morning at 11:00 AM central time.  The regular monthly WASDE report will be released- and will offer the latest stock and usage numbers for our major commodities.

At the same time- we get a USDA Crop Production report that will feature the 2015 Winter Wheat Crop numbers- this will provide us with USDA's first take on the size of the hard red winter wheat crop here in the southern plains.

This past week- the Kansas Wheat Crop Tour predicted 228 million bushels for the 2015 crop- up from the 246 million bushels produced in 2014.  At the same time, the Oklahoma Crop was estimated at 108 million bushels- and while the USDA estimate will be an important number- it still may or may not be close- depending on what the weather does between now and Memorial Day.

We'll link to the reports on our website- OklahomaFarmReport.Com and offer analysis this afternoon.

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On a regular basis, Ed Czerwein of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Market News Office in Amarillo, Texas offers a review of the previous week's boxed beef trade. According to his Monday afternoon report of this week-  the daily spot Choice box beef cutout ended the week last Friday at $258.12 which was 3.48 higher.  

Read more or take a listen to Ed's commentary by clicking here.

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It was muddy- but the 4-H and FFA members that came from 34 states were not deterred- as the 64th National Land and Range Judging Contest was held in central Oklahoma. 

After two days of studying Oklahoma's unique range and soil types at practice sites in Oklahoma City, contestants bussed to the official competition site on Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal land in Concho, Okla.

National winners included young people from Texas, Indiana, Ohio and South Dakota.

Click here for the full story of last week's competition.