Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. We are proud to have KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for the free market quote page they provide us for our website or call them at 1-800-256-2555.

We are also excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they handle, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.

And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the springtime Southern Plains Farm Show, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show. Click here for more information on the Southern Plains Farm Show, coming up April 15,16 and 17, 2010.

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Reserve Supreme Heifer Champion of the OYE for 2010 was the Shorthorn Champion, shown by Mikka Harmon of the Mulhall-Orlando FFA Chapter. Mikka wins $3,000 in Scholarship money for the Reserve Supreme Champion.

Other Beef Heifer Breed Champs from Tuesday include Champion Limousin- Jason Cole Fincannon fromTulsa County 4-H; Champion Angus Heifer- Kass Pfeiffer of the Mulhall-Orlando FFA; Champion Commerical Heifer- Madison Chaney of the Perkins-Tyrone FFA; Champion Shorthorn Heifer- Mikka Harmon of the Mulhall-Orlando FFA and the Champion Shorthorn Plus Heifer- Raylyn Thompson from the Mayes County 4-H.

Click on the link below for more information on Beef Heifer show, including a rundown of both the Champs as well as the Reserve Champs.

Click here for more on the Beef Heifer Show at the 2010 Oklahoma Youth Expo

On Monday, the Supreme Champion Purebred Gilt was shown by Tanner Goodson of Yukon 4-H, winning $4,000 in Scholarship dollars for his Champion Duroc. The Reserve Supreme Purebred Gilt was shown by another Canadian County 4-Her, Rhylee Straka of El Reno 4-H, earning $3,000 for her top Hampshire gilt.

We have full details of this year's purebred and commercial gilt show at the link below. Go and check it out- a total of more than $35,000 in scholarships were handed out in the two days of the gilt show.

Click here for more on the OYE Gilt Show

"The shelterbelt program was somewhat controversial when it began but it accomplished what it was intended to do and that is reduce erosion to the benefit of everyone in areas where they were planted," he said. "From 1935 to 1942, the program saw about 20 million trees planted on 5,000 Oklahoma farms. That meant about 3,000 miles of shelterbelts planted in Oklahoma."

Atkinson says Oklahomans can be proud of boasting the "Number One Shelterbelt" in the nation. "Our state forestry leadership was very progressive for the period and pursued this important conservation program aggressively," Atkinson said. "Today we continue to see many producers and other landowners planting windbreaks thanks to our Forest Regeneration Center in Goldsby and the efforts of state and federal conservation agencies."

Michele tells us that to understand the potential value of social media to agriculture, ask yourself if you have over 400 million people standing at the end of your driveway- ready to receive millions of messages everyday from you and your friends. That's the size audience that is out there on Facebook and Twitter- and possibilities of telling the modern farm and ranch story are mind boggling.

We talked with Michele at length at the recent Commodity Classic- and you can hear that full conversation by clicking on the link below- we have it on our website as one of our Ag Perspectives Podcasts- available on www.OklahomaFarmReport.Com as well as via Itunes.

Click here for our visit with Ag Social Media Royalty- Michele Payn-Knoper.

Our featured guest on the Beef Buzz the last couple of days has been Erica Rosa of the LMIC- and she describes some of the nuances of the per capita numbers- and explains its not really saying bad things about demand- but rather it seems to be hinting that better cash cattle, yearling and calf prices may be ahead- once we finally get some confidence back into the general economy.

You can click on the link below and jump to day two of our two day feature on this subject with Erica- and there is a link on that page on our website to back you up to the day before so you can listen to both Buzzes- which will give you some insight on where the beef market is- and where it could be headed later this year into 2011.

Click here for our Beef Buzz shows with Erica Rosa of the LMIC

According to Larry Purcell, Ph.D., a professor and soybean researcher at the University of Arkansas, previous research into drought-tolerant plants has predominantly produced the same result: drought-tolerant plants grow better than most plants during drought conditions, but they grow poorly under optimal growing conditions. "For the two traits with which we have worked, we have sidestepped this problem," Purcell said. "This is a significant project that has produced many important discoveries for finding soybeans with agronomic advantages under moderate drought conditions."

Purcell said one of the traits allows the soybean plant to continue to accumulate nitrogen during moderate drought conditions while the other allows the plant to conserve water before the onset of a drought, helping it to be slow to wilt when the weather turns dry. Packaging these two traits in the same variety could be one of the more significant advances in drought-tolerant soybean research.
Click on the link below for more on this promising research that might make soybeans look even more attractive in some of the drier areas of Oklahoma and other plains states.

Click here for more on the drought tolerant traits for soybeans report from the USB.

Later this week- we are headed to Ft. Worth for a couple of days to cover the 2010 Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Convention in Ft. Worth- looks like they have a great meeting- click here to see details of the event.

Finally- we remind your that we have pictures of the 2010 Oklahoma Youth Expo up on Flickr- latest pictures include some of the happenings from the "Ladies" event sponsored by the Diamond Hats. Click here for a jump to take a look at all of the pictures we have taken to date at this year's OYE- at the State Fair Park in Oklahoma City.

We also invite you to check out our website at the link below to check out an archive of these daily emails, audio reports and top farm news story links from around the globe.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

Here are some links we will leave in place on an ongoing basis- Click on the name of the report to go to that link:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. <
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.