Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. Our email this morning is a service of Midwest Farm Shows, featuring the just concluded Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show held each December. Check out details of both of these exciting shows at the official website of Midwest Farm Shows by clicking here.

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Dr. Hunger reports "This year, we have seen the entire spectrum including powdery mildew, leaf rust, tan spot, and septoria and barley yellow dwarf - BUT, thankfully no stripe rust (although stripe rust is appearing in Kansas). At least in part because of these diseases, there is a lot of yellow wheat in Oklahoma. I say it this way, because I do not believe that all of the yellowing in wheat is a direct result of disease. For example, Brian Olson (OSU Plant Disease Diagnostician) completed running eight wheat samples on Friday (May 04th) for presence of barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV), wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV), and High plains virus (HPV). These were from the counties of Payne, Kiowa, Garfield (4), Grant, and Cimarron. All samples were negative for WSMV and HPV, while four of the samples (three from Garfield and the sample from Payne) were positive for BYDV. However, all of the samples except for the sample from Payne County, showed chlorosis and/or necrosis as well as stunting. In all of these samples, there was no indication that root problems were the culprit. Another example supporting this thought was the yellowing I observed this past week at the Canadian County field day south of El Reno. Fields of Jagalene had lower leaves killed from powdery mildew and upper leaves yellowing from severe leaf rust on the upper and flag leaves. In a variety such as Bullet, which currently has excellent resistance to leaf rust and some resistance to powdery mildew, the leaves were basically green from top to bottom. However, circular spots of yellow wheat could be observed in the Bullet as a result of BYDV. Also at this field day, yellowing from septoria, tan spot, and possibly spot blotch were all observed in the tillage study. Hence, I believe that in addition to the yellowing resulting from the various diseases, extended wet and cool weather must also be contributing to the overall yellowing. Additionally there may be some other factors involved, but I have not been able to specifically identify those."

Once we get past this high humidity and rainy weather- how will the wheat respond? Will the final head fill be able to overcome the huge amount of rust and other problems we have seen these final weeks of the growing season? One thing is for certain- it will be a nasty harvest in those fields where a lot of the spores are hanging around- they will be flying around like crazy!

All wheat producers within District IV boundaries who are actively engaged in wheat production, have marketed wheat, paid a check-off fee and left that fee with the Commission for the current year are eligible to vote. It will be the responsibility of the producer to prove their eligibility to vote by providing a dated grain elevator receipt including the producer's name and amount of wheat sold, and a driver's license or some other form of identification. Candidates wishing to run in the election must be at least 25 years old, a resident of Oklahoma, engaged in growing wheat in the state for at least five years and must derive a substantial portion of his/her income from growing wheat. Three nominations will be made at the election, from which the Governor of Oklahoma will appoint one person to serve on the Oklahoma Wheat Commission.

If you have questions about today's event- you can contact the OWC office in Oklahoma City at 405-605- 4350.

In the opening statement on this web site that appears to be set up as a blog- the writer of the site says "Today's activists want to force you to eat nothing but beans and greens; and wear nothing but cotton, rayon, and rubber. They want to ban hunting, fishing, zoos, rodeos, and circuses. Some want to permanently end Kosher slaughter. They even want to outlaw the use of animals in the search for cures for AIDS, Parkinson's Disease, and cancer. And a growing number take the law into their own hands, crossing the line from peaceful protest to violent crime. It's a terrible scam. The world deserves to know the truth. "

Livestock agriculture is most certainly under attack from a variety of directions here in this day and age- and this web site seems to have a handle on at least some of those challenges. Take a peek- I have linked it below.

Click here for Animal Scam.Com

On April 5, Eggleston drove to Canadian to plan the next steps in the investigation with Sheriff Henderson and Chief Deputy M.E. Burroughs. The lawman's instincts had been triggered by an e-mailed crime alert from Special Ranger Joe Rector on two men suspected of trailer theft in Weatherford, Okla. Clinton E. Waugh, 49, of Elgin, Okla., and James Patrick Lewis, 33, of Cyril, Okla., had been arrested for theft of a trailer south of Weatherford. When taken into custody, they had a police scanner, a 12-gauge shotgun, a GPS system, binoculars, spotlights, a notebook with locations, assorted locks-some of them cut-and various tools. That assortment was a pretty good indication that the suspects might have been involved in more than one theft, so the Weatherford Police Department sent out the crime alert.

Eggleston immediately began to follow the lead. When Lt. Steve Moss of the Custer County, Oklahoma, Sheriff's Office advised that one of the suspects, was talking, Eggleston and Burroughs left for Oklahoma. They wanted to know if Waugh knew anything about the Anderson case. He did! Waugh said he had been working for Lewis, who told him to pick up the trailer and skid loader and move them to an oil field outside of Cyril. Lewis told Waugh he needed to change the tires on the trailer. Asked where the equipment had been taken from the oil field, Waugh said he had gone home, but suspected it had been sold to Ed Dutton, who ran a welding operation in Lindsey, Okla. The officers brought in Lewis, who refused to talk. However, they found a check from Ed Dutton Welding among his property when he was brought to the jail. Eggleston reported this information to Terry Cronkite, special agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, who said he would check it out. Cronkite called the next day to confirm that the loader and trailer had been found. When Eggleston, Burroughs and Henderson went to identify the property, they found much more.

Eggleston noticed a Demco stock trailer that had been described as missing by the Beckham County Sheriff's Office. There were also two items stolen from Roger Mills County, Okla.-a two-horse stock trailer and a ranch feed pickup, which was located in a salvage yard outside of Lawton, Okla. Other items included a Polaris ATV, a fifth-wheel travel trailer, lawn mowers and several trailers. In all the officers seized equipment valued at about $300,000 and began tracking down the owners. Anderson reclaimed his skid loader and trailer, valued at $40,000. Membership in the TSCRA has been trending down in recent years here in Oklahoma- and they are down to a single investigator that actually lives here in the state- Joe Rector. However, in this case, that's all it took to help work the two state case and help rural Oklahomans reclaim hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment!

Scholarships were earned by the following young people:
District One: Melissa Johanna Barth of Gage
District Two: Carissa Taylor of Thomas
District Three: William Timothy Osborn of Tuttle
District Four: Aaron James Coffey of Springer
District Five: Kaysie Fields of Wetumka
District Six: Johnna J. Pierce of Nowata
District Seven: Drake Matthew Gard of Fairview
District Eight: Timothy William Roberts of Washington
District Nine: Megan Bryant of Pawnee

Melissa mentions that some of the highlights that she is excited about in 2007 include the Honor Night celebration, the annual Key Club Banquet, the State Project Interviews and the Talent Show where state winners will be showcased. We'll be telling you more about this high profile event for the 4-H program over the next couple of weeks as the date approaches- state 4-H leader Dr. Charles Cox says the numerous snow days that many schools had to take back this past winter may mean attendance at this year's event may be down some- but they are still expecting a good sized crowd to head to Stillwater that week for Roundup.

One of our stations that have been with us since the days of our network being called the Quinstar Radio Network is K101 Radio out of Woodward- playing country music and offering a full service approach to their listeners throughout northwestern Oklahoma. They carry about ten of our reports daily from morning farm and ranch news at 6:15 in the morning through our market wrap each day with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler in the afternoon.

You can hear K101 at 101.1 on the FM dial- and we have linked below our listing of programs they carry daily from the Radio Oklahoma Network. And, if you are not sure which radio station in your area carries our daily reports- drop us an email and we can give you some stations and times they carry programs from us for you to be able to tune in and listen. And, you can always go to our website and catch our morning farm news on your time schedule as well as midday markets that we anchor daily!

Click here for the times that K101 carries farm programs from RON!

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