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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Mike Cassidy out of Frederick emailed us yesterday morning and told us that there is a really good crop in his area- and it sounds like they are most anxious to get it out of the field before Mother Nature can pull anything bad on the 2007 crop.

Wheat crop ratings are out in the latest Crop Weather updates- and they show a slight decrease in the Oklahoma numbers- now 70% good to excellent, off three percentage points from last week, while the Kansas crop improves slightly to 40% good to excellent, 31% fair and 29% poor to very poor. The Texas crop continues to look very good with a rating of 71% good to excellent.

Click here for the full Oklahoma Crop Weather Update for this week.

Our reporters tell us that there are a lot of weeds in places in pastures and ranges across Oklahoma, but abundant moisture and a little more sunshine helped improve pasture ratings to 68% good to excellent and only 6% in the poor to very poor category.

The soil profile is generally is great shape- a rain would be most welcome in the Panhandle but otherwise, topsoil moisture ratings are at 92% adequate to surplus versus 58% short to very short a year ago. Subsoil moisture creeps up another percentage point to 90% adequate to surplus versus 77% short to very short a year ago.

In talking with Mason Mungle, he mentions three measures that he is watching as of this Tuesday morning. One is 1490- the measure that would take the Court Ruling against the Poultry Companies that the City of Tulsa won over poultry litter in the Eucha- Spavinaw watershed and turn it into law. Mungle says the problem is that supporters of 1490 keep wanting to take this court ruling and expand it to form a Kingdom that would include most of the watersheds in Oklahoma. Ag groups are objecting- saying let's stick to the court ruling- allow the Department of Agriculture write rules for this watershed only and leave it there. Proponents of expansion keep pushing and have tried even into the Conference Committee process to get more stuff in there- so stay tuned.

Another example of a bill on steroids is SB136- which was a three page measure that looked rather mundane- but has exploded in Conference Committee to 24 pages with language that has come from special interests wanting to make it easier to get access across private lands they are drilling a well on- or have a well on. This measure would invoke Eminent Domain on a temporary basis to allow pipelines across property at the sole discretion of the Corporation Commission. Mungle says that his understanding of this bill from House author Terry Hyman is that the language is similar to what is already on the books- and OFU/AFR is willing to trust Hyman and his Senate co-sponsor Johnny Crutchfield on this one.

Click here to listen to Ron and Mason on these issues as we wrap up the Legislative calendar.

You can go to the House Ag Committee website this morning and there is a link there for you to listen to the proceedings. One of the controversial elements that has been suggested by House Ag Committee Chair Colin Peterson has to do with CSP, the Conservation Security Program, which is the brainchild of Proud Papa Tom Harkin, who happens to be the Chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. Peterson says that we don't have enough money to really roll out CSP on a national basis- and that the money needs to be put toward other conservation priorities. Harkin has expressed his outrage over this matter- a part of what this subcommittee will be dealing with today.

Below, we have a link that takes you to the preliminary draft language that this subcommittee will be dealing with today. The web site says "The following preliminary discussion drafts have been prepared in anticipation of business meetings to be held by Subcommittees of the Committee regarding the 2007 Farm Bill. These documents are intended for use as base text for the markup process and are subject to change prior to the relevant meeting. They are being made available at this time in order to help Members of the Subcommittees prepare. Markup sessions will be conducted in public meetings in accordance with the Rules of the Committee and of the House."

Click here for the "starting point" for writing the 2007 Farm Bill by this House Ag Subcommittee.

As early as today- or perhaps on Wednesday, the OIE is expected to give the United States a "controlled risk" rating, which the Bush administration hopes will prompt major markets to relax import restrictions and accept all meat and meat products from US animals of any age once certain risk materials are removed.

Groups that represent beef interests here in the United States are excited about the hoped for ruling- but caution that it won't be "done" once the ruling is made. That's a starting point for an end game to get markets in China, Russia, South Korea and Japan reopened fully to US beef.

Tours will run from 8:30 am til Noon today.

Dr. Carver actually spent the past three years making some of the crosses that were a small part of the work that Joe Danne did in Central Oklahoma back in the 1920s and 1930s that led him from Turkey to Triumph wheat- a wheat that has made southern great plains wheat producers hundreds of millions of dollars down through the years.

Dr. Carver also had in his Centennial plots more recent wheat varieties that have been developed by Oklahoma State- and had at the end of the row- some of the experimental lines that could one day soon be released as the next great variety- including some Hard White possibilities.

Click here to listen Ron and Brett Carver on Wheat Varieties from statehood to today!

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