From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 06:01
To: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
Subject: Oklahoma's Farm News Update
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Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Thursday July 5, 2007!
A service of Midwest Farm Shows
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-- After the Fourth- a slow couple of days ahead...
-- Don't Pick on Duster!
-- State Conservationist touts Flood Control Dams after weeks of rain!
-- Mandatory COOL is going to happen- but there are changes that opponents are pushing.

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 recently 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.

If you have received this by someone forwarding it to you, you are welcome to subscribe and get this weekday update sent to you directly by clicking here.


After the Fourth- a slow couple of days ahead...
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We have a "lite" version of our email for you today- just a couple of stories that surfaced on Tuesday before the Fourth of July Holiday. We will have more of a regular email planned for you on Friday.

We are excited today to be headed up to Stillwater and sit on a panel of media folks who will be talking about the media here in the United States- especially from an agricultural perspective in front of a group of media professionals from Mali that are guests of Oklahoma State University for the next several weeks.

You may recall that our friend Sam Knipp of Oklahoma Farm Bureau and others were a part of a group that journeyed to Mali this past spring as a part of this project- and now during July, a group is now here in Oklahoma from this west African nation. We will have a couple of these gentlemen observing us for several days next week and we are looking forward to that.


Don't Pick on Duster!
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That's the word from state wheat specialist Dr. Jeff Edwards, who has put together a special Wheat Production Newsletter of one subject, sprout damage this year and those who have singled out Duster as having problems.

Dr. Edwards says the reality is that while Duster is not quite as good as 2174 in resisting sprout problems, it has good sprout resistance and that singling it out after such an exceptionable year as we have had in 2007 in early July is not a realistic judgement.

He offers some additional thoughts and we have it linked on our front page of our website, which we have linked below- take a look and check back there later in the day here on Thursday as well as we hope to get some updates from Jeff and/or others while on campus in Stillwater today.

Click here for the latest Wheat Production Newsletter on Duster and sprouting- to be found by clicking on our front page of WWW.oklahomafarmreport.com


State Conservationist touts Flood Control Dams after weeks of rain!
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Even as we are seeing the worst flooding in decades in many locations in the state- notably Miami in the far northeastern corner of the state and Texoma Lake along the southern border, there is a real success story to tell this summer that was reported earlier this week to the Oklahoma Conservation Commission at their monthly meeting.

As Oklahoma experienced record rainfall during May and June, the state's 2,105 watershed flood control dams proved their worth many times over. According to a report by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, watershed projects prevented $290 million in damages that would have occurred had the dams not been in place. Another $46 million in damages could have been prevented if 330 dams that are planned but not built were in place. During the past 60 days water flowed through the auxiliary spillways on 59 dams in 26 watersheds in 20 counties. Of those, 28 flowed in the five days leading up to July 2 when the report was released at the July meeting of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. Most of the flows occurred in Kiowa, Stephens, Grady, Tillman, Seminole, Washington and Nowata Counties.

"The foresight of our predecessors is very apparent at times like this," said Mike Thralls, executive director of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. "You can't wait until it floods to put protection like these dams in place," he said. "Today, we should exercise the same foresight by properly providing funding maintenance and rehabilitation of existing dams, and the construction of new dams that have been planned but not built," Thralls added. Most of the spillway flow depths were less than one foot, but two had flow depths of over three feet. A flood control structure in the Sugar Creek watershed at Gracemont experienced a flow that falls between estimates for 25- and 50-year frequency storms. Two dams undergoing rehabilitation construction experienced flows that caused some anxious moments, but no significant damages occurred and the local conservation district sponsors reacted well, according to Ron Hilliard. Hilliard is the state conservationist for Oklahoma for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). He gave the report at the Conservation Commission meeting.


Mandatory COOL is going to happen- but there are changes that opponents are pushing.
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In our after the Fourth of July Beef Buzz, we have as our guest Colin Woodall of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association's Washington, DC office. Woodall says that NCBA is making a full court push on Congress to look at some of the problems of COOL for red meat that is now part of the 2002 farm law- and says that NCBA, while they don't like the idea of COOL being mandatory- they believe that if it going to happen, several changes in the legislation would make it a lot more reasonable and less onerous on cattle producers.

You can listen to Ron talk with Colin about the changes that NCBA desires for COOL by clicking here to listen to today's Beef Buzz.

Below- we have a link to a list of seven things that NCBA wants that will make this measure more acceptable in their eyes. In contrast, R-Calf is tickled pink with Mandatory COOL- and demand only that the USDA write the rules the way they want them- specifically calling on the government to simply require all imported cattle and beef to have a label that will carry through the beef chain which will eliminate the need to do anything at all with domestic cattle. If you certify that you have not imported any animals into your herd- that would be all you would need to do to be legal- if R-Calf gets its way- which, is NOT likely to happen as the USDA writes the final rules, based on their current interpretation of the law.

Click here on the Seven Reasons Why Mandatory COOL has to be changed- according to NCBA.


Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows for their support of our daily Farm News Update. Go to their website at the link at the top of today's email and make plans to be an exhibitor at either the Tulsa Farm Show this December or the Southern Plains Farm Show next spring!

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



God Bless! You can reach us at the following:
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phone: 405-473-6144
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