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 welcome KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily E-Mail. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for their website or call them at 1-800-256-2555.

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Well, there are others out there with the opinion that for several reasons- you need to probably pull the trigger sooner rather than later this year if you plan on topdressing. Joe Neal Hampton with the Oklahoma Agribusiness Retailers Association says that because of what could be a shortage of nitrogen fertilizer as we approach corn planting season this spring- plus weather uncertainties- you need to topdress ASAP.

Hampton writes us in an email "The availability of UAN and urea could be very tight and prices could increase in the near future. The U.S. imports 50% of its nitrogen fertilizer needs. Many U.S. Nitrogen manufacturers are either on allocation , will be on allocation, or have drawn down their stocks to very low levels. Surging corn prices will likely draw much of the Nitrogen supply to the corn country this spring. Current U.S. Nitrogen prices are below the world price which further complicates the supply issue as much of the world Nitrogen production is going to China, India and South America. In addition, the producer is "rolling the dice" waiting until mid-to late Feb. to topdress. The ground could either be too wet for application, or too dry for the Nitrogen to move into the soil to become available to the plant. It is widely held among many agronomists that once it rains, it takes two weeks for urea to "break down" and be available to the plant."

Hampton continues "Jim Leikman, Kansas State University extension nutrient management specialist believes producer's waiting until right before jointing to apply their Nitrogen needs are making a big mistake given the current Nitrogen supply situation and weather uncertainty. Another factor is the relationship between Nitrogen and quality . After last year's low protein content in our wheat production, it has become very difficult to sell wheat with a protein content of less than 11%. Nitrogen adds to the protein content. If the plant does not have an adequate Nitrogen source to make protein for this year's crop, large price discounts could develop for this year's wheat production that has low protein content."

In addition to working to solve the case, Cummings and local officials are trying to spread the word to cattle producers that this is a real threat and to be on the lookout on their own ranches. "We need them to check their cattle regularly," he said. "And we need them to not assume that a dead cow is a natural death. Gunshot - especially from a high-powered rifle - will go through and through and it's very hard sometimes to find a gunshot wound," Cummings said. "There's very little blood because some of these cattle drop right in their tracks. If there is any doubt, call us. The game wardens have expertise in determining how an animal was killed, whether or not it was a gunshot."

The investigators are calling on the public's help to solve this crime. Through its Operation Cow Thief, TSCRA is offering a reward to citizens who provide information leading to the arrest or grand jury indictment of individuals responsible for the cattle deaths. An informant may remain anonymous by giving a pseudonym and may be paid by cashier's check made out to the bearer. The toll-free phone line, 888/830-2333, is monitored 24 hours a day.

Ranchers who believe they may be victims of this spree are encouraged to call Special Ranger John Cummings at 817/342-0888.

The one exception to that was Senator John McCain, who came in fourth in the Republican voting- just barely behind Fred Thompson- they were both well behind Huckabee and Mitt Romney, who admitted disappointment in only being second in Iowa last night. Back to McCain- he campaigned little in Iowa but has frequently said when asked about farm programs- he is not in favor of large subsidies for farms and is not in favor of government help in promoting ethanol.

Ken Root told us this week before the voting that issues relating back to core values would matter to Iowans- and that apparently was the case with Mike Huckabee supporters- including those involved in farming. On the Democratic side- Barack Obama was clearly ahead of both former Senator Edwards and current Senator Clinton- we have linked below his campaign website's page on rural issues. It says that Obama wants a strong safety net for family farmers- wants to regulate CAFOs and is supportive of programs to encourage young people to get into farming and ranching.

Click here for the Barrack Obama webpage on rural issues.

The Country Hedging folks say that "big money" has driven any notion of supply and demand out of the wheat market in recent weeks. Specifically about the Kansas City Board of Trade movement of yesterday, they write in their daily web summary "Kansas City limped into limit up moves again today with the buying sporadic as the sellers were convinced that the sidelines were the safest place Simply put - sellers are not only sidelined they are not even on the field.. In the last two days wheat has rallied on expectations that the funds would be buyers, they certainly have been active but in Kansas City the funds really have been long approximately 32,000 for some time now and have not added to their length for any significant size to justify a 60 cent move."

With wheat futures jumping, that has Gulf wheat prices and Oklahoma grain elevator bids higher once again as well. We are back to the high eight dollar to low nine dollar levels in the state once again- and we have linked the Thursday cash grain prices for Oklahoma below.

Click here for the current cash grain prices for Oklahoma.

Robert D. Robbins of Altus was one of the Cotton Board members that was reappointed. One of the alternates that was reappointed was Robert H. Miller of Wellington, Kansas.

The cotton research and promotion program is designed to advance the position of cotton in the marketplace. It is funded by assessments on all domestically produced cotton and imports of foreign- produced cotton and cotton-containing products, and is authorized by the Cotton Research and Promotion Act of 1966. USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service monitors the program.

Monsanto's release says "We've seen the first advancement of a multi-generational family, in this case our drought-tolerant research, in the history of our company. Given the phase transition of our first- generation drought-tolerant corn technology, Monsanto is now the industry's first company to advance a drought project into the regulatory and commercial phase."

I have details of some of the other Monsanto technology efforts- and have a link that is below. It is very interesting how we have some talking organic at every turn- for example the keynoter of the Horticulture Show this weekend in Tulsa(not to mention Barack Obama's call for more organic farming support from Uncle Sam)- and then we have Monsanto and their brave new world approach in biotech that offers a lot of promise to farmers in this country and globally.

Click here for that overview from Monsanto on their Technology Pipeline.

Of course, we also spend a good bit of time writing this email- and then weekly we do our TV update on KWTV News9 in Oklahoma City for their Saturday morning news block from 6 AM to 8 AM. Speaking of TV, we look forward to having Mike Spradling, new President of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau with us as our guest this Saturday morning on January 5.

One way we merge some of these ways we reach out and provide you information is via our website- as we regularly offer several of our radio programs on the website for you to listen to if you miss the show on one of our great radio stations across the state. On our website, we have three buttons that will take you to audio reports that are updated regularly. One is the "Listen to Ron" button, which takes you to a link that allows you to listen to our daily morning farm news fed each morning to our radio stations. The second button that takes you to a couple of our market reports is our "Markets" button- we have both the midday 12:35 PM cash and futures market update linked here- as well as the closing market wrapup- hosted by Ed Richards with his regular guest, Tom Leffler. Finally, we have our "Beef Buzz" button, which offers you a chance to hear our daily beef industry news update- and we have many of these shows archived for you to listen to at your convenience 24/7- 365 days a year. Below- we have a link that will take you straight to the "listen to Ron" page- check out this morning's farm news as heard on the Radio Oklahoma Network!

Click here to jump to the "Listen to Ron" page of WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

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