|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Monday April 14, 2008!
A
service of Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma, American Farmers &
Ranchers and the Southern Plains Farm Show!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- How Cold- How Long- Where???
-- Conferees to Meet Again on Monday- Money Is Stumbling
Block...
-- Lots of Events to Include on the "To Do" List This Week!
-- Beef Value Cuts Studied and Sampled at OSU-Okmulgee
-- Should we move FMD research away from Plum Island???
-- State Legislative Update- Trespass Measures Continue to
Move...
-- Parker Angus Ranch Selling Performance Tested Bulls This Coming
Saturday
-- Checking the Markets...
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 Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma as a regular sponsor of our daily email update. Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma has ten branch offices to serve your farm financing needs and is dedicated to being your first choice for farm credit. Check out their website for more information by clicking here! We are also proud to have American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual
Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click
here to go to their AFR web site to learn more about their efforts to
serve rural America! 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. | |
How Cold- How Long- Where??? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Only the
Panhandle Mesonet locations recorded multiple hours below freezing on
early Sunday morning- but the area has expanded to a much wider area early
on this Monday morning.As of 6 am this morning- as we prepare to send this Email out to you- we have several locations in the range of potentially damaging temps for winter wheat in the boot stage. El Reno slipped down below 28 degrees for about thirty minutes around 4 AM this morning, Seiling has been flirting with the 28 degree mark since 3 AM; Marshall has been just above the 28 degree mark since 3:45 AM; Kingfisher has been between 29 and 28 since 5 AM; Blackwell has been bouncing between 30 and 28 since 4 AM; Miami has been in the most jeopardy of all the sites to this point as they have reported 28 degrees since 4 AM and down to 26 degrees since 5:15 AM and finally Vinita has been below 28 degrees since around 4:45 AM. These last two locations don't have as many acres of wheat as the central locations- but it could mean it will be the second year in a row where they may be facing severe injury to their wheat acres that are there. Last year- we had a wheat crop that was much further along when a hard freeze of eight to twelve hours duration hit a lot of Oklahoma a week earlier in April. The wheat crop was much more developed at that point in 2007 than it here in 2008, so it added up to significant damage on the wheat crop of 2007- and then you add the rains from late May on- and we ended up with truly a crop disaster when the combination of the dry fall and winter, the early April freeze and harvest delaying rains devastated the crop. Dr. Jeff Edwards, our state wheat specialist, put out a special e-mail on Sunday afternoon about the possibilities of freeze damage to this year's wheat crop- "A cold blast of northern air is predicted for much of the state tonight. What effect this will have on the OK wheat crop remains to be seen. Development of the OK wheat crop is about one week behind normal, which will help. Most of our crop is not past the boot stage right now, so temperatures would need to dip to at least 28 F for about two hours for us to start to see damage." The numbers I have mentioned above came from the Air Temperature graphs
on the Oklahoma Mesonet AgWeather site. To get there, follow the link
below- then select "Current Weather," then select "Air Temperature" then
select "Air Temperature Graphs." Then you click on the dot which
represents the Mesonet station you are interested in- and then select
graph- and you will see the last 24 hours plotted in 15 minute increments.
Click here to go the "Crops" section of the Oklahoma Mesonet Ag Site. | |
Conferees to Meet Again on Monday- Money Is Stumbling Block... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Senators
proposed a counteroffer on the farm bill to the House Ag Conferees that
would fund the permanent disaster program and keep as much as $2.5 billion
in tax breaks in the farm bill- both items that the House had not included
in their measure that supposedly would come in at $5.5 billion over the
budget baseline for the next decade. Apparently the Senators were saying
in their counteroffer- we will accept your base offer to the House- but we
need to add these additional items on top of what you have proposed.
The Senators involved are saying this brings us to ten billion dollars over the budget baseline- but the Chairman of the House Ag Committe, Colin Peterson, seems to be saying that the Senate proposal really brings us up to $12.5 billion over the budget baseline. Peterson says of the Senate counteroffer- "The Senate's proposal only further muddies the water on funding for the Farm Bill by scrapping the offsets recommended by the House and failing to offer alternative funding sources that are acceptable. The Senate's $12.5 billion offer also breaks the previous agreement to limit above baseline spending in the bill to no more than $10 billion. When we can't agree on offsets for the core Farm Bill issues, adding $2.5 billion in tax giveaways that don't even belong in the Farm Bill is counterproductive." Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, the Chairman of the Conference Committee between the two bodies, has called the next public Conference Committee Meeting for 2:30 pm central time this afternoon. We have linked our 2007 Farm Bill page at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com below where we have the House proposal, the Senate Proposal and several audio pieces for you to review in advance of that next meeting- and we will be updating the page after that next Conference Committee meeting- so you may want to check back later in the afternoon or early evening. | |
Lots of Events to Include on the "To Do" List This Week! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We begin with
the Agroterrorism Seminars planned by the Oklahoma Department of Ag and
OSU Extension. The theme of these meetings is "Agroterrorism- Can it
Happen Here? Four sessions are planned, starting this evening in Ardmore-
then Wilburton, Hugo and Ada will also have sessions this week- On this
and all of these items that we are mentioning- we have more details and
links on our Calendar page at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com.
There are multiple stops planned on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for
the springtime Winter Canola Tour- stops will include the Alva,
Burlington, Dacoma, Seiling and Fairview areas. For those American Farmers & Ranchers members that have young people that need some scholarship money- the deadline for the 2008 AFR Scholarships is this coming Friday, April 18- we have the link to their website with all the rules and applications on line on our Calendar page- just follow the link below and scroll down to April 18. | |
Beef Value Cuts Studied and Sampled at OSU-Okmulgee ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It was a most
enjoyable evening on Friday night at OSU-Okmulgee as we attended a
"Tasting Presentation" of the Oklahoma Culinary Research Alliance." The
Alliance is a joint project between the Kerr Food and Ag Products Center
on campus at OSU and the OSU-Okmulgee Culinary Arts Program.
The Alliance featured the work of a class for some of the soon to graduate members of the Culinary Arts Program in Okmulgee- as five students were charged with taking several of the value cuts from the Chuck that have been identified by the Beef Innovations Group of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association- and see what type of end results they could come up with from these cuts that can be cut out of the chuck, but are not being removed and used commercially as of yet. We have a couple of interviews that we want to share with you about this research effort that may result in one day more value being commanded from the "chuck" for beef cattle producers. Today, we have comments from Chef Scott Sherrill, who was the instructor for the class who tells about the three cuts they decided to work with from the chuck and some of the things they learned. Tomorrow- we will link on our daily email comments from Dr. Jake Nelson of OSU on the value of this type research to the industry as a whole as well as back to the producer. I will say that I really enjoyed a couple of the dishes out of the eight or so they featured on Friday evening. One was a delicious beef stew, which had a fresh taste that was world class! The other item that I especially enjoyed was the Smoked Country Style Ribs that were tender, not fatty and again had wonderful flavor- I went back for seconds on those! Of course, these cuts are being studied because of the Beef Checkoff- as checkoff money went several years back to the base study that identified muscles from the chuck and round that have more economic potential than just being ground up into hamburger. | |
Should we move FMD research away from Plum Island??? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A public
debate is picking up steam over the question: should the government's
research labs on Plumb Island be closed and a new facility opened in the
continuous 48 states? Views are conflicting. Some say it is safe, others
say it is not safe. One group that is strongly opposed is American Farmers
& Ranchers. When I talked with Terry Detrick of AFR this past week
when he was in Washington- this was one of the issues he brought up as a
priority for them. While the Ft. Reno campus is no longer being considered
for the new facility, AFR worries that any of the remaining locations
could produce a huge disaster if foot and mouth disease- FMD- should
escape into the local livestock population. The focus of the debate is the
foot-and-mouth virus which is actively being studied by government
researchers on Plum Island. So far, strict rules have kept the virus in
check.
Senator Pat Roberts wants the lab moved to Manhattan, Kansas where - he says - it will mean jobs - and spur research and development. Roberts isn't alone, other politicians from Athens, Georgia; Butner, North Carolina; San Antonio, Texas; and Flora, Mississippi want to see the new National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility in their backyard. Those backyards may have more than a half million head of livestock in them. With those large numbers of livestock near-by there is much concern about a catastrophic outbreak of foot- and-mouth disease. Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic, which only affects animals, could devastate the livestock industry. But, the White House says modern safety rules at labs are sufficient to avoid any outbreak. But incidents in Britain have demonstrated that the foot-and-mouth virus can cause remarkable economic havoc - and the virus can escape from a facility. | |
State Legislative Update- Trespass Measures Continue to Move... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are now
past the Committee phase of the Legislative process in the 2008 Oklahoma
State Legislature. According to Lori Peterson with Oklahoma Farm Bureau,
we have three different Trespass measures that all are still alive and
seem to be moving forward.
She was also pleased to note that the ag sales tax exemption that seemed to be under fire at the start of the session- the proposal to sunset all sales tax exemptions did not get any real traction and is now dead for 2008. Money is tight in 2008- and Peterson says that while there probably will be no tremendous cuts, but she sees limited opportunities for major funding increases in most areas in 2008. Our conversation with Lori Peterson is linked below- as we talk about the ins and outs of the legislative session up to this point with one of the members of the ag coalition at the state capitol. Click here to listen to Ron talk with Lori to gather a State Legislative Update. | |
Parker Angus Ranch Selling Performance Tested Bulls This Coming Saturday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Annual
Production Sale of Parker Angus Ranch, Waurika, Oklahoma happens this
coming Saturday, April 19 at High Noon. Eddie and his wife Karen will be
selling ninety 18 to 20 month old performance tested carcass evaluated
Angus bulls. The Parker's have a complete Igenity DNA Profile on this set
of cattle, including tenderness information. They have five bulls with a
tenderness score of 10; 14 bulls with a tenderness score 0f 9- and 50% of
bulls have tenderness scores of 7 to10.
All of the Parker Ranch bulls carry a one year breeding guarantee. The Parker's will also offer 70 females: fall calving bred heifers and cows as well as open heifers. Call Eddie or Karen Parker @ 580-228-3251 (office) or 580-313-0248 (Eddie's cell) for a catalog. We also have their sale information available on their webs ite- which we have linked below. Click here for the details on the Parker Ranch Angus Production Sale Coming April 19! | |
Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows, American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance and Farm Credit of East Central Oklahomafor their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked at the top of the email- check them out and let these folks know you appreciate the support of this daily email, as their sponsorship helps us keep this arriving in your inbox on a regular basis! 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. | |
Checking the Markets... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We had limited
trade in feedlot country in the Southern Plains at $87 on Friday- with
many feedlots passing on the $87 and holding for $88. They felt that the
higher wholesale beef prices of this past week justified the $88 they were
seeking. Meanwhile, wheat, corn, soybeans and cotton all saw prices on the decline in the Friday session- with Kansas City Hard Wheat Futures losing 13 to 21 cents per bushel. 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: | |
God Bless! You can reach us at the following: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
phone: 405-473-6144
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
