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 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.

We welcome as our newest regular sponsor on our daily email Johnston Enterprises- proud to have served agriculture across Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. Johnston Grain wishes our wheat producers a safe and prosperous harvest this month- for more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website!
And finally, we are glad 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!

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Many locations, especially in Cimarron County, have had little precipitation since last fall. We have had some confirmation of that in an email received yesterday from Mary Chris Barth of Slapout, whose family operation also has some CRP ground in Cimarron County.

Mary Chris writes "Beaver county is getting some moisture in spots now. We are using it up as it comes. We had rain last August grew mostly weeds and some low quality grass. It did provide some cover in the pastures. Still this place looks like the Garden of Eden compared to west parts of Texas and all of Cimarron county. Southeast Colorado and Eastern New Mexico are in the same fix. The New Woodward Livestock Auction is getting from 500 to 1000 cows a week out of this country. Ranches are totally depopulating their herds. Some I am acquainted with have had cattle in the family since the 1880's now have none."

She adds that as an owner of some CRP ground in our most westernmost county in the state- and one in the category of exceptional drought- "A good question to ask is who was the bright individual at the state level in FSA that required mowing all the 10 years renewal CRP contracts in Cimarron County totaling 66,000 acres. It was requested to be allowed to hay these acres and denied. My understanding is that the surrounding states did not have this requirement. Think how many producers could have saved their core cow herd with these acres. The opening of CRP now is of no value to us as the forage is mowed and has blown away without any regrowth."
That opening of the CRP land is set for July 2nd in the Panhandle- as that date will be after nesting season of the native bird population.

Click here to see the Drought Monitor page for Oklahoma as of Thursday.

Meanwhile the National Cattlemen's Beef Association has also weighed in on the Texas request for a waiver on the Renewable Fuel Standard- and they call for the waiver to happen as soon as possible. "NCBA does not believe that issuing a partial waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) will immediately reverse commodity price escalation, nor do cattle producers claim that it will single-handedly address the difficult marketing environment that currently exists for our industry," says NCBA Chief Executive Officer Terry Stokes in his comments. "But, the RFS is clearly one factor contributing to higher feed prices."

While NCBA policy supports the development of alternative energy sources and the nation's overall goal of energy independence, cattlemen want to see a greater emphasis on fuels produced from cellulosic or non-feedgrain sources. NCBA maintains that until grain-based ethanol production operates in a climate that is less driven by federal mandates and government subsidies, the nation will continue to see extremely slow development of additional alternative fuel sources. "By granting this waiver, EPA would accelerate the development of advanced biofuels that do not rely on food or feed as a feedstock," Stokes says. "Unfortunately, the mandate for corn-based ethanol is and will continue to send a market signal to construct more conventional ethanol facilities, instead of the next generation of biofuels plants."

The letter from Kathy McNally from the Division of Agriculture has been sent out from Stillwater to the more than 300 Alums of the program. The key to getting a double double for funding a "Professorship" for the OALP is to get $250,000 rounded up between now and June 30th. It's a tall order, but the rewards for this Leadership Development effort is incredible- a four to one match for the dollars raised to come up with a cool million dollars that will offer some $45,000 annually forever for the OALP program's operation.

The stability that this "professorship" would offer OALP would be tremendous- as the program now lives on donations and support from year to year- as compared to other states that have endowments to help with their costs of running leadership development classes. If you are interested in helping with this effort- you can contact Kathy McNally in Stillwater at 405-744-7964- or call the Chairman of the OALP Advisory Council (that would be me) at 404-841- 3675 and I will be delighted to explain where this money can take OALP for years and years to come.

Joe Victor tells us "May Placements are expected to be 3.7% smaller than last year. Feedlots have slowed buying new feeders as they are still losing money on outgoing cattle. During May, feedlots were concerned over delayed corn planting raising fears of higher corn prices. Additionally there was competition for those feeders for grass. Our Placement estimate of 2.079 million head is the second lowest May since 1997. Cattle placed in April will be marketed from late September through January."

He adds "We expect a Marketing total of 2.089 million head in May which is close to five year average levels for May. The higher Marketing total was simply due to the large supplies of market ready cattle available. Cattle on Feed total as of June 1 will be smaller than last month at 98.0%. Our placement model suggests slaughters from feedlot cattle will remain larger than last year through July then lower than last year marketings through the remainder of the year. "

We will be posting the numbers and some reaction to the numbers on the front page of our website later in the day on Monday- after about 3 PM central or so. Check under the heading of Top Agricultural News!

Click here for the Front Page of WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

Lunch following the Field Tour will be in Wakita. To RSVP or for driving directions please call the Grant County OSU Extension office at 580.395.2134 or the Grant County Conservation District at 580.395.2324 ext.3

We have details on this event and a bunch of other happenings here in Oklahoma as well as beyond our borders on our special Calendar page. AND- we have a even better looking Calendar page now under development that you will find even easier to use in the days to come- we hope to have that up and running sometime early in July. In the meantime- click on the link below to jump to our calendar page!

Click here for the Calendar Page at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

The writer of the article is Brian Arnall- and he says one decision that is almost certainly the wrong decision is to think fertilizer is too expensive and that it is not really needed.

Arnall says that is a mistake- "Not applying any fertilizer is also not the answer, a small amount of N, P, or K can mean very big returns in terms of yield. It is very similar to driving with today's gas prices. If you are at a location where the gas is really expensive, you do not want to buy more than you need to get to your final destination or even enough to get there, but then again you don't want to leave the gas station without making sure that you have enough to get to the next station. Running out of nutrients early in season is worse than running out of gas. If you run out of gas, you walk and your pride is hurt. If your wheat runs out of nutrients you're losing yield and profits."

Click here for the full article and the rest of the latest PASS Newsletter from OSU in Stillwater.

The resolution on the Vet School reflects the problems that is being seen all over the country- the decline in Large Animal Vets versus Vets that want to stay in town and treat pets. There has been discussion on this issue in Oklahoma- as we look for ways to offer incentives for students to study to become a large animal vet- and then get out in the country and be one!

The TSCRA Executive committee asked the board to consider a resolution directed to the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Research at TAMU. TSCRA leadership has long been concerned with the diminishing number of large-animal veterinarians in rural areas. TSCRA's policy "requests the president, chancellor, and board of regents of Texas A&M University recruit a production agriculture veterinarian to be the new dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences."

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

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:
Our Daily Market Wrapup from the Radio Oklahoma Network with Ed Richards and Tom Leffler- analyzing the Futures Markets from the previous Day-
Ron on RON Markets as heard on K101 mornings with cash and futures reviewed- includes where the Cash Cattle market stands, the latest Feeder Cattle Markets Etc.
Previous Day's Wheat Market Recap- One Pager From Country Hedging- looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture.
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.