From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.ccsend.com] on behalf of Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 7:28 AM
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 Friday January 16, 2009!
A service of Johnston Enterprises, American Farmers & Ranchers and Midwest Farm Shows!
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-- Chili Today- Hot Tamale?
-- Sell Old Crop Wheat- Hold Off Early Marketing of New Crop
-- Federal Aid for Pecan Growers in Oklahoma Announced and Now in the Pipeline
-- COOL Rules- Looking at the Details with Dr. Derrell Peel
-- Dam Inspections Are Happening in the State
-- Oklahoma Watching the Fever Tick Situation in Texas With Great Interest
-- On the Agenda- Beef Cookoff, Panhandle Ag Appreciation and Fairview Chamber!
-- Checking the Apache Livestock Market and More

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 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!

We are also pleased to have as a regular sponsor on our daily email Johnston Enterprises- proud to have served agriculture across Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website!
And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the just concluded Tulsa Farm Show, as well as the April 2009 Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City. 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.


Chili Today- Hot Tamale?
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That's not exactly the weather forecast- but we continue to bounce up and down with our temperature ranges as we hit the middle of January- as we start in the single digits when it comes to overnight temperatures in many locations around the state- we are due now for a couple of days of somewhat warmer readings. In fact, as we get ready to drive to Guymon later today for the Panhandle Ag Appreciation Days- the highs in the Panhandle today and tomorrow are expected to be into the low 60s.

About every two days, another front is expected to roll through our region- keeping temperatures up one day- and down the next. 50s and 60s are now being predicted in the main body of the state this weekend and early next week. It will likely remain dry and windy for the next few days. However, the party may be interrupted by about Thursday of next week as Arctic air may arrive in Oklahoma.

According to the Weather Discussion that is up on the National Weather Service site coming out of Oklahoma City- there may be a chance for precipitation in some form by next weekend. The discussion reads "SOUTHERN STREAM SYSTEMS TO APPROACH REGION LATE NEXT WEEK INTO THE WEEKEND MAY YIELD OPPORTUNITY FOR SOME MUCH NEEDED PRECIPITATION." The forecasters in Norman seem to think we could have the current ridge of High Pressure start to break down by the middle of next week, which would allow moisture to get back into the mix for our state.
I have linked the current forecast discussion below for you to catch up on the latest thinking by those weather folks at the NWS.

Cick here for the current weather discussion as found on the National Weather Service website for Oklahoma.


Sell Old Crop Wheat- Hold Off Early Marketing of New Crop
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OSU Extension Grain Marketing Economist Dr. Kim Anderson believes that current price pressure on our US wheat market is all about the market believing that we have plenty of wheat in the pipeline. Anderson is talking about that and his latest thoughts on marketing that crop- old crop as well as new crop- as he appears for his regular wheat market shot on the weekly OSU ag information TV show, SUNUP.

From the link below- you can jump to our webpage that has more on what Kim is thinking right now about the wheat marketplace. You can click and hear his conversation with Clinton Griffiths about the current "why" of the market- and how wheat producers should be reacting.

On that same page- we have details of what is going to be featured on the weekly TV show SUNUP as seen on OETA each Saturday morning.

Click here for more with Dr. Kim Anderson and the scoop on SUNUP as found on WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Federal Aid for Pecan Growers in Oklahoma Announced and Now in the Pipeline
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Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry announced Thursday that the federal government has approved federal aid for many Oklahoma pecan farmers who were hard hit by inclement weather over the last year.

The governor originally requested a disaster declaration in November, citing the impact of the 2007 ice storm, cold weather in April and October of 2008, and heavy rains from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike last September. "Our pecan farmers were hit by just about every weather challenge imaginable and suffered losses accordingly," said Gov. Henry. "The federal aid won't solve all of their problems, but it is a step in the right direction."

The U.S. Agriculture Secretary approved disaster declarations for 40 counties: Alfalfa, Atoka, Bryan, Carter, Choctaw, Cleveland, Coal, Cotton, Craig, Creek, Garvin, Haskell, Hughes, Jefferson, Johnston, Lincoln, Love, McClain, McCurtain, McIntosh, Marshall, Mayes, Murray, Muskogee, Nowata, Okfuskee, Oklahoma, Okmulgee, Osage, Ottawa, Pawnee, Pittsburg, Pontotoc, Pottawatomie, Rogers, Seminole, Stephens, Tulsa, Wagoner and Washington.
Farmers in contiguous counties are also eligible for aid under the declarations.


COOL Rules- Looking at the Details with Dr. Derrell Peel
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Our Friday Beef Buzz features some of the conversation that we had earlier this week while in Denver with Dr. Derrell Peel of OSU. Dr. Peel was there at the International Livestock Congress talking COOL during their afternoon session- and we chatted with him before his presentation about the final Rule as issued by USDA and published in the Federal Register as of yesterday.

Our Beef Buzz today focuses on how the Final Rule alters how we will certify which country cattle come from as they reach the packing plants. The so called visual inspection of cattle just before slaughter changes the dynamics of how much hassle COOL will be for cow calf operators as well as stocker producers. Dr. Peel also talks with us about the mixed origin label- and how it has been tightened some by the writers of the rule- which could cause some headaches for packers, processors and retailers in the days to come.

The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on great radio stations around the state on the Radio Oklahoma Network- and can also be heard at your convenience as we post them on our website, WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com. We have today's Beef Buzz linked below- but you can access many of our Beef Buzz shows going back to the fall of 2006 by going to any of our website pages- looking on the left hand side of the page- and clicking on the Beef Buzz button. That takes you to the current Beef Buzz and a listing of older shows as well.

Click here for the Friday Beef Buzz from the Radio Oklahoma Network


Dam Inspections Are Happening in the State
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While Oklahoma is one of the lowest states in the nation in funding for dam safety, it does not mean all the dams are going without inspection. An article distributed by the Associated Press in January 2009 points out that Oklahoma is one of the lowest states in the nation for dam safety funding, with a budget of $395,336 for 2006. That is the budget for the dam safety activities of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board and not for the Oklahoma Conservation Commission or the state's 88 local conservation districts. All of the inspections carried out by local conservation districts and the assistance provided by the Conservation Commission, NRCS and county Emergency Management Agency staff take place without receiving any funding from that budget.

Of the 4,477 dams regulated by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) in the state, 2,105 are inspected annually by local conservation districts. These are small watershed upstream flood control dams that were constructed as floodwater retarding structures. And it is not just the high hazard structures that are inspected - conservation districts inspect all of their dams including those designated as low hazard.

Of these 2,105, 229 dams are classified as "high hazard" since they have the potential for loss of life if they should fail. For many of those the reclassification to high hazard has been a recent development - in recent years or even months. An upstream flood control dam originally built as far back as the late 1940s in a rural location becomes high hazard if the situation changes to where loss of life could occur if the dam breached - that could be only one residence or business built below a dam.
The changes in classification put a real strain on budget resources in keeping inspections going toward the right targets. We have more on this story on our website- and invite you to check this story out by clicking on the link below.

Click here for more on the Dam Inspection story for the state of Oklahoma


Oklahoma Watching the Fever Tick Situation in Texas With Great Interest
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The cattle industry, including groups like the NCBA, the Texas Cattle Feeders and the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers have all praised USDA for allocating more money in the battle against the Fever tick in south Texas- as an additional $4.9 million in emergency funding has been made available to support the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program

The cattle fever tick eradication program was initiated in 1906 and was initially funded by Congress in 1907 as a cooperative federal/state/industry disease and pest eradication effort. Due to these efforts cattle fever ticks were eradicated from all 14 states that comprised the fever tick's historical range and were pushed across the Rio Grande River by 1943. A permanent quarantine area was established along the Texas side of the Rio Grande River in 1938 to prevent re-establishment of fever ticks from Mexico in Texas. Despite the success of the program, since 2005 the level of tick infestations has been increasingly trending upward. Tick incursions from Mexico are increasing, resulting in a historically high number of infested premises as well as temporary expansions of the permanent quarantine buffer area in Texas.

The ticks are vectors for diseases which could cause great economic hardships to the cattle industry and agriculture, in addition to posing a threat to foreign trade. The increasing incursions of tick infestations in Texas, the increasing level of acaracide resistant ticks in Mexico, the identification of some acaracide resistant ticks in Texas, and the increasing role of wildlife (especially white-tailed deer, elk, and nilgai) in the spread and maintenance of fever ticks in Texas are of great concern.
While we have not seen problems as far north as the Red River yet- they have been getting closer, and support for this program is good news for the Oklahoma cattle industry.


On the Agenda- Beef Cookoff, Panhandle Ag Appreciation and Fairview Chamber!
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We will be spotlighting the Oklahoma Cattlewomen and the 2009 Oklahoma Beef Cookoff that happens at the Oklahoma City Home and Garden Show on Saturday on our Saturday morning TV segment, In the Field, as seen on KWTV, News9. We are excited that we will be able to visit with OCW's Barbara Jacques about this great promotion for the beef industry- tune in and take a look on Saturday morning at about 6:40 AM on KWTV, News9.

Meanwhile, we are heading to Guymon later today to help celebrate the Panhandle Ag Appreciation Days being put on by the Guymon Chamber of Commerce. We will be involved as an emcee and moderator of the events, including the dinner and program they have planned for tonight and then their program planned for Saturday morning as well.

Finally, we are excited that we get to speak to the Fairview Chamber of Commerce banquet planned for Monday evening in that Major County community. We'll be talking about historic changes both at the state and national levels of government and how they can be impacting agriculture and local main streets like we find in places like Fairview.

There are a lot of things that continue to be on the Calendar here in January and February- and we invite you to check them all out by going to our Calendar page as found on our website- click on the link below to be jumped there in a flash of an eye.

Click here for more on the Calendar Scene as listed at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows, American Farmers & Ranchers and Johnston Enterprises for 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.

Click here to check out WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Checking the Apache Livestock Market and More
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The Apache Livestock Market was the latest in our weekly auction markets that had a big cattle turn this week. A total of 4,252 cattle were on hand at their Thursday auction, with steer yearlings steady to $2 lower, while calves sold for $2 to $4 cheaper than last week. Five to six hundred pound steer calves brought $95 to $106 this week, while seven to eight hundred pound yearlings came in at just $93 to $95.75. Click here for the entire market update for Apache- it will probably be updated to this week's sale after 8 AM this morning.

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- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat 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.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.



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