Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. It is wonderful to have as a regular sponsor on our daily email Johnston Enterprises- proud to be serving agriculture across Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website!

We are also excited to have as one of our sponsors for the daily email Producers Cooperative Oil Mill, with 64 years of progress through producer ownership. Call Brandon Winters at 405-232-7555 for more information on the oilseed crops they handle, including sunflowers and canola- and remember they post closing market prices for canola and sunflowers on the PCOM website- go there by clicking here.
And we salute our longest running email sponsor- Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the April 2009 Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City. This year's show dates are April 23,24 and 25. Check out details of both the Southern Plains Show and the Tulsa Farm Show 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.

Heaviest rainfall totals were in north central and northeastern areas of the state- with the snowfall a little bit of a wildcard as to how much stayed on the fields and then melted to the benefit of our pastures and wheat fields. We will get somewhat of a handle on that with the crop weather update that will be out this afternoon. The National Weather Service has come up with a snowfall map for us- unfortunately they don't show the three Oklahoma Panhandle counties on this map.

I have linked below the three day rainfall accumulation map from the Mesonet, which reflects where the liquid portion of the Friday and Saturday storm fell- it doesn't fully tell us the snow benefits as we have already mentioned. Going back three days this morning takes us back to Friday morning and is a pretty good picture of this most recent storm.

Click here for the 72 hour accumulation of rainfall across the state of Oklahoma.

U.S. hog producers intend to have 2.96 million sows farrow during the March- May 2009 quarter, down 3 percent from the actual farrowings during the same period in 2008 and down 2 percent from 2007. Intended farrowings for June- August 2009, at 2.95 million sows, are down 4 percent from 2008 and down 6 percent from 2007.

Oklahoma remains the 8th largest hog producing state in the country with 2.34 million head of porkers that reside in our state. That's in contrast to the largest hog producing state in the US, Iowa, with just over 19 million hogs in this latest inventory.
Click on the link below for more on this quarterly report- including an audio overview of the Conference Call that featured several analysts reviewing the numbers from USDA.

Click here for more on the USDA Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report from Friday.

The Senate Budget Committee's resolution, passed on Thursday by a 13 to 10 vote, did touch on agriculture by finding budget savings through changes to the federal crop insurance program. An amendment from Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) to save money through government agreements with private crop insurance companies passed by a 14 to 9 vote, though details remain unclear.
The Obama Administration issued its budget blueprint in late February. That proposal included a number of items that would have been detrimental to farm programs in the 2008 Farm Bill, including the elimination of direct payments for producers with gross sales of more than $500,000 annually.

Multiple efforts have been under way among commodity groups and on the Hill to express opposition to these ideas. This week, 17 Senators sent a letter spearheaded by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Ranking Member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) expressing strong opposition to the Obama proposals and other efforts to reopen the 2008 Farm Bill.

Click here to read that letter sent to Budget Leaders Expressing Strong Opposition to Reopening the 2008 Farm Law.

A couple of the big events for the month include the 2009 edition of the Southern Plains Farm Show. The dates this year are April 23-25. We will be working with Midwest Farm Shows this year with a couple of projects, including looking for horses that their owners would like to have them involved in the horse training sessions at the 2009 event. I will have details on this shortly and will be putting the call out to you on this.

Another big event for the month is the 2009 Oklahoma FFA Convention, which is the week following the Southern Plains Farm Show. Thousands of young people in their Blue and Gold jackets will be converging on downtown Oklahoma City for this annual gathering- and it will be an exciting time for the youth organization as they honor the high achievers within their organization. It will also be great to hear from Oklahoma's national officer for 2008-2009, Laila Hajii of Guthrie, who will be a part of the convention celebration.

Have we missed stuff that you know about? Drop me a note at the email address below and let me know the details- we'll be glad to get the information included in what we hope is the best calendar for Oklahoma farm and ranch and rural events found on the internet.

Click here for our calendar pages- and take a look at what's ahead for April and May.

"Feedyards in Oklahoma that were surveyed report that they would love to buy preconditioned calves and are willing to pay for them, but they just can't find enough of them. Most of their preconditioned calves are coming from other states, which reduces the demand for Oklahoma cattle. It is hard to evaluate what the program costs because all producers are different. Many producers are already doing most of what it takes to qualify and only would have to add a few steps to earn certification, while others are doing little or nothing to help protect their cattle and would need to add the cost of the whole program to their operation cost. There is also a wide range in price increases received. According to research, in 2007 calves marketed at lighter weights can see a $10 to $14 dollar per cwt dividend; while steers marketed at 800-900 lbs may only see $2 or $3 per cwt bonus. Preconditioned heifers tend to see their biggest dividend at higher weights than steers, likely because of the good heifers that are marketed as replacements.

"The whole concept of preconditioning is built around preparing the calf for stress and exposure to pathogens before he encounters these challenges. This is done through weaning, vaccination, and nutrition. When done right, the calf is ready to enter the production phase and continue to gain from day one without death loss, treatment costs, or poor feed efficiency. It is vital that the calf continue to gain during the preconditioning period because that gain, along with less shrink compared to bawling calves right off the cow, is a big part of the dividend returned to the producer along with a better price. Much research has been done on this and there seems to be something magic about 45 days off the cow. Prior to that point there is very little benefit in disease reduction, but after 45 days he is ready to face the world. Shipping calves right off the cow also stacks stresses on top of each other due to shipping, processing, and co-mingling in a new environment, all when his immune system may need to be dealing with disease exposure."

Dr. Hunger writes "George Driever (Eastern OK Area Pest Management Specialist) and Doug Maxey (County Educator, Okmulgee County) reported seeing occasional to severe powdery mildew and a low incidence of leaf rust in various wheat fields near Okmulgee."

There has been some stripe rust spotted just across the Red River from Bryan County and Dr. Hunger forwarded that to us on Saturday. Texas A&M's Agrilife people have the following update- "Stripe rust was detected in the counties of Hunt, Rockwall, and Fannin. Fannin is the most northern county of the three and borders Oklahoma.
Stripe rust was found in lower canopy (Flag minus three) but with the current weather conditions it might not take too long for rust to extend to the F-2 and F-1 leaves.
Wheat variety observed with stripe rust was a susceptible Pioneer 25R78. Detection of stripe rust in North Texas was similar in date to that of last year (2008).
No leaf rust yet in North Texas."

They play the best in country music, do an excellent job in covering local news, sports on a regional basis as they do regular reports on a number of High Schools in the area and they excel in local weather coverage, partnering with KWTV News9's Gary England along the way.

They carry ten of of our RON Ag News and Market Reports daily- so the voices of Ed Richards and Ron Hays are a familiar part of the sound of these great radio stations. We now have some 37 radio stations across the state that are a part of our radio network- and are part of our strategy to serve farmers and ranchers and those in agribusiness with reliable farm news, markets and other information important to your bottom line. That strategy includes radio, TV, our website and of course, this daily email. Take a look at our listing of most of our radio stations (we have a couple that we are still building web pages for)- and click on the link below for more details on KWEY AM and FM- two of your choices for catching "Ron on RON!"

Click here for more on KWEY AM and FM in Weatherford and Clinton- serving west central Oklahoma with farm news and markets!

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- 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.