From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.ccsend.com] on behalf of Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 6:48 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 Wednesday October 21, 2009
A service of Johnston Enterprises, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy and American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company!
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-- Laila Hajii of Guthrie is Ready for the Final Chapter of Her FFA Career
-- Final 2009 ACRE Participation Numbers Show One Fourth of Oklahoma Wheat Farms Enrolled in New Program
-- Michael Marlow on Oklahoma Cotton at the End of the 2009 Growing Season
-- After a Wet Sloppy September- Cattle Market Seems Better (Especially This Week)
-- Corn Growers Commission Survey on Consumer Attitudes on Ethanol and More
-- More with Nevil Speer About What Consumers Are Thinking When it Comes to Beef Safety
-- Today's Reminders- School Land- Biofuels and Blue Green Gazette
-- Let's Check 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 pleased 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!

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Laila Hajii of Guthrie is Ready for the Final Chapter of Her FFA Career
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Laila Hajii is ready. After weeks and months of getting ready for the 2009 edition of the National FFA Convention, Laila tells us she wants to see FFA members filling Conseco Fieldhouse and let her last days as a FFA member get underway.

We watched the National Officer team, of which this Guthrie, Oklahoma FFA member is a part of, practice much of Wednesday afternoon. Practice is the lubricant that greases each segment of the National Convention program- and makes it run smoothly over the next four days. And the officers applied this lubricant freely- going over introductions- how they would move award winners around the stage and a lot more. Finally, Laila ended her practice time going over her farewell speech which will be presented on Friday morning.

After she practiced, we chatted for a few moments- and I captured a part of that to share with you. Laila says it has been an amazing year- and she is a much better person for it. She hopes that she has left FFA better as her legacy back to the organization. The comment that she made to me that I liked the best I think was her comment that over the last ten months, she has proven to herself that she can be an adult- managing a grueling travel schedule, always looking sharp and always staying in character as an ambassador for the FFA.

Click on the link below for more on this story- and to hear our conversation with this latest in a long line of National Officers from the state of Oklahoma(inlcuding most recently Travis Jett of Slapout from a couple of years ago).

Click here for our web feature on Laila Hajii of Guthrie at this week's National FFA Convention here in Indianapolis


Final 2009 ACRE Participation Numbers Show One Fourth of Oklahoma Wheat Farms Enrolled in New Program
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When you think of how quickly Oklahoma farmers processed the change in advice that they were receiving about the ACRE program- it was truly amazing. When details were first emerging about the ACRE program, we were reporting that those that had crunched the numbers did not see it as a good fit for the southern plains for anything- including wheat. However, late last spring, with prices falling and wheat crop prospects looking worse and worse by the day- the crunching of numbers continued and a new story was seeing the light of day.

That new story was that ACRE not only made sense on a great number of Oklahoma farms that had mostly wheat base acres- it was a compelling story that offered a historic level of compensation if you signed up for the 2009 crop. We spent time on the phone and trading emails with Dr. Michael Dicks and Dr. Jody Campiche of OSU- they had run the numbers and we saw significant cash payments on the wheat base acres here in the state- more than enough to compensate for the loss in DIrect Payments over the life of the current farm law that comes with signing up for the new program.

We reported and many responded. The final ACRE numbers are out and they show that 25.29% of wheat farms in the state enrolled in ACRE- Oklahoma has the second highest percentage of the number of farms in the country that signed up for ACRE for the 2009 crop year- our potential for getting a significant ACRE payment was about the best of anybody anywhere in the country. Fully 36.7% of our wheat base acres signed up for ACRE, again the second highest percentage in the country (behind Washington- a state that has far fewer base acres). Actual acres signed up for the new program totalled 2,514,648 wheat base acres- the most wheat base acres signed up of any state in the nation- compare our signup to Kansas where only 215,000 acres were committed to ACRE. Back in August, Dr. Dicks wrote to us about the problems that kept many in Kansas from committing to ACRE- "In addition to those that missed in Oklahoma, you have many in Kansas and Mo that had the same problems as Oklahoma but because their state as a whole did not have the problems we had they would not receive the payments our producers did yet will suffer huge loses. Hopefully, these producers will be covered by SURE, a program still without rules and regs." (this as of mid August)

The total base acres in Oklahoma that signed up to ACRE were 2,756,908- fully one third of our total base acres in the state. In total number of acres, we were the sixth largest state in ACRE signup.
There were those that could not get all parties on board to sign up for the program- or that final figure could have been even higher.
All in all- pretty amazing stuff. Click on the link below for more on these final numbers on ACRE- as well as the final DCP signup in Oklahoma and the nation.

Click here for more on the ACRE signup story in Oklahoma and the US


Michael Marlow on Oklahoma Cotton at the End of the 2009 Growing Season
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Michael Marlow of Monsanto- otherwise known as OkieAgMan in the world of Twitter, posted some comments on what he is seeing in Oklahoma cotton fields that we wanted to share with you this morning.

He writes yesterday morning- using about four "tweets" that he was " Headed out to evaluate cotton, sorghum, soybeans. Recent warmer weather is allowing crops to finish in most of Oklahoma outside Panhandle." Later in the day, he tells us what he found in several cotton locations: "Cotton I looked at in plots today, Union City & Ft. Cobb, OK, ranged from 20% to 100% cracked or open bolls across 8 different varieties. Average of what I saw today in cotton was 60% cracked with last harvestable boll 3 nodes above last cracked boll."

Marlow adds that "Cool weather has impacted central and northern Oklahoma cotton. Second postion boll seed not as ripe as I want to see at 60% cracked.."


After a Wet Sloppy September- Cattle Market Seems Better (Especially This Week)
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OSU LIvestock Market Economist Dr. Derrell Peel writes "More years than not, a September rain in Oklahoma will result in higher stocker cattle prices because the challenge of establishing wheat pasture is usually one of not enough moisture. This year, wetter and cooler than normal conditions much of the time since August have delayed stocker cattle demand for wheat pasture. The cool, wet weather has generally been favorable for rapid development of wheat stands despite some difficulties in planting and some washout of young wheat during heavy rains.

"However, producers have been reluctant to receive cattle in the prevailing sloppy conditions of the past month. Calf and stocker prices declined through September and early October but have shown signs of stabilizing the past week." With the drier sunny weather in recent days, interest in cattle has picked up this week.

Evidence of that was seen Monday with over 11,000 cattle in at the Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City. Calf prices were steady- the type cattle that would be bought for wheat pasture, while yearling prices of cattle headed for the feedlot were $1 to $3 higher. You can click on the link below and we have the link to the full weighted average for the Oklahoma City cattle market this week, which reflects more optimism in the cattle market than what we have seen in last several weeks.

Click here for this week's Oklahoma CIty Cattle Market Weighted Average report.


Corn Growers Commission Survey on Consumer Attitudes on Ethanol and More
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A nationwide survey, conducted for the National Corn Growers Association, found broad public respect and trust for family farmers and support for corn as food, feed and fuel. Ninety-five percent of those polled find farmers to be trusted messengers on issues such as agriculture, corn products and ethanol - and ethanol itself was supported or strongly supported as a good fuel alternative by 65 percent.
NCGA President Darrin Ihnen, a farmer in Hurley, South Dakota, says the final numbers were beyond what the group imagined. While the high level of support is gratifying - he says it's also a challenge to work hard to maintain the trust of consumers.

When it comes to uses for corn, support was broad. Ninety-five percent support its use as food for people, 93 percent as livestock feed, and 67 percent as a sweetener. Other uses of corn, such as for fiber and packaging, were supported by 73 percent of those polled.

The numbers on what respondents saw as the top benefits of corn-based ethanol were much less. 34 percent mentioned reduced dependence on foreign oil, 19 percent mentioned the creation of new jobs and 16 percent liked it for its environmental benefits.

Click here for the survey results in PDF format from the NCGA


More with Nevil Speer About What Consumers Are Thinking When it Comes to Beef Safety
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Dr. Nevil Speer says that today's consumers are less confident about the safety of beef compared to just five years after the discovery of BSE in the United States. The Ag Economist from Western Kentucky University says that 78% of consumers indicated that they have concerns about the safety of beef. He contends that consumers need reassurance about what we do to make sure that the beef they buy is safe.

That's what we zero in with Nevil about today on our Beef Buzz. Click on the link below and check it out.

Click here for more with Nevil Speer on the Beef Buzz look at why consumers have concerns today about the safety of beef


Today's Reminders- School Land- Biofuels and Blue Green Gazette
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Oklahoma School Land Lease Auctions continue today in Woodward at the High Plains Vo Tech. Tracts from several counties, including Woodward, Major, Harper, Woods, Ellis and Dewey will be auctioned. Click here for the PDF file from the Oklahoma School Land website that lists all of thetracts of land to be offered between now and early November- it's shown county by county.

The Biofuels Field Day in Chickasha kicks off in a few hours- we have details on our website and invite you to jump to our calendar page and click on the Biofuels Field Day link for today in order to see some of the details of today's event. Plus, check out the other events in the days ahead.

Finally, we do remind you that we will have ongoing coverage from the 82nd annual convention of the FFA today- stories will be going up this morning spotlighting our two national contestants from Oklahoma in Prepared Public Speaking and Extemp. Click here for the Blue Green Gazette and keep up on the activites underway here in Indianapolis- our coverage a service of the Oklahoma FFA Alumni and the Oklahoma FFA Association.


Our thanks to Midwest Farms Shows, PCOM, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy, Johnston Enterprises, AFR and KIS Futures for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked here- just click on their name to jump to their website- check their sites 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


Let's Check the Markets!
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We've had requests to include Canola prices for your convenience here- and we will be doing so on a regular basis. Current cash price for Canola is $7.50 per bushel, while the 2010 New Crop contracts for Canola are now available are $7.80 per bushel- delivered to local participating elevators that are working with PCOM.

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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