Howdy Neighbors!

Here's your morning farm news headlines from the Director of Farm Programming for the Radio Oklahoma Network, Ron Hays. Our email this morning is a service of Midwest Farm Shows, featuring the just concluded Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City, as well as the Tulsa Farm Show held each December. Check out details of both of these exciting shows at the official website of Midwest Farm Shows by clicking here.

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We first stop and take a look at the wheat in the southwestern corner of the state- and it is scary good! That is the bottom line of our conversation with Bob Howard from Altus who is a member of the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Board of Directors. Howard says the crop in Harmon, Jackson and Tillman Counties looks mostly above average and has a world of potential if we don't have a several lines of hail roll across these counties and wipe out significant acres. We have been headed in some of these fields for two weeks now- and we should see the combines roll by mid May along the Red River.

We next jump to Interstate 40 and visit with Jeff Kriehbiel, who has already been a victim of a major hail storm- bad enough that a majority of his 2000 acres of wheat has been hurt- how badly that is hard to assess. He does say that for his area- freeze did not appear to be an issue and he believes like our report from far southwestern Oklahoma that we have an above average crop that may be in the making.

Click here for the Audio report of all FIVE wheat producers we talked to while at the Southern Plains Farm Show in OKC.

Our final two stops are in the counties that had the least potential to make a wheat crop as we rang in the new year on January first. We talk with Keith Kisling out of Burlington in Alfalfa County- and he feels the wetter late winter and early spring have helped pull the crop come from the brink of disaster-although the freeze did get some of the less mature wheat and some of it is browning out as we have seen the warmer temperatures right at the end of this past week.

Our final stop in our wheat crop snapshot comes in Woods County- where we talk with our long time friend Joe Shirley. Shirley says we might have a chance for an average crop in Woods County- and that is something that would have been deemed impossible a couple of months ago. In the Woods County area- late wheat that didn't start growing until January is short- but thick and could come on and push Woods County to that "average" crop level. Joe Shirley praises the work of Crop Breeders like Brett Carver as he says that our current varieties of wheat are nothing short of amazing in their ability to take hits from Mother Nature and still have a chance to make a crop.

Click here for the complete comments we got from Tom, Keith and Joe on how our 2007 Oklahoma wheat crop is doing in their areas.

Other category winners included Preston and Madison Rash of Stillwater for their Cowboy Beef Dumplings in the "Kids in the Kitchen" category; Kimberly Stipe of Bethany was Category winner in the "Small Plates- Big Tastes" category for her Beef Tenderloin Haystack Salad; and the "Nuevo Latino" Category top prize was claimed by Leah Lyon of Ada for her Mayan Mignons on Cheese Pozole Pesto.

The Oklahoma Cattlewomen do a tremendous amount of work in operating this every other year event to help discover some grassroots ideas for fixing beef. With the top recipes in hand, the Oklahoma Beef Council will be working with the Oklahoma Cattlewomen to promote these recipes over the next couple of years before another Beef Cookoff is held in 2009. While these recipes are currently not yet available on the OBC web site- they have the 2005 Award winners and a lot of other great recipes for your beef cooking enjoyment- and we have linked to that site. The 2007 Recipes are likely to be up there in a matter of a week or so- so you might bookmark this link and check back in a few days for those eight cutting edge ideas in cooking beef for your friends and or family.

Click here for the Recipes page of the Oklahoma Beef Council!

An interesting part of the cost sharing monies is that the City of Tulsa will be contributing monies to help move the fifteen year easement contracts to a permanent easement through a contract that has yet to be determined if if might be a one time payment or perpetual annual payments.

We will be covering this event later today at the State Capitol and we will be visiting with several of the key players that will be involved in this big announcement. We talked with Mike Thralls about the nuts and bolts of getting these contracts placed- and he told us there will be an educational push in those areas to let folks know about these monies that can be signed up for- but also he says they would consider going door to door to urge stream side land owners to be a part of this ambitious plan to greatly reduce any runoff issues from agricultural production in the region.

One major part of this 2007 Convention will be a most special tribute to the outgoing leader of Ag Education efforts in our state for many years- Eddie Smith. Smith has spent his professional career serving Oklahoma Youth- and his influence has been felt well beyond the state of Oklahoma- as he has helped reinvent the curriculum of the Ag Education offered in Secondary Schools here in Oklahoma and across many other states as well. He is especially proud of the fact that we are beginning to see more and more school systems accepting Ag Education Classes as a Science credit that helps make it a core subject for those that choose this emphasis.

Eddie Smith has also served as the official State Advisor of the Oklahoma FFA- reminding FFA members that he is "Here by the Owl!" Smith has served in that role since 1988. Smith will be honored with the V.I.P. Citation by the State Organization here in 2007-the highest honor of tribute that the group presents on an annual basis. Eddie told us recently that it's been hard work getting things lined up where he can step down after this annual convention is over- but after he enjoys some time off- he has had lots of offers to get involved in many different projects and I suspect we will continue to see a lot of Eddie Smith around for many years yet to come.

Click here to check out other Oklahoma FFA VIP Recipients and other members of the Oklahoma FFA Hall of Achievement!!!

This is the second time that Creekstone has tried to send beef to South Korea since the beef was supposedly lifted. The first shipment was one of three the Koreans scrutinized until bone fragments were found- giving them an excuse to condemn the entire shipment. This time the Koreans promise that they will look and look but if they find any pea sized bone fragments- they won't throw out the entire shipment, but will reject just that box or perhaps even just that package of beef.

As for Creekstone, they expect no problems with this shipment, which tells me they dare the Korean's to find even a tiny piece of bone in any of the shipments as they have probably done multiple checks to make sure all boxes that have been shipped are as perfect as they can be. Korean officials expect to take about 10 days X-raying these packages of beef before they will be released into the Korean market in early to mid May.

Here is a link to one of the news articles coming out of Korea this morning on Creekstone Beef landing in South Korea!

Both sessions will offer a Thursday evening social hour- complete with Agritourism Success Stories from that area. The Friday program will offer an Animal ID update from State Vet Dr. Becky Brewer, an Alternative Fuels Forum, and a look at the future of Oklahoma's water supply and the role it will play in agriculture. This week's event in Weatherford will also feature a look at the cost share opportunities for some Cottonwood Riparian Restoration, while the May 11th event in Okemah will have a session on Prescribed Burning.

This Week the Summit travels to P-Bar Farms just east of Weatherford on Interstate 40 on Thursday and Friday, while the eastern Summit will find itself at the Grape Ranch in Okemah on May tenth and eleventh. For details you can call 405-522-5489. We have a link below for registration on line.

Click here for registration details of the Oklahoma Farm and Ranch Summit.

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