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 welcome 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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South Korea announced on Thursday it was stopping quarantine inspections of the U.S. product, meaning beef sitting in warehouses would be prevented from reaching store shelves. It will now decide whether to ban American beef all together. "South Korea will decide whether to ban U.S. beef imports after seeing if Washington takes sufficient measures. We will ban it if the measures are not enough," Kim Chang-sub, an agriculture ministry official, told reporters. South Korea will stop all U.S. beef imports and return shipments which are waiting for inspection if the country decides to ban the product. U.S. beef can be shipped to the country but cannot be brought to market until Seoul lifts the suspension of the inspections.

The offending party in this case is Cargill, whose 18 ton shipment has been rejected and will be returned to the US. While Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns has claimed that "overall" our inspections of beef to South Korea have gone well- only about six boxes out of 600,000 that have had problems- the South Koreans don't seem to be amused. They are openly questioning whether US Packers can follow safety standards, whatever they may be, of their government if South Korea should more fully open their market to US beef. This was our lead story on today's Morning Farm and Ranch News from the Radio Oklahoma Network- this is a report heard across the state on great radio stations- and we have it linked to where you can hear it on the Internet if you miss it on radio- it is linked daily on our website on the "Listen to RON" page. We also have it linked directly below for your convenience- this link will take you to our Listen to Ron page- from there click on the link that tells you to click to listen to this morning's farm and ranch news- it is an MP3 file.

Click here to listen to Ron on RON with today's Farm and Ranch News

Hobbs has served several years on this board that is connected to the Oklahoma Department of Environemental Quality- and has served as the Board Chairman back in 2003. He has also been active in both the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association and the Oklahoma Farmers Union.

The Fact Sheet states "An abundance of rainfall during the 2007 harvest season has left producers with questions of what to do with low test weight and sprout-damaged grain. Fortunately, there are answers for questions about feed quality, short-term storage, and germination of grain held over for 2008 seed."

Among the subjects tackled by this Extension piece- the feeding of sprout damaged wheat, can sprout damaged wheat be used for seed for the 2007-08 crop, storage of moist or sprout damaged wheat and dealing with insects of this less desirable wheat. The authors of the report include Carol Jones, Stored Product Specialist; Emond Bonjour, an entomology and plant pathology scientist that works with stored grain products; David Lalman, Beef Cattle Specialist and Jeff Edwards, State Small Grains Specialist. We have the complete Fact Sheet linked below- check it out.

Click here for the OSU Fact Sheet- Storage and Use of Low Test Weight.

John Clay operates a Family Farm Corp with his son Steven, consisting of irrigated peanuts, cotton, corn, and small grains for both grain and forage. John is completing his second tern on USDA's Peanut Standards Board and was appointed by USDA in 2004 as Oklahoma's delegate on the National Peanut Board.

Former Anadarko school teacher turrned peanut producer, Duane Stevens operates a multi-county diversified farm headquartered in Caddo County. Stevens also provides services to area farmers as a bermuda grass sprigging contractor and a dozer- heavy equipment contractor. Both of these producers were first appointed to the Oklahoma Peanut Commission in 2001.

Heldermon has served as President of Oklahoma Beef Inc. which is Oklahoma's Premiere Performance Test Station, as President of the Oklahoma Limousin Breeder's Association, and has served two terms as Director for the North American Limousin Foundation. He was involved in the reorganization of the Rogers County Cattlemen's Association and became involved with the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association by serving as Co-Chairman and Chairman of the OCA Purebred Committee. He served as Northeast District Director 1994-1997 and as Northeast District Vice President 1999 through 2002. Ray Heldermon has been an active member of OCA since 1979.

The President Elect of the OCA here in 2007 was also named their Cattleman of the Year. And it's no cattleMan- but rather a very successful lady when it comes to the business of operating a large ranch. We are talking about Terry Stuart Forst of Waurika. Forst operates one of the most historic ranches in the United States- the Stuart Ranch. The Stuart Ranch is Oklahoma's oldest continuous family ranching operation with a beginning in Blue County, Indian Territory during 1868 when Robert Clay Freeny established the headquarters operation. The original headquarters is near Caddo in Bryan County today. The Stuart Ranch includes over 42,000 acres of native and improved pasture land in Atoka, Bryan and Jefferson counties. Wheat and rye grass cool season pasture in Jefferson County is utilized for a fall stocker operation. The beef cow herd is of Hereford and Angus genetics and features a black baldy product that can top the market as a feeder steer or become a top replacement heifer. The heifers are grown and calved at the Waurika ranch and mature cows are managed at the Caddo location. The ranch received the 1996 Beef Improvement Federation Commercial Producer Award.

Forst is the first lady to serve as President Elect of the Oklahoma Cattleman's Association, and assuming she is elevated in a couple of years- she will be the first female President of the organization. Congratulations to both Terry and Ray on their new responsibilities within the OCA.

We also feature links to Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices, Wholesale Boxed Beef Prices, the sites of OSU Livestock and Grain Marketing Economists- as well as a couple of daily audio updates. That means if you miss one of our radio reports from the Radio Oklahoma Network, you still have a way to catch up on our take on the markets at midday and at the close.

The first of those daily updates is usually up and available a little before 12:30 pm. It is our daily Midday Market Roundup, featuring a look at the fat cattle market in the southern plains, wholesale beef market, feeder auctions and agricultural and energy futures. Later each afternoon, usually a little after 2 pm central- we have our daily market analysis featuring our own Ed Richards visiting with Tom Leffler. We have the "markets" page linked below- take a look at the information that we have conveniently linked for you.

Click here for the MARKETS page of our website, WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com

As always, there will be a top notch trade show, a prime rib lunch included in the price of admission, and a great program lined up to help you in the business of cattle production. Jeanne Schneider is one of those on the program this year- she is a Research Meteorologist, USDA-ARS Grazinglands Research Laboratory in El Reno and has done some fascinating research on drought and what may be ahead for the Southern Plains as weather cycles into what may be hotter and drier conditions in the next few years.

And as they have had most of the years at this event- there will be a producer panel after lunch. They will highlight their operations and relay how they are coping with the challenges of the higher input costs related to the higher costs of energy. Of course, they will be available to address your questions. We have the brochure for the Symposium linked on our web site- and we have that link for you below.

Click here to read more about the 2007 Southern Plains Beef Symposium!

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