From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 06:59
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 April 16, 2008!
A service of Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma, KIS Futures & the Southern Plains Farm Show!
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-- Farm Bill Conference Committee Accomplished Little on Tuesday- Waiting on Funding Deal.
-- Springtime Winter Canola Field Tour Underway in North Central Oklahoma...
-- One Additional Farm Bill Note- House May Consider ANOTHER Temporary Extension Today.
-- Value Cuts Offer Great Promise- We Beef Buzz on that with Dr. Jake Nelson!
-- APHIS Animal Tracking to be Compatible with National Animal ID Efforts.
-- Parker Angus Production Sale to Feature 90 Performance Tested Bulls THIS Saturday.
-- Checking 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 proud to have KIS Futures as a regular sponsor of our daily E-Mail. KIS Futures provides Oklahoma Farmers & Ranchers with futures & options hedging services in the livestock and grain markets- Click here for their website or call them at 1-800-256-2555.

We also 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!
And our email this morning is also a service of Midwest Farm Shows, producer of the Tulsa Farm Show that is held each December, as well as the Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City April 17- 19! 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.


Farm Bill Conference Committee Accomplished Little on Tuesday- Waiting on Funding Deal.
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If anything, it got more contentious between the House and the Senate yesterday morning as the House leadership took shots at the Senate over their demands to include up to $2.5 Billion worth of tax credits that the Senate Ag Leadership insists have direct ties to agriculture. In response, the Senate Leadership claims these tax credits were an integral part of the Senate proposal since the measure passed back in the November-December time frame- so why the surprise by the House Ag Leadership?

Terry Detrick and Francie Tolle of American Farmers & Ranchers continue to watch from inside the Hearing Room- and Francie emails us overnight about the funding issue and the frustration they feel in knowing that farmers and ranchers are being penalized because a government program worked like it was supposed to- "Baucus and Rangel left the conference meeting today with the direction that they need to work out the funding issue. In fact, the baseline has been dramatically reduced because the 2002 farm bill saved the tax payers billions of dollars and because of the current high commodity prices. Currently they are trying to write a farm bill based on high commodity prices and assuming that they will remain that way, they are not looking far enough into the future to allow for a safety net needed when prices are low. We know prices will not always remain high and our producers need some kind of safety net to stay in business, especially with today's input costs and the dollars at risk."

With the Conference Committee set to resume this afternoon- Francie adds "This all leaves for a very interesting meeting this afternoon. If Baucus and Rangel have an agreement by later today then we will really see where the rubber meets the road."
We have a few of the comments from yesterday linked on our Farm Bill 2007 page at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com- click below to go and listen to them.

Click here for the 2007 Farm Bill Page on our website- WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Springtime Winter Canola Field Tour Underway in North Central Oklahoma...
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We enjoyed getting out to the Burlington area yesterday where most fields you see are a beautiful carpet of green- but in a few fields, you are starting to see yellow flowers everywhere! No, they are not weeds, but the canola plant blooming and developing pods that will produce the canola seed that will be harvested about the same time we harvest wheat.

OSU Extension, John Deere and Monsanto have teamed up for these three days of "look ins" at several fields that are blooming with canola this spring. Extension Oilseed Specialist Mark Boyles says the concept of canola as a rotational crop is starting to gain traction in much of the wheat belt in Oklahoma as well as southern Kansas- and he says the eventual goal would be to have farmers rotating canola across their wheat fields one out of every four years- which he says will break up the life cycle of many of the stubborn weeds we are having to deal with more and more. The deep tap root of Canola also helps break up the hardpan we find in many wheat fields- and that's another plus for wheat producers.

He does caution that they are still working on the best management practices of putting Canola into a no-till situation- so he suggests staying out of those fields until they get a little more experience under the belt of extension and others helping to adopt Winter Canola fully into the Southern Plains. We have Mark's comments linked below- and we encourage those in the Dacoma, Burlington and Fairview areas to go and take a look today or tomorrow- here's the link to the invite from those who are putting this Canola tour on.

Click here to listen to Ron and Mark talk Winter Canola on the Richard Tanner Farm near Burlington.


One Additional Farm Bill Note- House May Consider ANOTHER Temporary Extension Today.
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When you go on online and check the daily schedule for the House floor in Washington, you see that there is a proposed short term extension of Farm Law on the agenda for today- to be sponsored by House Ag Committee Chairman Colin Peterson.

Peterson has said both on Monday and Tuesday that we have to have a breakthrough on the funding deal by Wednesday(that's today) or else we will need to either start the wheels for yet another short term extension of current law- or else he will be content to allow Permanent Law to kick in.

On Tuesday during the Conference Committee public meeting, he repeated his total opposition of a longer term extension of one or two years- he says no way that he will agree to that alternative.


Value Cuts Offer Great Promise- We Beef Buzz on that with Dr. Jake Nelson!
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We have the second half of our conversation with OSU's Dr. Jake Nelson on our Wednesday Beef Buzz linked below. We are continuing our look the second round of "value cuts" that have been identified as a result of the Muscle Profiling Research paid for by the Beef Checkoff.

Nelson is excited about the results of the Menu research done by students in the Culinary Arts Program at OSU-Okmulgee, saying that we have learned a lot about these chuck muscles they have been working with.

He believes that we will see one or more of these muscles pulled through the pipeline and made available to the consumer as a great tasting affordable beef menu item. To listen to Jake and yours truly, click below to get today's Beef Buzz, a regular radio feature of the Radio Oklahoma Network- heard on great radio stations across the state.

Click here for the latest Beef Buzz with Ron and Jake Nelson on Round Two of the Value Cuts!


APHIS Animal Tracking to be Compatible with National Animal ID Efforts.
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USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is providing National Animal Identification System compliant "840" radio frequency eartags to animal health officials for use in the bovine tuberculosis control program. This is the first key strategy to be implemented as part of APHIS' Business Plan to Advance Animal Disease Traceability. Incorporating these tags into animal disease programs promotes the standardization of identification methods and technology so they can be used by producers and animal health officials for multiple purposes.

Through the use of radio frequency identification technology, the "840" tags allow animal health officials to electronically identify an animal. They say this increases the efficiency of animal disease investigations that involve the tracing of exposed and potentially infected animals. RFID technology also increases the accuracy of recording the animal's 15- digit animal identification number. So far, USDA has purchased 1.5 million of the tags to support animal disease control programs, including the bovine TB and brucellosis programs.

Undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, Bruce Knight, says this is another step toward reaching NAIS' ultimate goal of 48-hour traceability.


Parker Angus Production Sale to Feature 90 Performance Tested Bulls THIS Saturday.
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The Annual Production Sale of Parker Angus Ranch, Waurika, Oklahoma happens this coming Saturday, April 19 at High Noon. Eddie and his wife Karen will be selling ninety 18 to 20 month old performance tested carcass evaluated Angus bulls. The Parker's have a complete Igenity DNA Profile on this set of cattle, including tenderness information. They have five bulls with a tenderness score of 10; 14 bulls with a tenderness score 0f 9- and 50% of bulls have tenderness scores of 7 to10.

All of the Parker Ranch bulls carry a one year breeding guarantee. The Parker's will also offer 70 females: fall calving bred heifers and cows as well as open heifers.

Call Eddie or Karen Parker @ 580-228-3251 (office) or 580-313-0248 (Eddie's cell) for a catalog. We also have their sale information available on their webs ite- which we have linked below.

Click here for more information on the Parker Angus Production Sale happening THIS Saturday.


Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows, KIS Futures and Farm Credit of East Central Oklahomafor 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 Markets...
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Cash wheat prices in Oklahoma now have an "8" in front of them- with the exception of Miami where the local grain elevator price is still at $9.04 a bushel- that as of yesterday afternoon.
Meanwhile, we wait on cash cattle trade for this week in the Southern Plains. We saw most cattle that were priced last week and sold bringing $87- the expectation is that with rising beef prices, there is a case to be made for $88 to $89 fat cattle this week. Trade is not likely to develop until Thursday afternoon at the earliest.

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- One Pager From Country Hedging- looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. Previous Day's Energy Market Recap- also from Country Hedging
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.



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