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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oklahoma's latest farm and ranch news
Your Update from Ron Hays of RON for Thursday January 18,
2007! A
service of Midwest Farm Shows
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-- California Nightmare Heading our Way!
-- Congressman Lucas- He gets his oversight over Conservation,
Research AND Energy!
-- Beef Exports provide value to parts of the carcass Americans care
little about!
-- 2006 proves to be 6th Driest on record for North Central counties-
Impacting wheat production.
-- Congrats to Marty the Pig!
-- A bumper wheat crop in Iraq!
-- Welcome to KXDJ to the Radio Oklahoma Network!
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 Southern Plains Farm Show in Oklahoma City April 19-21, 2007, 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. Our E-mail the next few days is also being sponsored by Laura's Lean Beef- Laura's Lean Beef Co., a natural beef provider based in Lexington, KY, will hold a gathering 10:00 am Jan 24 at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center in Shawnee, Ok to introduce local producers to the benefits of raising the lean, heavily muscled cattle that will perform well on Laura's bonus grids. For more information on this meeting- you can can e-mail Beth Whiteford at bwhiteford@LLBcorp.com. Or click here to be taken to their web site for more producer information on Laura's Lean Beef! 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. | |
California Nightmare Heading our Way! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How about four
to six inches of snow as a welcome to the weekend gift? That's possible
for Saturday along a line from Wichita Falls to Oklahoma City and then
northeastward. The extreme California weather that has given them cold and
snow in the Los Angeles area (and cost their agriculture close to a
Billion dollars in losses!) has bought a ticket and will be chugging its
way across the southwest straight for Oklahoma and will arrive as early as
during the day tomorrow.
Currently, much of Oklahoma sits under a Winter Storm Watch- which if you read it is not all that informative. The more interesting reading, if you can work your way around all the darn abbreviations and weather speak- is the Forecast Discussion put out by the forecasters from Norman. They speak of a fast track or a slow track and they are not sure which timetable this system is really on. The fast track brings it to southwestern Oklahoma by Friday morning, while the slower track means a 9 to 12 hour later arrival. Either way, they see moisture with this system piling additional amounts of wintry precipitation onto portions of our state. We have the Forecast Discussion linked below- you may want to refer back to it later in the day and see what updates they come up with as this storm system rolls closer to the state! Click here for the National Weather Service Forecast Discussion from the Norman office. | |
Congressman Lucas- He gets his oversight over Conservation, Research AND Energy! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In our most
recent conversation with Congressman Frank Lucas, he told us that he was
waiting on Chairman Peterson's final decision on the structure of the
Subcommittees within the House Ag Committee for the 110th Congress.
Apparently that is now a done deal, as we received word yesterday evening
from the Ranking Minority Member of the Committee, Bob Goodlatte of
Virginia, that Lucas will be one of six Republican Ranking Minority
members on the various subcommittees that have been established. The House
Ag Committee in the 109th Congress had five Subcommittees, Peterson is
adding an additional panel.
Rep. Frank Lucas will be the Ranking Republican on the Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research Subcommittee. The Subcommittee's jurisdiction includes: soil, water, and resource conservation; small watershed program; energy and biobased energy production; rural electrification; agricultural credit; and agricultural research, education and extension services. The Congressman from Roger Mills County was hoping that his subcommittee would pick up the work on energy issues- and it has indeed done just that. This means that the Subcommittee that Tim Holden of Pennsylvania will chair and that Lucas will sit on will have oversight over three of the components of the 2007 farm bill that could be in line for increasing attention and funding- that is, Conservation, Biofuels Development and Ag Research. That's even more important because Peterson has said that the Subcommittees will do the actual work of pulling together the portions of the farm bill under their direct authority- and then bringing those pieces together to the full committee in the final "mark up" phase. Peterson has predicted that the work on the 2007 farm bill could be done as early as September. | |
Beef Exports provide value to parts of the carcass Americans care little about! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ They had quite
a program at the International Livestock Congress during the National
Western Livestock Show in Denver- and one of the speakers, Dr. John Scanga
of Colorado State, told those in attendance that optimizing the value of
the beef carcass is important to producers and helps bring value from
things like variety meats that have little value in the American
marketplace.
He says a good example is the country of Egypt. Working with Egypt- even in this post BSE world after the Canadian Cow that Stole Christmas in December 2003, the U.S. has been able to grow this market to the point where it is the number one destination of Beef Livers from U.S. cattle- at a much higher value than we would ever receive from U.S. consumers. You can hear Dr. Scanga's comments on today's Beef Buzz, which is a regular feature on the Radio Oklahoma Network. We have the audio linked below- or you can review many of our best Beef Buzzes all the way back to September of this past year by going to our web site at www.oklahomafarmreport.com. Click here for today's Beef Buzz with Ron and Dr. John Scanga. | |
2006 proves to be 6th Driest on record for North Central counties- Impacting wheat production. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Laura McKay
and Al Sutherland and the others who work on the Oklahoma Mesonet have
their latest newsletter out- and it shows some of the interesting facts
about Oklahoma weather for 2006- including the fact that the average
temperature this past year was 62 degrees, the second hottest year on
record- second only to 1954. The water year is actually measured from
October 1 to September 30 and it was the driest on record since 1921- and
was directly responsible for the worse wheat crop in fifty years- as well
as dried up ponds and lakes and parched pastures.
Looking at the calendar year 2006 figures, the number that jumps out is the extreme shortfall of rain that we had in the north central District here in the state. North Central Oklahoma had the 6th driest year on record, almost 12 inches under normal for total rainfall for the year, which was 63% of normal. We have the full Agweather Connection linked on our web site and we have a link for you to it below. Click here for the latest edition of the Oklahoma AgWeather Connection! | |
Congrats to Marty the Pig! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The top
Hampshire market barrow was called the best of the best at this year's
National Western Livestock Show in Denver. Marty was named the Grand
Champion market hog and was shown by Adair Boysen of Columbus Jct., Ia.
Several Oklahoma youth claimed honors in the various breed shows, with the
Champion Black Other Purebreds(I assume this would include Polands and
perhaps Berkshires) was shown by Brendan Comstock of Woodward; Reserve
Champion Yorkshire was shown by Nick Hofschulte of Wyandotte and Reserve
Duroc Champion was shown by Robert Claiborne of Pauls Valley. The Junior
Show continues today, with both the market lamb and market steer Champions
to be named this afternoon. Their sale of Champions will be tomorrow
evening.
In the open cattle show- the Redgate Cattle Company of Waynoka did well- winning in the Grand Champion Pen of 3 Prospect Heifers competition. We'll tell you more about it tomorrow- but the National Western has made a major change in how they pay out the premium auction monies to the owners of the Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion animals- effective this year. The youngsters will still get a majority of the money- eventually- but how it is paid will be substantially different than what has been the norm. | |
A bumper wheat crop in Iraq! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In another
special report from the war zone in Iraq, Paul McKellips has news about
the iraqi wheat harvest in the southern region of the country.
The southern Iraqi Province of Wassit shipped more than 110,000 tons of wheat and 90,000 tons of barley to state silos this past harvest. This is a record yield for the province and four times higher than the 2005-crop season’s 48,000 tons combined. Countrywide, Iraq produced 1.2 million tons of wheat and 144,000 tons of barley. The record harvest can be attributed to American help and improved technology. You can hear Paul's report on how our help has translated into more bushels of wheat for Iraqi agriculture by going to the link we have provided below. Click here to listen to Paul's report on Iraqi wheat production. | |
Welcome to KXDJ to the Radio Oklahoma Network! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another big FM
Country station joins the Radio Oklahoma Network team, as KXDJ at 98.3 on
the FM dial, is up and running this week with reports from Ron Hays on
RON. KXDJ is operated by our friend Chris Samples out of Perryton, Tx and
the country music station can be heard in both Beaver and Texas Counties
in our Oklahoma Panhandle.
KXDJ is carrying several programs daily including: We appreciate Chris Samples and the folks at KXDJ joining the growing family of radio stations that deliver Ron Hays on RON to their rural listeners! | |
Our thanks to Midwest Farm Shows for their support of our daily Farm News Update. Go to their website at the link at the top of today's email for more information on either the Tulsa Farm Show or the Southern Plains Farm Show. 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. | |
God Bless! You can reach us at the following: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: ron@oklahomafarmreport.com
phone: 405-473-6144
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