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 recently 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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There has been additional rainfall overnight since midnight, but that has been confined to southcentral and southeastern Oklahoma- with the hope that we will be seeing a period of sunshine and drying conditions in the areas where we still have half or more of the 2007 wheat crop still to cut.

We continue to ask for your help in telling this 2007 Oklahoma wheat harvest story. We have gotten a lot of great reports from many of you- we appreciate them- and we would like to hear how far along you are, how things are going to this point, how much of your crop is still out in the field- do you have custom cutters still around- these type of reports are of interest to all of us. Drop me an email and let me know your harvest story! We will be updating the web site later today as we have opportunity to do so and have reports from some folks.

Click here for the latest on the 2007 wheat harvest- come back later in the day and we will have updates as available!!!

We talked with Kim about this price explosion and if that should alter your marketing plans as you harvest this 2007 crop. We have linked our conversation with Kim on that topic below and invite you to take a listen to what Kim sees as the challenges and opportunities of this current market.

On Friday morning- Kim responded to our Daily email report that showed the example of how much better the treated acres of a field of Jagalene did in Garfield County versus the untreated acres in that same quarter section. We posted this on our web site's front page at www.OklahomaFarmReport.Com and the numbers are amazing. For this particular field, the payback for spraying those acres was substantial. It is still there from our posting from Friday morning if you want to go check that out.

Click here for the conversation that Ron had with Kim Anderson of OSU on Wheat Marketing Strategies with prices at 11 year highs.

While Peterson had told reporters earlier in the month that he was likely to be recommending a cut in Direct Payments ( at least a small one)- the details within the Title show the Direct Payments exactly the same as in 2002. Now, there will be a cut in direct payments as it looks like they are waiting on a ruling from CBO as to what percentage of base acres will be eligible for a direct payment (the 2002 law was set at 85%) with the drop in the acreage percentage to be used for paying for changes in the target prices and marketing loan rates.

The proposal would raise target prices for four crops- wheat, barley, oats and soybeans and drop the target price for upland cotton. In the case of wheat, the new target price would be 23 cents higher at $4.15 per bushel. On the loan rates, the proposal splits off feed barley and malt barley and before that crop, would raise the loan rate for wheat and soybeans- the wheat loan rate would go higher by 19 cents to $2.94. It looks like the Committee is trying to raise the safety net higher when prices are low- but they still don't address the wheat producer who does not have a crop to sell- and as a result has nothing to put under loan and nothing to claim a LDP on.

Regarding payment limits, the House Ag Committee seems to be proposing little change from the 2002 bill except they call for "direct attribution of benefits." That will place a hard cap for an individual of $40,000 for Direct Payments and $65,000 for Countercyclical payments. One final change that is interesting- the House Ag Committee wants to end the paperwork load for FSA offices of micro sized farm operations, as it says that "farms with total base acres of 10 acres or less are ineligible for the direct and countercyclical payments." The House Ag Subcommittee for General Farm Commodities will start their hearing tomorrow morning at 10 am Eastern time- and we will be there covering it for you.

Click here for the House Ag Committee Farm Bill page- notice the Revised information on the Commodity Title at the top of the page!

JJ and the folks at the OSU area office in Ada got a lesson in that popularity handed to them in spades earlier this spring as they planned a Meat Goat Boot Camp for this week in Ada. Almost before they knew it- they had over 30 inquiries to attend from 14 states- and then they started promoting it here in the state. As a result the first Boot Camp is a sellout- about half of the campers will be from Oklahoma(all over the state) and the other half coming from more than a dozen states- as far away as New Jersey and Wisconsin.

JJ and the OSU team have already planned a second boot camp- and it is quickly filling up- it will be held in October, also in Ada. We talked with JJ about Meat Goats and their popularity in a radio interview as well- click below to hear us do a little "goat talk" with JJ Jones.

Click here to listen to Ron and JJ talking Meat Goats- including the upcoming Meat Goat Boot camp being held this week in Ada.

A summer fly-in to Washington planned by the Oklahoma Farmers Union/American Farmers and Ranchers has proven to be coming during a very crucial time for the 2007 farm bill debate. The House Agriculture Committee will be right in the middle of marking up the Commodity Title of the proposal at the Subcommittee level as we wrote about earlier in this email- and since we know that the desire of the Committee Chairman Colin Peterson is to make do within the Commodity Title with the money that is available in the baseline- how that shakes out on Tuesday will be most interesting and will make a meeting with Congressman Frank Lucas who serves on the full House Ag Committee as well as that Subcommittee most enlightening to say the least.

The group also will meet with the rest of the Oklahoma delegation on either Tuesday or Wednesday- has time planned with USDA and some other meetings on the agenda as well. We have been asked to accompany the group, and will report back to you via both this email as well as our Radio Oklahoma Network radio reports on radio stations across the state!

Ty Thompson from Billings, Montana, was the Reserve Champion, while Tom Frey from Creston, Iowa, was the Runner-up Champion.

The 2007 event had a strong Oklahoma flavor, as Billy Perrin of Durant was the Chairman of the Event for the Livestock Marketing Association. There were at least four of the semi finalists that Oklahoma cattle producers have some familiarity with as they sell in Oklahoma barns. Three of those gentlemen live in Oklahoma, including lance Cochran of Medford, Justin Dodson of Welch and Brian Little of Wann. The fourth auctioneer with Oklahoma ties was Preston Smith of Ensign, Kansas, who sells for Winter Livestock in Enid.

Our friend Christy Collins is helping coordinate the sales efforts and she says that George told her recently as they rode across one of the Paw Paw Creek fields "Several years ago, I made the decision to come back to the ranch early in the day and work on my cowherd, instead of climbing another rung in my professional career. It was not only a good decision personally, but it was probably the best financial decision I have ever made."

For more information on this sale- we have linked to the website from Collins Cattle Services that has this information- or you can call Christy Collins at 1-800- 975-6313 OR 580-335-3000. The sale is planned for June 23rd at the Ranch just outside Vinita.

Click here for details and a sale catalog of the Paw Paw Creek Ranch Dispersion on June 23rd

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