From: Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.ccsend.com] on behalf of Ron Hays [ron@oklahomafarmreport.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 6:36 AM
To: Hays, Ron
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 Tuesday July 7, 2009
A service of Johnston Enterprises, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy and American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company!
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-- Climate Change Debate Cranks Up in the Senate
-- Latest Crop Weather Update Confirms Wheat Harvest is a Wrap
-- What's the Future of Animal ID?
-- JC Banks Offers A Cotton Update
-- In Advance of the Big Three Field Days Coming Next Week to Stillwater-
-- Cow Appreciation Day This Friday
-- A Note on Pioneer Telephone
-- Let's Check 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 pleased to have American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company as a regular sponsor of our daily update- click here to go to their AFR web site to learn more about their efforts to serve rural America!

It is also great to have as an annual sponsor on our daily email Johnston Enterprises- proud to be serving agriculture across Oklahoma and around the world since 1893. For more on Johnston Enterprises- click here for their website!
And we are proud to have P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy as our newest regular sponsor of our daily email update. P & K is the premiere John Deere dealer in Oklahoma, with nine locations to serve you, and the P & K team are excited about their new Wind Power program, as they offer Endurance Wind Power wind turbines. Click here for more from the P&K website.

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.


Climate Change Debate Cranks Up in the Senate
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The heat is being turned up on Senators to fall in line with the House and pass a Climate Change bill in short order. Right now, only 45 Democrats and no Republicans are known to support climate change legislation. The Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing today on climate change legislation.

Chairwoman Barbara Boxer will hold this hearing today on climate change legislation and will ask for the Obama Cabinet trio of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to testify. Boxer has said she intends to mark up legislation modeled on the House bill in the committee before the August recess.

Senate Majority Leader Reid has given other committees with jurisdiction, including agriculture, a September 18th deadline to complete their own markups. At this time, no hearing date has been set by Senate Ag Committee Chairman Tom harkin of Iowa.

A great deal of furor has also been raised over a report that was apparently generated by an EPA scientist that indicates that actual temperatures have fallen for the past 11 years- pouring a lot of cold water on the contentions of the Administration and other supporters of the Climate Change bill that passed in the House. If you google the name of Alan Carlin- you get lots of hits, including one which is an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal on the "coverup." We have it linked for you below.

Click here for more on the latest uprorar over the validity of Global Warming


Latest Crop Weather Update Confirms Wheat Harvest is a Wrap
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Virtually all harvesting of the State's small grain crops has been completed, with harvest now show as being 98% done, versus 91% which is the five year average. Wheat plowed increased to 50 percent, three points ahead of normal.

For our spring planted crops- "Drought-like conditions continued to take a toll on most of the State's row crops with conditions decreasing slightly but remaining in the mostly good to fair range. Additional moisture is needed to revive row crops. Corn silking reached 56 percent complete, five points ahead of the five-year average. Eight percent of the State's corn crop had reached the dough stage of development. Sorghum planted increased eight points to 89 percent, while sorghum emerged reached 59 percent, both behind normal. Soybean planting was virtually completed by the end of the week, while soybeans emerged reached 88 percent, both ahead of the five-year average. Soybeans in the blooming stage of development reached 12 percent, three points behind normal. By week's end, peanuts pegging increased to 21 percent, 39 percentage points behind the five year average. Cotton emerged increased nine points to reach 99 percent, one point ahead of normal. Cotton squaring reached 36 percent, one point behind the five-year average."

The report adds that "For the second consecutive week, pasture and range conditions declined but remained rated mostly in the good to fair range." To review the entire report from NASS of the USDA, click on the link we have for you below.

Click here for the weekly Oklahoma Crop Weather Update


What's the Future of Animal ID?
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The USDA has completed their scheduled listening sessions on Animal ID- and now the hard decisions for the program's future must be made. Back at the start of the process of gathering input, we wrote that USDA Secretary "Vilsack says that lawmakers are demanding accountability for the monies invested into animal ID- with several of them saying that a Mandatory program should be shoved down the throat of the livestock industry. The Secretary says he wants to listen to producers, get as much input as he can about the lingering concerns about a mandatory system- find ways to fix those concerns and develop a solution that will give the US rapid traceback in case of a national animal disease outbreak, yet provide protections for the livestock industry when it comes to things like confidentiality."

In the meantime, the House Appropriations Committee has zeroed out the NAIS funding for Fiscal Year 2010 with the comment by Rosa DeLauro, Chairman of the House Ag Approps Subcommittee that until she sees a workable plan to advance Animal ID- she is unwilling to spend more money on the effort. And, complicating the situation even more is the overwhelming sentiment of the grass roots that called for no mandatory program- and in many cases, were calling for no program at all- at least not on small livestock producers. The fear of government was very much in the air at many of the meetings.

We talk about where the Secretary was at the front end of those Listening Sessions- and what that means for the future of Animal ID now that we have the listening sessions under our belt. Click on the link below for our Beef Buzz for today- on a subject that we will be asking several in the beef industry about in the days to come.

Click here for the Tuesday Beef Buzz as heard on the Radio Oklahoma Network.


JC Banks Offers A Cotton Update
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The 2009 cotton crop is looking good, but needs a rain, Dr. J. C. Banks, Oklahoma State University Extension state cotton specialist, says: "With the recent hot days, the Oklahoma cotton crop is off and running. The planting seasn was delayed by wet weather and started about May 10. Most of our crop was planted by May 25. We lost some cotton in isolated areas due to windstorms and hail, but losses this year are much less than normal.

"Cotton is now squaring in most areas and should be at first bloom approximately July 10. Moisture conditions vary across the region, but we need a good general rain as the plant begins to load. Now is the time to consider using plant growth regulators as the plant approaches first bloom. There are two scenarios that are commonly used in application of mepiquat based plant growth regulators. The first technique is usually used in dryland areas or areas that can be easily moisture-stressed, and it involves use of lower rates (four to eight ounces of mepiquat or two ounces of Stance) at match head square. If the cotton continues to grow and is not stressed, another application about 10 days to two weeks later can be used.

"Another technique used in full irrigated areas involves use of eight ounces or mepiquat or two to four ounces of Stance at first bloom. This may be adequate, but under continued rapid growing conditions, another application may be needed. Plant growth regulators should never be applied on stressed cotton or cotton that will likely be stressed in the next week or 10 days. This application could increase fruit shed shortly following blooming. A good technique to determine how active the plant is growing is average internode spacing before bloom and the number of nodes from the lowest first position white flower to the top of the plant during blooming." (our thanks to Vic Schoonover for his help with this latest update from JC Banks)

Click here for more on cotton crop conditions and more on the Oklahoma Cotton scene.


In Advance of the Big Three Field Days Coming Next Week to Stillwater-
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We have several local judging events planned for young people to sharpen their eye for the right kind of each of the major livestock species.

For example, Tom Manske from Canadian County dropped us this email yesterday as he writes "You are invited to the Grady-Canadian Field Day on Friday, July 10. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. It will be held at the Canadian County Fairgrounds in El Reno. Teams will judge 6 classes - No Reasons with Awards to be given at approximately noon. For more information contact the Canadian or Grady County Extension Office."

Details of the Big Three Field Days at OSU are on our website to be found in our calendar, and that includes the testing for the Livestock Skills Competition that will be held in December at the Tulsa Farm Show. Click on the link below for a complete look at the calendar for July and beyond- and be sure to let us know when you have items that we need to be including- we'll be happy to add them. (And if you sent me anything over the last week or so- please resend it as I have had a major computer meltdown with a lightning strike making our Fourth of July one to remember- computers, printers, routers, cable modem and more all victims- so resend that stuff if you have not seen it show up in our email or on the calendar- we may have had it caught in the meltdown

Click here for the Calendar as found at WWW.OklahomaFarmReport.Com


Cow Appreciation Day This Friday
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For those folks in our country who are willing to dress up like a cow, there's free food waiting for them this Friday. In honor of the fifth annual Cow Appreciation Day celebration - a nod to the Chick-fil-A Cows and the "Eat Mor Chikin" ad campaign - Chick-fil-A Restaurants are offering a free meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner) to any customer who visits a Chick-fil-A location dressed as a cow on July 10.

For those customers who are willing to go "whole cow"- that is dressed from head to hoof as a cow will receive a free entree, side item and beverage. Those dressed partially in cow attire will get a complimentary entree.

Chick-Fil-A also has a website as a part of this cow costume promotion they plan for this Friday. We have it linked below- and it all relates back to their ultimate goal that the cows are always pushing for the restaurant chain- Eat More Chicken.

Click here for the Cow Appreciation Day Website for Chick-Fil-A


A Note on Pioneer Telephone
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As many of you are aware, we have had mega problems in getting timely delivery (and often any delivery) of our daily email to those of you that have pldi.net email addresses. We have done some work- arounds for folks that have had zero delivery in recent months- and will be glad to do that for anyone you know in that boat.

However, the better answer is to get Pioneer to address this issue of seeing what we send out as Spam and getting it to allow it though into your inbox. We use a service called Constant Contact and they claim to have a very strong anti spam policy. Several of our readers have complained to Pioneer and I think they are seeing that the problem is there and it needs to be fixed.

We got an email from Pioneer yesterday wanting to get it solved. It reads in part "I wanted to let you know you personally that we are very concerned about this problem and are working diligently to get to the root cause. Rural Oklahoma is at the heart of Pioneer Telephone Cooperative and the subscribers we serve. Our rural customers are of the upmost importance to Pioneer and our ability to be able to deliver the Oklahoma Farm News Update and like information is of the highest priority. "

Keep letting Pioneer know if you have a problem. And please let me know if things get better- or continue to be sproadic or worse. We put a lot of effort into these daily emails- and we appreicate your interest in them. It is our desire that you get them in a timely manner once we send them out. Thanks for letting me vent and provide this update on this ongoing situation.


Our thanks to Midwest Farms Shows, PCOM, P & K Equipment/ P & K Wind Energy, Johnston Enterprises, AFR and KIS Futures for their support of our daily Farm News Update. For your convenience, we have our sponsors' websites linked here- just click on their name to jump to their website- check their sites 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


Let's Check the Markets!
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The Oklahoma National Stockyards had a relatively small run of 4,983 cattle on the Monday after the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The market reporters tell us "Feeder steers and heifers 1.00-2.00 higher. Stocker cattle and calves not well tested but few sales with a steady to higher undertone noted. Demand very good for all classes even though some buying interests are not aggressive. Heavy rains hit parts of Oklahoma over the Holiday weekend leaving some with very beneficial rains and others with nothing at all." To check out the actual prices in Oklahoma City on Monday, click here for the full report.

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- Two Pager From The Kansas City Board of Trade looks at all three US Wheat Futures Exchanges with extra info on Hard Red Winter Wheat and the why of that day's market.
Daily Oklahoma Cash Grain Prices- As Reported by the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture. <
The National Daily Feeder & Stocker Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
The National Daily Slaughter Cattle Summary- as prepared by USDA.
Finally, Here is the Daily Volume and Price Summary from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.



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