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 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!

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Jeff offers this assessment in an email from yesterday afternoon. "I have received a few questions about the cold snap forecasted for the next few days. Most wheat in Oklahoma is either at or just past the jointing stage and should be able to tolerate temperatures down 24 F without significant injury. Snow will be a good thing for the crop in several respects. Any snow or ice that falls will help maintain temperatures at the 32F level near the soil surface and will insulate the crop. In addition, moisture from the snow is badly needed in most areas of the state. Provided the forecasts are correct, I don't anticipate significant damage to our wheat crop."

Our TV station weather departments in Oklahoma City and Tulsa are keeping up with the changing conditions- click here for KWTV News9 in Oklahoma City or click here for the News on 6 weather webpages for the Tulsa area.

Click here for the continually updated current temperature map from the Oklahoma Mesonet- it's mighty cold already in the Panhandle.

Some of the topics we were able to discuss with the Congressman included:
A look at the Budget Process and his concern that the Budget Committees might attempt to change farm policy through the appropriations process.
Republican Concerns that new USDA Secretary Vilsack wants to dump a deal made in the 2009 Farm Law and have the IRS provide tax information to USDA to help them judge if farmers make too much to qualify for farm program benefits.
The Cuban Trade Issue and the Payment in Advance Issue.
Michele Obama's Garden on the South Lawn of the White House- and the organic attitude of the Administration in general.

Click on the link below to check out the complete conversation that we had with Congressman Lucas. He is very concerned about the challenges he sees ahead to production agriculture- not just this spring, but really over the next four years as the Obama Administration consolidates its hold on Federal government.

Click here for our conversation with Congressman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma's Third Congressional District

Dr. Anderson also says that some producers are still owning as much as fifteen to twenty percent of the 2008 crop- which is a concern as we get closer to the 2009 harvest season. The question that local elevators have to answer is whether they have enough local storage for the upcoming harvest season.

Kim's comments will be seen in their entireity on Saturday morning on the OSU Ag TV production SUNUp on OETA. We have the full audio of his comments on our website that you can hear right now- as well as a listing of the other topics for this weekend on SUNUP. Click on t he link below for both Kim and for details on SUNUP.

CLick here for more on what's ahead for our wheat market- and what will be on SUNUP on Saturday.

We have had Jack Ward on with us on our daily Beef Buzz the last three days- and our Beef Buzz link below has today's program, as well as links back to Wednesday and Thursday as well. We talk with Jack about the recent Market Steer Show at the Oklahoma Youth Expo (he was the Market Steer Judge) and then turn our attention to the purebred cattle business and its health.

Click on the link below and check out these Beef Buzz shows of this week- and you can click on the Beef Buzz button on the left hand side of any of our web pages and you can check out not just the current Beef Buzz shows- but we have an extensive archive of shows as well.

Click here for our Beef Buzzes with Jack Ward of the American Hereford Association

We talked with Mike Spradling, the President of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, who has a cattle and pecan operation in Tulsa County, about this upcoming trip. Spradling says that they want to remind lawmakers of their concern about the Obama Administration's desire to cut farm program benefits- and will be asking for Congressional help in stopping that dead in its tracks.

Click on the link below to hear our quick visit with Mike that we did after the Conservation Day Awards Ceremony on Wednesday of this week.

Click here for more on Farm Bureau to DC with Mike Spradling

We encourage you to share our daily email with your neighbors, relatives, colleagues and others that you think might find the information of interest. It is our intention to give you a mix of state, regional and national farm and ranch news daily that keeps you in the know in a very concise way- and we add in a link or two from time to time to stretch you a bit about what agriculture looks like from those outside looking in at us.

I encourage you to let us know what is going on with your farming operation- any spring reports on how your wheat crop is doing will be most welcome- let us know when you get some of your spring crops in- and be sure and let us know when there are events in organizations that you are a leader in or otherwise involved in that we need to put on our calendar. Just drop us a note at the email address at the bottom of this email report. And again- thanks for listening to us on the radio, watching us on TV, and reading our stuff here and on the website- we hope the information we deliver helps improve your bottom line and/or your quality of life in the country.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Bill), which became law on May 22, 2008, increases funding for conservation programs by 38 percent. This meeting will provide attendees with the opportunity to hear about changes made from the 2002 Farm Bill and how it will affect Oklahoma agricultural producers, economic development coordinators, cities, health care professionals, rural water district managers, and others.

We have the story with the full list of locations linked below- and we have each individual date now in our OklahomaFarmReport calendar webpage listings to remind folks as they come up.

Click here for more on these Farm Bill Informational Meetings in April and May

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

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.