- [Announcer] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by.

(upbeat country music) The Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(upbeat country music continues) - You are tuned to "Montana Ag Live", originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University and coming to you over your Montana Public Television System.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired Professor of Plant Pathology.

Happy to be your host this evening.

As we said earlier this year, we're gonna feature some more people from our sister university in Missoula, University of Montana.

We have a gentleman here tonight that's been around the state for a long time.

Very intriguing program that he has there, and we're gonna learn more about that.

But before we get there, remember the phone calls that you call in provide the impetus to the answers that this esteemed panel is going to provide this evening.

(Eric laughs) And don't laugh, Eric.

I said esteemed.

Let me introduce the panel.

On my far left, Eric Belasco, Department Head of Econ here at MSU and also very knowledgeable in ag economic issues.

So you have questions about that tonight, between him and our guests we can really focus on some of the economic issues facing the State of Montana.

Tim Seipel.

Tim is our, he says weed specialist.

I like to call him a weed scientist.

Tim's been on the program many times.

If you live in Montana, you know we have weed issues.

If you have weed problems in your lawns, your garden, in your fields, Tim can answer those questions tonight.

Special guest, Pat Barkey.

Pat's an interesting individual.

He's the Director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, also known as BBER, and I like that name.

And that's not a cold B in October, it's burr, BBER.

Okay, and I had to throw that in.

Abi, Abi Saeed.

Abi is our horticulturalist.

If you have questions about horticulture, get 'em in tonight.

We're getting short on the growing season, so tonight you can get your last questions in.

Answering the phone this evening are Nikki and Joe Vredenberg, thank you for coming in and taking the phone calls.

Don't forget to get that screen number up and we will start the phone ringing.

Meanwhile, Pat, tell us a little bit about BBER.

It's an interesting program you have over there.

- Well, I wish I could say it was my program.

I inherited a program that had been around for, well now we've been around for 76 years, so it's an applied economic research center housed in the College of Business at the University of Montana.

Our mission is to help Montanans have a better understanding of the economy in which they live and work.

We've grown to be a medium-sized center, approximately 20 researchers.

We do forecasting, we do policy research and we specialize.

We specialize in forest products, healthcare, housing research, survey research and energy.

So that's quite a bit to get out, but it's quite a bit that we do and we're proud of what we're doing.

And I guess here on a Sunday night, I've got time to talk to you, but when I get to work on Monday, I'm gonna be busy doing all that stuff I just talked about.

- All right, you know, if you've been around this state very long, you see a lot of local newscasts that reference the Bureau of Economic Business and Economic Research.

You guys do a great job over there.

And how do you get that information out other than through local television news?

- Well that's the, one of the biggest issues with local and state media is the lack of coverage of the economy of the state and the regions within the state.

So we hear a lot when a business closes, but we never hear much about what the economic issues are.

I mean, we have some extraordinary, extraordinarily talented business people, some of whom are on the show or may call in, that are tackling some really hard problems.

So essentially, Jack, we're filling a vacuum, which is a segment that more people need to know about that we address.

Now, specifically, what do we do?

We toot our horn as much as we can.

We talk, when we do a research project, of course we give it to our client, we put it on the shelf, but we also try to do news releases.

We try to get out there and talk about it.

Speaking of talking about it, our 50th Annual Economic Outlook Program, which Eric has been on, will happen January through March of 2025.

That's a half-day program in which we travel around and talk about the economy in nine different communities across the state.

And we get about 1,600 policy leaders, government leaders and business people to come to those.

And it's food for a hungry crowd, I'll say, because as I said before, not enough is known, not enough is talked about in terms of what kinds of issues Montana businesses and Montana workers face.

- Okay, Eric, I'm gonna throw it over to you.

Do you interact a lot, does MSU through their Ag Extension Programs interact with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research?

- Yeah, so there have been economic reports that we've worked on.

I would say I know Pat best from the Outlook tour that he was talking about in January, February, where we've partnered with them to give an ag outlook as part of that.

So we'll cover a lot of different topics, you know, tourism energy, different sectors that are important in the Montana economy, and we will, you know, provide the economic outlook for agriculture.

So yeah, we've always enjoyed working with Pat and his group over there in Missoula.

- Yeah, I've not attended any of those conferences, but I've heard a lot of good things about it.

So Pat, I have a couple email questions that have come in and a couple phone questions I'll get to you in a little bit.

But here's one from Froid and it says since you're talking a lot about economics, what is the negative effect of resistant kochia, that we have a lot of resistant kochia in the state to the ag economy or to weed control?

- Yeah, that's a really interesting question.

We just went out on a research project funded by Montana Wheat & Barley Committee a couple weeks ago.

We went through Froid, Antelope, Outlook, Plentywood, Culbertson, Brockton collecting kochia.

And when we were collecting that kochia, we were having some discussions actually with some of the local agronomists in Antelope.

And we were talking about the cost of herbicide-resistant kochia.

And so herbicide-resistant kochia has developed since we really have gone into these no-till systems and the agronomists, and we were kicking around numbers somewhere between five to $7 per acre is what really herbicide-resistant kochia will end up costing a producer in that area.

And it's because maybe you tried to kill the weed, they did, it didn't die and it caused some yield loss.

But then also you're having to choose much more complex herbicides, tank mixes, adjuvants and things like that to really get the job done, which makes the cost go up.

- Okay, you mentioned this was from Antelope.

I want to know which of the six exits did you take when you entered Antelope?

- [Tim] The furthest south in Antelope.

(Jack laughs) - It's the only city under 50 people that has a sign.

Antelope, next six exits.

- Yeah.

- It's kind of intriguing.

Pat, I'm gonna get back to you in a minute, but I have a quick question here for Abi that's pertinent to everybody at this time of year.

Is it too late to fertilize your lawn?

- I'm glad that you asked that.

It's not too late to fertilize your lawn.

This is actually probably one of the most important times of year to put that lawn fertilizer down.

It's a great time to do it because we're gonna get some moisture coming up in the next few days.

But also because this is the time you really want to encourage that root growth in your turf grass and encourage that lawn to be healthy and thriving going into winter, giving it a really good headstart in the spring.

So yeah, it's a great time to fertilize.

- [Jack] Better hurry, because it's, winter's not that far away.

- Yeah, it's not, yeah, now is the time.

- Okay, Pat, interesting question here.

This person would like an example of some of the work that your bureau does over at the University of Montana.

- Oh boy.

Well, we just got done with our annual report, which is on the web, so I know that website is being flashed from time to time.

So if you really want the full monty of what we did in the last year, pull that up.

So some of the things that we've highlighted, we've done a lot of work with healthcare.

So we've done work with Medicare expansion, we've done work with the financial pressures on hospital across across Montana, especially in smaller communities.

We've done some work, we've done survey work, one of our big I guess splash studies, every now and then you do something, gets a lot of publicity, was we took a look at the impact of the television show "Yellowstone", which of course is not nearly the hot show it is, used to be, but you, we all remember that you couldn't go to an airport or you couldn't say in casual conversation you were from Montana without someone bringing up that television show.

So we did some work to try to understand what kind of impact, not only did the production of that have on the economy, but also the tourism impact.

We've done a lot of look at, we've done some work at higher education, we've looked at athletics, we've looked at research at universities to try to understand what it means for the economy.

So I guess you're getting me started here.

I don't know when you wanna, you know, cut me off.

But we do a, like I say, we do a lot of specialized work on forest products.

We work on every kind of issue impacting mill closures to what the capacity is of our work product ecosystem, if you will, not just in Montana but the entire Western US.

So we're pretty proud of that work.

- Okay, before we get back to you on a caller that has an interesting question, I want to run over to Eric because there's a question that kind of is a carry over from a couple weeks ago.

And this person would like to know are cattle numbers still trending down in the state?

And if so, why?

And then I do have a follow-up question.

- Sure, yeah.

I guess the answer is yes.

They're still trending down, they're trending down nationally.

They've over the long run, they've been trending down really since the mid-1970s.

But with the drops in the last couple years, we've seen them falling.

Prices in the last couple years have been relatively high.

And so, you know, us economists will say when you see high prices, that usually means that there's gonna be more production.

And so there's gonna be some kind of a supply response.

And so with, you know, feeder cattle prices at like 250 a pound, you would've expected maybe some of that.

But there's been some drought that's gotten in the way there.

And so really until we start to see some of those signs of rebuilding, yeah, the prices will remain high.

Which it's not a terrible thing if you're running an operation here in Montana.

But certainly, you know, it's not a great thing when you look at how the droughts have been kind of constantly shifting over the last couple years and maybe kind of keeping those numbers down a bit.

- Okay, as a follow-up question, this came from the Gallatin Valley here and this person says he's seen more and more alfalfa and big, big stacks of alfalfa in the Gallatin Valley.

And if cattle numbers are down, where's all this alfalfa being utilized?

- Yeah, well, hay production's been down too, so they, yeah, so inventory is down.

Part of that though is that even though the, I guess when we talk about inventory, we're talking about total, you know, animals, but those animals are getting bigger.

They do require more feed, so some of that could be an offset.

But yeah, with these droughts usually that cause inventory to drop, those, that same weather will cause hay production to go down.

So, and hay prices, they're not as great as they were, you know, a couple years ago.

But you know, they were pretty strong a couple years ago.

They've kind of moderated more to their, you know, where they would be in the long run now.

But yeah, there are still plenty of opportunities to grow and sell hay out here.

- Okay, well I.

- Do we export a lot of alfalfa in the state to different parts of the United States, like Idaho, for example, into the dairy, very?

- There could be, yeah.

I mean, I think a lot of it just depends.

I mean, traditionally it's a very local kind of supply system, but you know, when you do see droughts, you see some of that commerce going across state lines.

So yeah, I mean, Idaho has a huge demand, you know, with their dairy sector.

- Okay, I'd have to admit, I am seeing less grain here and much more alfalfa than I did five, six years ago.

Pat, here's one that is very pertinent based on what we're hearing now, and this person would like to know, that's from your home community, Missoula, has BBER done any work on the value of public lands to the State of Montana?

That's an interesting question right now, - Yeah, we have actually, but in a very specific context.

So for example, the Montana, I don't know if it's known to all your listeners, but Montana ranks as the state which is number two in the nation in terms of the proportion of its economic activity which was in recreation and tourism.

So anyone want to guess what number one is?

- I'm not sure.

- [Eric] California.

- It's Hawaii.

- Oh, okay.

- The only, only Hawaii ranks higher as a proportion, not as a size.

So when you look at that industry as we do and as our fellow research center on UM campus through Tourism, Recreation Research does, it's not just low-paying jobs, it's not just hotels and so forth.

It is a very sophisticated industry with a lot of different skill sets.

And it would extend all the way to the manufacturer of outdoor equipment, which includes (indistinct) in your neighborhood, in Bozeman.

So you have to know where exactly you're gonna draw the line.

Is that all because of public land?

Well, I mean that's one of the things that dominates our state, right?

I mean we, we're not an island in the Pacific Ocean, we're a beautiful area that has a lot of land which is public and open in most cases for people to recreate.

And so we've done studies on fishing, we've done studies on snowmobile use, and we've tried to really understand how those industries work and how, and this is the bottom line for us at all times, how they impact the economy, how they grow the economic pie that we all share.

Because the dollar spent, particularly by non-Montanans who come here to recreate support a lot of jobs and they support tax revenues.

And we've looked at that.

Some of the industries, I'm thinking specifically snowmobiles, we've probably done that four or five different times.

In terms of fishing, we're starting to get a little more sophisticated, trying to understand different kinds of fishing.

Some of that has been in specific areas.

We just did one for the Big Hole.

So it's ongoing and it's important work and yeah, we've done a lot of that.

- Yeah, on that note, there's an ag economic conference coming up in a couple weeks with what's known as Celebrate Ag Week here on campus.

And there's a special, I think it's on Tuesday of that week that's talking about agro tourism.

- [Eric] Yeah.

- You wanna mention that a little bit?

- Yeah, so that, I mean that's in the Ag and Tech Ed Department.

So I know Shannon Arnold and Dustin Perry are the ones kind of behind that.

But yeah, I mean it's, you know, and Pat said it really well, I think a lot of these rural communities, you know, that heavily rely on agriculture are finding, you know, supplemental incomes, whether it's through, I mean, you go into some towns this time of year and it's, I mean a lot of the economy is gonna be, you know, all recreation based and it's a really good way, you know, to diversify in some of those communities so that when, you know, commodity prices are pretty good now, but when they're not, you know, you have that sort of diversification to help out a little bit.

- You mentioned that and you're absolutely right.

I happen to be gone next week.

I'm going pheasant hunting and Tim's going to sit in my chair here.

So I last, or this past week, I tried to get a reservation at the hotel that I normally stay at in Glendive over the weekend.

Not a chance.

They've been sold out for months.

So yes, it does have, public lands have a big impact.

- Absolutely.

- And also things like the Block Management program and so forth and so on.

- Yeah.

- So, all right, Abi, you're sitting here not saying anything.

(group laughs) You can tell us about what's on this oak leaf here.

It's kind of interesting.

I knew about this years and years ago.

- Yeah, so this is oak leaf blister.

It's a fungus that looks like little blisters on the surface of the oak leaf.

It starts off as a light green and around this time of year it turns brownish.

But I wanted to bring this in because this is a good time of year to talk about sanitation.

So a lot of these pathogens, which are these disease-causing organisms, they overwinter in leaf debris and things like that in the soil.

So as your leaves drop, that gives those pathogens a nice space to hunker down and then reinfect your plants in the following spring.

So sanitation is when you clean up all this debris and you get rid of it.

You don't wanna put it in your compost unless it gets hot enough, which is that above 140 degree mark.

So usually you just destroy this material so you're not creating that cycle of continual infestation.

But in general, this doesn't really affect the overall health of your trees.

More so it's just something that looks unsightly.

But sanitation works well for a lot of those pathogens at this time of year, cleaning up all the debris that you can.

- I have a question about oaks.

Oaks aren't native to Montana, we don't have any native oaks, but this is the American Red Oak, I think, my plant nerd will come out.

And when you go around town, especially in the Gallatin Valley, you see these have been planted and they have a ton of galls, they seem to have a lot of disease on them.

Why do they have so many pathogens and diseases outside of their native range or outside of their normal distribution?

Does anyone know why?

- I'm not sure.

Yeah, that's a really interesting question.

I do know that when I first learned about oak and gall specifically, oaks are host of 3,000 different gall species.

And so chances are maybe some of these, you know, organisms that cause these galls may be on more than just oak.

But in terms of pathogens, I think, you know, with people moving plant materials so readily, we might be transporting these materials from nurseries in other states and moving them around.

And so that could mean that we're also transporting those pathogens.

But that's a very interesting question.

- Abi's absolutely right.

Yeah, we get our oaks from Minnesota and they provide the pathogens free of charge.

(group laughs) There's no doubt about that.

- Yeah.

- Interesting question here.

And I don't know if we can answer or not.

And these are kind of, I like to throw out because will challenge everybody and this call came in from Missoula last week and they wanna know what percent of the grain produced in Montana is irrigated, acreage-wise.

Aha, got you guys.

- A very small proportion.

Very small compared to the number of dry land acres that are out there in terms of hard red spring wheat.

When you get more specific into the commodities, our malt barleys are much more irrigated.

If we're talking about the Fairfield, we're talking about the areas that we produce those.

So malt barley, much more irrigation goes into it.

Our hard red spring, spring wheat acres, our durum acres and our winter wheat acres, large, large, large proportion, I'd say, of more to than 90% of those are all dry land.

- Okay, so I agree with you entirely there.

But the Fish and Game Department put out an "Outdoor Montana" program or book, magazine about six months ago that talked about agriculture in Montana.

And in that they had the statistic that 96% of the water used in the United States is used for agriculture.

Pat, have you done any policy work on water in agriculture?

- That could get me in trouble, Jack.

- [Jack] Well, I'm here to do that.

(group laughs) - No, we haven't, we haven't done that.

We've done some ag work, but we have a very nice partnership with Eric's colleagues and when we get into the specifics of ag, we sign up with, we call up and dial 994 sometimes.

- [Person Off-Camera] Things are coming through.

(group laughs) - And I think it's interesting because I've heard, you know, that turf grass or lawns are referred to as a crop as well in some settings, and it is the largest irrigated crop by area in the United States.

So I wonder if that accounts for turf grass as well, like lawns.

- It could be.

I mean, I know golf courses use an awful lot of water and no doubt about it.

Eric, you want to jump?

I know you're just waiting.

- You know, this is not something I know a lot about.

So I'm gonna speak out of turn here, but we do have really good faculty members in our department that focus on water.

And recently doing some, you know, we had this complete history of our department, which I was geeking out on last week, and water is one of those things that, you know, whether you're looking now or you're looking back in the '30s, you know, it's always been kind of on the agenda here at MSU.

So looking at, you know, how do you get more out of a drop of water?

How do you more efficiently allocate that water has always been something that our department has focused on.

I'm not the right person to have on that though, but we have great faculty members in our department who do, so.

- Well, that's interesting.

What do you think about water use?

- Yeah, it's interesting to think about water use and to think about how water gets used.

I, you know, the Milk River comes up a lot.

We tend to go up in, and without the diversion from St. Mary's into the Milk River, that'd be, that's a huge economic driver for Montana in that sense, in those highline counties providing water in those areas.

- Okay, question for Pat.

- [Pat] One thing, one thing.

- [Jack] Go ahead.

- I would add, Jack, is I think the implication of that 96% of water is used in agriculture regardless of what the basis for that, the implication is that that's too much, right?

I mean, why else would that be quoted?

So I think the thing, and the reason why I made this statement about possibly getting into trouble talking about water is it's a huge issue for Montana.

It's a huge issue for every Western state.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- And one of the things that stares us in the face about water, which gets a lot of people mad but needs to be talked about, is the fact that water is not really allocated according to economics.

I mean, water has a history of how it's allocated and I'm not gonna solve water allocation on the show, but I'll just point out that people's comfort level with water has to do with whether you have enough or you don't.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, and demand in many areas, I mean, look at what happened in Flathead Lake last summer, when levels, well look, I mean these are huge emotional issues and emotion doesn't help us solve the problem, but it does underscore the fact that it is a problem.

- Yeah, good points.

Everybody makes some great points and yeah, water, if you get on a plane in the middle of the summer and flying into Montana, you gotta watch out to not get hit on the head with fly rod tubes.

I mean, 75% of the people getting off in Bozeman are carrying poles, there's no doubt about that.

- Yeah, and we spoke about the Big Hole River a few minutes ago, and you think about how climate change is affecting the Big Hole River where it's essentially closed every part of the year or in this part of the year every year now.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- It's, that's also changed as we look to that in the future is a big, big issue.

- Very good point.

Abi, speaking of water, I think we know the answer to this.

This person from Bozeman wants to know why some trees are changing color more rapidly than others, even though it's the same species.

- Yeah, so I'm glad that you mentioned the same species because we know that some species will So when leaves are changing color, that means chlorophyll's being used up faster than it can be produced.

And that usually indicates stress in trees.

And a lot of times that stress is associated with moisture.

So if those trees aren't getting enough moisture or haven't over the course of that growing season, it could be associated with pest and disease issues or root damage.

But a lot of it does end up being associated with moisture.

So water-stressed trees are going to use up that chlorophyll as a stress response and they're also going to start to change their colors and drop their leaves earlier.

- [Jack] It's really noticeable this year.

- It is, yeah, I've noticed it a lot.

And so again, I'm encouraging people right now, please make sure that you're watering your trees even after they change color and they drop their leaves.

Deciduous trees' root systems are still actively growing until the ground freezes and they really need that moisture in the fall to get set up for a healthy winter and surviving in the spring.

- Okay, thank you.

I like this caller, Pat, these, I love these questions.

What's the favorite program or economic research that has impacted agriculture that you have done?

- That's for me?

- [Jack] Yeah.

(Jack laughs) - Well, I think probably there's a few we didn't do, but I think the favorite one we've done and is actually a study of the Hutterites.

We were asked to take a look at the production and the taxes paid and all the aspects of, financial aspects of the Hutterite colonies in Montana.

And we partnered with MSU and Eric's colleagues and it was fascinating and it touched a few people's buttons.

It was a very eye-opening kind of study that certainly was not the complete story.

We know Hutterites compete for land, we know Hutterites are pretty, pretty active and pretty aggressive in some marketplaces.

And so I, you know, I for one learned a lot and I also learned how strongly people feel about it.

So I can't block that one outta my mind, Jack.

You asked me what the one was the most impactful.

That's the one that I certainly remember the most.

We've done others, we've done some studies on value-add ag, value-add agriculture and some other studies that have been interesting.

- So I saw Eric laughing when he wasn't on the screen and I wanna know what you were laughing about.

- Well, no.

So I was not involved in that study, but I did see it as a consumer.

Yeah, it was like Patrick was saying, it's, you know, had a lot of interesting findings.

Joel Schumacher and Dr. George Haynes were kind of the collaborators in our department on that.

But yeah, just seeing the economic impact whether it's, you know, on different ag commodities.

Yeah, it was really insightful and I guess an area that we really didn't know a whole lot about before that study, so.

- Okay, thank you.

Get back to Pat and Eric in a moment here, but we've had several calls about insects and next week we will have an entomologist on, so I'm gonna save those for you next week.

From Bozeman, this person has noticed some of their pine or fir trees are turning brown.

Mainly the inner needles seem to be growing brown.

Is there a reason for that dieback, pine beetle, drought or?

- Yeah, so usually when it's just the inner needles turning brown and the outer ones look healthy and green, that's often something around this time of year, around the fall, it's called seasonal needle drop.

And a lot of times they'll change color, they'll drop off, and you'll have new growth again in the spring.

If you still have healthy growth in the newer needles, that's not something to worry about.

Just making sure that tree's getting enough water and not stressed, but it's most likely an environmental thing like seasonal needle drop.

- [Jack] I think you're right.

- I noticed it in my yard this week too.

I actually have a Black Hills spruce next to a Norway spruce.

And the Norway spruce had way more seasonal needle drops than the Black Hills spruce did, actually.

They're both about 60-year-old trees.

- Nothing to worry about at all.

- No.

- No, okay.

I like this one.

And this is for Pat and Eric, you can both jump in.

It's from Hamilton.

This person would like to know how does tourism add to the tax base of a county if the county does not have a tourism tax?

Pat, you wanna go first?

Did you hear me?

- I can certainly jump in.

It's pretty clear.

I mean, it grows the economic pie and the economic pie includes jobs.

So there's plenty of jobs supported by tourism.

Those jobs pay income tax, those jobs pay every kind of property tax, excise tax, license fee.

Every tax that we pay is a tax that a job supported by tourism would pay.

So that's pretty clear.

One of the direct ways in which tourists of course pay taxes is through accommodations taxes and through rental car taxes, which go to the general fund.

So I think it's a bit of a misnomer to say that the tourism industry or tourists that come in are somehow escaping taxation.

I think that's, you know, the whole area of tax policy, I don't know if we'll get into this, but you know, everyone's favorite tax is one that they don't pay and someone else does.

All right, and the converse is true as well.

I mean, the most evil tax is the one that you pay and your neighbor somehow is getting off scot free.

So let's just remember that the purpose of the tax system is to support the activities of government, to support the essential activities that give us smooth roads.

They give us schools and courts and all that sort of thing.

So you can only tweak the tax system in so many ways, but I do believe that there, the connection between tourism and taxation, perhaps it should be stronger, but there certainly is one.

- [Jack] Okay, Eric, you have anything to add?

- Not really, but I just love having a second economist on this show.

(group laughs) I think we should do this more often.

- Oh, I don't know about that.

(group laughs) Okay.

From Wolf Creek, this caller has three raised beds with flowers and vegetables.

She has weeds galore.

She just tried to dig them up and they keep coming back.

What can she do?

- Hmm, that's an interesting one.

So this is in a raised bed?

- Raised bed, yeah.

- So do you, it'd be interesting to know if the caller put compost into it, if the compost perhaps had weed seeds that went into it.

It'd be interesting to figure out if these are perennial weeds too.

Is this field bindweed that's growing up through the raised bed or is this Canada thistle that might be growing up through the raised bed?

Or are these annual weeds that just flush?

And if they're annual weeds, I would kind of, they, we often refer to planting a sterile seed bed.

You let 'em flush, then you kind of till it up again and then you plant your vegetable into it.

Kind of play with the timing on that.

Abi, you have any ideas?

- Yeah, I also, yeah, knowing the kind of weed would be really helpful too, but I'm also thinking like if you are continuing to have problems, using some sort of a mulch to help prevent that weed seed germination in the spring and keeping up with that, like using, you know, a good amount of straw or even that plastic mulch for veggie gardens.

It's a pretty feasible option to help keep those weeds back and preventing them from taking the nutrients and moisture away from your crops.

- You know, and that note, I'm gonna make a suggestion.

Somebody called in and wants to know how to email photos.

All those email addresses that you saw at the beginning of the program, you'll see it next week too.

Email me or Abi or Tim, Eric, you email those photos in and we'll take a look at 'em and then make a judgment or if they're appropriate, we'll put 'em on the program next week.

So that's one way you can do it.

I like this one.

And boy, I, when you have two economists, you gotta throw some curve balls.

- [Eric] All right.

- Yeah, okay.

So for both of you, Pat and Eric, this person would like to know what effect has global warming had on the economy of the State of Montana?

Go for it.

(group laughs) - That's a big question.

I don't know.

(group laughs) - Wait a minute, did we hear that right?

(group laughs) - I mean, I guess that, you know, there are a lot of different ways you can approach it.

You know, on the agriculture side, you can think about how ag producers have, you know, tried to change maybe their production practices, how they've tried to, you know, we've been doing a lot here in precision ag and I think that's sort of a call that comes from trying to do more with less, you know, less resources, whether it's, you know, less water or whatever it might be, just being more efficient.

So there's some adaptation, you know, in that space.

You know, with livestock I'd say it's probably, it's a little more difficult there because it's a lot of, you know, you could certainly manage your rangeland with different ways, but it's a lot less control over that.

And so again, maybe stocking rates kind of move a little bit, you know, due to warming weather.

But yeah, I think, you know, the one thing that we know in agriculture is that we have in the past been pretty quick to pivot as new things have come.

- [Jack] Right.

- So I think, you know, with MSU I think our hope is that we'd be the ones that would kind of help to guide and to, you know, if there is uncertainty in the market or kind of a new climate coming that we would help to, you know, lead that forward, but.

- [Jack] Okay.

- It's kind of a very vague answer.

I don't know what the other, Pat I'm curious what you have say on this.

- [Jack] Pat, we'll throw it your way now.

- Okay, well let's put this into context, right?

The first thing we have to, we have to have a little more humility about these kinds of answers because the whole issue of X causes Y, right?

Is just so cut and dry in so many conversations.

And yet when you actually dive into the research, it gets very, very murky.

So that's the sense in which something which isn't really defined, like if you wanted to say what is the impact of a rise in average temperature, what's the impact of a certain precipitation trend, right?

You would have to actually measure that trend.

And it may not be as strong as you think.

I mean, global warming is not weather, it's the change in weather.

So that's the first thing I would say.

The second thing, this is a long way of saying I don't know either, okay?

All these kinds of things.

But the second thing I would say is that one of the things that's missing often in this casual quantification of global warming is what Eric just mentioned, which is perfect because agriculture has gotta be one of the most exposed industries to changed climate.

I mean, you can't air condition a field, but if it gets hotter, I can sure air condition my house, okay?

So the adaptability is the factor which is often not built in.

All right, so let me just back up for a second and say that for the national economy, when you take adaptability into account, the impact of global warming on aggregate economic activity is not very large, okay?

Which stuns people, all right?

What about the loss of species?

What about all these things?

And I would, I'm not saying it's something we shouldn't be addressing very, very seriously, but when you factor in the adaptability, and especially for a state like Montana where our climate becomes less rigid, more temperate, we're never gonna be coastal California here, but we're certainly a little more mild.

So long answer, I'm sorry, but that's the kind of thing.

So I think my quantified answer is I don't know, but I think it's probably lower than a lot of people think.

- I think you're probably right but I will put in a plug for the Ag Experiment Station here because our plant breeders and so forth have developed varieties that are more adapted to warmer temperatures or our growers have moved to different crops where you can, say, no longer grow good spring wheat now by Hardin because it's too hot.

So yeah, it's adaptability and I think that's the best term, no doubt about that.

Tim, from Bozeman, do we grow pinto beans in the state and if so, successfully?

- We do actually do grow dry beans in the state.

There is only one dry bean processor and that's Kelley Beans in Terry that will, well, that will buy beans.

Beans are maybe one crop that will benefit from climate change in Montana.

- [Jack] True.

- As long as we have the water.

We have to think about water in the context of climate change in that one.

But we do get, we do produce some beans on the Yellowstone River Valley and you do see increasing numbers of beans, increasing numbers of soybeans too, actually, from the last few years around Sidney, since the sugar factories closed, a lot of that has gone into soy production, soybean production.

- So Eric, what are they doing with the soybeans that are produced in this state?

I mean, it's not a big soybean utilization program.

- No, it's not, yeah.

- [Jack] So do, how do we get rid of 'em in the state?

You're supposed to know that.

- Yeah, you know, you know, I think when you have a larger mass, right, you have a supply chain that's set up.

You have a manufacturing plant that, you know, moves it into markets and then there's all these sort of costs that go into, you know, the logistics and markets of getting products into that consumer market.

And when you have a small one, you know, usually it's just kind of sold, you know, regionally then because you don't have that big infrastructure set up.

I'm not quite sure what happens.

- I'm not either.

I know that when we used to grow soybeans successfully in the Billings area at the Southern Ag Research Center and some growers, the market was difficult.

You don't get enough to ship it out by rail.

- [Eric] Yeah.

- And.

- The only thing I can think is animal feed is what it would potentially be used for 'cause you know, a lot of what we grow is exported and used as animal feed, so.

- Okay, back to Tim and I like this one, from Helena.

How can she get rid of cockleburs in her area?

They get stuck in the hair.

They must have golden retrievers like I do, but.

- Yeah, I think, you know, this time of year you'll see those big leaves out there.

And next year they'll grow and they'll make their cockleburs.

Go chop 'em out this time of year.

I'm not actually really sure what herbicides work on them.

I would probably go out by hand where you take your dog walking and look for those big, almost rhubarb-like leaves that could be on the ground sometimes.

Sometimes there's another species too that'll have a little bit different shaped leaves.

But I would look for 'em this time of year.

You'll see 'em on the ground.

Next year, they'll shoot up that flowering stock.

- Is that another name for wild licorice?

- No, wild licorice is a different species, actually.

And wild licorice is actually a legume, it's a native legume.

If you dig up the root, it's not the species we make licorice out of, but if you taste the root, actually it does taste kind of sweet like licorice.

But that's a different species.

And you'll see that bird hunting a lot when you're walking along the draws and the edges of the coulees and places like that.

- Sticky too?

- Yeah, it's pretty sticky but it just has those single recurve barbs on there.

It doesn't nest in like the cocklebur does somehow.

Not as bad.

- [Jack] Okay, thank you.

- Mm-hmm.

- Back to Pat.

This is a question from an MSU student here who is getting a degree in agriculture, ag economy, ag economics.

They would like to know if you have a graduate program at the U of M in economics and do you accept MSU students if they qualify?

(group laughs) - Well, I don't know.

(group laughs) Of course we do.

Yeah, we have a master's degree in economics here and we have, it is fairly small, it's a lot smaller than MSU's economics department.

We also have a very strong business school, which I'm part of, which is not economics per se, but certainly has, is a very fertile field.

We have an MBA program.

So yeah, we've in fact we have a master's, we have several master's-level economists that work for me in our center as researchers.

And I've had the privilege of hiring from both MSU and UM and I will say I think the product from both programs is very good.

So I think you can't go wrong whichever way you go.

- I agree with that.

And when we had your President Seth on, he spoke highly of both university systems and he's absolutely correct.

You can get a good education here in this state.

I like this question and it's a Facebook question came in this evening.

Are there any beneficial weeds that support beneficial bugs?

For example, does lady's thumb, which I'm not sure what that is, pigweed, purslane, (indistinct) geraniums support any beneficial insects in the yard or garden?

(Jack laughs) - Yes.

- [Abi] Yeah.

- If anyone's ever walked out in a Canada thistle patch in June, it's a tough, tough weed, robs farmers of yields all the time.

But man, do the pollinators love Canada thistle.

I will say that.

There are, weeds do actually provide some ecosystem services in some situations.

There's certainly a number of 'em.

I wouldn't, maybe the pigweed's maybe not so much for pollinators 'cause their flowers are tiny, but the bigger, showier weeds definitely with nice flowers, some of them have nectar, nice amounts of nectar in 'em that actually can help.

David Weaver at MSU actually showed that there are certain insects that will live off the floral nectaries that can sometimes be weeds and then do a better job of surviving and attacking the weed (indistinct).

- Okay.

- The parasitoid wasp.

- Exactly, yeah, and a lot of times weeds are in areas where other plants aren't thriving, so they provide that habitat and food source in places where you don't have, you know, other vegetation.

And I mean outside of noxious weeds, which can have a lot of negative impacts, a lot of weeds are very subjective in terms of it's a plant growing where you don't want it.

But if it's, you know, thriving in a landscape where the rest of the plants aren't, it could be a source of food and shelter for the beneficial.

- Should we add knapweed to that list?

I know knapweed is a very, it's a bad weed and everyone wants to talk about it, but one of its original, the reason it was introduced was for honey production, actually.

Bees actually like it.

In Europe, you can actually buy knapweed honey, in many cases.

- [Jack] I don't think that would sell well in Montana.

- No, no.

- Yeah.

- Okay, and this question came in last week and since we have two economists on tonight, we'll attack it.

It's from Bozeman.

And they would like to know what effect on Montana agriculture has the Ukraine-Russian War had?

- Hmm.

I mean immediately, we saw wheat prices going up to $12 a bushel.

So that was kind of the immediate impact.

You know, they're one of our major competitors globally.

So when we export, and the majority, nearly all of what we produce here in Montana is exported.

But those same economies we export to, we're competing with, you know, Ukraine.

And so, you know, initially, you know, when that war started, you know, and their production was down and the amount that they could get out of port went down, you know, anytime you see the supply go, you know, shrink that much on the global market, the price has gotta go up.

And so went up to about $12.

It's come down.

It's, you know, our wheat price is still slightly above normal.

But you know, it's definitely come down from that high.

It seems like grain's getting out of the port now.

And so, you know, we're not back to normal on the global market, but we're sort of, you know, transitioning I guess back to that normal state.

- Okay, Pat, do you have anything to add?

- I would just add that this is a new experience for me in the sense not specifically for wheat, but for all commodities, usually war, especially war in the Middle East with oil.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- Is associated with big price spikes, big uncertainty of supply, hoarding, all kinds of activities like this.

And while wheat and oil are not exactly the same, they have more similarities in that regard.

And it's a little bit surprising to me and also maybe a little bit frightening, the fact that we are, we seem to have enabled markets to function under these extraordinary situations where people are sending missiles at each other and blowing up the infrastructure that we depend on to get products to market.

So I'm not sure if it, if things are gonna remain calm, but they're much calmer now than I would've expected based on, say, 1970s experiences.

- I would agree with that.

Okay, let's change tune a little bit and I'm curious about this also.

A Billings caller states they have a single leaf violet-type plant that they cannot eliminate, tried using, Weed B Gon with no success.

Any idea what it is and what could they use?

Single leaf violet-like plant.

- Single leaf violet-like plant.

I can imagine maybe field bindweed, maybe not.

You know, I did get some calls, we did deal with actually violet in someone's yard and it's actually rhizominous and will spread through people's yards fairly often.

And I think that call might have been from Fromberg that I dealt with a while ago and I can't remember what the solution was that we had right offhand, but I had to go look it up 'cause it was a little bit of a new one to me.

And there is a violet that can be really difficult in lawns.

Yeah, if the Weed B Gon didn't work, maybe you might try something like Roundup For Lawns, which is not, doesn't have any glyphosate in it, doesn't have Roundup in it, it's a product line.

You might try that and that, see if that works.

It's probably too late for this fall.

I'd imagine you have to wait until the spring.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- And in the lawn setting too, having a healthy lawn.

So maybe if your soils are compacted, some of these weedy flowers will take over.

So aerating your lawn in the fall or the spring, making sure that your turf is healthy, that can help compete against these plants.

- Yeah, okay, thank you.

Pat, quick one here from Joliet down in the Clark part of the Yellowstone.

This person is interested in your mini economic seminars.

They would like to know roughly where they're located and how do you qualify to attend one of these?

- Okay, well it's economicoutlookseminar.com.

Well, it's the short way to answer all those questions.

If you go there, you see the cities, we do seven cities, you know, Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Kalispell, Great Falls, Helena, Missoula.

So, and we do our four other cities on every other year basis.

And as Eric said, we do them with MSU and we travel with Joel Schumacher, I think is no stranger to this show.

And yeah, that's how you find out.

- [Jack] Okay.

- And Joel and I were just talking about the tour and I think Joel and I are gonna try to split it up.

I'm gonna try to join Pat in Helena and Great Falls, and then Joel will be in the rest of the cities.

So I always learn a lot just hearing from the other speakers too.

I think Pat puts together a good lineup and good to know about kind of your local economy, state economy, what's going on.

- Yeah, I may have to even attend.

On that note.

- 50 years.

We've been doing it for 50 years, Jack, you gotta make one of 'em.

(group laughs) - Hey, I'm getting up there and I've been around here about that long and I do need to go to one, so I may have to attend one here.

- [Eric] Yeah.

- On that note with Celebrate Ag Week, you've got that economic conference.

- Yeah.

- Seminar.

What are you covering this year?

- Yeah, we do, I don't know if it's been 50 years, Pat, but we've done our Economic Outlook Conference every year.

This year it's around Celebrate Ag Week.

So there's, we're really kind of upping the game that week with all the events that are going on.

But we are still keeping our event on Friday where, you know, it's a day of economists, so you come there and we're gonna have a lot of new faculty.

We've been hiring quite a few new researchers, so these questions about water, you know, climate change, we're gonna have speakers kind of talking about all of those topics.

And then we also every year have an M.L.

Wilson speaker, so, you know, to, you know, go after our first department head and kind of the very famous M.L.

Wilson, who Wilson Hall on campus is named after.

And we're gonna bring in Dr. Gary Schnitkey from University of Illinois who's gonna talk a lot about farm policy.

So a lot of people have those questions about the Farm Bill and, you know, changes to the Farm Bill and farm programs and Dr. Schnitkey is an expert in those.

So yeah, good program.

- It sounds really good.

My question is are there donuts at coffee break?

- Yeah, there'll be plenty of, yeah.

(group laughs) There'll be plenty of time for socializing and eating donuts and drinking coffee for sure.

I mean that's a successful conference, right?

You gotta have those things.

- Absolutely.

Count me in, I'll be there next Wednesday.

- Wow,.

- Okay.

We're coming down to the end of the night's program.

I want to thank the panel as always.

Glad you guys came in.

Pat, thank you so much for joining us from Missoula.

I've enjoyed reading a lot of your stuff over the years.

(upbeat country music) You guys do a great job over there.

Hope to have you back, maybe some of your grad students.

Next week we have Zach Coccoli who is with the Department of Ag, talking about nearly a $50 million environmental pollution grant that they just received.

So why don't you join us?

Tim will moderate next week.

See you then, have a good week, goodnight.

- [Announcer] For more information and resources, visit Montanapbs.org/aglive.

(upbeat country music continues) - [Announcer 2] "Montana AG Live" is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

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