- [Narrator] "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 and Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(upbeat country music continues) - Good evening and welcome to "Montana Ag Live", coming to you live from the studios of KUSM on the beautiful blue skied and golden leafed campus of Montana State University.

You guys know how this works.

I'm Tim Seipel, I'm your host.

Get those questions in that you might have about your horticulture, your ag, your insects, your beef cattle, your beef cattle nutrition.

We have a great panel organized for you guys tonight.

We have Zach.

We have first on the far right over there we have Darrin Boss, the Associate Director of the Montana Ag Experiment Station.

Be sure to ask him lots of questions about beef cattle and get those in.

Our special guest tonight is Zach Coccoli.

He is the Deputy Director of the Montana Department of Agriculture, and he's gonna be telling us tonight about the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant.

And then next to me here we have Erika Rodbell, who's the Agricultural Entomology Extension Specialist, and she can ask all the questions you might have about insects, grasshoppers, and how they eat our plants and trees.

Tonight, on the answering the phones we have Cadence Lemori and we also have Judge Bruce Loble.

Make sure you keep those guys busy writing down questions and sending them up here.

Zach, I'll hand it back to you for a minute and we'll give you some time to tell us about the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant that was awarded to the State of Montana by the EPA.

- Yeah, sure thing, Tim.

I'm excited to announce and elaborate on the state's receipt of the $50 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, of which agriculture is involved directly in the implementation of $21 million worth of ag-specific initiatives to reduce climate emissions and support Montana farmers and ranchers.

- Great.

So in this grant, it's a big, $50 million grant.

I saw a number of news articles that were spread across the state about it.

So there's a forest part, there's an ag part.

What is that?

What's the ag part gonna be about?

What are producers gonna do or how are people gonna be involved in this across the state?

- For agriculture, we're focused on three areas.

We've got a $10 million ranch land stewardship program to adopt innovation and tech, technological tools to support ranchers pursuing regenerative grazing practices.

We've got $10 million to prop up new innovations and pilot projects for animal feed systems, leveraging renewable energy, waste recycling and increasing that profitability of fed cattle operations in Montana.

And then thirdly, we're addressing fertilizer use efficiency in Montana through encouraging and supporting industry-led efforts for variable use and precision fertilizer application.

- Thanks.

Yeah, we'll come back to you with some more questions.

Everyone send in those questions for Zach about this program.

I have to go and make a correction from So anybody who was watching last week's episode, Abi brought in a bur oak leaf and I mistakenly called it a red oak leaf.

So I will apologize about that one too.

And I also said that oaks were not native to Montana, and I'm gonna correct that too because in the far southeast corner of Montana, there, we do actually have native bur oaks growing in our forests and coulees.

So I'll be on the Southeast Crop Tour in January.

I might stop between Alzada and Ekalaka and have a look for some of those bur oaks that were out there out there.

Thank you for the callers who corrected me and sent me the emails later in the week.

We really do appreciate your comments and thanks for getting those into us.

So Erika.

- [Erika] Yes.

- Grasshoppers, we've been talking about grasshoppers for a lot of years in Montana.

Have they published the grasshopper outlook for 2025 and as we look back, how was Grasshopper year 2024 in the State of Montana?

- So every year, the USDA APHIS releases the Grasshopper Hazard Map.

Typically it comes out in October.

So back in 2023, they released the 2024 map and basically said it looks really bleak out there.

They have yet to release the 2025 map.

But for this season, what we experienced was far less severe than what we anticipated.

Basically what led to the lessening of the severity for much of Montana is a longer and wetter spring, basically leading to a lot of egg mortality.

So even though there was a lot of eggs in the ground, not many of them, or not all of them hatched, so.

- Yeah, so what kind of conditions do we need to get good grasshopper mortality out there?

- [Erika] Like adults or nymphs?

- Well just, you know, as I hear some people talk about springtime getting the coolness, getting the rain.

So is that, do we need, we need a lot of snow and closed snow cover with really low temperatures?

Or if the ground was open like last year for such a long period of time, even though it went down to, you know, I remember I was at the 40 below house when it was 40 below in Havre at one point last year.

So did that cause grasshopper mortality?

- So there's a lot of, well, snow can be insulating, as can soil.

So even if you have, you know, a foot of soil, of snow on top of your soil and you may think, oh great, it's freezing out my grasshoppers, that's not necessarily true.

What actually kills 'em is bare ground because that's less insulation for them.

That being said, what we are experiencing now in regard to a warm fall is actually lengthening the window of time that adults have to oviposit in the soil.

So laying more, more time to lay more eggs into the ground.

So that's actually kind of concerning for us because it means that the soil is basically impregnated with more eggs than otherwise.

So what would really help us is a big snowstorm that just covers the whole state and then we're done.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Let's hope for a cold, snowy winter.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Darrin, question that came in.

How's the Precision Ag Initiative going at MSU and where's it going to?

- No, thanks Tim for the question.

The Precision Ag Initiative's been started a long time ago.

Dr. Sreekala Bajwa, one of the reasons she was hired was to implement a Precision Ag Program.

To date, through personal and private contributions and legislative investments, we've been able to hire three new precision agricultural faculty.

One is Elizabeth and Whitney MacMillan, Chair of Endowed Chair.

Paul Nugent's got that position.

He's a sensor guy, he's an engineering person, a locally homegrown Montana kid, so we're really excited to have him.

Anish Sapkota, who actually did his master's project up in Northwestern Ag Research Center, has a lot of Montana applications and work.

He's hired in Land Resource Environmental Sciences.

And we had a third one hired at the Research Centers, Ricardo Pinto, who actually did some work here as a postdoc on entomology and GIS references.

And we have one more hire we're making in plant sciences and plant pathology.

So as a staff, we're moving right along and really excited 'cause its pairing could be really good to partner with Zach and some of the Department of Ag as they look at right place, right time, right rate of fertilizer on this Montana Pollution Reduction Grant.

- Great, yeah, Zach, what's, you mentioned precision technology and leveraging some of the technology for this in precision ag, in the grazing portion of the grant.

Do you want to expand on some of what that's about?

- Yeah, yeah, sure thing.

So when it comes to greenhouse gas ignitions related to fertilizer use, the problem is unused nitrogen that doesn't sink into the soil and be absorbed by the roots.

It volatilizes into a methane gas and that's the emission source.

So it's a real win-win for Montana.

It's a win for the producers not to over-apply fertilizer as it's an increasingly expensive input, as well as the air quality in Montana to have less wasted nitrogen volatize into harmful methane gas.

- Yeah, could have a secondary effect in the soils as we're seeing more and more acidic soils in Montana.

This kind of research would be very beneficial in that too.

- Yeah.

- So when we're looking at precision applications of fertilizer, what we're talking about is a better understanding of a soil type, a better understanding of the spatial variability appropriate for each landscape, and using sensors on equipment or preparing with drone flyovers ahead of time to be better at where we put for how much fertilizer.

- Yeah, it's really interesting to see some of these precision fertilizer stuff come on.

I know some of the board members up at the Northern Ag Research Station in Havre, they've been using some of this Augmenta technology but, and variable rate fertilizers, which is really interesting to see and come around.

All right, let's stick with you, Darrin.

I got a question and I actually don't really, I don't know the answer to this question.

Bozeman caller wonders what is the difference between a Black and a Red Angus cow and why would a rancher choose one over the other?

- Well, if we want to dive into the genetics, the color, but there's been a lot of environmental breeding that has changed these breeds over time, okay?

Whether just say it's a color phase or not would be arguable anymore seeing as how they've been domesticated and bred for long periods of time.

Each one has attributes that are beneficial for each producers.

And most of the time the producers will try and match their breed type to their environment, right?

And so they use the one that's best suited for them.

The Montana Angus Association, which would be the Black Angus or the National Head, one of the greatest marketing in ventures when they started Certified Angus Beef.

And it was one of the very first branded beef products in the world.

That propelled them way into there.

They also had some outstanding genetic traits that they tend to marble better.

They had very diversified genomic type.

So we could probably go on and I, without offending either the Red Angus or the Angus, Black Angus people, that's kind of how divergent breeding works.

- Okay, interesting.

That's good from a plant person's perspective, yeah.

It's all Greek to me.

(group laughs) Or Latin, I should say, from a plant nerd's perspective.

So, okay.

So we have another couple callers that have come, another couple questions that have come in.

We have a Belgrade caller and maybe we can all chime in on this one.

Belgrade caller is asking how short should they mow their lawn before winter?

Anyone?

It, I would personally leave it tall because I think you get good moisture collection, you get, you really put that root, you leave it there for the winter.

Mowing shorter and shorter can be difficult.

This week we were on the Pest Management Tour and we were actually talking about managing spotted knapweed with mowing.

And surprisingly, what you don't want to do is repeatedly mow it too much and too fast.

You want to, you wanna let it get up and start bolting and then mow it and then not mow it again till it gets almost to the same height and it's bolted again.

The more often you mow it, the more you push those weeds to grow flat and prostrate on the ground, though can be difficult.

So I say leave it a little taller, but maybe next week we'll have one of our horticultural specialists talk a little bit more about that.

- As a cow guy, I hate to see any forage get mowed short.

I like to have it a little there for you, you know?

- Yeah, it's true.

Keep it up there just a little bit.

You never know what we're gonna encounter for environmental conditions in the next, in the future.

Erika, we have another question.

This person heard that they're growing a lot more corn out in Richland County, in Sidney.

- [Erika] Yeah.

- And they heard that now they're getting some new diseases out there and one has come called the corn maggot.

- [Eria] The seedcorn maggot.

- The seedcorn maggot.

- Yes.

- [Tim] Could you tell us about the seedcorn maggot?

- I can, so the seedcorn maggot is common around the Midwest, the Dakotas, especially Eastern Montana, traditionally has grown sugar beets.

However, specifically in Sidney, the processing plant for sugar beets has closed.

And so local ranchers and farmers have transitioned over to a more corn and soybean rotation in regard to what they produce.

Now, when you do that, you open yourselves up to a whole new batch of pests.

Seedcorn maggot is one of them.

Now, there's a variety of different ways They kill your seeds.

So your corn seeds, your soybean seeds before, as the plant is germinating and you can't tell that they're there until you see a stand that's totally just a failed emergence, basically.

Now what you can do is apply seed treatments, re-seed if you have a failed crop emergence or, and/or avoid planting for two to three weeks after you have incorporated manure or green manure into your field.

- Hmm, okay, interesting.

Thanks, thanks for that.

So that's a new pest to the State of Montana.

- Yes.

- It's never existed along the Yellowstone Valley where we've done lots of corn in the past.

- No, it's more like a continuation, a question of a continuation of production.

So if your, let's say your state line abuts a state that produces a lot and you have a unfettered alley for movement of these pests, they will show up.

And to my knowledge, there have only been two reports or two samples sent into the Schutter lab.

Myself has, I have received one of those two.

And so that has been a second confirmed case.

- [Tim] Okay.

- So Tim, one thing about that is we see crop diversification happening in the Sidney area and when the sugar beet plant, you know, closes down, we really need to be cognizant of pathological things that are happening.

Our researcher up in Eastern Ag Research Center and our pathologist down here at campus, (indistinct), because of course it's carried on corn, it's gonna impact our other cereal crops and that.

So we need to be a little more cognizant of an IPM and other pathogens that these new crops are also bringing along with them as we move through.

Not to scare people, but it's something, one more thing to be scouting for.

And as we transition into these crops, it's something to talk about just like this entomological problems.

- Yeah, that's true.

There's probably a more risk going from annual grass corn into annual grass wheat with this system and spill over and carry over some these pathogens.

- Another thing to bear in mind is Montana is one of the leading states for pulse crop production.

- Mm-hmm.

- And seedcorn maggot is a pest of dry peas, so like green and yellow peas.

So just bear that in mind.

- [Darrin] It's pulse central up there too.

- Yep, exactly.

- Yeah, and that is at least out as you get out into the dry land of, yeah, that is pulse central, so that's a good one.

I think you'll probably get a lot more questions about that one going into the future.

- Yeah.

- We have a follow-up question for Darrin.

Belgrade caller, is there any new or updated research on incorporating cover crops and grazing?

- Well, yeah, there's quite a bit.

We did eight years worth of work up in Havre with our cover crops.

Perry Miller, Tim, you've worked on some cover crops and as we move this through, the one thing we're wrapping up from the longest study that I know of integrating livestock into cover crops is finishing up with George Haynes on an economic analysis of that.

And so where we left 100% of the biomass to feed the next year's crop to feed the bacteria where we took and hayed those cover crops as an economic endpoint, we built, we baled it just like we would CRP and then we grazed it and it appeared that when we grazed our cover crops, it was a little about $100 an acre more advantage after the yield drag for the wheat and implement those cattle as an AUM component.

So by driving those alternative endpoints to a grazing component, we were able to pencil that out.

You know, I had an old mentor years ago that says cows have four legs, they can use all four of 'em to hustle the grass, right?

So why put machinery on it and whatever?

So what we're seeing is that there's probably in certain areas of the state where people should look at extending their grazing season or using this as a strategic grazing component.

Can we extend our grazing season into the fall for our calves and put a great big bloom on 'em and that, you know, so it's economically feasible to use these cover crops while we're waiting for the soil resiliency to change.

- Yeah.

- Right?

It's really hard and really slow for Montana soils to change, but we know it's happening.

We just, we're just not as fast as other things when we're looking at six inches of moisture.

So that's the newest thing happening right now is that the pencil value of grazing looks like it works better than the others, at least to the interim.

- Yeah, that's interesting.

You know, we worked at the Central Ag Research Station in Moccasin on actually managing herbicide-resistant wild oat using triticale, using barley, spring, barley spring pea mixes in there to get forage.

'Cause it allowed us to cut off that wild oat at that soft dough stage and prevent seed set.

And so many of these herbs, wild oat populations are resistant to some of our herbicides.

And you can work in that alternative management a little bit.

You don't necessarily see it on paper or on cow weight, but you do reduce that seed bank of the wild oat that's in there too that's difficult to manage.

Yeah, it's tough for us in Montana with our limited moisture to really make these systems work well, but.

- I ask, when people ask me, that's almost question I ask them, what hole do they want to fill in a forage resource, right?

Where do they want to feed?

They want to graze it in spring, summer, fall?

Then you can go to your cover crop specialist, Extension specialist, you can come to other cities and what species should we be growing to target that hole or that supplemental forage, right?

Then we can drive it for that so you have the maximum amount of yield and probably the highest quality.

- Yeah, yeah, that's a great, I can talk about that one forever.

That's a good discussion.

We have a follow-up call or a call from Winifred.

A question for Erika.

They would like to know when they should control the lilac ash borer and what they should use to control it.

Lilac ash borer has already had been identified on their property and they have 13 susceptible ash trees.

- I would reach out to Abi Saeed via email and ask her that directly.

- [Tim] Yeah, I don't know much about the ash borer.

- I don't know either.

- [Tim] Yeah, that's, yeah.

So contact Abi Saeed, reach out to her.

- Yep.

- You can get to her at the Schutter Diagnostic Lab or through the College of Ag and she might be on next week as a guest.

So maybe we'll follow that one up again.

Zach, we have a question for you and that comes from Helena and they said in this grant, the climate production or the climate reduction, sorry, let me say that one more time.

The Climate Pollution Reduction Grant, they said they noticed that Montana DNRC was involved, Montana Department of Equality and the Montana Department of Ag and they were wondering how that was organized in the state government and how you guys are sharing the responsibilities for this grant.

- Yeah, yeah, that's right.

So through the planning process on this grant, several state agencies proposed ideas affecting elements of their knowledge base.

And each state was limited to two applications.

So the Montana DEQ completed an application and then it just worked out quite fortuitously that the Department of Agriculture covering rangelands and the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation with their ideas covering forest health and wildfire prevention, really allowed us to capture 100% of Montana's land mass.

So it was a natural fit to propose together for the concept of carbon sequestration.

This is an emission reduction grant, but we took a really creative approach in our application to the EPA, arguing that Montana should receive some benefit for the contributions that we provide nationally as a sink for carbon.

We don't emit that much from Montana, but we didn't want to see all the money go to California and Texas and other urban centers.

So I'm most pleased about this application coming together between agencies and EPA selecting it with that inverse approach in mind.

- [Tim] All right.

- Can I follow up, Zach?

What kind of things are you looking at as a carbon sequestration or how do either producers or how do researchers, how do we, how to work this?

How do we work through these grants?

Or what's the proposed idea, if you don't mind?

- Yeah, well, the ideas are still under development.

- Okay.

- So we're going to hire an outreach specialist and get out there and meet with industry groups and meet with producers to fully understand what's possible and what they're interested in doing.

But the overarching theme is recognizing that the animals on Montana's landscape that vastly outnumber the people are net positive contributors to the landscape, right?

The grazing effect on our grasslands makes for a healthier ecosystem landscape.

When we're talking about regenerative grazing, adaptive management practices that allow for higher profitability from the rancher as well as healthier soils.

When you reduce those competitive effects of different grasses by short term grazing and adequate rest, you're gonna get healthier stands of grass that absorb more water and more carbon.

- So Zach, we've talked about cattle grazing as being a source of enriching Montana's landscape.

What about croplands?

How can we sequester carbon in our croplands?

- Croplands are certainly an opportunity.

The problem that most soil scientists would explain to me about crops is the lack of a living root system.

So the key and where cover crop systems come into play is maintaining a living root system that holds onto that soil and transfers it into other organic compounds in the soil.

- So you're talking might be a strategic reduction of fallow, not complete, but possibly in certain areas or plays that would reduce fallow.

- Yeah.

- In some instances that are economically feasible.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

- Thanks.

- Or like alfalfa for example, with a deep, it's a perennial crop with a deep root system, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

Increased alfalfa acres in Montana is a tremendous opportunity that we look at.

We know that we have eager export markets for alfalfa.

- [Erika] Yeah.

- And I have no doubt that Montana could produce and sell more high value alfalfa, especially as you consider areas like Arizona and the Southwest experiencing higher rates of drought and no water to irrigate with.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I mean we did see that alfalfa in some of our recent studies in these organic cropping systems.

Really having three, four years of alfalfa is what suppresses Canada thistle and bindweed in those situations.

And then you can go back into a annual spring wheat, a pulse, stuff like that.

But in some ways you almost need that longer, a little bit perennial crop that competes well with another perennial weed.

Okay, we got a couple other questions here.

So let's see.

We got the caller, we have a caller from Dillon has a cherry tree that has something eating its leaves.

He's been told that there are ants that take the leaves down to the ground.

If so, how to control this pest?

The cherry tree has lost all its leaves except on the very top.

- [Erika] I'm assuming you're asking me.

- I'm yeah, you are the Ag Extension Entomologist.

(group laughs) - Well, it depends on what you wanna do.

- [Tim] Well, first of all, do ants, I always thought.

- Depends on.

- When I have ants, they're eating aphids on my aspen trees.

- I mean, leafcutters are a type of ant that, or at least some species do present that behavior.

I do not know for a fact if they occur here in Montana.

But what I do know is their general feeding pattern is to start on the edge of the leaves and then work their way in.

So if you have like pinholes in the center of your leaves, then that's not going to be ant feeding behavior.

It's going to, they're gonna be chopping from the fringes of the leaves first.

And ants are highly mobile.

So the fact that you're seeing it like defoliation on the bottom of your tree and not the top of your tree, that lends me to believe that it's probably something else getting at it.

But I would need to see a photo of the defoliation damage to know for sure.

- So submit a sample to Schutter Diagnostic Lab if you can get it in there maybe before it freezes too hard and we could see if we can help identify what is actually getting at and eating the pest in that situation, or eating your cherry trees.

Oh, let's see.

We have some other calls that have come in.

We have a caller who's asking about mountain park, mountain pine bark beetles from Great Falls.

And they would like to know how long and how cold and how long does it have to be cold to kill those mountain pine beetles in our forest in Montana?

- Very cold for a very long time.

(group laughs) - [Darrin] Ice age, are we talking?

- No, no.

(group laughs) No, it's more like a week or more of negative 40 Fahrenheit.

Like if we can pull that off, then you'll see some reduction in their population.

Not total annihilation of them, but you can see reduction in that.

Many beetles that feed under the bark of trees, trees produce some degree of heat and they're very insulating.

So for these beetles, they can overwinter just fine, like just fine.

But it's more of the extreme cold for an extensive period of time.

That's what gets them because they can handle short bursts of really cold temperature fairly well.

It's those long, stretched out, lengthy, cold bursts that we sometimes have that can actually reduce their populations.

- Okay, when was the last time we had those sort of, I mean we had negative 40 last year for a, it seems like about a week, I don't know.

It seems like when we were, when I was younger it used to be negative 40 pretty often for a week.

And that happened every, you know, every January, February.

And our temperatures, our temperature maximums in winter are getting warmer.

Is that what's contributing to more, partially to more pine beetles?

- Yes.

As we are experiencing milder winters, that selection pressure or that pressure on the insect population is not there anymore.

And so if you have an invasive insect, let's say, that can't tolerate cold temperatures very well and you have a mild winter that are more likely to spread or establish a population here.

It's around 10% of all invasive insects that can survive being transported into the state can establish a population.

It's like the 10% rule of invasive insects.

So, just the odds.

- [Tim] Yeah.

- It's pretty low.

- So we have a caller from Helena and this one will be for Darrin and Zach.

I think we'll go together and you guys can maybe elaborate.

I have a few ideas on this one.

What is the difference between a carbon footprint of a buffalo or a bison and a beef cow?

Any ideas on that one?

- Go ahead, Zach.

(Darrin laughs) - Well, typically when we talk about carbon footprint, we're thinking about the whole animal lifecycle and a beef cattle, the majority of beef cattle's carbon footprint getting to your plate, I would say is involved in the processing and the feeding phases if you're going through a commercial feed operation.

So it's difficult to compare modern practices for rearing cattle versus historic practices of bison, if you're talking wild bison, if that's what the listeners getting at.

But as an animal on the landscape, I think they have very similar net impacts on the grassland.

- Yeah, that's what I've often heard.

If you're running a relative, you know, maybe a section or something like that, and it's a relatively small acreage, they look pretty similar in terms of their carbon footprint.

Is that what you heard?

- They're both large ruminants.

So I would foresee on rangelands in Montana, I would not see much difference in my mind.

I'd have to look at the data again, but I don't see that footprint being much different by those species, right?

- Yeah, I think some of the differences come when we start talking really big, large landscapes.

But you know, that changes the beef footprint on a large landscape versus a small landscape probably too.

As ruminants, do they emit the same amount?

We talked about methane before as ruminants.

Do they emit the same, similar amounts of methane?

- I'd have to go back to the data, Tim, to be 100% positive.

But if diets are the same, feeding the same diets, there should not be much difference, okay.

- [Tim] Yep.

- Now that's differential selection as they graze different times of year.

You know, historically bison mob grazed extensively with their large herds, right?

So they weren't so selective, where cattle are sometime more selective on the pastures.

Now as we domesticated bison, other than some remote areas, Yellowstone, other places where they're not domesticated, they have a lot more ability to select, right?

Before they just went through and ate all the grass and didn't come back for long periods of time, right?

- [Zach] Yeah.

- So that could be impacted.

But as a true diet to diet, I wouldn't see a whole lot right now.

- And when we do talk about grazing improvements, there is a growing body of research that supports some of those historical practices, recognizing the symbiotic relationship between the animal and the land.

Just like the way buffalo used to move across the open landscapes, but simulating that in our beef herd environments on private property now.

- All right, yeah, thanks for that question.

There's a question in here from a caller from Lewistown and they would like to know the difference between the efficacy of Opensight herbicide versus Curtail herbicide on their hay and pasture land to control Canada thistle.

What's the best way to control Canada thistle?

I suppose I'll answer that question.

Opensight is a herbicide that contains, I believe MCPA 2,4-D and metsulfuron.

Metsulfuron can sometimes damage your pasture in hay grass and actually doesn't work that great on thistle.

Curtail would probably be your better choice in this situation because the Curtail, which the active ingredient in it is clopyralid, works really well on thistle in that situation.

So I would say probably Curtail in this situation and if it's, since it's pretty warm outside, you could probably still actually go out and apply herbicide to the thistle this time of year 'cause they're taking that herbicide, it's translocating the herbicide below the surface to get at that Canada thistle root system.

But you know, in pasture what a lot of what I actually do is spot spray with a backpack because you can use glyphosate, usually it's cheap, just maybe sacrifice that little area around it.

But it works really well on Canada thistle in that situation.

But you can always broadcast spray a Curtail or Transline in that.

- And they make some really neat cones now for your hand sprayers too that you can almost cup it right down over that plant.

So it's not like the old days where you gotta fan it out, it just kind of.

- [Tim] Yeah, you can just set it down on there.

- Right.

- And we actually did that keeping a producer's pasture.

He had hairy vetch, trefoil, alfalfa, sainfoin mix, a legume, a big mix of legumes, which makes it really hard to manage weeds in.

- Absolutely.

- And in the end we just, we called it brute force precision and it was really a backpack, a cone and just spot spraying in there, which makes it, made a good, made a big difference on the thistle.

And they didn't lose a lot of their legumes that they wanted to keep in.

- So does a fall help with control of thistle or is it we want a hard freeze then?

Or what's the best time to get, I mean we're getting to a point where we gotta have a freeze sometime.

- Yeah, its.

- We haven't had one in Havre that I know of, so really.

- Yeah, and it's been very close here.

No, this is actually a pretty good time to manage thistle.

But you kind of, the step was probably in July or August when it started to bolt and you wanted to stop seed set would be go out and mow it with a weed whacker, a lawnmower, a bush hog, a swather, whatever you want to cut it down with.

And then they form new rosettes on the surface and they'll be really green this time of year.

Some years you need more water than others to make that green rosette to come back.

But if you spot spray that new rosette, it translocates the herbicide down into the root system.

In the summertime and in the springtime, most of the sugars are going from below the surface up into the flowering part of the plant.

So the herbicide goes up into the flowering part of the plant.

And as we all know with Canada thistle, more of the biomass is below ground than is above ground.

So you really need to target that root system.

So you still have time to go out there and spot spray Canada thistle rosettes, be a great afternoon hobby.

- [Darrin] Perfect.

- You know, it's like driving 2:00, between 10:00 and 2:00 this time of year, you need the heat.

So between 10:00 and 2:00 you get the best efficacy and best translocation.

- Perfect.

- Yeah, all right.

Enough about Canada thistle.

We talk, I talked a lot about it this week.

Oh, we have a call, we have a question from Zach that comes from a call from Hamilton.

Zach, they would like to know what the role of fungi is in sequestering carbon and whether that will be included or studied in as part of this project.

- Yeah, I can't say I'm real familiar with fungi's role or the prevalence of it in Montana.

You know, we are talking about the microbiome in the soil when we consider the rate of carbon sequestration and the volume.

But that would, I'd have to defer to a more technical expert of which we do have some of those type of experts involved in this grant program.

- I'd encourage you to call Cathy Zabinski at Montana State.

She had, you can find her email online.

She would be an excellent person for that.

And if you just wanna follow up with me or whatever I can hook them up too, but it's a great question.

And Cathy's one of our experts on mycorrhiza fungi and some of that.

- Yeah, you know, the project out at Havre, the eight years of rotation, when we had cover crop in that wheat fallow rotation instead of a fallow portion, we actually did see more fungi, AMF fungi.

And part of that was Cathy Zabinski's work.

Good, another member of the LRES department here at Montana College of Ag to all my colleagues out there.

Erika, we have another question.

A Helena caller says a leaf weevil is devouring their firebushes and lilac bushes.

What should they do?

- Call Abi Saeed.

- Call Abi Saeed at the Horticulture Extension.

So it's just maybe get it identified.

Do you guys know what firebush is?

Is that, sorry, I'm.

- It's a landscape, it's a landscape one, it's an introduced plant that landscapers put in and it turns a really bright, bright red in the fall after a frost.

It's really pretty, but a lot of people mistake it with fireweed, which is a kochia, right?

So anytime you say that, there's kind of that confusion.

- Yeah, the firebushes, okay.

I think, I know I'm, I know what species we're talking about here.

I've actually, yeah, kind of like the (indistinct).

I think I would follow up with Abi on that.

And if, I'm surprised that there are many insects out there that'd still be eating, chewing on a plant this time of year.

But Abi can definitely help you get it identified, send it into Schutter Diagnostic Lab to get identified too.

- Surprisingly.

- I'm sorry.

- Oh, oh, go ahead.

Grasshoppers are still active.

- Yeah.

- I saw 'em today.

- Oh did you?

- They're still around.

- They're still hanging on?

- Yeah.

- My daughter's actually had four grasshoppers living in captivity for a while and we've been feeding them.

- Lettuce.

- We've been feeding some failed corn crop this year.

They, you know, grasshoppers are really eating the pistols on the corn coming off corn stem, actually.

- [Darrin] Hey Tim, can I ask a follow up to Zach?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Zach, you were talking about intensive beef cattle operations.

Where do they fit in this Montana Pollution What opportunities may be out there?

What are you guys looking at, if you don't mind me asking?

- Yeah.

- As a beef producer.

- For the feedlots?

- Yeah.

Feedlots are, I guess you worded it more intensive, but is that directly at feedlots or how do, how does that fit in this, if you don't mind me asking, I just haven't had a chance to talk about it.

- Yeah, so we do have a whole element here designed around incentivizing innovation in the beef cattle industry.

And what we're seeing around the country are opportunities for a net zero emission feedlot operation.

They're indoors, so they're capturing all the gas, they're recycling that to run the power for the place.

It's covered in solar panels or other renewable energy systems to further drive home that net zero impact.

And then they're capturing all the waste, all the manure is going into a methane digester and being recycled back into an organic fertilizer.

So the opportunity is really prevalent in Montana where we don't have as much fed capacity as we think we can.

And we don't have big, huge feedlots that have to be entirely retrofitted.

So I think of it as kind of a blank slate with the, with a handful of really innovative producers and business owners willing to invest in the private capital to get this off the ground.

And we wanna do our part to support those type of pilot project programs to show other people that it's profitable, that this is what it looks like and this is how we can end up with a Montana branded beef product available for the producer.

- [Darrin] Outstanding, thanks Zach.

- Yeah, Darrin, we have a question from Raynesford.

Maybe this is a little bit about carbon sequestration in and of itself.

They have some two year old hay.

Should they let it just sit there and sequester more carbon or should they feed it or should they market it or what should they do with it?

- Well, you know, it's funny, we're getting a lot of questions like this even on the high line where people had pretty good hay years this year and last year wasn't bad.

Our beef cattle numbers are still low in Montana.

We're still recovering from the drought and that, we're just not building back and that, so there's some two year old hays all over the State of Montana.

My first recommendation is to go ahead and get a sample of the hay.

Go to your county Extension agent, borrow their hay probe if they, if you don't have one yourself maybe, and maybe take about every 10% of the bales out there.

Take a core sample of it and it does two things for you.

One, you can give it the old smell test, right?

Once you get that core, throw it in a bag, shake it all up, get a good smell 'cause it's gonna smell like nice, green hay even though the outside's weathered and maybe two years worth of beatings, right?

Then we, then send it into a lab and get that nutrient analysis.

Then that's our first step and see where it fits in your profile.

Is a, I call it a, you know, your hay portfolio, right?

Just like any other portfolio, more diverse it is, the better we can learn to feed these cattle and balance their rations and diets.

If you have too much of that hay, then go ahead and see what you can market it and realize that there's a lot of hay sitting out there.

So it's not gonna be like two years ago where paying $300 a ton.

So it's really where it pencils into your operation but start with a good quality hay analysis and then we can make a decision from there.

- So if you take a core of this hay bale, does it always smell good?

Does it always smell like dried hay or does it sometimes come out smelling moldy, funky?

- It can, it can, and you should be able to smell that right away.

Some things I've seen actually more so is caramelized.

It got put up just a touch bit wet 'cause they're trying to dodge rain showers.

So you open it up and it smells like a little caramel-y.

The hay isn't green, it's just a little, it's called a Maillard reaction.

It actually binds up the protein.

So the proteins are not available to that and that's gonna tell you something else, right?

It doesn't mean sell it to your neighbor, right?

No, I mean it's just some things we have to think about.

But that's what we see more often than not.

You know, we do, moldy stuff, you'll see that coming through the ends outside.

But it does smell too.

- It does smell too.

- You can always tell a beef cattle nutritionist because the first thing you do is run up and grab hay or grab whatever feed's in the feed bunk and smell it because we wanna see what it's like.

- The smell test.

- That's right.

- The smell test.

- That's right.

- All right, great, thanks.

We have, oh, this is great.

We have a Billings caller who says that firebush is actually burning bush or winged Euonymus.

Which is also, it's a genus of European shrubs, the Euonymus that spreads out everywhere.

They'll have a little pink, reddish fruit.

They actually make kind of a nice fruit in addition to their, in addition to their pretty foliage in the fall, burning bushes, it's also common.

Thank you for calling that in and let us know about that question.

Darrin, we have another follow-up.

We have a question for you here.

And this person wants to know, they were planning to come to Bozeman on the weekend of November 4th or the week of November 4th to 9th to Celebrate Ag at MSU.

You want to tell us a little bit about what's happening at Celebrate Ag Week?

- Yeah, we're super excited about revamping and re-energizing Celebrate Ag and it kind of came about as we had a young gentleman that came to one of our advisory meetings, had just left MSU and was really enthusiastic and he says, you know, I'm an Aggie.

He says, but I would never realize that Celebrate Ag was happening on campus other than a football game.

And so we went back to the drawing boards.

Laura Wilson, Austin O'Neill went back and revamped it.

So we're gonna have a whole week long to energize, not just the Celebrate Ag tailgate and the football game, but so all the students realize that Celebrate Ag is happening on campus.

Where does your food come from?

You know, how do we target agriculture in Montana?

Still the number one industry, the food commons and all the food preparation systems are generating food.

They're locally grown as much as they get locally purchased, locally grown, some 4H animals that they're bringing into the feed.

They're gonna have prime rib night.

That's all gonna be part of 4H Animals they bought.

We're gonna have an Ag Olympics one of the evenings.

So all the ag groups or non-ag groups that wanna participate in various humorous ag-type Olympic events will be happening at the Bigger Better Barn.

Scholarship event, Ag Social.

So we're gonna try to make this into a social media so people realize that we're celebrating ag, it's our homecoming.

All the Aggies will be on campus a lot of the weeks.

We have a lot of advisory meetings that week.

So we're super enthusiastic about it.

- And I'll add that the Economic Outlook Conference is the most hard hitting one-day seminar that I attend all year.

- Yeah.

- You know, and they've got an outstanding lineup set up for this year.

- Yeah, we were, last week I was on as a panelist, not as the host, but with Eric Belasco who talked about the Economic Outlook Seminar that's coming up here at MSU during that Celebrate Ag Week.

- Yeah, and you can register online for that.

Just go on AgEconConference2024 and be able to register right online.

- Yeah, and you can find all the information about Celebrate Ag Week on the College of Ag's website too, montana.edu.

- Absolutely.

- At the website.

So I have another question.

This was a question that came in for you, Erika.

You know, we haven't had an ag entomologist for a while and there's been a lot of need in ag entomology and I heard some really great things about an event that you put on a week or two ago about the entomology, a Entomology Day here at MSU.

You want to tell us a little bit about it and who was there and what you did?

- Yeah, I'm happy to.

So to address some of the concerns from our constituents, there wasn't much hands-on training in field entomology specifically.

So to address that, myself, Marni Rolston and Chloe Rice organized Entomology Day and it was a huge day event of 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and we covered everything from pests that fed on roots, stems, leaves and fruiting bodies of plants.

And we had guest lectures from four other professors within the MSU system.

And Tiziana Oppedisano came down and gave a huge talk about insects and ag systems as well.

We opened it up to the public.

So we had members of the department, the Montana Department of Ag and the USDA, the national USDA came and joined us for that event as well as a couple of folks from industry.

And we had MSU Extension agents join us as well.

And we got great feedback.

I think that it would be better served if we broke it up into a two-day program instead of just a one-day program.

But I think overall it was a very fun event.

We wanted the event to be small so we capped it at 20 people.

I wanted to train people well and not train a lot of people, but I, those that I did train, I wanted to be well-trained and I think 20.

- I heard people got sweet nets.

- They did.

- So for all those alfalfa producers out there who have to go look for alfalfa weevils, come to Erika's training so you can get a sweet net.

- Sweet net.

- You won't have to use your hat anymore when you walk around.

(group laughs) Yeah, that's great.

And we look forward to seeing more.

You know, the IPM group here at MSU, we put on these field days every year and this year was really the entomology field day.

And we'll go back to weeds and diseases in the next few, in the next few years as we come around.

But we really like to host our community here on camp, bring producers here to campus and all our professionals 'cause we get to interact with all the professionals and the professors here on campus who may not make it off campus very much.

- Yeah, they got textbooks, they got a gardening, garden insect pest textbook, Whitney Cranshaw's like quintessential bible of all things insect related.

And then my personal bible of insect pest management and ag systems, really expensive textbooks.

But we had a raffle at the end and I gave two of them away.

So now my job is obsolete, nobody needs me.

(Erika laughs) - Great, Zach, we had a follow-up question to one that was maybe addressed a little bit earlier.

They were wondering where this part of this 21 million in the ag would go, what groups would be awarded or what groups would be expected to be awarded and you know, how will the Montana Department with the other stakeholders in the state on this grant?

- So we're looking to provide direct financial support to the landowner or the rancher, the land steward of the property with the hands-on, boots on the ground access to making these changes.

- [Tim] Yeah.

- You know, we're still identifying the partners, the nonprofits and the conservation districts and the existing program resources that are available across the state to try to bolster those up as well.

But we're gonna take a new approach with this and try to make a new splash and create some new changes for the state.

- Great, so should a producer expect to interact with Darrin at the Northern AG Research Station and then some of the other state groups out there from the Department of Ag, the stock growers and those, everyone will be working together on this climate resilience project and pollution reduction project?

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Darrin and his crew will be a huge resource for us and you know, stay tuned for more information.

We'll be at all the trade shows with grain growers, Farm Bureau, all the major ag industry organizations are key partners for us on this.

- When do you think those hearing sessions will start going about around the state, Zach?

Or do you have a timeline on when producers can kind of target and be ready to interact so they can kind of get more information about that?

- Yeah, we're working on hiring a dedicated person right away.

- Okay.

- To try to hit this winter season.

- Okay.

- Of conferences and conventions.

By the summer we're gonna have some more concrete materials established.

So if you haven't been brought up to speed by then, you know, do remember to reach out and find our website, find our landing page.

It's a five year program so it's gonna take us a bit of time to get up off the ground.

- Understand.

- But once we're up and running, those resources will be readily available through the website.

- [Tim] Great, all right.

- Wonderful.

- Thanks.

I have a question here, Bozeman caller wonders whether all this warm fall weather will harm the trees going into winter.

That's another good one for Abi Saeed.

- [Darrin] Abi Saeed.

- [Erika] Yeah.

- But I think, you know, the trees are starting to harden off a little bit.

They've really started to change colors here in town and I think they're starting to settle down for winter.

We just really haven't had any cold shocking winter and we've missed that negative temperatures in October where we go from 60 to a negative So hopefully our trees are having enough time to get themselves put to bed for the winter and taken care of.

Darrin, we have one other question here.

- I don't like it when you smile.

(group laughs) - And this is one for you and I maybe, and Zach can maybe jump in too, or maybe this is a future project.

Can we use precision fence to help graze my Canada thistle?

And this is a question that came from a producer in Fort Benton who has a coulee full of Canada thistle.

- Maybe, it would depend on what species of livestock.

We may try and graze that.

There has been some training 'cause cattle or sheep or goats need to be trained.

Cattle, you know, they have to be trained to eat these species and we have to use electric fence to be able to hold 'em in, right?

- [Tim] Yeah.

- So it takes a trained animal to be able to go after some of these invasive species.

And this was a tough one, especially time of year.

We're not gonna graze it now 'cause it's just too prickly.

They'll walk through electric fence I'm afraid before they decide.

But if we get at the right stage, I think it's a research project we can sure look at.

But it's, you can look back to literature, you know, as well as I do, Tim.

- [Tim] That's tough.

- That we can use livestock at certain times of year like cheatgrass.

Just new, a new study came out of University of Nevada Reno that livestock eating cheatgrass, viable seed of cheatgrass renders that seed almost non-existent once it passes through the rumen and that which may indicate that we can use those more at a better time to eliminate cheatgrass on native ranges and some of that if we do it strategically and get 'em to graze it.

So that's a good question.

- Yeah, it can be, tough for those.

You gotta get the cows to put that pokey cheatgrass even in their mouth even when it's not dried down yet, it's already getting pokey.

- [Darrin] It's tough.

- It's tough, yeah.

I've tried sheep in small pens for thistle grazing and they ate all the triticale and then they just stood there and looked at the thistle.

So it can be a really, really tough one to do.

So we're getting down there for the evening.

Thank you guys.

Thanks Zach for coming on and talking about the, and talking about the grant and we look forward to hearing more from you in the future as we, as the grant goes on for the next five years and interacting with all the stakeholders and the groups across the state.

(upbeat country music) Next week we have one more show for the 27th and that's gonna be Marsha Goetting is going be on as the special guest talking about supporting ag families living with dementia.

And as producers get older in the state and we have older people, can be very helpful.

Thank you guys all for listening tonight.

Thank you Zach.

Thank you to the panel.

- [Narrator] For more information and resources, visit MontanaPBS.org/ AGLive - [Narrator 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.

(cheerful music)