- [Presenter] 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, The Gallatin Gardeners Club, and The Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(lively music) - Good evening, you are watching Montana Ag Live, originating today from the studios at 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.

We have a nice guest this evening, Jane Boles from the Meat Science Lab here, and the Department of Animal and Rain Science.

Every time we have somebody by the name of Jane on, (Jane laughs) we have something that looks like this little treat she brought us this evening.

And Jane, if Tim reaches for it before the program is over.

Yeah, you need to do that.

(panel laughs) But let me introduce nice panel.

We're gonna focus a little bit on meat science.

There's a lot of interest in meat around the state right now.

Always has been.

The beef industry is very vital and in fact, on that note, we just finished a really exciting week here at Montana State University called Celebrate Ag Week.

It was a great turnout.

We had a banquet, or Friday evening, great turnout.

Good ball game.

Everything went well.

Next year when we have celebrated Ag Week, I'll invite you now to join us.

So with that, way on my left, Sam Wyffels, he is our extension beef specialist.

So any questions about beef this evening, Sam will answer 'em.

I have some that have came in, and there are some good ones in there.

So we'll have some fun with that.

Jane Boles.

Jane is a meat scientist here at MSU, does a lot of different research on meat animals.

If you have questions about anything to do with meat, nutrition quality, good chance to ask to tonight because Jane will give you a great answer.

Tim Seipel.

Tim's our weed scientist and not a weed ecologist.

He likes to be known as, (Tim laughs) but if you have any questions about weeds, then definitely we do have plenty of 'em in the state.

Although Tim tells me it's not a problem anymore because they're gonna all freeze tonight.

(Tim laughs) And of course, Abi Saeed.

Abi is our horticulturalist and we always have a lot of questions about house plants, garden plants.

Phone 'em in tonight.

The more questions you get in, the more exciting this program will be.

And answering the phones is Nancy Blake and Raissa Moura Debacker.

So Raissa is the first time here, so thank you for showing up.

Jane, tell us a little bit about what you do here at MSU.

- Well, my appointment is mostly teaching, so I spend a lot of time working with students trying to introduce them to the different aspects of meat science, anything from growth and development of the animal all the way through to processing and the charcuterie board you have there tonight, I have product that the students have made.

We just pulled the dry salamis off, so we're gonna get to try some of that.

And we also made some weisswurst on Friday and that's a traditional German product.

So hopefully everybody, they can enjoy it there.

Some of the other products that we have on the charcuterie board are from Grotto meat.

Nick is a chef and he does a fabulous job.

He and Alex were giving me pointers on how to make your charcuterie board pretty.

Then we have some cheeses from Mavens Market.

- I tell you what, I've had to hold Tim down.

It's been a job here (panel laughs) before the program, but I tell you, we look forward to finishing the program.

We might even stop a little early tonight (panel laughs) so we can get to it.

But thank you.

Tim, you were up in Glasgow this week, and a question came in.

It's a great question about foxtail barley and I know that's a tough weed.

It might roundup.

Our glyphosate really is not terribly effective on it.

How do you manage foxtail barley?

- Yeah, it's a really interesting, so foxtail barley is, it's a native perennial bunch grass that's pretty long lived and as we've switched to no-till cropping systems in Montana, it's become a little bit more problematic and it shows up and you'll see it.

So foxtail barley, you'll see it's this silvery shiny grass that's kind of pretty, it really likes saline seeps, it really likes to grow in sort of tough conditions, but it's becoming more weedy in our fields.

And so the question becomes how do you really manage it?

And even though glyphosate is not that effective, it's still usually the standard protocol is to spray it with glyphosate a couple times.

This fall, I know people did spray it, sometimes this fall, when people go into pulse crops too, pre into pulse crops, you can spray grassy herbicides on it.

But it becomes like a tough bunch grass, almost the way that a crested wheat grass will look.

And so it makes it really hard to kill it and get rid of it.

Steel in the field will definitely- - Yeah.

- Pull it out sometimes.

And I do know some people who've gone to steel in the field sometimes, but in general, the standard protocol is glyphosate in fall, glyphosate in spring, and then maybe like Clethodim or a grassy herbicide.

And that'll usually get you pretty far into suppression, but not totally get rid of it.

It's a tough one.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

This question came in last week from Otter Creek, which by the way is near Ashland Montana.

This person would like to know what the trends in Montana are regarding sustainable lifestyle production and organic lifestyle production.

So we have two people at the end of the table that can answer that question.

- Yeah, I guess, I'll start.

So there's a lot of new programs out there.

We hear a lot more recently about the regenerative ag program, which I think is kind of just the new twist on what we used to use for sustainable procedure.

I would say that Montana has always been really good at sustainable livestock production.

If we weren't, we wouldn't be one of the top livestock producing states in the country.

And so I think we've always been really good at it.

I can't speak directly on like how many organic producers are out there or how they're doing, but I have worked with a handful of those folks.

They seem to be doing well.

The regenerative ag is very, very popular right now.

A lot of you guys are using those as marketing campaigns as well for when they go to sell their beef.

And so I think Montana's doing pretty well when it comes to sustainable beef production.

- So on the organic side, I mean I go into a grocery store, that's one of my hobbies (Tim and Jack laughs) and it's a bad one.

- Okay.

- So you go in and you see a lot of organic produce, but I don't see a lot of organic meat for sale.

Is there a reason for that?

- Well, one of the challenges is that you have to have it organic from start to finish.

And there are some cleaning products that are not classified in the organic, that is a challenge, especially when you're running multiples and most of the organic are going to smaller processors.

We do have at least three processors that I know that are organic certified.

But it is challenging to maintain some of the sanitation information when you have a product that works very well but is not classified in the organic approach.

- So grass fed beef would not qualify as organic?

- Grass fed beef, actually, it just means that you have finished them on grass or forage.

It doesn't say that they're grazing either.

- Okay.

(Abi laughs) - It can be harvested forage.

So alfalfa is considered grass finished sometimes, forage finished for sure.

- Okay.

- Maybe not grass finished but forage finished.

And so there's a lot of different approaches when they're working on that.

And the change in the animal, 'cause the fattening has, when you want the fattening to occur, you have to have the energy greater than what the animal's maintenance is.

And that's one of your challenges when you're using a forage.

It doesn't tend to be in that higher energy source, and therefore you don't have the marbling that you would have if you were grain finishing.

- [Jack] Okay.

- [Sam] Doesn't it doesn't usually take longer as well?

- Yes, it does.

Well, if you look at the research quite frequently they will say a grass finished is less tender.

But I think part of that is the growth path more so than anything else.

I think that has an impact.

And they do tend to be older, and older animals will be less tender in many cases.

- Okay, thank you.

This question has come in many times.

You weren't here last week.

They wanna know, is it too late to be watering conifers?

- No, actually it's a good question.

At this time of year, especially if you live in an area where it's been a little bit dry, this is a really good time to get a nice deep soaking in, you know, before the soil is fully frozen.

It's a good time to get that nice fall source of moisture in.

So your conifers are set up for less winter injury after this winter.

So definitely not too late.

Keep watering them.

- But unhook your hoses at night.

(panel laughs) - Yes, don't forget to unhook your hoses.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

And if my wife is listening, remember what Abi said, run out there and unhook our hoses.

(panel laughs) Interesting question.

And I don't know the answer to this and I've been around livestock a little bit.

Shorthorns.

Do we still grow Shorthorns?

- Yes.

- Shorthorns, it's an interesting process.

Everybody went black- - Yeah.

- With their livestock, and mostly that's from certified Angus beef.

They did a beautiful job of marketing a breed on a carcass quality.

And there are shorthorns still out there.

The shorthorn breed still exists.

An interesting thing about shorthorns and Simmental for that matter is they were originally dual purpose.

So when we look at the carcass, there's a thing called the internal fat or that kidney fat in any of the dual purpose breeds, even if they are no longer used at that dual purpose, we have more kidney fat.

An interesting thing.

- Okay.

- I think we see 'em in some of the hobby farms as well because shorthorns are very pretty- - They're pretty.

- Really nice patterns across their hides and just a really pretty looking animal.

- Prettier than a Hereford?

- I don't know.

- I don't know.

(Sam laughs) - Baby Hereford that white face.

It's hard to beat it, it's such a butte.

- Just curious.

Just curious.

- So Simmental, a valley in Switzerland and there was a dual purpose breed.

- And in Switzerland they're still dairy.

- Yeah, still very much dairy breeds.

- Yes.

- So how did they end up becoming a dual, how did they become popular in the US?

Why is the American Simmental Association based in Bozeman?

- The Simmental breed was originally introduced as a cross-breeding, as was the charleigh for increased size because at the time the Angus, the Herefords, the Shorthorns or a smaller breed, and they were bringing in what we called Continentals to increase the size, increase carcass weights, increase growth rates.

And when they brought the Simmentals into the US, they had already been a dual purpose that was their starting point, and they changed to being only beef production.

But the residual effect of that is still seen a little bit in that increased fat in the internal.

- Okay.

Question came in from Cascade while you were talking.

This person would like to know how much meat is harvested out of a 1,200 pound steer as an example they use.

So what percentage is actually- - Okay.

(Jane laughs) - Gotta get the calculator out.

- No.

1,200 pound animal, 63% is what your yield is for the carcass.

So that's gonna give you roughly a 700 pound carcass.

So the 700 pound carcass is going to give you, depending on how you cut it and how fat the animal is, you can estimate 50% of the carcass weight is what's gonna go in your freezer.

And that's if you're looking at a choice, you'll grade three.

- Interesting.

My question is, how much corn does it take to produce a pound of beef?

I gotta throw something.

- Oh man.

(Jane laughs) - Actually, it's gone down- - Yeah.

- It has been reduced considerably in - Yeah, yeah, I mean if you would've given me a heads up, I would've given you a whole bunch of.

(panel laughs) - [Jack] There's no fun doing that.

- On the spot, so my wife actually runs the Steer-A-Year program here at Montana State, and I kind of help out with that a little bit.

And we measure those animals intake plus their weight to gain.

And I guess I would have to do a whole bunch of math to get you a pound of corn per pound of meat kinda ratio.

But from a feed efficiency standpoint, I would say it's not uncommon to be in that four to eight pounds of feed per pound of- - Of gain.

- Of gain.

- That's pretty efficient.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Not as efficient as fish.

- Fish is one to one, or almost one to one.

- Yeah.

- Pigs are one and a half to two, and poultry is like 1.2.

- Interesting.

All of 'em are pretty efficient.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

And with grain prices where they are right now, it's pretty profitable to be feeding these animals.

There's no doubt about it.

Question about oak trees, falls here and although it hasn't really felt like it, but this oak tree, one oak tree in particular in Livingston has not shed its leaves yet.

Is there a reason for that?

- Yeah, so that happens sometimes oaks for holding onto their leaves.

That phenomena is called marcescens, and it can happen for a variety of reasons, but it doesn't affect the health of those trees usually.

So if they hold onto their trees, it could be that the process of dormancy could have been interrupted.

It could have been potentially some sort of stress, but usually it doesn't impact the health of the tree.

There's also some interesting theories as to why this could happen.

Some are to prevent browsing from deer 'cause deers don't like those crunchy leaves.

And then another one could be that those plants are setting themselves up for nice organic matter in the spring.

So they'll drop those leaves in the spring when they leaf out.

- Speaking of deer, (panel laughs) we have a photo, I think if we can find it in the control room of what deer can do to, I think it's a maple tree.

So if Tyler, you can find that photo and we will show up, and then we'll discuss what we can do to protect these trees.

So someplace we'll bring that up and when it's up, we'll talk about it.

- Will the wind solve the Livingston oak tree problem leads on the tree problem?

- In Livingston?

(panel laughs) - [Abi] in Livingston certainly.

- I'm actually impressed that that oak still has tree leaves.

- Yeah.

We had 40 mile per hour gusts like yesterday or the day before there in Livingston.

And yeah, I think that in Livingston that is certainly a possibility.

- Yeah.

- Okay, thank you.

From Butte, this is a good question because I kind of fall in this category too.

This person said they like veal, especially veal heart and chops.

I like scallopini.

Can you even buy veal anymore?

Or young cattle is just too valuable today?

That's a good question.

- You can purchase veal, you have to find it in the right place.

It tends to be found on the coasts more so than in the middle or in Montana.

It's basically, that sausage we have was is supposed to be made with veal, but I could not find enough veal to make that product.

So it's made with pork, but you can find it, you'd have to ask your local grocery store because I do know that some of the purveyors carry it.

It's just harder to come by.

- [Tim] What qualifies as veal?

How old does the calf have to be?

- That's a good question, because it does depend on where you are in the world on what that definition is.

In the US it tends to be less than six months, probably more like three months.

- Oh wow.

- So they're very young.

And what you're looking for in the veal is the light color.

And the change in color is all about the age of the animal.

The older it gets, the redder it gets.

So when they're looking at veal, it tends to be very serum-y flavor because there's not a lot of fat in it.

Most of your species flavors come from the fat in the carcass.

So if you don't have any fat, basically if you could take all the fat off, they all taste the same.

- Another reason I'd say we we're not seeing as much of it as well is it used to be a big thing with dairies, right?

So the dairy calves especially steer calves or bull calves, there's no place for those to go.

So they would go into an early veal market.

And our dairies have gotten pretty strategic now, especially with artificial insemination, that they're breeding sex semen.

So they're getting the animal that they want.

They're also breeding to beef breeds.

And so a lot of their calves are now a beef dairy cross, which is a little more valuable in the sense of like the feedlot type animal as well.

- I did not know that.

That's interesting.

- And the veal industry took a major hit when some of the welfare issues were brought up.

- Yeah.

- So it was.

- I do know my wife was in the vet science industry and you didn't talk veal in that industry at all.

So there is a taboo associated with it.

It doesn't bother me.

Veal scallopini.

(panel laughs) That's really pretty good.

Or Marsala is not bad either.

(Jane laughs) On that note, from Bozeman, the callers perennials, poppies, daylilies, et cetera are starting to grow again from the base due to the warm fall.

Is that a problem?

- It could delay their growth in the spring.

I've heard this a lot from people this fall is they're having some growth already because it's been so warm.

I would just not worry too much about it.

But it could slow them down in the next spring.

You could have a little bit of above ground injury and- - Okay.

- It could slow them down, but it shouldn't wipe them out.

- Sounds good.

Thank you.

From Bozeman, why are some steaks tough and other steaks are very tender?

Is there a way that you can pick a steak if you go into a grocery store that's gonna be more tender than others?

- Well, first off, you have to actually choose one that should be a stake, and that's your first challenge.

Be able to tell which cuts are going to give you the more tender product.

Tenderloins, even though they're the most expensive, that's the one that's gonna be the most tender.

If anybody's familiar with flat irons, you're starting to see them.

Those are basically your second most tender.

Then you go to the striploin, the rib eye.

If you're buying round steaks, they're not gonna be tender.

You gotta marinade them.

And if you look at the label, most of them will say it needs to be marinated before you cook it.

I had one last night, I did okay with, your expectation has to meet the cut you have, and then don't overcook it.

If you cook well done, you're gonna have less juiciness.

The less juiciness you have the perception of tenderness goes down.

- So I'll give you some of my preferences.

I'm not a lover of filets.

- [Jane] I don't either.

- If they don't have a great flavor to me.

- I don't like it either.

- They're tender- - Yes.

- In general.

- I agree.

- I like a good sirloin because to me it's chewable, a little tougher than others.

But the flavor of a sirloin is my favorite steak.

And if you have comments out there, you disagree with me, go ahead and send 'em in.

I'll air 'em if they're not too negative.

- The sirloin does have a tendency to be a hit and miss, and it does depend on who cut it and whether or not they pulled out, there's a very specific muscle at the bottom that you need to pull.

If you don't pull it out, then you've got that little bit on the bottom that is going to be chewy compared to the rest of it.

- Okay.

All steaks are good.

- I agree with that.

- I agree.

- [Jane] I like my steaks, but I like pork chops too.

- So do I.

(panel laughs) And even fried chicken is not bad.

- Oh yeah.

(panel laughs) So you know, our taste buds are waiting for this.

(panel laughs) Tim, this grower from Helena has knapweed in his field.

He mentioned it is still green and pretty easy to identify across his field.

He is wondering if it is too late to spray it this fall for control.

- Next week is supposed to be, I think the forecast highs are in the '60s next week.

During the middle of the day, you could absolutely spray the knapweed I think, and you'll still get good control with it, with something like grays on, or I forget what the trade names are for the knapweed herbicides right now.

But you can still go out and spray the knapweed, and I would just, yeah, depending on how much you have, you can just spot spray the rosettes and that's probably one of the, because they're so obvious right now and you see 'em on the surface, you can literally walk to 'em and just spot spray those rosettes.

- Okay, good answer.

Thank you.

So this is my question for Sam.

(panel laughs) - Oh no.

- He knows what's coming.

- Yeah, yeah, I'm a little nervous now.

- I attended an Ag Econ Conference on Friday, and it was really good, by the way.

One of the people said that in the central part of the United States, people have planted winter wheat, but not for grain production.

Just to pasture your cattle on.

How nutritious is winter wheat to graze and is it profitable for somebody here in Montana to put it in early and just graze winter wheat?

- Yeah, that's an interesting question.

I know you're hoping to stump me, but we actually just did a research project.

(panel laughs) Yeah.

So you can use some winter annuals.

We actually put some in for a research project, not necessarily to graze over winter, but to maybe offer some spring grazing.

The forage quality of that is actually pretty high 'cause you know, it's flushing, it's green, a lot of leaf material.

The trick is is that it is very high moisture, so it takes a fair amount of them for the animals to eat.

It's not an uncommon practice.

Especially, I've seen this a lot kind of more in the droughty years for people who had wheat fields, if they have water available after harvest to maybe run over with another, you know, run the pivot over there and try to get all the, you know, volunteer, the residual seed to flush up and then graze that in the fall.

Especially if you're hurting for your forage.

In the Midwest, it's a common, common thing.

I see it all the time.

If you go to the national animal science meetings, I think they actually have a whole forages section where most of it is done outta Kansas and Oklahoma where they're talking about different varieties of wheat or dual purpose wheat that you can graze and still produce a grain crop off of it the following following year.

- The MSU, we have a couple of dual purpose winter wheats, right?

That can be grazed.

- Yeah, I think so.

- Is that willow?

Is Willow Creek out?

- I think it is, yeah.

- Yeah, willow creek is one of our varieties.

I think that people graze fairly well.

- Yeah.

And I know, Jamie Sherman in our plant breeding programs doing a whole bunch with barley as well, creating some forged barley lines as well so.

- So I'll throw this at Tim.

Is there a risk, say out in eastern part of the state this year, we had a lot of July moisture.

- Yeah.

- What would be the risk of seeding winter wheat in July for pasture?

- Well, then you get the wheat streak mosaic virus carryover and you know, if were here tonight, that was the topic of her PhD, she'd tell us.

But basically, you know, you wanna harvest your winter wheat and your spring wheat, then you want to have a couple of weeks with no green wheat in the field so that we break the green bridge and you prevent these wheat curl mites from infecting wheat streak mosaic virus with wheat streak mosaic virus next year's crop.

But this year, the amount, if you've traveled out in the state of Montana this year, especially in the north, or the eastern half of the state, there is more volunteer wheat this year than I have seen in years and years.

Yeah.

And so I think there's a big risk of maybe wheat streak making it, especially with this long fall that we've had, this super... And where we haven't had temperatures that are really killing freezes yet.

You know, there's still things that are out there green and actively growing.

And so I think that's one of the big risks is the disease carry over from year to year.

But- - Okay.

- Yeah, the volunteer wheat this year is doing its job.

- It is- - Yeah.

- I've noticed that too.

From Billings.

I like this question.

This person grew up in the Midwest and he always heard the term canner and cutters when they talked about livestock market.

What are canner and cutters?

- Canner and cutters are usually old cattle.

When you look at the grading scheme.

Maturity is one of the big pieces that we look at.

And they're really unique names A, B, C, D, and E.

(panel laughs) So A and B are considered young.

C, D and E are old.

The old ones that you have commercial utility cutter canner.

- [Jack] Okay.

- So they're old.

However, you can have a young utility that usually is a very emaciated animal that has been harvested.

But because grading is a fee for service, very few places will take something that bad and actually harvest it.

- You mentioned grading, and we touched on this a little bit ahead of time.

With the government shutdown.

I do know that almost all beef that's sold in stores has to be inspected- - Inspected, yes.

- By the USDA.

Is that program still ongoing during the shutdown?

- It's considered a vital portion just like APHIS at the border.

And they are still working.

Now, they may have slowed down because they're having troubles, having enough people who will be in the plant because every beef carcass that goes across has to be inspected.

They don't allow for any rapid like they do in poultry.

There's a rapid poultry inspection and I can't remember for certain if it's every fifth one or something similar.

- [Jack] Okay.

- But those are considered vital.

The companies may be slowing down just because you have to have an inspector on site.

Last two recalls I saw were because they weren't inspected and that usually means that there was an inspection on site when something was something important was occurring.

- Okay, thank you.

And that you mentioned poultry, and we touched on this, when Mary is back in town.

You know, we've had questions several times from people around the state wanting us to have a poultry specialist.

We're not a poultry state by any stretch- - Oh, no.

- Of the imagination.

- [Jane] We aren't.

- But Mary said we could borrow somebody from Virginia Tech, but in order to do that, I need enough questions to justify having a gentleman join us with Zoom next spring.

So if you have poultry questions, send 'em to me via email.

You've seen my email up there.

Send 'em to Ag Live here at campus, and we'll have a poultry person on next year from Virginia Tech who is really knowledgeable.

And I think that would be fun because backyard chickens are a big thing here in the state.

Abi, this is kind of a tough one for you, and I normally don't throw you very many curves, (panel laughs) but this person has a... This came in an email from Roberta.

They have a continual problem in one of their aspen trees.

Now the leaves are all gone.

They see a yearly soccer ball sized hive high up in the tree.

Are these hornets, yellow jackets, or hopefully, honeybees.

Is the hive of empty now?

And where do the bees leave to, to survive the winter?

- That's a great question and you didn't stump me luckily, (Jack laughs) but those like paper ball sized nests in trees are usually Hornet nest.

And so we have a native Hornet species called the bald faced hornet here in Montana.

And they will only use that nest through the year.

And then they'll leave in the winter.

The queens will overwinter away from that nest either in leaf litter or in soil.

So that nest should be empty now, if there's been a freeze, there should be nothing in there.

But it is hornets, it's not bees that are utilizing this.

And there are a few strategies that you can use to reduce that likelihood.

So if it's out of the way, like in the top of an aspen tree, they're gonna leave you alone.

They're not gonna do anything to you.

When they're foraging, they're getting nectar and collecting those sugary resources.

And when they're doing that, they're not gonna be aggressive at all.

When you get really close to their nest, that's when we have issues and they can become aggressive.

But if it's out of the way, I'd say leave it be, or if you leave it on that tree, hornets are often pretty territorial.

And there are a few experiments that have shown, if you leave those hornet nests, they're unlikely to build another one right next to it.

So you can leave that nest up, and maybe it'll prevent them from nesting in that same tree next year.

- Okay.

- Or, and you can use that nest for decorating.

That's what I do at this time of year.

- So you stay, they're not aggressive, but this summer I lost a couple sirloin steaks when they got close, (panel laughs) so mine are pretty aggressive.

- Yes.

I mean it sounds like it was a great steak though, so.

- Oh, but they enjoyed it, yeah.

(Abi laughs) Okay.

From Clancy, and this is again for you Abi.

a lot of pine nuts this year on Ponderosa Pines.

Is that unusual?

The birds that have been feeding have disappeared since the nut came or nuts have shown up?

Is there a connection between too many pine nuts and disappearing birds?

- I'm not sure about that last one.

I doubt there's a connection between too many and disappearing birds.

But in terms of why there were so many, we had a what's called a mass year this year.

We had so much pollen in the spring, if you've probably noticed it was covering cars and windows and desk.

- I know, everywhere.

- It was everywhere.

So this was just one of the years where we had a lot of our conifers produce so many cones.

So so many pine nuts were produced as a result of that.

And trees will do this periodically, every like 8 to 10 years, they'll have a really big year of cone production.

So that is why you've probably had a bumper crop this year.

We've seen this all across the state.

But in terms of that connection with the lack of birds, I don't think those two are connected, but I'm not sure.

- Okay, thank you.

I don't think they would be.

Ponderosa pine are toxic to livestock, aren't they?

- Pine needle.

- Yeah.

So you can end up with pine needle abortion.

I'm trying to remember exactly when, you just, you know.

- The first trimester.

- Yeah, I wanna say that your biggest problem is like as long as you have good available forage.

- Cows won't eat it - Cows typically won't go and eat it, but there's an acid in those pine needles that if they are out of forage and they start munching on, it's not even just ponderosa pine, it can be some other evergreens as well.

They can cause those animals to abort.

- So I was hanging out with some donkeys today, a couple of donkeys, Joe and Jack, (panel laughs) and I was leading them and they kept eating spruce trees.

Like you tie 'em up to the spruce tree and then they're just eating the branches off the spruce tree.

So why are they eating spruce, I'm like, I asked him why are you guys eating spruce tree?

- They didn't answer huh?

(panel laughs) - They didn't give me a good answer.

- I have some goats that did the exact same thing, (panel laughs) so I don't know what it is.

Bruce is pretty dang pokey.

- Yeah.

- Seems like it- - Goats will eat any- - Goats will eat anything.

- Yeah, I have no idea.

- Showing tough winters.

You know, I've had spruce trees and various other conifers that deer feed on.

The same thing that happened to deer that happened to cattle as they feed.

- I don't- - I don't thinks so.

- You know, I'm not a wildlife guy, but I don't think so, I think- - They need Jared.

- Yeah, yeah.

(Panel laughs) I mean Jared needs to be- - Jared.

(laughs) - On the show for that one.

But my guess is, is that they probably have adapted to being able to utilize that forms.

- Yeah, because deer can eat larkspur where cattle can't.

- Okay.

- The thought process is that the microorganisms in the rum have changed to allow them to do that.

- Okay.

Thank you.

From Baker.

This person wants to know if Montana calves that go into the feedlots are still worth more than Midwest calves.

They go into feedlots.

(laughs) - I don't know about that.

- I don't know.

- Specifically.

- There's always been a rumor- - Yeah.

- That our cattle are preferred.

- The original reason for that was the type of backgrounding that was done on the calves.

A specific program was used but the Midwest caught up- - [Jack] Okay.

- With everybody else with that one.

So I'm not sure.

They still went black calves.

So most of the calves coming outta Montana are black, so there might be- - Yeah.

- Something there.

- So Montana's like a perfect place for growing cattle, especially from a cow calf perspective.

- [Jack] Right.

- We got good grass most years if it's not droughty, when you look at the seed stock industry, Montana's the leader in the US for seed stock genetics.

And so we got some of the top genetic producing ranches.

Here in Montana.

So we have, what I would say in my opinion is some of the best beef cattle in the country do come outta Montana, whether that's realized in the sense of pounds, you know, or dollars per pounds or premiums associated with that.

I'm not sure, but I would say that our calves do quite well, and so they just might make more money on the sense that they do well.

- Where do most of our calves end up?

Where do they travel to?

- Oh, shoot.

- Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma.

- So all over basically.

- Yeah.

- But there's not one single market- - I guess they could.

- That relies.

- There's, you know, there's some more local ones.

We got Yellowstone feeders outta billings.

- Yep.

- That's doing more and more.

We got the Judith Basin feeders and so they source a lot of Montana calves and they're mostly kind of a backgrounding group, so they'll background them and then as pins free up, and I believe it's in Alberta, is where they're feed yard is, they'll ship pins in and so they kind of rotate 'em through, but- - Yeah, that's interesting.

And they go up to Canada and then back down to be harvested.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Yeah.

But now what do tariffs have to say about that?

- Oh, there's, oh, that's a... It's actually hit horse people worse, the regular ones, some of that hasn't occurred, but if you answer the question wrong at the border, apparently the tariff gets you really bad.

(laughs) - Okay.

I've answered the question wrong (panel laughs) and I've been frisked and so forth and so on.

This is for Abi.

The rose leaves have not dropped yet.

Should you strip the leaves off in order to cover them for the winter?

- If the rose is dormant, you can, but you can also leave them on there and you can still cover the rose up with the leaves still on there.

- Okay, sounds good.

- [Tim] How do you cover up a Rose Bush?

- Like with burlap and stuff.

People will often protect- - A burlap.

- Some of the roses- - Okay.

- With burlap.

- I've seen buckets- - To protect them.

Yeah.

(Jane laughs) I've seen a few cut them back down.

You can use buckets but to protect them from winter.

- Mine's only this thing.

- The bucket might get- - Does it get hot in the bucket sometimes and sort of, or, yeah, I was wondering how people- - Yeah.

- If you needed airflow.

- Burlap is how I've usually- - Okay.

- Seen it.

But yeah.

- I like this question because I have a chest freezer and once in a while I find something I didn't know was in there.

(panel laughs) This caller from Great Falls wants to know or says that he believes that venison can last a long time in the freezer.

But how long can a beef steak stay good in the freezer?

It's a good question.

- It's a good question.

And it's all about packaging.

The packaging is going to determine how long, I probably shouldn't admit this is the meat scientist, but there's packages that got lost in the meat lab freezer four or five years old.

They're still fine.

Safety wise.

As long as the freezer hasn't gone, they're safe.

What you're gonna get is, if you get any freezer burn then it's gonna get oxidized.

So you're gonna kind of get an off flavor.

Usually if I have that come up, I usually find a really spicy marinade and just cover it up (Abi laughs) because it's not a safety issue.

It's a totally flavor issue.

- You know, we're getting some really good questions and some of these I've thought about in the past.

So if you have these questions tonight, call 'em in because we still got 10, 15 minutes to get to 'em.

For Tim.

And this is an email question that came in.

It's more of a comment you can add to it.

This person says you can control black medic with your typical 2,4-D dicamba Banvel type lawn herbicides, but you consistently need to treat your lawn in the spring and fall for three or four years to get good control.

Do you agree with that?

- Yeah, probably black medic, it's real prostrate and the seeds are these tiny little black seeds and they probably live in the seed bank for 10 or 15 years for a really long period of time.

So yes, and yep, Black medic's a tough one to manage.

- Okay, I knew this would come in.

Are we still Brucellosis is free and this came from Yellowstone County?

(Jane laughs) - It depends on what you mean by brucellosis free.

- Brucellosis free.

- I mean, brucellosis- - We're in the zone- - Is in Montana, especially in the designated surveillance zone.

Elk carry it, bison carry it.

So I don't think there's such thing as brucellosis free.

- I think they're referring to our cattle.

- Cattle.

- Yes.

I have not heard of anything recently.

I might've heard where somebody said maybe a bull came up with it a few months ago.

But that's not a animal that we're overly worried about it.

But yeah, I don't think it's not prevalent, but it's something that needs to be considered.

And when you're in the designated surveillance zone and you're wanting to move cattle outside of the designated surveillance zone, you have to have all those animals tested- - Tested.

- And verified, as Brucellosis was free before shipping them.

And all breeding stock, breeding age animals are tested at harvest.

- Okay.

- So all heifers that are breeding age will be tested.

- Do the elk outside of the greater Yellowstone like the Elk in Terry, Jordan, the CMR, the brakes, do they have as high a rate of infection of brucellosis as the ones around Yellowstone National Park?

- It depends on who you talk to.

This is another good wildlife question.

- Where's Jared when we need him?

- We only need to get Jared Bieber on.

(Jane laughs) So from what I understand, just watching some different talks and seeing things like the planet or the thought is that because elk migrate and migrate so far that it's only a matter of time before the designated surveillance zone- - Gets bigger.

- Continues to expand.

- It's like HPAI as soon as it got into the wild population, there was no- - What's HPA?

- High pathogenic avian influenza.

- Oh, okay.

- Once it got into the wild population, it was gonna be hard to control.

- Yep.

- Yeah, that being said, I think that the fish and wildlife actually go out and like test X amount of elk in different populations around.

I mean it's not like a huge, huge testing 'cause they're elk, right?

But you know, they're testing elk and stuff and looking for how things are expanding.

As of right now they haven't suggested to move the designated surveillance area.

So I'm guessing it's not as prominent in the other places.

- But is there a hotbed or brucellosis anywhere in the US?

- A hotbed?

- Or where it's prevalent in the cattle industry?

- I don't- - No.

- No, no, it's something that's pretty, you know, they have that pretty dialed in on testing and making sure that animal or animals are brucellosis free.

I guess if you wanted to say if is there a hot bed or a potential like the greater Yellowstone area?

- I was gonna suggest- - As long as, you know, we got the bison and the elk moving around, it has potential.

- I left you off easy on that one.

But this one from Florence is gonna challenge both of you.

(panel laughs) And actually there's a couple questions.

One is Argentinian beef as good as US beef?

And we'll get to that in a minute, but the caller from Florence wants to know if they will see an impact soon related to the beef imports that have been proposed from Argentina.

- That's kind of a curve ball, but you know.

- Actually, it's interesting.

We have three students from Argentina in one class.

Are they in your too?

- We'll see, I don't teach till spring.

- No, they're going home in January.

We had this this discussion.

One of the challenges with Argentina is they have been on again off again for export because of political pressures within the country.

So they've had, every time that's happened, the cattle herd in Argentina has gone down.

So opening up the US to Argentinian beef is only going to get you as much as they have available, okay?

And they've been rather, I don't wanna call it erratic, but they've changed their tune several times about whether or not they are going to export because of beef prices.

So if the beef prices go up in Argentina, then it's a possibility they will quit exporting because they've done it twice already.

So it is gonna be a difference.

And when it comes to Argentinian beef, most of that is grass finished.

The pompous area where all the grazing is is where a lot of that is.

So it would be more lean beef, more like what we would've gotten from Brazil or Australia.

So it's going to be similar in that.

And again, most of our imported product is going to end up as further processed.

It's not going to be a steak in the store.

- You know, I've been to Argentina numerous times and- - I like to beef in Argentina.

(laughs) - I like some pizza.

- I liked it.

- One thing they do down there that I thoroughly love is sweet breads.

- Oh, yeah.

- And they grill 'em on an open fire.

- And that grill is- - Yeah.

- Pretty special.

- What are sweetbreads?

- They're the thymus gland.

It's from right here, and you usually only get 'em out of younger animals.

They start to regress as the animal gets older.

But that's where you would get it.

If you've had 'em in the US they've probably been fried.

(Jane laughs) - Yeah, you're right.

- The texture is similar.

If you've had rocky mountain oysters, they're similar to texture to that or Turkey fries.

It's a gland so it's very soft.

- They're rare to find a restaurant in the US other than the best restaurants.

- Right, correct.

- In Nevada.

But- - There's a lot of the organ meats that you don't see in the US that in, we had a feed in Argentina and it was all heart.

(laughs) - Yeah.

- Heart, liver, tongue.

I mean there's a whole collection of 'em that.

- Pretty tasty.

No doubt about it.

- Oh, yeah.

- From Kay, this is an interesting question.

A substantial number herd carrots this season were affected by cavity spot, and I think that's probably a hollow heart effect where they split open.

According to the research they've done, it is caused by virus in their garden soil.

I was not aware of that.

It might be something else.

But anyway, they're waiting for a couple frosts to sweeten the carrots up, which is common in this state.

Anything that you can think of that would alleviate the cavity spot?

- I would say confirming what it is and that would probably be, it'd be good to... If you think it is a virus issue, it'd be good to send it to the Schutter Diagnostic Laboratory.

Our horticultural plant pathologist there, Eva Grimme, she has a lot of virus testing kits, so depending on if she has one available for this specific issue, it'd be good to confirm whether it was a virus.

- We can sure do that pretty easily.

- Yeah.

- When you get splitting in your carrots, that typically comes from, well, in my garden, I think at least I didn't do a really good job of watering.

- Yeah.

- And so you get, I go from too dry to too wet and back.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, usually with splitting- - [Jane] Some sausage that had that problem.

(panel laughs) - Yeah, but usually with the splitting carrots, I often see it's a water related issue too.

- That's good to know what happens in some (faintly speaking) - It gets too hot, too fast in the water.

- Splits it right down.

- Okay, Sam.

And thank you for those answers folks.

This person would like to know if there's any crop, not crop insurance, any livestock protection insurance programs from the USDA similar to what crop producers have.

- Yeah, that is a great question for some of our Ag Economists groups.

So I know they just hired two ag econ folks with extension backgrounds that deal with that.

I know Joel Schumacher has dealt with some of that.

I think there are some, but I would be probably the worst person to talk to you about those.

(panel laughs) I'll give you a lot of wrong information.

So you'd probably be better off to contact the extension economist about that.

- And there's a bunch of talk about changing that if you've watched any of the.

- So if I have one of these really valuable heifers that are going for a lot of money, couple thousand dollars these days.

- Couple thousand.

- Couple thousand.

- Where you been?

- That's not a real- - That's not a real good one.

- That's an average.

- That's an average heifer.

- Okay.

- I've tried 20,000 or 30,000.

- Whoa.

Okay.

So I get insurance for those, for these high dollar bulls I buy insurance for these.

- Yeah, they do.

- Yeah.

I'm sure, I mean- - Yeah, they do.

- When you think of some of the semen folks, the guys that are buying bulls for specifically collecting semen and- - Million dollars- - Yeah.

- Some of these animals are hundreds of thousands of dollars of value and so I'm sure they insure those animals.

- Oh yeah, they do.

- Sounds like- - Well, but that's all on the private market- - Yeah.

- That it's not, you know- - The ones I know of, yes.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Well, you're up.

This is from Scobey, and we haven't had a call from Scobey for a long time.

They see a lot more stink grass out there.

They wanna know where it came from, what it is, and how come there's so much more of it than there used to be.

- Yeah, you know, I think it's an interesting, so Stinkgrass, Eragrostis cilianensis.

It's a love grass.

It's sometimes called, people call me, this one smells a little cold tarry actually, I think that's why it gets the name stinkgrass and it's a C4 grass.

It's a really warm season grass, so it doesn't like to grow until July in Montana.

This year there was a lot of precipitation.

In July and August, we got a lot of stink grass.

But then I've also been talking to some producers who have said it's just becoming more of a problem in the western part or in the eastern part of the state.

And I think it has been increasing.

The problem is it's really hard to manage in crop because it grows after the crop is established, it grows in pulses after the pulse has started to flower when you can't use a herbicide on it anymore.

So there are not a lot of really easy answers to that one.

We should probably spend a little time working on some of it.

I think when we were a wheat, wheat, wheat or a wheat fallow state, we controlled it with different herbicides that we use less of now than because we've gone to these pulse rotations.

So it is just difficult to manage the wheat science program should probably spend a little time working on some better solutions.

You might take that advice.

(panel laughs) - Is this a native grass?

- It is a native grass.

- Okay.

- It is a native grass and you see it in Bozeman, it's not as common, but you really see it in the western or the eastern part of the state.

And it is a little native bunch grass.

Usually one or two years old.

It'll live to be, but that's about it.

- Okay, thank you.

From Missoula, this person has been told that the average beef cow that's harvested today is 30 to 40 pounds heavier than they were 10 to 15 years ago.

Does that affect the flavor of the animal?

- As I said earlier, the fat is what it is.

So when you get those larger animals it takes, to get marbling or the fat, you have to get it above the energy of what you need.

So the flavor itself is coming more from the fat.

So if they're taking, if they're bigger, they don't tend to have as much fat, but when we do selection, we are trying to get animals that give us more marbling with less external fat.

And the marbling is what is really good.

That's that fat flex in the meat that gives you that really juicy product.

I don't know that the change in weight has affected flavor that much.

I think what you're seeing is an effect, especially if you're an older person and you're familiar with being into that dry aging.

When I was growing up, everything was aged 7 to 14 days in the cooler before they cut it.

The product that you get in a com and one of the big commercial places, it's cut with 36 hours, it goes into a bag.

The tenderization still occurs in the bag, but the flavor development is different.

So if you like that dry age, which a lot of people do, Jane's not a big fan, unless it's my salami, (panel laughs) then it's a different approach.

So the change in weight is actually gone.

We've been going up about 10 pounds every year for the last 10 years.

- That's pretty amazing when you think about it.

I don't know how we can continue to grow at that rate, but yeah.

- A big part of it too is that, you know, a while back we were happy with like choice animals.

- Right.

- And now the premium for Prime is so great that you have guys that are holding their animals longer days on feed.

And if they're growing at four pounds per head per day or somewhere in there, they're trying to hit that more of that prime market.

- Okay.

- And by doing that, the animals are getting bigger.

- Yeah, the typical Wagyu cross deer that they're using now.

The Wagyu is an interesting breed in itself because it has to breach a certain age before it starts to put the marbling on.

And that's the really high end- - Alright.

- Lots of marbling in it.

- We're running outta time.

We're down to the last few seconds.

Oh, I gotta cut you off here.

(Jane laughs) We're gonna have Tim DelCurto next week.

Tim is Department Head of Animal and Range Science.

Thank you for joining us.

Jane, thanks for coming.

We'll see you next week.

Have a good week.

- [Narrator] For more information and resources, visit montanapbs.org/aglive.

(bright music) - [Presenter] 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 and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, the Gallatin Gardeners Club, and the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(bright music)