- [Narrator] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by: The Montana Department of Agriculture, (upbeat music continues) MSU Extension, (upbeat music continues) The MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, (upbeat music continues) The Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, (upbeat music continues) Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, (upbeat music continues) The Gallatin Gardeners Club, and The Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(upbeat music continues) - Good evening, you are watching "Montana Ag Live" originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over your Montana public television system.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired professor of plant pathology.

Happy to be your host this evening.

You know how this program works.

You provide the questions and we provide the answer.

We're going to have an interesting program tonight.

I'm going to learn a lot.

We're going to learn a lot about where some of Montana's products end up, the trade issues that they face.

We have a couple people from the Montana Department of Agriculture on the panel this evening.

So if you are curious about where our products go, what they're used for, things like that, it's a good chance to ask that question tonight and we will probably be able to provide an answer, correct?

Yeah.

- [Andy] We'll do our best, yeah.

- [Weston] Yeah.

- All right, let me introduce the panel this evening.

Way on my left, Weston Merrill.

Weston is a trade specialist with the Montana Department of Agriculture.

I didn't know this.

It tells you how old I'm getting, but he tells me he was on the program during COVID.

And honestly, I don't remember that, but I will believe that.

Next to Weston is Andy Fjeseth.

How'd I do?

- [Andy] Yeah, close enough.

- [Jack] I didn't butcher it too bad.

- [Andy] Yeah, no, that's good.

- [Jack] Okay.

He is bureau chief for that division.

He's also a trade specialist and Ag finance.

So if you have questions about Ag finance, hey, it's also opportunity and growth in agriculture.

Anytime a program like that, good opportunity to find out a little bit more about that program.

And of course, Tim Seipel, Tim is our weed scientist, and sitting here next to me is no one.

We had an issue tonight with Abby.

(Tim laughs) Abby had a conflict, so I apologize for I will try to answer a couple of the horticulture questions along with Tim.

So don't be bashful about sending those in.

And answering the phones tonight are Nancy Blake and Sherry Klaus, they're here almost every week.

Thank you guys for showing up.

Get that phone ringing so we have some questions.

I'm going to start with Andy.

Tell us a little bit about what you do and then we'll open it up to a little bit of trade that Weston works on.

- [Andy] Yeah, absolutely, thanks, Jack.

Well, the Finance, Trade, and Development Bureau at the Department of Ag, the short story is that we're kind of all the non-regulatory functions of the department.

And so finance, trade, development, there's a lot of programs that go into that.

On the ag finance side of things, we do a lot of work with producers, work with FSA and help folks get lined out with operating loans.

We also have a hail insurance program, state hail insurance program, which is kind of unique, because there's not a lot of state-based crop insurance programs, but that's been around for I think almost 120 years.

We have a number of grant programs, both You mentioned Growth Through Agriculture, and I'll put a plug in for that, because the deadline for that is tomorrow at 5:00 PM.

So folks that are interested, now might be the time to get your application in.

But we also work with the federal government, the Ag Marketing Service, and we administer the specialty crop block grant program at the Department of Ag as well.

So putting out typically about two and a half million dollars in funding, a lot of that in research right here at MSU.

And so that's kind of the short story of the department, and that we also do quite a bit of promotional work regionally, domestically, and internationally for value added products, like maybe beer, wine, spirits, pasta, gummy snacks, those types of things.

But then also for our commodities as well, whether that's wheat, or barley, or pulses, or even cattle genetics.

- [Jack] We'll get back to that.

There's a lot of questions I have and I have some that were sent in ahead of time via email.

And you can do that email, we have a lot of different ways you can ask questions tonight.

I have a tribute in a minute, but I want to find out, Weston, what's your role in the department there?

- [Weston] Good question.

No, I'm an international trade specialist.

So in a real basic overview of that would be, I help build relationships and expand markets, overseas markets for Montana products.

And a big part of my job is connecting folks that are exporting from Montana with folks that are buying and building relationships in that regard, so.

- Okay, we'll get into that a lot more.

But before we do that, there's a group here in the Gallatin Valley, actually the Shields Valley, that is kind of a landmark institution in this state.

It's called the Ringling Five.

And the Ringling Five was recently inducted into the Montana Agriculture or Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Now you have a picture of them up on the screen right now.

And for those of you who have watched this program for a lot of years, this is our original theme song that they put together, I hate to say how many years ago.

I will also say that when they used to do concerts around the state, this was their second most requested song following their most requested song, which was "Don't Screw with Montana."

And it was great.

If you haven't heard them, you can still get some of the tapes, CDs, if you still have a CD player.

Those are gone for the most part.

But it was a great group, and I want to thank them for helping us out here and what they did for this state.

Tim, I want to go back to you real quick here.

- [Tim] Yep.

- There's a lot of questions that have come in about Kochia.

- [Tim] Kochia.

- And it's a tough one to control.

You have a Christmas tree in the back of you.

(Tim laughs) - Look at that.

- He brought that in because we've had at least a half a dozen questions wanting to know how we control kochia.

- I'm a bad hunter these days, Jack, but I can always hunt out a kochia plant and hit it with the car as it blows in front of the highway.

So kochia, this is Montana's number one most problematic weed actually, believe it or not, number one weed in pulses.

It's an annual plant, and this time of year it's taken off and it's tumbling across our crop fields, down the right of ways.

And as it goes, you can see it's just dumping its seeds out onto the table.

So this is a typical tumbleweed, and it was real easy to break off right there at the bottom.

Why is it so problematic?

It can germinate with less water than it takes to activate herbicides in the soil.

It has become resistant to many of the herbicides that we deal with, that we use in our cropping systems across the state.

And then it's, I call kochia a community problem actually.

It's not the problem that stays on your field, because it actually takes off and it rolls right onto your neighbor's field after that.

So it can go really long distances.

Sometimes when you see a kochia that's tumbled across the field, and the producer comes and sprays it in the next season, you'll kill nine out of 10 plants that maybe tumbled, but there was one that was resistant, and it reveals the pattern, and you'll see this pattern of how it gets tumbled across the field.

- I can remember years back when I first moved out here, a century or so ago, that you'd see fence lines, fence rolls that were just stacked up with kochia.

It is a nasty weed, no doubt about it.

It's not edible, is it?

- Well, Weston, Weston is a cow guy over here.

And when we were talking about managing kochia, actually the northeast corner of the state is probably one of the hotspots of the most difficult to manage kochia, and maybe Weston said we should probably bale it more.

It is a palatable weed out there.

It's an okay forage for cow guys out there.

It is real problematic in any row crop.

- I'd hate to be a cow and have that diet myself.

- You know it's pretty high in protein.

- Okay.

(Tim laughs) Question from Miles City, and this is an interesting question.

I'll throw it to both you guys and you can attack it however you want.

This person wants to know, has US agriculture lost long-term agricultural markets for commodities, say, like they said soybeans, due to ag tariffs?

What's your guys' opinion on that?

- That's a great question.

We don't have a lot of soybeans in Montana, so I can't really speak to that specifically, but I will say that we're lucky to have a lot of long-term customers.

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, whether it's wheat or beef, they're really looking for quality, and so they still come back for that.

So it remains to be seen what the long-term effect will be on some of that stuff, but feel pretty good about keeping those for now.

- [Jack] Have we lost any markets due to tariffs, bluntly?

- I think that it's an evolving situation, I would say.

The tariffs, I think when we think about the work that we do and when we get in front of those folks, we're wanting stability for our producers.

And so when we're not holding up that end of the bargain on the policy side of things, it does make things a lot more challenging, but also can present opportunities at times.

- Yeah, if I can jump in there, the glass is always half full for me.

So tariffs, while they can make things complicated, I feel like they make my job, maybe not that it's any less important any other time, but more important to build quality relationships, because what happens is, it's like you or I, we have a brand that we really like, a high quality brand.

And when the price goes up, we don't completely go away from that.

Maybe we buy less of it.

So when we can really drive home and show and help through these trade relationship building activities that we do, high quality and that sort of thing, that helps that we don't lose a market completely.

Maybe they'll buy less, because we all, money's important to everybody, but they don't go away completely.

- Okay, so I have a follow-up question here from Malta and also one from Glasgow.

They're curious, are there any ag products, commodities, that we can ship to Canada now without tariffs?

- I'm not entirely sure on the whole picture for the tariffs with Canada.

I do know that a lot of those crops and commodities were left out of the sort of retaliatory tariffs and the tit-for-tat that was going on there.

And that's incredibly important, because I think when you look on the pulse side of things, Canada's the number one market for Montana pulses.

And that's both as a customer and as a supply chain partner, where those crops are going up there and then they might be re-exported to another place.

So it's pretty important to keep that access.

- Okay, we have a follow-up question.

This person was at the meeting you guys were at last week, or week and a half ago, and they have heard that a large portion of Montana's calves are being exported to Canada.

Number one, why is that?

Number two, are they affected by tariffs?

- Well, as I understand it, and Weston, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but yeah, there are quite a few calves that head up north to get fed out, and then might even come back across the border.

And that one I think was actually affected by tariffs for a while there.

So when you think about a calf going across multiple times, that tariff can add up for sure.

So yeah, I would say, why?

Because I think that that's us taking advantage of our neighbor to the north there, and not taking advantage in a bad way, but taking advantage of the capacity that exists up there.

- Weston, do you have a thought why we're sending them to Canada instead of sending them to Colorado or Nebraska to be fed out?

- Yeah, I think there's, as Andy said, evolving situations, but also it's a lot like our pulses that are on our northern border.

A lot of times it's simply a question of logistics and proximity, right?

And so maybe your closest processing plant or whatever might be going north into Canada and things like that.

So I think a lot of it is that, but as Andy said, it's a mutually beneficial relationship to have that kind of capacity that close, so to speak.

So going north's not a, I don't know, it's not like it's a stretch that it's going somewhere else versus Colorado.

- So we see the trains in the state full of grain, full of pulses.

Where's Montana's export products going?

Where do most of our lentils and peas and chickpeas go, for example?

Where do they end up?

- Well, as you mentioned before, Canada is a huge market for pulses, I think across the board.

And I'll let Weston get into this a little bit more, but India is a pretty important market for all pulses, for lentils especially.

We don't have a lot of direct relationships that happen there.

India is the largest consumer, and also the largest producer of pulses.

And they set their policies for imports based on that.

So in some years it can be a really high relationship and in other years it can not be as high.

But I think kind of pivots to some of the work that we do in South America through our Hola Montana program and Columbia has become a really important market on the lentil side of things.

And maybe Weston, if you want to add to that.

- Yeah, I mean, a lot of those rails, a lot of just like with our wheat and barley that gets exported, it's going to Portland, right?

Maybe Seattle on some cases.

But yeah, as Andy said, India's the largest consumer.

What gets tough there is if that market fluctuates because of tariffs, and this can go back to the tariff thing, having diverse markets is important, right?

So South America's become a really important one, Columbia especially.

Peru's another country there that buys a lot of peas out of Montana.

They do that because of quality, but as Andy mentioned, Hola Montana, that's a branded marketing program we created for Latin America to help drive the knowledge and the knowledge base of Montana high quality pulses all the way through the supply chain, right?

So we want to build relationships not importers, but who are their buyers, and the wholesale, and then the retail, and all the way down to the consumer.

So that's how we diversify markets.

That way when a tariff happens, we're not completely out, because we've got other places to go.

- Oh, here's an interesting question.

It came from Great Falls and it says, this person understands that we're still the number one pulse producing state in the lower 48.

They want to know, we grow a lot of peas.

If you send them to these foreign countries, they can't eat that much split pea soup.

What are they used for?

(Tim and Andy laugh) - Okay, wait a minute.

(Jack laughs) At home right now, I made split pea soup for dinner and the family's eating it.

There are Montana split peas in there too.

- [Jack] And if you grate a carrot in it, it's even better.

- Oh yeah, it's got carrots, it's got a potato in there too.

- Okay.

- [Tim] And some hay.

- So out of curiosity, it's a good question, what are these peas used for other than livestock feed and split pea soup?

- Yeah, that is a great question.

A lot of places are using them for, they'll fractionate them and they'll do protein.

They'll take out the pea protein and it's actually used in formulations for other foods or things.

So they're not actually consuming it or a split pea itself, but they'll be extracting protein or starch and things and using them in food formulations that go into other things.

- [Jack] A lot of these energy drinks, I assume?

- Energy drinks are some.

I know there's a lot that'll go into other types of, I mean, protein products, these health conscious protein type products and things like that to supplement into whatever it is, maybe a granola bar or something like that.

- Okay, interesting.

Tim, this caller from Noxon would like to know, they have some three-year-old maple trees, Norway maples.

It's a horticultural question.

- [Tim] Ooh, okay.

- Can they plant them yet this fall or should they wait 'til spring?

- I'd wait 'til spring.

It's getting pretty risky, right?

Everything needs to harden off.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- We need to be ready.

I would wait 'til spring.

- I agree with you entirely.

Follow up on an earlier question.

Have tariffs impacted trade north of the border more than you guys have mentioned?

I know you mentioned some of them.

Are there any specific products that we have issues with moving back and forth?

- Well, I think that a lot of the challenge comes maybe more on the input and the equipment side of things there.

That's not something that we're tracking necessarily ourselves, but just from hearing from producers on some of that, I know that it has been a challenge on that side of things.

- Yeah, for sure.

I would say that's, I mean, it's easy to see, like for us, we track a lot of what goes out, and through our trade databases and data recovery programs that we do, we see the product.

But as Andy said, not all of those were affected, necessarily.

Some of them were left out, which is super exciting.

But boy, for our farmers and input, like the rising input costs, that's really where you're seeing tariffs affect things is getting supplies, and materials, and machinery, and equipment, and fertilizer.

I mean, that's the side that I think probably even stings more.

- I would agree with you there.

Shifting, I'll stick with you with the question from Helena.

This caller knows that the Department to Chile to promote Montana products.

She'd like to hear more about it.

So who wants after?

- Well, couple things.

Sure, I'll take it.

So I was just in Chile, yep.

And we were there on a beef genetics trade mission.

We have some partners in that country that are pretty strategic, big large meat processing company and they serve their local domestic market, and they're looking to increase their beef cow herd, so they need quality genetics to do it.

Chile is a country with, as you know, very long north to south, so very varying climates.

What's exciting about Montana, and makes us, in the beef genetics world, very competitive is our varying climate.

You were talking before, Tim, about going from, what'd you say, Yaak to Ekalaka, right?

- Ekalaka to the Yaak and back.

- Yeah, and so we've got a lot of varying climates, so we've got genetics that'll fit all kinds of different environments and So I was there specifically for beef genetics, and we do that through a membership that we have as a department through a USDA cooperator, which is US Livestock Genetics Export Inc.

They're the designated cooperator to live cattle, beef, or not beef, live cattle, semen, embryos, and those sorts of things.

So we participate as a member of that organization.

We access federal funding.

We've got to apply for that.

It's a competitive process, and that's the funding we use to go on that type of trade mission.

It was very, very successful this time.

I had a couple different breeders from around the state, and it was an exciting trip.

- You could do a trade down there.

They have some pretty good fish in Chile and lots of it.

So if we could trade some of our products for some of their fish, I think it'd be just beneficial for everybody.

- Well, Chile, I think, is the number three salmon producer in the world.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- And what's exciting about that actually is what's really come on in Montana, we've seen an increase in canola acres, and special types of canola that are actually used in formulating fish food.

And so Chile actually has the potential or is becoming a larger importer of canola because of their increased salmon production.

So funny you mentioned fish and we can go right to canola.

- It's a worldwide trade market for anyone, no doubt about it.

Tim, back to this, since you're filling in for the horticulture division tonight.

- [Tim] Yeah, I went to the School of Hard Knocks in horticulture.

(Jack and Tim laugh) - It shows.

(Tim laughs) Okay, from Basin, and we don't get many calls from Basin.

It might be a first.

The caller is wondering if it's too late to plant fruit trees and perennial flowers.

We touched on that earlier.

- [Tim] Yeah, I think I'd probably let it go.

Yeah.

It'll probably go from being 65 one day to being minus 10 degrees, and those freshly planted trees will not appreciate that.

- Okay, from Helena, this person wants to know what the bureau that you guys are involved with do for the average Montana producer.

It's a very simple question.

- Yeah, it's a great question.

And I'll kind of run back to the rundown that I gave at the beginning.

We touch a lot of different aspects of ag in Montana, from the production side of it, to the value added, all the way through the supply chain and marketing those products throughout the country and the world.

Our ag finance program, we work a lot with producers to help them get access to financing.

We help insure their crops through the State Hail Insurance Program.

We also work with a lot of the checkoff committees, so the seed potato advisory committee.

We have a committee for hemp.

We have the pulse crop committee and the wheat and barley committee as well.

Help them deploy their funding out for folks to get that funding going.

On the grant side of things, we mentioned the Growth Through Ag program.

That's one of our, probably our flagship grant program that really helps people scale their production.

Maybe they have a unique product that they make.

I think we talked about this last week at the Ag Tech Summit.

There's kind of a unique product of Haskap gummy snacks in the bitterroot, that's a kind of neat example of some of that.

And I don't know, that's probably what I would say, if you have anything you want to add, Weston.

- Oh, I'll just add, you asked about the average Montana producer, right?

Well, the supply chain around the world is complex.

I mean, it's complex as much as it is, it's also surprisingly simple in a lot of different aspects, but it can be long.

So if we're expanding markets for pulses or whatever, wheat, barley, those other commodities, giving our first purchasers in Montana a place to go with that product, that helps and touches every, if you're a lentil grower, and the first purchaser's bins are full, and they're not buying, or you've been holding, and now you want to be able to let go of it, that all needs somewhere to go.

It doesn't stay in Wolf Point at whatever facility, right?

It's going to go somewhere and we help expand those markets to do that.

- [Jack] Okay, excellent.

- I would add, I guess I have a specialty crop block grant that I work on with UDA, and we actually work for pulse producers.

I'm working on herbicide carryover in pulse crops.

So we've helped define what limits are of when you can replant into a pulse after coming out of Durham acres.

And that grant helps these producers make decisions which saves crop injury from happening and then means better bottom line and profitability in the future too.

- Okay, good point.

From Shelby, a comment, and I love comments.

This caller said the Canadians are still buying a lot of our feed grains.

So that's a positive, absolutely.

We added some questions, and we were going to save them for Abby, but I think we can handle them.

- [Tim] Yeah.

- Even, yeah, well are you sure?

- [Tim] We'll try.

(Tim and Jack laugh) - Okay, so if we could have the control room pull up a couple pictures of plum trees.

This was sent in via email from Karen, and the plum trees are showing a lot of sticky growth on the larger branches.

I think it's called gummosis.

You remember what gummosis is?

And I still don't see that picture coming up, so when it gets here, there it is.

That is not uncommon in any of your prune species, pruna species.

It generally occurs due to some type of injury, and it's sap, liquefied sap that's happening.

So live with it, there's nothing you can do about it.

This is an interesting comment.

Nate Powell Pom, you guys know Nate Powell Pom?

- [Tim] Yeah.

- [Jack] He started as a 14-year-old getting grants through the Montana Department of Agriculture, and this caller heard him speak sometime.

He said he started with three calves, or cows that he purchased with a small grant.

How does that work for other producers?

I know he's used the department a lot and has been very successful, as have you guys in supporting him.

Give us a little rundown how that works.

- Well, the first thing is, is reach out to us and give us a call.

Our ag finance program manager, Walt Anseth, has been around for a long time and is always willing to have a conversation with folks and connect them to the resources that whether it's a junior ag loan, which is I think how Nate got started, or connecting them to other folks within our bureau that might be able to help out with the grant.

I think another thing that I would plug probably is, we have another program at the Department of Ag called our Food and Ag Development Center program, and that's really funding that we put out throughout the state to different development in different communities.

We have 10 of them throughout the state right now.

I'll see if I can name them.

Kalispell, Ronan, Hamilton, Bozeman, Lewistown, Great Falls, Havre, Wolf Point, Roberts.

- [Jack] That's pretty good.

- I think that's all of them.

But they're really a great resource for anybody that has an idea, whether it's production related or on the value added side of things, and they can help connect you, whether it's to a grant or even just to technical assistance.

They're a great resource to reach out to as well.

- Okay, thank you.

And while have you guys up, this call came from Ennis, I like this.

For Andy and Weston, caller wants to know whether they consider themselves in competition with counterparts from other states.

Think about that.

That's actually a very good question.

Have at it.

- Well, I mean, the answer is that Montana's the best, so it's not really that great of a competition.

- [Jack] Good answer.

- But I would say that, yes, in a way, but it's also there's some camaraderie that goes with that because you are working on behalf of US agriculture in a lot of ways.

So yes, there is competition, but I would say that it's mostly pretty friendly.

I don't know if you want to add to that, but.

- Yeah, I got a good little story.

There was an earlier question about Chile.

That's a market that I've been active in for some time, and we've really started to hit some home runs as far as beef cattle genetics, and that's really exciting.

The recent trip to Chile, using our federal dollars, like Andy said, we are, to access those federal dollars, I mean, yes, we get to do our state specific projects, but it is really, that's market access program, MAP money that's in the farm bill, right?

And that is for US agriculture.

So the recent trip to Chile was with program funding through that, well, through USLG anyway, and I was there with Nebraska Department of Ag, Missouri Department of Ag as well.

And yeah, Montana is the best.

What was really exciting was to sit down with our Montana producers, and have our Nebraska counterparts, and it was a great group, incredible, and our Missouri counterparts.

But when we're in Chile, everybody's questions are about Montana.

(Tim and Jack laugh) They're asking about Montana, and the guys from Nebraska, they were like, "Thanks for letting us tag along.

I mean, why are we here?"

(Andy, Tim, and Jack laugh) So there is some good camaraderie.

It is also important to collaborate, because there's things that Missouri cattle have that maybe they'll do a little different environment, but.

- Okay, and on that, there's a comment here, and I remember having a rancher, Black Angus Rancher from Hobson on several years ago.

And this was a follow-up comment.

This person says that 13% of the genetics worldwide for Black Angus originate or are tied to Montana cattle.

Is that true?

- The specific number I probably shouldn't comment on because I haven't looked that up.

I would venture to say that it's maybe even a little more now.

I don't know how many years ago he gave you that stat, or if that was real recent, but that trend is definitely visible.

And we have the real, like I said earlier about our climate and variable, I mean, Montana cattle, not just Angus, but all, they can perform in a variety of climates.

They can be as rustic as you need.

They can also be animals that thrive in areas that are a lot easier to live in, where there's lots of rainfall and lots of grass, right?

And that's super exciting.

I mean, when you get that type of climate here, and your genetics can perform everywhere, that makes that stat possible.

- And I would also add, we've got a lot of nicknames, Big Sky Country, last best place, but we're also called the seed stock capital of the world.

And there's a reason for that.

And I think Weston really did a great job this year of bringing in a pretty big group from a lot of diverse places to the Angus Tour when they had that earlier this year from, I don't know what, how many different countries?

- We had 11 different countries represented.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And 65 international guests.

- That's pretty amazing.

And I'll put in a plug for our ranchers.

I mean, our ranchers are a big part of why we have such fine cattle up here.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- I mean, they're the part.

- They are.

- I mean, what I do doesn't make their genetics any better.

- No.

- It helps expand a market for them.

- Absolutely, yeah.

I think we have great landscapes and great products, but those products don't happen without really hardworking people behind them.

And that's really what sets Montana apart, I think, from other places.

- I agree 100%.

Speaking of pastures, Tim, this person has a lot of plants.

They're increasing with white flowers.

They start showing up in the spring and they flower all season long.

- [Tim] In a pasture?

- [Jack] In a pasture.

- Well, if it starts showing up in the spring and flowers all season long, it could be Hoary alyssum, berteroa incana.

That's what I would guess.

It's a pretty problematic weed in pastures.

It's toxic to horses, and horse people definitely don't want it into their pastures.

You can manage it out of there with some good grazing.

You got to let the grass get tall in the springtime, get a little taller.

Get up and compete.

And then you can go around and spot spray sometimes, or there's some group two herbicides out there like, oh, I'm forgetting what they're called in range right now, but ask Jane Mangold, and on the MSU extension website too, there is, at the extension store, a guide on managing hoary alyssum.

And if you don't know, if we're not sure, send it into the Schutter Diagnostic Lab and that's really quite important.

- So I hear weed scientists all the time say group one, group two, group three, group four.

- [Tim] Yeah.

- Most of our listening audience can count that high, but they have no clue what.

- Yep, you're right.

I'm using a bunch of jargon, which is bad form.

(Jack laughs) But we had this conversation with pulse breeders actually this week too, because they want to make a herbicide-tolerant lentil through traditional breeding.

And we were rattling all these group numbers off.

It stands for the mode of action of the way a herbicide works.

And so they're in these kind of groups or families, and there isn't that many of them.

I think there's 14 or 15 of them, and it's how the chemical works on the plant.

Some of them stop amino acid synthesis, some of them stop photosynthesis, some of them stop root formation.

And so we throw out all these group numbers and we do that because often kochia, for example, our good old kochia back here, we still have it with us.

These can be resistant to many, many modes of action and then cross resistant once you're within that group.

Like a group two herbicide won't phase a kochia, not even since the 1980s basically.

- [Jack] Okay, so glyphosate, glyphosate?

- 90% of the kochia in the Yellowstone Valley is no longer killed by double or triple rates of glyphosate.

And it really came from, we had a breeding program down there.

We had Roundup Ready Alfalfa next to Roundup Ready corn next to Roundup Ready sugar beets, and it was all filled with Roundup Ready kochia because we applied that constant selection pressure with glyphosate year after year.

- [Jack] Okay.

- I'm just curious if you're going to drink that water, because you've had that kochia plant.

The seeds are everywhere.

- The seeds are starting to germinate.

- Maybe we have a new value added kochia tea product.

- You know actually Shivali, in the land resources environmental science department on campus here, she, what does she call it?

Valorization.

Basically she looks for value added things, and kochia, her and I have been talking about how do we use the kochia?

How do we get a value added product out of it?

- Well, there's a grant, through our Growth Through Agriculture program last year, a company here in Bozeman that's looking at kochia as a shoe sole alternative to petroleum based products.

- There we go.

- There we go.

- We're going to turn it into a cash crop.

(Jack and Andy laugh) - I probably won't be around when that's successful, but you never know.

I like this, I like to put Andy on the spot.

Andy's cousin would like to know what measurable indicators are used to evaluate if international trade policy is providing sustainable economic value to Montana producers.

- [Andy] Yeah, that's a great question.

- [Jack] You say that about your cousin.

- Yeah, yeah, thanks.

I think I know who that was, so thanks mojo fam there.

But anyway, I think that's a great question.

And the first thing is that we're really tracking that stuff on the sales side of things when we bring in and make introductions between buyers and sellers.

And Weston does a lot of work with that, where we're measuring those results immediately, and then six months, and then 12 months after the fact to really kind of test the efficacy of the work that we're doing, but also to monitor sort of the relationship and see how it builds.

I think Columbia is a really good example where you can see that that's grown quite a bit over the past couple years.

That's measuring the sales side of it.

I think that's probably the quote unquote "easier thing to measure."

What's maybe a little bit harder is some of the non-sales side of things, when you're working with countries to address tariffs or non-tariff trade barriers that might exist.

Those are really long game things, that you don't just parachute in and say, "Hey, fix this."

You have to really stick with it and develop relationships that are really important.

So I don't know if you have anything that you want to add to that.

- No, I would love to add, you mentioned tracking sales, because we're always trying to make sure that we're judiciously taking care of the resources that we have available, those federal and state and Checkoff dollars and things, and being able to track your progress is important.

Sales are important, but I'd like to share, this was a few years ago, when our Hola Montana program was really starting to take off.

He's no longer with the department, but Court Jensen, he was at a, if I remember correctly, it was a rail, something for rail, but Canada was present.

And they asked him specifically, "What are you guys doing in Latin America?"

And Canada is the number one producer of pulses in the world.

And when you start rattling the big dog's cage a little bit, I feel like that's a good indicator that you're doing something right.

And so that type of thing is super exciting to hear, along with the other non-data types of things, like relationships and things like that that are super important.

- Can I ask a question?

This is a little bit of a complicated question.

Maximum residue levels.

We hear, in the export market, people talk about the amount of residual pesticide that are on things, whether it's the Canadians in North America.

How do you guys deal with that in your marketing or in your?

- [Weston] You want me to take it?

- [Andy] Yeah, go for it, go for it.

- I feel like the most important, one of the most important things, obviously data and science is, that's super important.

Bringing them to see.

Before we got started, you were talking about our buddy up in Guilford, Justin Miller, right?

- [Tim] Yep.

- So a couple years.

- [Tim] Justin, you're going to be a guest.

(Weston laughs) - He doesn't know it yet.

- A couple of years ago, we do an annual harvest tour, Hola Montana harvest tour.

We're bringing buyers from Latin America and we were on farm.

And while it's not like spraying season or anything like that, but for buyers to come and see exactly how these are harvested, exactly how they're produced, who's behind the wheel.

I mean, I don't remember his daughter's name, but she's out there driving the combine.

And those types of things, because I think sometimes when they hear that residual, it's a big scary thing.

And then when they can come and see that your children are out here producing food, and that it's safe and healthy, that helps a lot.

And to me, that's probably one of the biggest ways to overcome something like that, because I do think there's lots of science in this direction or that direction, or you know what I mean?

I mean, it's a real thing, but to see that we are judicious with those products that help us be more efficient, I think that really goes a long way with a buyer.

- I agree, and I happened to be involved with a couple of those when I was gainfully employed many years ago.

One was Wheat Montana, and some buyers were out there from Japan, and their eyes were this big.

I mean, when they saw the equipment and the amount of grain that was coming out of some of the trucks, I mean, it's exciting to see that, and that's good for our markets.

There's no doubt about it.

Moving along, and I have to address these, because we get three or four questions every program regarding the wine industry in this state.

There are still people wanting to know where they can purchase this wine.

And we do have a newsletter.

It's called Montana Ag Live Newsletter.

And Larry Robinson, who was on the program a couple weeks ago, has provided a list of where these wines are available and that will be in one of the forthcoming newsletters.

And if you haven't subscribed, you can do so.

The other thing that another caller asked about was, he mentioned a wine spirit festival, and I found out that that is August 14th in Missoula, and you can taste wine, beer, spirits all made here in Montana and 90% of it from Montana products.

So that's interesting.

And a follow-up to that, Larry wants to know why he can't get a loan to increase grape production in this state.

(Andy laughs) - Well, I would encourage him to stay engaged with the programs.

The Growth Through Ag Program specifically I know has helped a number of wineries throughout the state over the past couple years.

I think Miles City, Corvallis have received some grant and loan funds to help expand their vineyards and their processing capabilities.

So I think the biggest thing, and we hear this sometimes with that program, is people get discouraged when they don't get it.

The funds are pretty few, right?

We don't have a lot of funds that come through that.

And so oftentimes it takes more than one try to get at it.

And you learn a little bit from the time that you're not awarded.

And then I would also just put a plug back into those food and ag development centers, because they're a great resource to connect you with funding, whether it's at our department or somewhere else.

- Okay, thank you.

Comment, and we get this question quite often.

We've had people on from the Wool Growers Association, they wanted to know where they can purchase Montana lamb.

And I'm not going to throw this at you because it'd be unfair.

Well, I'll think about that.

But this comment came from Wibaux, and it's from Mike, and he says, "I've been purchasing lamb at the Wibaux County Fair for over 20 years.

I pay the market price rather than a premium price.

The 4H member is responsible for delivering the lamb to the local slaughterhouse of the buyer's choice, the total cost of buying, so forth and so on."

So 4H lambs are available at almost every county fair in this state.

It's a good chance to really get what I consider to be one of the finest products.

And on that note, here comes the curve ball.

This person is a goat producer that wants to expand.

They're in the lower Yellowstone Valley.

He has a good market in Colorado.

Would he qualify for Growth in Ag?

- Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, Growth Through Agriculture is really all the different components of the state's ag industry.

I would say that it's going to depend on what exactly you're asking funding for and what you hope that would go towards.

But on its face, yeah, something like that would certainly be eligible.

- Go back to the Food and Ag Development Center.

Where is this person located?

- [Jack] He said Lower Yellowstone Valley.

- Lower Yellowstone Valley.

- I know there's a lot of them down around Hardin and Bighorn County.

- Yeah, but the corresponding Food and Ag Development Center Network, I love.

- Roberts.

- It would be Roberts, perfect.

- Yeah, Roberts.

- I would start there.

They can get a lot of information there.

And as Andy mentioned, he mentioned that they also, they can help connect you to, I think, value added producer grants for USDA, which we don't have anything to do with at our department, but that's just another source of funding that could possibly be a fit.

Those food and ag development centers have all of those resources, and can connect and help guide which one might be a fit.

- So there's a lot, if you haven't figured it out, there's a lot of programs that the Montana Department of Ag has available to help producers either expand or get into certain businesses.

With that, this is my question.

Weston, are there any products that you're currently trying to develop a market for here in the state that we currently do not have a market for?

- [Weston] Ooh.

- [Jack] I told you it'd be a curve ball.

- It is a good curve ball.

I would say currently I don't, probably the most pioneering one, that it's kind of starting from the floor, is probably industrial hemp.

- [Jack] Okay.

- And speaking of industrial hemp in a textile perspective, because that textile, I mean, there's so much.

The textile supply chain is so complicated.

I wouldn't even pretend that I can understand even a part of it, but to be able to.

We can grow.

We can grow that textile grade and high grade, high quality fiber here in Montana.

We've proven that.

Now, where does it go for further processing?

That's a huge challenge, right?

But we're starting to iron those out.

Here in September, we hosted some of the larger textile importers or players from Columbia.

They got an incredible variety.

They came to Montana.

They got to go see hemp being grown.

They got to go see where we processed some of that hemp, the first stages of processing.

And then they went over to New York Fashion Week.

(Jack and Tim laugh) That was the mecca of textile, right?

So it was a pretty neat thing.

Some of that funding came from the cooperator for hemp, which I think is, I won't say it right, but if it's the International Hemp Council that helped with that.

But we were a big part of, we were in Columbia in June with I&D Hemp, who happened to be the producer along or the processor, and they got to meet with these textile people.

And that's what I'm talking, like relationships, right?

So that's one that I feel like is super, I mean, the market for hemp textiles, there's a market for maybe.

So the market exists, but it's like the in between of getting Montana hemp efficiently that makes sense so that farmers are getting paid and the processor's getting paid.

I mean, that's a big ask, but what's cool is we're making some major headway there right now.

- It's fascinating.

I mean, I saw a few hemp fields here in the Gallatin Valley, not last year, a couple years ago.

The production is excellent in this state.

Are the acres stable, declining?

Any clue where we're at with this?

Tim, you might want to jump in too.

Any idea?

- I would say over the last couple years, they've been stable.

I mean, we really shrunk, but from after that, we've been pretty stable.

- [Jack] Okay.

- There's a great 1942 USDA ag film called "Hemp for Victory" about the Second World War, and they're planting hemp and they show a Canada thistle and they're like, "Look, this Canada thistle stood no chance in this hemp field."

(Jack, Andy, and Weston laugh) And so it is a good, yep, it's a good competitive crop.

- Well, I can believe that.

I mean, it's dense when it grows well.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that.

While I have you up, Tim, and we've done this before, but we'll do it again, from Missoula, the caller wants to know why peas, lentils, and chickpeas are called pulse crops.

- Ooh, pulse comes from the Latin, right?

Pulses basically means like a porridge, or a stew, or a soup, and that counts for all the pulses.

That's where the word pulse comes from, and that's how they got grouped together, I guess.

So really central, probably origin of production is from the Maghreb across the Mediterranean and then in towards India and through.

So that's really where the origins came from.

- Okay.

For either Andy or Weston, where is most of our spring wheat being sold in today's market?

- I think when we look at our wheat markets, Mexico is a top customer for US wheat, for sure.

I think when we look at for Montana, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, I think is becoming a little bit more of an important market from my conversations with my buddy Kent at the Wheat and Barley Committee.

So I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that, but.

- I would talk to Kent.

- Yeah.

(Andy and Weston laugh) - Okay, a caller from Missoula would also like to know, do we export finished commodity products or is it just primarily base commodities?

In other words, value added in the state?

Do we have a big export market for anything like that?

- Well, absolutely.

I think probably Mexico and malt is a great example of that, where we grow a lot of really, really good quality malt barley in this state, and a lot of that gets malted and then sent to Mexico to be turned into some of those delicious Mexican beers that they have.

- They are pretty good.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, I mean, the bulk, no doubt, the bulk of what we export is raw commodity.

I mean, that's our game.

And a big part of that is processing, and those types of things take a lot of capital, take a lot of people, take a lot, right, things that may not be as plentiful here in Montana, but we do also have lots of value add.

I mean, another good example is Pasta Montana.

They're finished noodles and things like that.

And Andy mentioned before, we've got a pretty strong beer, and spirits, and wine, that's all value added, but yes, I mean, the bulk of what we export is raw commodity.

- What happens to our flax in the state?

Where does our flaxseed end up?

Do we produce flax linen or?

I was talking to a producer in Northeast Montana.

He was like, "Oh, those flax balls, they make those fluffy, once you send it through the combine, it leaves these fluffy balls out in the field."

You see the flax linen, but what happens to our flax in Montana?

- That a great question, and I don't have an answer for that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

We might have to take a field trip to Flaxville.

- It's growing in a lot of other areas too right now.

There's quite a little bit up around Choteau, and I'm not sure what they do with that.

I know some of it goes into flaxseed meal and it's okay.

- [Tim] Yep.

- I like popcorn better.

(Andy and Weston laugh) But anyway, there is a market, it's growing.

From Galata.

- [Tim] Oh, Galata, yep.

- Galata?

- [Tim] Yep.

- I always called it Galata.

- [Tim] Yeah, I don't know.

Let's see who is.

- Yeah, we'll see who's right.

Okay, caller name Papa Noel is a pulse producer (Andy, Tim, and Weston laugh) and just wanted to thank Andy and Weston for everything that they do for the state.

- Back at you, Brian.

- Yep, I know exactly who that is.

Can I give a little context to that, please?

- Sure.

- That's just a good story.

That's another relationship building story.

Hola Montana, Latin America branded pulse marketing campaign.

If anyone knows our buddy, Papa Noel, Brian, Papa Noel is Father Christmas.

It's Santa Claus, right?

We had a pulse buyer.

Their daughter always asked about what Santa Claus did when he wasn't delivering, like on his off season.

They came on this Hola Montana tour, and Brian's got a nice, beautiful white beard.

(Andy laughs) They FaceTimed home to their daughter to say, "You behave because mom is here and Papa Noel is like, I'm here with Papa Noel."

And Papa Noel delivered a Barbie doll to Columbia.

- That's great.

- Relationship building.

- You nailed it right there.

Tim, we're getting a little over down to a couple minutes.

A quick question.

Are there herbicide-tolerant lentils for kochia management?

This person, we talked a lot about kochia.

- Yeah, the quick answer is no, there's not.

There are clear field lentils out there where you can use a herbicide called Beyond in it, but it doesn't phase kochia anymore, and it's one of these group two herbicides.

That is a question that's come up for the pulse breeder here.

Can they develop through just selection, not genetic engineering, herbicide-tolerant lentils?

That would make kochia management a little bit easier.

So that's something we've been discussing.

- On that note, from my own knowledge, are there GMO pulse crops?

- No, because I think the market doesn't exist.

We should ask these guys, but I think GMO pulses, talking to the breeder, that there's market restrictions on that a little bit, that people don't necessarily want genetically modified crops and the export market is reduced.

- Direct marketing.

- Yeah.

- What crops in the state are grown with GMOs?

And by the way, somebody says we do have a lot more soybeans in central Montana than we used to have.

- Yeah, we are, we are adding soybeans like, yep.

You know, we have genetically modified sugar beets, for Roundup Ready sugar beets, corn, alfalfa, and soybeans.

Not registered in the state of Montana are these new Engenia soybeans.

- So with that, folks, we're down to the last 30 seconds.

I want to thank you two for coming down.

Enjoyed it.

I learned a lot.

It's hard to teach Tim anything, but I think he learned something too.

So next week we have Georgia Harrison.

She's a relatively new range ecologist here at Montana State University.

And the beauty of that, the majority of land in Montana is in range, and it provides a lot of different things to the state, cattle feed, livestock, so on and so forth.

So with that, see you next week.

Thanks for watching, good night.

(upbeat music continues) - [Narrator] For more information and resources, visit montanapbs.org/aglive.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Narrator] "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 Gardener's Club, and the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

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