- [Announcer] "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.

(vibrant guitar music) (vibrant guitar music continues) - Good evening and welcome to "Montana Ag Live."

My name is Darrin Boss, associate director of Montana Ag Experiment Stations.

I'm filling in for Jack today, so we'll have a nice show for us.

Welcome to "Montana Ag Live" and to your local PBS stations on this beautiful spring night.

I'm sure hoping our friends on the hi-line and the Milk River drainage sure get some rain to fill up their tragic drought that's up in that area.

But we're going to have a great show tonight.

On my far left, bracketed in the blue and gold as myself and Sam Wyffels, the extension beef cattle specialist.

Next to him tonight is our special guest, Michelle Whiteside, president of Montana Feed Association.

Next to her, needs no introduction, our invasive noxious weed specialist.

And next to me is Abi Saeed, our horticultural specialist.

Going to have a great show tonight.

With a kickoff, we're going to just start with Michelle, would you like to tell a little bit about the Montana Feed Association yourself?

- Sure.

So I am president of the Montana Feed Association, as you said.

I have been a part of the association for, I counted this morning, like 18 years, and on the board for almost all of that.

So... Yeah, so it's been a great association to be part of.

Our mission is to promote and cultivate a good will between feed dealers, feed manufacturers, and producers within the state.

We've been around since 1949, so 77 years, I think.

And we've got kind of three main goals that we focus on.

And just preparing for this, I was like, "We educate, we advocate, and we celebrate."

So, one of our big goals is to educate our members.

Our members would be made up of feed dealers, feed manufacturers, associated industries, like ingredient suppliers, medication manufacturers, financial institutions.

So, anyway, anybody that has anything to do with feed.

So we hold an annual meeting every August in Red Lodge and we bring in experts to talk to us on feed topics, recent research in nutrition, market updates.

We've had had some, you know, big players in the state come talk to us about what's going on with this crazy cattle market, especially lately, business topics, even, like, leadership training.

So, you know, we come together and we're all competitors in our everyday businesses, but when we're part of the association we're just friends and people who want to help each other out and help our producers in the state out.

So it's really kind of a neat thing to be a part of that I've really enjoyed.

So we also advocate.

Another big thing that we do is we work with the Montana Department of Agriculture.

We've got a really good relationship with them.

And they come to us asking for opinions on where we stand with topics that have an impact on the feed industry in the state.

And over the years we've been a part of rule and lawmaking for the state, you know, what the state legislator puts into place.

So, we have a direct impact on the feed industry and how we're regulated.

And we also have a really good relationship with the American Feed Industry Association, so AFIA, which is a national association.

They've asked for our input and signatures on letters that go to way up to the national government, a couple years ago we've sent one to the president, we've sent one to the Senate House of Representatives to support things that we think are important to the feed industry and the nation.

So, that's really cool.

I think that we get to have some input in how our industry is run.

And then finally we celebrate the next generation of feed professionals.

So we have two scholarships, the Montana Feed Association Scholarship and the John Patterson Scholarship, that we give away each year to MSU students who are entering the feed industry or going back into production ag.

And so this year we've got $5,000 available between the two scholarships.

If we get a bunch of great applicants, we might give away more than the two.

But yeah, so we really enjoy supporting the next generation coming up.

So, that's kind of, in a nutshell, what we do.

And we also, for the past 75 years, have worked with MSU on putting together the Montana Nutrition Conference, which Sam and I will talk about on the show too.

- [Darrin] Thank you, Michelle.

Welcome.

- [Michelle] Thank you.

- Let me take just a second and remind you that this is through internet or through our phone calls.

And let me introduce our two phone representatives.

I have (indistinct) here today, a former potato pathologist and a person that worked for us for a lot of years, and Vickie Young from the Gardeners Association.

Thank you both for being on the phone.

So let's keep them busy tonight and keep them moving.

We do have a residual question from last week.

Maybe this would go to Jane.

This is from Billings, Jane.

Why aren't Russian olives a noxious weed?

- Oh, wow.

How much time do we have?

So, Russian olive is a tree that tends to be invasive in riparian areas and it is on the noxious weed list as a regulated plant, which means you cannot legally propagate it on purpose or, you know, it can't be sold in nurseries and whatnot.

But if it's growing on your property, you're not mandated to control it.

So, the idea is we want to keep it from continuing to spread, but we also recognize that it has a lot of benefit, like for shelter belts and, in some parts of the state, it's the only tree you can get to grow.

So, why isn't it an noxious weed?

Because it does have some benefits.

And I was sitting on the listing committee when that species was petitioned to the Department of Ag to be added as an noxious weed.

And there was strong support for and against it being an noxious weed because it is kind of this contentious species.

No doubt it has some invasive tendencies, but it also has some of these beneficial qualities.

I think the regulated plant approach, it was a compromise kind of on both ends of that spectrum.

So, yeah, I mean there's a lot of reasons why it isn't an noxious weed in terms of being mandated to control it, like spotted knapweed.

- [Darrin] Sure.

- But it's a complicated kind of socio-ecological conversation.

- It kind of depends whether it's a shelter belt or in the riparian areas and kind of where that is.

And I'd be negligent if I didn't say Jack seems to find sharp-tails and huns and pheasants all over those, right?

- Yeah.

Upland game birds.

It's really good habitat for upland game birds.

And that was some of the resistance associated with listing it was that you would be removing habitat for things like pheasants and sharp-tailed grouse.

- Perfect.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Quick question.

Michelle, maybe Sam, seeing how you're a beef cattle nutritionist also, Sam, Michelle, "How can I be certain I'm feeding my cows what they really need without wasting money?"

This comes from the western part of the state near Ronan.

- [Michelle] Want me to take off?

All right.

- [Sam] Yeah, go for it.

- Okay.

Correct me if I say anything wrong.

- [Sam] Yeah.

- No.

I think it's a great opportunity for you to work with your feed dealer representative or your extension agent to test your hay, test if you're feeding any grains, get a grid idea of what you have on hand so you know what you're feeding for protein and energy, and then they can help you fill the gaps so you're not overfeeding protein, overfeeding energy.

And then they can help you meet your production goals too.

Make sure you're on a solid mineral vitamin program and then any additives that are going to help you, you know, whether you've got cow calf and you need better milk in your cows.

Or if you're backgrounding and you need better feed-to-gain ratio, you know, there's just a slew of supplements out there that they can help you use to achieve your goals without overspending, so... - Yeah, and I would add, we get this question a lot in extension, like, you know, "Are my cows doing what they're supposed to be doing?"

or, "Conception rates aren't exactly where we want them," or things like that.

And so we always recommend just testing your forage, like you mentioned, or testing your hay, making sure that you're meeting those animals nutrient requirements, understanding that the cows nutrient requirements changed throughout the production cycle.

So, it's not a constant.

So when they're lactating nutrient requirements are substantially higher than when after weaning and stuff like that.

So, what we recommend right now is understanding body condition scoring.

So, making sure that your cow has the appropriate condition and make sure that she's maintaining into calving and post-calving.

And so I see a lot of times where some folks will get to calving that calf hits the ground and then it's like, "Okay, we made it, right?"

But actually those highest nutrient requirements are post-calving and lactation and we want to make sure we maintain that body condition score 5 through calving into breeding so that we can get those cows bred up again.

- Outstanding.

Thank you, guys.

I've always appreciated... I've been in the cattle business and 34 years in Montana and the one thing I've always liked working with the feed associations and the dealers is it's a pretty tight, close-knit you really have one shot to make people money or not to, and so you can't afford to burn bridges in Montana.

And so I've always appreciated us having a good, healthy, what I would consider a healthy environment.

So it's something to say about your organization and how we run business and do business in Montana.

So, I do appreciate that.

Abi, there was an email, sent some pictures in and wondered if you could identify it or know what organisms are making it.

Can we show that graphic, please?

They're struggling.

"I know nothing about this, but I've tried to find this out, and these holes show up in early spring, early winter, after you've had some precipitation."

Can you tell what those are, Abi?

- So, Jane and I had actually taken a look at these pictures and we were both in agreement that we think that they're earthworms.

It would be helpful to have a scale or something to measure what the diameter is approximately, but they appear to be earthworms.

And the fact that people see it after precipitation would reinforce that.

Because a lot of times when the soils are really moisture-logged, earthworms will come up closer to the surface, and that's where we see them more frequently.

But Jane, you were saying you've seen them?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, we kind of had the winter that wasn't, in the Bozeman area anyway.

And even if... I mean, usually you don't see earthworm holes until, like, we get a little further into spring and the soil's a little bit warmer and we start getting some of those saturated soils.

But I did see that a couple weeks ago already in Bozeman where, "Oh there's already earthworm activity."

And then I noticed, my husband and I were out for a little walk yesterday morning in some of the trails around Bozeman, and we saw the same thing on kind of the edge of the trail where there was some dirt going into the grass, some of those holes, and yeah, the earthworms are active, the soil's warm enough, and it's spring, they're out trying to, like, reproduce and do their thing in the spring.

So, yeah, I think that's what we're seeing.

- [Darrin] Probably a good thing.

- [Abi] Yeah.

- Yeah.

And our soils haven't been frozen for quite a long time now, I think.

- Perfect.

Perfect.

This one's a question for Sam from Bozeman.

"How do you produce Wagyu beef and what breed is the best?"

- Great, great question.

This come from Jack... It seems like a Jack, like, he always likes to give me these kinds of questions.

So, Wagyu is just a breed of beef.

So, my guess is what they're talking about is, how do you produce like the really high-quality stuff that you see in some of the high-end restaurants.

So, a lot of those animals will go into a feed yard or a feed system, and they will actually be fed out for quite some time.

I don't know, Darrin, if you remember.

You guys probably know from your Simplot side of things, but I want to say a lot of those animals are on feed for almost 500 days.

So they get very, very well conditioned and you end up with a very, very rich stake from those animals.

They do tend to marble quite well.

And so you'll see Wagyu entered as cross-breeding to other breeds as well that can also be destined for the feedlot.

As far as the best breed, I couldn't tell you, I mean, everybody has their personal favorite.

You know, right now you see a lot of Angus cattle that are dominating in the feed yards.

But that's not to say that you don't see Charolais and Herefords and crossbred Angus, Angus-Hereford crosses or Simmental crosses.

And so we see a lot... I wouldn't say any one's better than the other, but they all have unique characteristics that they excel in some way, so... Sorry, I can't give you an answer on which one's the best, but I don't know if there is.

- I have a question.

I mean, oftentimes, you know, in the grocery store you see, like, lean ground beef.

Would you ever have lean ground beef come from Wagyu?

'Cause it's not known to be a lean animal, right?

- No, no.

I would say the majority of our... So the United States is really great at producing high-quality beef.

One of the, I guess you could say, drawbacks from that in a sense is that our hamburger produced from those beef in general are very high fat.

And so that's where some of these imported meats or imported beef are actually used to dilute that down to a leaner beef.

And so, yeah, you wouldn't get a lean beef from a Wagyu if you're really shooting for that high-end cut.

- The only way I could think of, Sam, is if it's an open heifer coming off a range that didn't produce a calf, it would be only way 'cause the focus is the high-quality marbling.

- [Jane] Right.

- So, yep.

Good questions.

Here's a question that came in online from Havre, Abi, I think I'm going to go to you unless Jane wants to tackle this, but asking some thoughts about adding coffee grounds to compost or garden soil and why.

- Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good idea.

It's a good source of organic matter.

I add compost into my... Or I add coffee grounds into my compost pile pretty regularly and it helps kind of add the organic material.

Yeah.

- [Darrin] Okay.

- [Jane] Can you add too much?

Yeah, but I have not seen it for, like, a household's version of coffee, but I imagine if you have like a coffee shop and you're collecting a lot of grounds, you just kind of want to make sure your compost pile is balanced with the carbon and nitrogen and a ratio of like maybe 30 to one or something like that.

Primarily carbon, a little bit of nitrogen.

And if you're seeing issues like a smell or if you're seeing any mites or anything like that, that could indicate that it's leaning too far in one direction, so it might be worth a little balancing.

- Well, coffee grounds would be high carbon, low nitrogen.

- Yeah.

It would be more carbon.

- Would the plants get really jittery?

- Maybe.

- Maybe.

If it's not decaf, maybe.

- Okay, good.

Okay, use decaf is what I'm hearing.

All right.

That's the only thing I heard.

Michelle, question from out there.

We don't have a city for this.

But what are some of the things you see changing in the feed industry and through your organization?

- Through the feed and the Feed Association?

I think it's not anything that's, like, all of a sudden, bam there's this new innovation, but we are seeing, you know, more and more especially performance enhancing-type supplements on the market.

So, probiotics, prebiotics, yeast, fermentation, solubles, I mean, it's all kind of... There's a lot of it out there.

Different medications.

There's things being produced that help cut down on the methane that cows produce.

So, just there's a lot of different things out there that help enhance the production of your cattle.

And I think we're just seeing more and more and more precision-type products too.

So I work in feed formulation as my regular job and the programs, you know, the technology that's out there for you to make a real precise formula based on the ingredients that you've got available.

Same with, like, ration-building programs.

And then what I think is really cool is how AI is being integrated into research and we're able to research more and more things that we weren't able to research or collect data on.

And I think Sam's probably our expert on that.

- Yeah.

We're talking AI, not artificial insemination, right?

- Artificial intelligence.

- Artificial intelligence.

That's right.

- Yeah, we're in a world now where we have to clarify that.

- (indistinct) this for 50 years.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

I would, I would add to that too, I think what's really interesting about ruminants and cattle in general is that they can utilize so many different feed stuff.

And so you're really feeding those microbes that are in the rumen area.

And so, like, I just got a call like a week or two ago, a producer had an opportunity to maybe buy a semi-truck load of coal potatoes, and could they feed that and how could they utilize that.

And we don't think about it as much in Montana, even though we do have a fair amount of potatoes.

But in Idaho there's feed lots that are feeding potatoes pretty regularly.

And so, yeah, we get a lot of questions like, you know, Michelle's totally right, on all the technology and stuff going on, but we get a lot of questions too about, like, "Hey, I just came across this feed source.

Can I feed it to my cows?

When should I feed it to my cows?"

Things like that.

And so it's pretty interesting.

- The Skittles truck that was in the news a few years ago that tipped, but people found out it was cattle feed and people were like, "What?"

- [Darrin] Yeah.

I remember.

- Yeah, sure.

- Remember hearing about the backside of Nabisco and they're taking all the Oreos, Doritos, all the things up, shredding them up, and feeding them to dairy cows too.

So ruminants have an amazing ability to digest the bacteria, digest everything, so it's cool.

So I'm going to come right back to you, seeing how we're on that topic, if you two don't mind.

You talked about the 75th anniversary of the Nutrition Conference.

Would some of these topics be covered on that or could we talk a little bit about that please?

- [Michelle] Yes.

- Yeah.

I can take a stab at it first.

So the Montana Nutrition Conference, I think something really unique about Montana, it's an opportunity for producers as well and academia to all get in a room together and discuss, bring in speakers and talk about things impacting the livestock agricultural space.

And we do this annually.

We were just talking, Michelle and I, earlier that, believe it or not, the Montana Feed Association as well as Extension have partnered on this for the full 75 years.

But yes, we try to bring in topics that are very, very specific to Montana and what producers have been asking for.

This year we have folks coming in to talk about the beef cow size question.

We get this question all the time, should we be getting smaller cows, bigger cows?

What should we be doing?

And it kind of depends.

Different sectors of the industry have some differing opinions, and so we're bringing in people from cow-calf industry, the feedlot industry.

We're bringing in some folks that specialize in terminal crosses and hybrids with the expectation that those animals are going to go into the feedlot.

And then we're actually bringing in a packer too.

And so each of those people are going to give us their perspective as well as have a panel for questions afterwards.

We have Eric Velasco coming in to talk about where we are with the cattle market and what the future of that cattle market looks like.

Some folks coming in to talk about coccidiosis, where we're at with there, what's new, anything else going on.

Who else do we got?

- A talk on feed ingredients and marketing, things that drive prices of the ingredients that we use in feed.

- Yep, and then we have somebody coming in to talk about future nutrition and technology.

So, AI as in the artificial intelligence.

Connecting the dots there too in a pasture-based setting even.

And looking at how can we monitor animal nutrition in a pasture-based system a little more precisely throughout this season, so... - Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I had a caller come in, Abi, that said she has tulip bulbs from last year.

She's from Helena.

Also has clover and wildflower seed that are one to two years old.

Can she plant those?

- Yeah, so you can.

So, I'll answer each of those separately.

For the tulip bulbs, it's worth a try.

As long as the bulbs look healthy to plant it, they may not bloom until late in the season.

Another thing for the clover and wildflower seeds.

Things to keep in mind for wildflowers, a lot of them, if they are some of our native wildflowers, they may require that cold period.

So if you do seed them right now, some of them may not germinate this year.

So, usually fall is a really good time to plant wildflower seeds.

Clover can be done at any time.

And if you're unsure about whether your seeds are viable, you could do this little germination test, called the Ragdoll test, where you just take a wet paper towel, you put a number of seeds, like, let's say you put 20 seeds on there, and then you just calculate the percentage of how many germinated after about a week in a Ziploc baggie.

And you can judge, based on that, how much more seed you may need to add based on how much germinated.

- Well, that brings up a question I got With pollinators being very popular right now, we're seeing more of these low moistures to the culture wildflower-type of operations throughout the state.

Is there a way control grass weeds in these wildflowers with an herbicide or something?

Or do you know how to control that to get a good wildflower stand?

- Yeah, so you need to be very diligent when you are trying to establish a nice wildflower stand.

You need to be very diligent with weed control, or weeds will kind of start to take over.

So, being meticulous with kind of hand-removing weeds is usually a good plan.

You can also use things like mulches, like woodchip mulches, to help maybe reduce the germination of some of those weed seeds.

And then once you have a nice established stand of plants, they should be pretty competitive and that could reduce the amount of wheat.

Jane, do you have... - Well, I was wondering Abi, like, I mean, I love some of the native bunch grasses and even the ornamental bunch grasses.

I'm kind of curious what your thoughts are.

Like, do those bunch grasses provide any sort of habitat for pollinators?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, if you're talking about a pollinator seed mix, most of those pollinator seed mixes have like 25% grasses incorporated.

And they provide really nice habitat.

Some of them can have hollow stems in which stem nesting bees can build their nests.

And sometimes just the clumpy grasses can be nice nesting habitat for a variety of our beneficials, including predators and pollinators.

So I encourage people to look into the ornamental bunch-type grasses, and they add some fun texture, and there's some great natives that we have too.

- Wonderful.

Thank you.

Jane, from Polson, are there any species we should be especially aware of this year that could be big problems?

I think is mentioned in here about early blooming noxious weed.

- [Jane] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Well, I'm kind of curious to see what our invasive annual grasses do this year, like cheatgrass Japanese brome, ventenata, because they kind of make their living by competing.

Like, they grow some through the winter below ground and they make their living by competing for limited moisture early in the summer, early in the season.

So, I think those are worth thinking about.

One of the first species, broadly noxious weeds that always shows up is whitetop.

It's always a one of the first species to flower and it's a wheaty mustard.

It's got a kind of a flat-topped white flower.

So, that would be one that I would be looking for.

Usually I'm seeing that like in early May.

By early May, you should be treating that if you want to spray it with herbicide, which is one of the most of... Yeah, there's a picture of an infestation of whitetop.

Kind of looks like old snow drifts.

We don't have any of those old snow drifts hanging around the valleys of Montana this year, but I could see where that species might be a month early this year.

I'd probably be looking to treat that by early April if our growing conditions continue as they have for the last couple months.

So, yeah, whitetop would be one I'd be looking at first and foremost, 'cause you gotta get on that early.

If you're treating it when you are seeing those flowers, you're too late.

- Yeah.

Perfect.

Jane, I know we talked about this on other times.

Where's Jeff Littlefield with the biocontrol of whitetop?

Or I've heard some things about that, but how's that coming?

- Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Darrin.

So, Jeff Littlefield here at MSU has been working on a gall-forming mite, they're microscopic mites.

He's been working on that for... These biocontrols take, you know, a decade or more to develop.

They finally released... They've done 20 or 30 releases around the state on whitetop.

I think they first started doing those field releases in about 2019, and they've been evaluating the response of the whitetop since that time.

And they are seeing establishment of the mite that's always kind of... You know, hey we've been rearing these in the greenhouse, you know, what are they going to do when we take them out to the field?

But I think about 70% of their sites, they've found galls on the whitetop, which suggests the mite is establishing and having an effect.

It ends up kind of lowering seed production.

The flowers kind of curl up and look like a little head of broccoli or cauliflower.

And then the gull also stunts the height of the plant.

So, just decreasing its competitive ability overall.

So, that's looking pretty promising.

Those galls do blow on the wind, which is kind of nice.

They're really teeny-tiny and we've had plenty of wind in Montana this... - Yeah.

Lately it's been terrible.

- winter and early spring.

So, my hope is those galls are blowing around and finding some new whitetop plants to land on.

- Perfect.

Wonderful.

Just a reminder that the phones have been active, but we can always keep using them and also come in and send your online questions to us please.

Obviously someone's watching from online because we have a Jack from Scottsdale, Arizona.

This would be to Sam or Michelle.

"If a local rancher is marketing beefalo, 3/8 beef, 5/8 beef, how is that being marketed?

Is it buffalo or is it beef?"

- [Michelle] I think that's our very own Jack.

- Yeah, yeah.

(indistinct chattering) That sounds like a Jack question.

- He snuck it in on the internet.

Okay.

All righty, Sam.

- Yeah, I think it's probably going to be marketed as beefalo.

I don't think you would probably market it as... Well, I mean, you could, I guess, market it as some kind of a leaner beef potentially.

But my guess is that you would want to be able to potentially pick up on some of the niche marketing with the bison or buffalo components in there, so I'm assuming you would probably market it as that.

But I've never actually seen it marketed, so I couldn't tell you for sure.

But that would be my guess.

You got any thoughts?

- Oh, sounds like a great niche market product.

- So anybody know how much hybrid vigor happens in that, you know, heterosis?

- I don't.

- [Darrin] Me neither.

- I mean, I do know that they say that back, you know, a long time ago when the bison was about to go extinct, that they actually utilized some beef genetics to perpetuate and keep the species going.

And so it's not necessarily something that's new or completely uncommon, but I've never seen it, like, directly marketed.

I have heard of producers doing it, but... - Yeah, my great-uncle in Iowa had beefalo and they were vigorous, so he didn't have beefalo for very long.

That's all I know.

(all laughing) - Okay.

Perfect.

Here's an interesting question from Billings, Abi.

The caller has removed a large blue spruce and had a stump and roots taken out.

Soil where the tree is now very barren.

How does they restore that where the tree was?

- Yeah, so if it was just removed recently, you can do a couple of things.

You can add a little bit of compost, like a quarter inch, and rake that in or use a broad fork and rake that in and help improve the soil texture, and that'll help improve the moisture-holding capacity.

And then planting something on there, so a desirable plant that you might want.

So, if it's a grass or if it wants to turn into a wildflower bed, kind of choose a plant once you've added some organic matter and that should help stabilize the soils and prevent weed seeds from germinating.

- Abi, would that soil be acidic?

Do blue spruce cause... Acidify the soil?

- Yeah, so that has been a question for quite some time.

But usually in the course of, like, a single tree or even like a small set of trees, these soil acidification is usually not very significant.

But when we talk about these forests that have had these trees for a long time, then we start to see a little bit more of the acidification.

And then I've also heard it's still only just in the very kind of top couple of inches of the soil.

So, I wouldn't be concerned about that.

- [Jane] Good.

- Perfect.

Michelle, Sam, it doesn't matter to me, what's the best thing to feed a 60-year-old goat?

Nope, wait a minute.

It was a six-day-old goat.

It's a typo.

I can show you right here.

(all laughing) - Senior feed.

No A six-day-old goat.

- [Darrin] Anything it wants is 60 years old.

- [Abi] Yeah.

- Yeah, I don't do a lot of goat feeds, but I'd say six days old definitely probably needs milk replacer.

- [Darrin] 60 days.

- 60 days?

Okay.

- 60 days.

- Poor little orphan goat.

60 days then.

- [Darrin] They're popping up right now.

- They'd be... So I don't know, they'd be weaning off milk replacer around then, getting on some sort of starter ration.

You'd want some grains in there to start their rumens working, get the bacteria and all the little rumen bugs in there going.

Of course they'd need some hay to nibble on fiber as well.

So... Any... - Yeah, I would say I'm by no means a goat expert but since you brought it up, I guess I do have a small flock of goats at home for my kids in 4H and we do do breed them a little bit.

And I know that's not uncommon to wean goats at about eight weeks of age.

So I mean, 60 days isn't too far from that.

And at that point in time, you know, you are trans... - Transitioning?

- Transitioning.

Yes, thank you.

Transitioning from that milk-based diet to grain or hay.

And so I would make sure you have some decent fiber in there to keep that rumen going.

But also, you know, pellets, they make a lot of starter ration kind of products out there.

- Okay.

Well, that was from Brussett.

So when you head home for Jordan, think that may have, you know, 60-day-old goats and you could throw them under the bus for this question.

- Well, I have a question for Michelle.

We've been talking a lot about cattle, which, you know, it's the largest livestock industry in the state, but what does the Feed Association... Like, are you working with other classes of livestock?

- We wouldn't be opposed to it.

We end up being, you know, primarily cattle-focused.

But we have had some conversations lately about, hey, maybe we should bring in, you know, a pig talk or something, you know, something that's not cattle.

Because we do have things besides cattle in the state and we would cover all the livestock species, so... - Okay.

Yeah, thanks.

- Perfect.

- So I should know more about goats probably.

- Well, and I'll just put a plug in.

Brent Roeder is our small ruminant sheep and he does have a lot of goat experience.

So if you would have some questions, google him up on montana.edu and he would be another person that may be able to contribute to that.

He's well-versed in that topic too, which don't be afraid to reach out to your local county agent or our extension specialist.

That's kind of what they do and how they enjoy their days, is getting these questions from the field.

So, let's go to Jane.

"A people from Townsend just bought a new property that has Russian knapweed mixed with native grasses and forbs.

Can you give us the best herbicide?"

- For Russian knapweed, it's a mix of grasses and forbs?

- [Darrin] Yeah.

- Wow, I don't get many questions about That's a good... I mean, thank you.

I'm having to, like, go deep into my brain right now to try to think about... I think aminopyralid products work on Russian knapweed.

They'd be sold as something like Milestone.

Same products that you would use on spotted knapweed.

What's kind of interesting, though, about Russian knapweed, it is rhizomatous, where the other knapweeds in Montana are tap-rooted.

So it presents a little different management challenges, because if the Russian weed has been established for a while, it has this root system that you're trying to manage in addition to seed production, where the other two knapweeds, diffuse and spotted, you're just dealing with seeds and you don't have to worry so much about the roots.

So, I think aminopyralid products will work.

If the person wants to give me a call, I could double check on that.

- [Darrin] Perfect.

- My phone number's 406-994-5513, and I could look at that a little bit more.

- [Darrin] Perfect.

- And Jane, would... For something like that, I know that we've recommended in the past, you know, making a cut and then applying a herbicide right to the fresh cut to be taken down into the root system.

Would using a systemic herbicide in a spot treatment that way work?

- Not so much for... You might be think like Russian olive, like, the woody Russian olive, you would do that.

But with this Russian knapweed, it's herbaceous.

So, you actually, I think, would have better results if you're getting the herbicide on the foliage versus cutting it and just getting it on the cut stems.

The other thing I should say about that is, you know, if you have grasses and some forbs in there, broadleaf herbicides will not be a 100% selective just for the Russian knapweed.

So, if this was a scenario where there's some alfalfa in there or some other legume, like, that's going to be also controlled by this broadleaf herbicide.

So, maybe getting a little bit more information from the viewer in terms of what are those broadleaf species and are they species that the person wants to keep around.

The grass will be safe.

But thinking about those broadleaf forbs would be something we might want to visit about a little bit more.

- Perfect.

Thank you.

Just a quick comment.

People do listen and text back in.

So a caller called in from Missoula and says they were involved in marketing beefalo in the '60s.

USDA approved a market class and they used the roll on a beef carpet that was labeled as beefalo beef.

- [Michelle] Very interesting.

- Yes.

There you go.

Thank you, caller, for educating us.

- Yeah, there you go.

- So back to our two feed and nutritionist here.

Years ago a caller from Lewistown heard some research about treating straw with anhydrous ammonia to yield more nutritious feed.

Is that still being looked at and can you explain that?

- Sounds like it's question for you, Sam.

- I was going to wait for you to answer that one.

- I think I've heard this talk at the Montana Nutrition Conference, actually, but it's been a few years.

- Yeah, yeah.

So, a lot of times when you're... I've heard of this too.

When you're putting anhydrous ammonia on something like straw, what you're trying to do is bring the protein-to-carbon ratio or nitrogen-to-carbon ratio within that straw back into a level to make it a little to improve the overall digestibility.

So, you're not putting the animal in, like, specifically the rumen microbiome, into a protein-deficient state.

They need that nitrogen in order to keep things going.

But the problem with straw is that it's often very, very dry.

And so most recommendations when feeding straw is that you want to limit some of the intake of that straw because it can cause compaction issues and things like that.

And so I don't think very often you would want to feed more than, say, like a 25% or somewhere in there.

I don't know, Darrin, I don't know if you remember those numbers back in the day.

But when you feed more than a 25%, you have a higher risk of gut compaction issues just due to how dry that feed is.

The other problem you can run into with some of the anhydrous ammonia stuff is, if it rains or if you have anything that the nitrogen is very volatile, if you will, it can leave the system pretty quickly.

So, it's not something that you spray and then turn in cows a week later.

It's something that you would spray, like, as you were doing it, if I remember right.

And then you just gotta be careful 'cause sometimes we can overdo it, and if the cows get too much straight nitrogen into the rumen, that can also upset the rumen as well.

So, I haven't heard of people doing that as much anymore, but... - I think you're implying that I was getting long in the tooth, Sam.

I actually wrote a paper on anhydrous ammonia when I got the Northern Ag Research Center and they did it, and we actually took and built very similar two-silage piles where we either chopped the straw or put in bales and then ammoniated it and stuck the rods in with a bunch of holes in it.

We tarped it, so very secure.

So the anhydrous wasn't volatilized.

And it's kind of dangerous to deal with, if you remember, right?

And then when they injected the anhydrous ammonia within there and then they let it sit, and then we take the tarp off and let it air out before we started feeding it.

And so the concepts are still there.

It was back in some serious drought years when we were trying to find any forage there was and by increasing some digestibility in that.

What's interesting, and maybe I shouldn't go off on a tangent, but with the new solid stem wheats, what's the impact now as we're looking at (indistinct) impacts and some of that, 'cause we were doing that on mostly hollow wheats back in those days.

So, interesting concept, but thank you, Lewistown.

Let's go... There's a caragana... Let me find it, this was an interesting question.

Callers has an established hedgerow of caragana that she would like to prune.

Is now the time or is it too late?

- That's a great question.

So we've all been getting a lot of pruning questions over this past several weeks.

And my rule of thumb right now is, if it's starting to break bud, break dormancy, if you're starting to see growth on it, to wait to prune.

But if you're not, if it's still dormant, it's a good time to prune.

But usually when they start that new growth, they're diverting energy in towards that, and so making pruning cuts during that time can stress any plants out.

So, if it's still dormant, go ahead and prune.

And if it's not dormant, then maybe wait until either later in the season after it's done flowering or maybe even in the fall.

- I thought maybe the person wanted to get rid of their caragana, in which case, if it was bud break, like, cut away, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah, if you don't want it to come back and you want to remove it, yeah, then... - It can get kind of unruly and it has thorns.

- Yeah.

Yeah, it can.

- Personally I don't like caragana.

- But the bumblebees love caragana.

- Yes, and it does make a really nice hedge.

Yeah.

- [Michelle] It grows in eastern Montana too.

- And it grows in places where it's.... - So, yeah... - And if you prune at the right time, it's amazing and resilient.

I mean, I've seen shredders come in and take it down this far and it comes back green and beautiful.

- Absolutely.

- It almost loves abuse and actually looks like it thrives after that.

- It's resilient.

Definitely.

You've convinced me.

It's an okay plant.

- Okay, we'll take that as a win.

This kind of brings up a boatload of questions that I was trying to lump together here.

Abi, I'm going to come right back at you.

Trees and shrubs are breaking dormancy like crazy.

Do you think we'll have any raspberries, apples this year?

And what's this going to do to our pollinators?

These are three questions I lumped together from Billings, Missoula, and Bozeman.

- Great question.

So, I wish I had more time to chat about this, but I'll do the cliff notes version of what I think.

So, in terms of what's going to happen, there are a few concerns.

So, for things that have already broken dormancy and are getting pretty close to flowering, if we have those temperatures dip below freezing, the closer those buds are to flower or if they're already flowering, they're going to be very sensitive to the But for now it's looking warm enough in much of the state.

So, keep track of the weather, but it could be a concern definitely.

Usually, when the buds start to swell, they still have a lot of sugars in them so they can be pretty safe if those temperatures get close to the freezing mark.

But when they get into those single digits is when that big concern is.

But I don't think that our risk of those single digits is very high now at the end of March.

So, it's hard to say in terms of the freeze damage what's going to happen, but as long as things are still dormant and temperatures stay stable, it will look good.

But that pollinator thing adds another twist to it.

I'm not seeing very much pollinator activity right now, and that would be another major concern.

So, for the fruit production component, if you have things flowering and there aren't as many pollinators around, that could impact if we have successful fruit set too.

So, if things are flowering much earlier than pollinators are emerging, that could be a risk.

So, that's something we're kind of keeping an eye on and it is a very real concern.

- Darrin, did you bring your magic 8 ball?

- I didn't.

- We need a magic 8 ball... - I think so.

- for a year like this.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- I do agree.

I mean, is it going to rain?

Are we going to have range?

- Yeah.

- Speaking of changing things, Paul from Great Falls sends a lot of things into "Montana Ag Live."

He sent a really interesting article I'd like to bring up.

And Sam, I'm going to have you put on your range nutritionist, maybe your range type of person.

And with that rising carbon dioxide environment, are we seeing more nutritious crops and cattle that are grazing rangelands, and what could be happening there?

- Huh.

Yeah, that's a good one.

I know I have a colleague that works in the Animal and Range Science Department.

It'd be a great question for him.

Dr.

Dan Atwater.

He's a community ecologist, so he does a lot of modeling in how environmental changes impact range.

But so, some of the cliff notes I've heard him talk about, I suppose, are, you know, people are starting to see some more warm-season grasses, especially like in the eastern Montana side.

So you see like a... I don't want to say like a huge shift, but like a heavier prominence of warm-season grasses, native grasses in the range versus cool-season grasses.

That comes with some pluses and minuses in the beef cattle world, nutrition world.

The nice thing is, is those warm seasons green up a little bit later.

So it's a way to extend some quality into the later season, have a little nutrition forage there.

The downside about warm seasons are typically more fibrous.

And so once they get past that initial green level, they become a higher fiber content and actually it can be lower quality.

And so in a perfect system, you can have that cool-season green-up followed by that warm-season green-up and you can extend some nutrition, but It depends on the warm-season grasses too.

So, blue grama is a pretty common one that you see in eastern Montana.

You know, it only gets yea tall.

So it's not like it provides a ton of forage, but a potential.

- So Sam, in like home lawns, we usually say you can't really mix warm-season and cool-season grasses in the same environment because they'll be outcompeted by the cool-season grasses often.

Is that something that, in a pasture, can you, like, have sections of warm-season versus cool-season to kind of get the best of both worlds?

- I wouldn't... I've never seen it, like, in a pasture system.

I have seen where they try to mix those in like a cover crop and we see mixed results on that.

Especially if it's in a dry land system, where you're really... The cool-seasons are going to just get that moisture.

So unless you have a late-season precipitation event, it's hard for those warm seasons to outcompete.

When we talk about more of the range ecological system, we see them mixed in and around, like... But in Montana, and sure Jane can probably answer this better than me, but where I see them is, like, you'll see some little blue stem up on the hills, south-facing hills.

You'll see the blue grama kind of mixed in.

Every once in a while you'll see some buffalo grass peek out through here and there.

But yeah, they're kind of mixed in, but they're like in patches usually.

I don't know that.

I see them like intergrowing through each other.

- Jane, I see we have about three minutes, four minutes left.

We have a show and tell.

And then if we could go to the Nutrition Conference video right after her show and tell, and people get their phones ready.

Well, I always like to bring a weed to the studio with me, and this is the one that's growing right now.

This is bur buttercup.

It's a non-native annual.

It's one of the very first species to grow, and it kind of grows in these little clumps with the flowers on a extended stem.

They're little, they're yellow.

You can pull it out of the ground really easy.

It tends to grow in disturbed areas where you don't have a lot of vegetation competing with it anyway.

What's troublesome about this species, aside from being toxic to livestock, I don't think livestock would generally be eating this, but as it dries out, probably within a couple weeks, the seed heads form a sharp dry bur buttercup.

And it's very... Like, if you were to walk across this in your bare feet or, you know, you're gardening and you had some on the edge of your garden, it is very unpleasant to encounter once it dries up.

So... - [Darrin] Perfect.

- I just bring it so if you see something out there looking like this, take a look at it, it might be bur buttercup.

And you might want to get something else growing there so you don't have a problem with it next year.

- Perfect.

Thank you.

If we could throw the graphic up for the Nutrition Conference.

If you like, I noticed there's a QR code on there, you could run right up there and register today for the Montana Nutrition Conference.

We're trying to wrap up the show.

We might have room for one more question as we go through it, but I want to make sure everybody realize is come join us again next week.

We have the Invasive Species Council, Liz Lodman, Montana Invasive Species Council administrator.

So get all of your invasive species questions to that for next week and next show.

I want to thank you for the candidates or the... Candidates.

All the participants we've had tonight.

We've really had an overrun of questions tonight and we haven't been able to get to them.

So I know the team here and Paul will push these on to the next session.

Just a quick update.

Someone asked for the update in the Milk River, it's coming along, it's pacing well with the siphons and throughout that.

So, although last time I looked we're at less than 20% snow pack, which is going to be very detrimental to the hi-line and the Milk River, but the project is coming along very good.

I think we have one minute left.

One minute.

Sam, Michelle, what happens to alfalfa hay from Miles City after one year under a tarp?

It is not molded.

- Well, hay, generally, as long as it was put up in really good condition, should hold its quality pretty well.

If there was heat and moisture, that can cause some problems, but it should hold up pretty well.

But I would recommend having it tested.

- Perfect.

So, contact your local county extension agent.

Want to thank everybody for being here tonight.

It was a great show.

I want to thank all the questions and everything else.

It was an outstanding time.

I want to thank all the students, high school and college, that made this happen.

I want to thank our phone operators.

And with that, let's have a great evening.

Oh, they're telling me I was off on the one minute, so we'll go to one more.

What is the method of pruning, Abi?

Until they cut us off.

- I don't know if we have enough time to do that, but stay tuned next week and I'll talk about the best method for pruning.

- Perfect.

- That should be a good time to do that.

- It's a good teaser.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Come with pruning questions.

- Hey, I'll throw out that there's a steak dinner that comes with that Montana Nutrition Conference.

So, something else to keep in mind.

Is it Wagyu or... (indistinct chattering) - Yeah, we're on a budget.

It's not Wagyu, but it is a pretty good dinner.

- You know, if we got a great sponsor who wanted to, you know, make that happen, I think we'd be open to it.

- Yeah.

- All right, one more question.

They're telling me to go more.

Jane, they have 13 acres at 4,300 square feet.

This is in Darby, Montana.

It has covered primarily with pines, and they've had more cones this year than ever.

Why is that?

- Oh, we had a big mast seeding with the pine production.

- Yeah, we had a big mast year and it just, a lot of our conifers produced a lot more cones than they normally do.

And this is just a cyclical thing that happens every several years or so.

- Yeah.

- And with that, I do hear the music now, so I can call it a night.

Sorry for the rookie mistake, Jack.

We'll get better as we move through it.

Have a nice evening.

Enjoy the spring.

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