- [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, (guitar music) The Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, The Gallatin Gardeners Club, and The Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(guitar music) - Good evening.

You are watching "Montana Ag Live" originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic and interesting campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over your Montana public television system.

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

More than happy to be your host tonight.

We've got an interesting program tonight, something that we haven't done a whole lot of.

I will tell you this right up front.

One of the most vivid comments that we get is have more producers and ranchers on the program.

I took it to heart and we found one, and you're really gonna enjoy what we learned this evening.

So before we get into that, let me introduce tonight's panel.

Way on my left is Marsha Goetting.

Marsha is kind of an ag economist, family planning, kind of a guru, very good at financial aspects of farming and ranching and family planning.

So if you have questions tonight regarding that, Marsha's here to answer.

Special guest tonight, Dale Veseth.

Dale is a rancher, south of Malta, Phillips County, Montana.

Dale has a lot of interesting stories to tell, but I'm gonna tell one about him in a little bit.

In fact, I'll do it right now.

Dale donated his ranch to a conservation organization, ranching conservation organization.

It's a 38,300 acre ranch in South Phillips County.

And we'll learn a little bit more about that and why he did it as we go along in tonight's program.

I have to admit, it's probably the largest gift that I've seen given to a ranching organization.

Very well done.

And Jane Mangold, okay, this is gonna hurt.

Jane is an invasive weed scientist.

How's that?

- That'll work, Jack.

- (laughs) Okay.

She's actually an invasive plant specialist.

I call her a weed scientist.

And of course, Darren Boss.

Darren has so many titles, I'm not even gonna try to get into them.

Answering the phone tonight is Sherry Kloss and Nancy Blake, and they're back again after last week.

I think they survived the wine taste.

They look pretty good this evening.

So if you have any questions about the panel this evening, they're here to take your questions.

They come through me on this little computer that they send me messages on.

Dale, first of all, welcome to "Montana Ag Live."

- Thank you.

- Tell us about your operation up in Phillips County, Malta area.

- My ranch is a third generation family ranch in South Phillips County.

Cow calf, we usually have some yearlings on it.

We've tried to improve our range stewardship for about 85 years and we just going along.

- I've had several people from Phillips County on and a lot of them had association with the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance.

I know you are a founding member and are very active with the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance.

Tell us what that is and how you got involved with it.

- Well, as a community conservation organization and is what was happening in the early 2000s is, we felt that we were being picked on.

And so we got together and started making some plans about, this was locally, 30 some ranch families about what they would like to see as far as the landscape and stewardship and the community of the future.

And from there, we got a grant and we went across the Western US and we looked at some of the community conservation organizations out there.

And I think we made seven stops.

And after we got back, we actually felt lucky because we had it pretty good.

A lot of folks didn't have it as good as we did.

- I've learned a lot about that up there, and I've been impressed with what you guys have been able to accomplish.

Talking prior to the show this evening, there are other similar organizations that have started around the state, and I have told Darren this and I've told a lot of people, the ranching community in Montana is really top notch.

95% of them are doing an excellent job in sustainability, financial sustainability also, but environmental sustainability.

How many acres do you, I know it's an estimate, how many acres are involved with these entire stewardship alliance?

Do you have a rough estimate?

- I think if we went through and asked some of the staff, they could give us real numbers, but in our conservation committee, we go through millions of dollars.

And how this got to work so well I think is we're kind of a one-stop shop.

In the conservation committee, we have 21 different partnerships and so everybody brings some stuff to the table.

And so individual ranchers don't have to go to 21 different entities out there and it works very well.

- So when I first got involved with it and talking to some of the partners that you have, and we'll get into that later on, one of the highlights that you guys are trying to do is ensure that young ranchers and the tradition of Western ranching is maintained.

And I think your Stewardship Alliance has done a really good job of... You have been very instrumental, the whole RSA Ranch Stewardship Alliance in reseeding some cropland back to native grasses.

Has that been pretty successful?

- Very much so.

I guess individually I can say that our ranch has reseeded 1200 acres back to native species.

And short story long here, I guess we actually started reseeding back in the '80s and '90s except there was no one to help out.

And I know one of the questions I got is, why did we seed so much crested wheat grass?

Well, that was all we could afford.

That was what was available.

And right now it's a whole different ball game.

I go ask and they come out to the ranch.

- [Jack] Sounds great.

Darren, I'm gonna... - Can I to ask a follow up to Dale.

- Go ahead.

Sure.

Dale, have you tried to increase diversity in those crested wheat grass stands at all, like with some interseeding with additional species?

- We have.

We did some work back in 2017, and I have a project now with TNC.

We haven't got that off the ground, but they're going to go in and spray and we're gonna come in and dis-drill in native species and those.

- Darren and I have worked on that a little bit.

Yeah, it's tough, but that's great to hear.

- So you've been involved in the Daines' office on occasion.

Statewide, are we seeing more cropland being seeded back into grassland with the increased value of cattle compared to commodity crops?

- It's funny you say that, Jack.

We have seen that.

I can name three or four ranches that have removed the cropping systems and put it back into the grasslands because it's giving them more flexibility.

And I think it's more of a drought mitigation strategy to expand over the time and get those grasses back where they can graze them eventually.

It's not saying that the cropland is bad or good.

It just gives these operations some more flexibility with grass to move it around to keep their cattle numbers up.

As you know, we've had severe drought, wheat markets down.

So I have seen some of that.

- Makes sense.

All right.

Leftover call for Jane, and then I have one that's come in from Marsha down there, but the one from Jane, and this one fascinates me 'cause I have no clue what they're talking about.

It came from Missoula.

They said that bamboo is increasing in their county, and they'd like to know how to control it.

Yeah.

I know we don't grow bamboo in Montana.

- Yeah, right.

I'm kind of suspicious.

They might be talking about Japanese knotweed.

So knotweed is a semi-woody species on the noxious weed list, and it does look like bamboo.

It has hollow stems.

It's big and leafy.

I would encourage the person to take a sample to the local office there.

I think you said that was in Missoula, and get it ID'd because I suspect it's not bamboo, but maybe knotweed.

I mean, we had a situation in Park County earlier this summer where they thought they had bamboo and when we went out and looked at it, it was knotweed.

And it is a noxious weed.

It can be kind of a structurally damaging species, like it can go through concrete, and it tends to invade, like, in riparian areas and kind of form thick stands along creeks and whatnot.

So, yeah, I would suggest they get it ID'd and then we can talk about managing it.

- So if they have panda bears, it's probably real bamboo, correct?

- [Jane] Now if there's a panda bear out there, then yes, it probably is bamboo.

- But does it have pretty flowers on it?

- It does have pretty flowers.

- It does.

- It was originally brought to North America as kind of a hedge species 'cause it does grow like hedgy, and it has these pretty white sprays of flowers.

- Don't they have a pretty good weed district over there?

- They do.

- They need some people to come out and look at it.

- Yeah.

They have great people in Missoula County between their weed district and extension.

So the person's in good hands if they can go to the local office there on the fairgrounds and get some help.

- Okay.

Marsha, from Billings, I think this is triggered by the comments about Dale donating his ranch.

This person would like to know what the maximum amount of cash or money or stock or whatever that a person can donate in one year to a charity and take a tax write off.

Tough question.

Have at it.

- Oh, thank you.

I would advise this person.

No, I can't advise, but I can suggest.

- You can suggest.

- Yes, that they take a look at our Montana Endowment Tax Credit MontGuide because there's such a thing as giving money and we're gonna get an extra thousand dollars at the federal level.

But this Montana Endowment Tax Credit is really a special one, and you can save up to $15,000 that is taken right off the amount of taxes that you owe.

It's not a deduction.

So this is specific to Montana, and it's a really good deal and would suggest people take a look.

So we've updated the Montana endowment tax credit that would be available at your county extension office.

You can go to our website, just do Montana Endowment Tax Credit Extension and there to appear and you're just gonna love reading about it because you go, "I can do that.

Yes."

- Can I ask redirect?

Let me make sure I understand you.

This is not in preparation.

It's a straight off the top of the tax you owe.

So that's almost cash in the bank.

Why wouldn't people use this?

- Because they don't know about it.

- Fair.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And I've got an example in one of the presentations I give, and I hope it's okay to say, I have Champ wanting to take advantage of this endowment tax credit.

And at first, he was gonna give $15,000 and found out he wouldn't save anything because he's standard deduction that a lot of us have.

Well, that's not gonna do any good.

But if he did a deferred gift annuity, he would have that $15,000 as office taxes.

Now I don't know how much Champ makes, but we wanna take that in consideration.

- I wanna put a plug out.

We started an endowment here for a gentleman that used to sit in this chair quite a little bit.

- Oh, Hayden.

- Well, Hayden and Don Mathrie.

- Oh, and Don too.

Yeah.

- And it's through the foundation here.

So if you are so inclined, that's an opportunity to do what you're suggesting.

Is that correct?

- That's true.

It's usually people that wanna give more.

And the state of Montana does have nine different ways that you can do that, that make it legal for Montana.

So it's a little bit different than just saying, "Oh, I want to give $100."

They should give it directly to that particular benefit scholarship fund.

But if they're gonna give some big bucks, let's look at the Montana Endowment Tax Credit.

- Thank you.

I learned something.

Excellent.

Comment.

I don't know where this came from, but it says, "The RSA Ranchers Stewardship Alliance have impacted over 250,000 acres in the past seven years."

That's not bad at all.

Another question here, they've heard about something called Grass Bank that's taken effect in the Phillips County area.

Dale, you wanna explain what the grass bank is?

- Back in 2002, the Nature Conservancy had a ranch, a 60,000 acre ranch that didn't have any livestock on it.

And we were in a tremendous drought, so the local community approached them.

And out of this, we developed a grass bank.

And is what that is, is producers can bring, they're invited to bring livestock there and due to their conservation values on their ranches.

So if they have some sage grouse lex, something like that, they'll get credits for that.

And it's worked so well.

This will be our 24th year.

Traditionally, 15 ranches, 15 to 20 ranches take part in the Matador Grass Bank.

And so this year, through generous donations, the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance will start their own grass bank.

And so starting in the spring of '27, our grass bank isn't nearly as big, but it is structured so that young producers will get a foothold in production ag by bringing cattle through that.

They'll have a commercial lease rate.

- Okay.

So that brings up the question I have.

So you've donated your ranch when you guys are gone, Janet, your wife, and yourself.

Is that going to be in a grass bank program or how's that ranch gonna be eventually managed for the benefit of the rest of the producers in your county?

- That would certainly be one option.

I guess I didn't want, or we didn't wanna put too many stipulations on the gift just so that people or the RSA would have some freedom with what they did with the donation.

They'd have some flexibility in there, but it definitely could be used as a grass bank and probably will.

- Okay.

I'm curious, what'd your neighbors think of you when you donated a $25 million ranch to the Stewardship Alliance?

- Well, it kind of depends which neighbors.

Some just thought I needed some medication and then the outpouring of support has been very nice.

- I can believe that.

That's very generous gift.

I commend you on that.

- Jack, can I follow up really quick?

- Sure.

- How would a young producer go about to put his name on the list or her name on the list to be able to access the grass bank?

- For our grass bank up there, you'd go to the website, Ranchers Stewardship Alliance, and then you would... I don't know if we're set up right now on our website to handle that, but you could sure contact staff.

Fair enough.

Thank you.

I think that's one of the most impediments for young people getting into any agriculture operations.

If you don't have one of the big three, cattle, land, or equipment, you're probably not getting in.

So this is a gateway, and I wanna make sure we do everything we can to help them, operations move pieces (indistinct).

- Yes.

Very much so.

And I guess my ranch is an example.

If you add livestock on that, you're talking 25 million.

And I make a very moderate wage on it.

And how can people really expect to borrow that kind of money?

You can't even pay your gross, the gross interest with your gross proceeds on that.

- So a question came in from Bozeman here, and they wanna know, are you an MSU grad?

- I am.

- Yay.

- Yay - Yay.

(everyone laughing) Well, congratulations.

That's great.

When did you graduate?

- I graduated twice.

I graduated with a bachelor's in animal science in 1986, and I had so much fun as an undergraduate that I decided I'd go back for more fun.

The only trouble is, they kind of expect more work out of you all the time.

And so I graduated again in 1990.

- [Darren] What was the title of your master's project?

- The title of my master's project was the genetic correlation between growth and carcass traits and randomly selected and selected beef lines.

- Okay.

- I'm sure that one person has the thesis right now that is reading it.

I'm sure there's been at least one person besides myself that's read that thesis.

(everyone laughing) - That's pretty good.

Just out of curiosity, you don't get down to Bozeman all that much.

Has it changed a little bit since you graduated?

- Let's just say that I did a drive down today and I sure enjoyed it.

So, yes, I think when I started in the fall of 1981, we had 11,000 kids there and there were people in all the overflow, in all the study lounges and stuff around the dorms.

It was just packed at that time.

- And by right now, I'll jump in 'cause I heard the statistics were over 17,000 students right now, which is pretty amazing.

Couple questions here.

I'm gonna shift away from Dale and give him a break a little bit.

I love to pick on Jane.

So this caller from Billings called about bamboo from ZooMontana and wanted to add that it is growing for the red panda and they think they grow it at ZooMontana.

Is that possible?

- I think it's possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's interesting is bamboo can be invasive.

There are a lot of different species of bamboo, my understanding is, but it can be invasive, but oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

Thanks for the call.

- [Darren] They're growing inside.

We see them in people's houses all the time.

- Oh, yeah.

- Ornamental bamboos and all that.

So they're in a greenhouse or something, right - Yeah but that's inside.

- Well, greenhouse maybe or something.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So is there an adopt-a-panda program in Montana?

(everyone laughing) Okay.

Enough joking around.

And I hear our phone operators over here chuckling away.

This person wants to know if they give their IRA away each year to say the 4-H Foundation, which I would encourage also, is that tax deductible?

- Oh, what you do when you're going to take your required minimum distribution from your individual retirement account, and it has to be one of the traditional ones that was started back in '75.

And so if you don't mind, I'll give an example like me.

I wanna give it to the Montana 4-H Foundation.

So I notify the custodian of my individual retirement account, and I say, "I want you to give it to the 4-H Foundation this year."

And they do it directly.

It doesn't come to me and then I give it.

What they do is they take care of it and you can do that every year with your required minimum distribution.

But another way is you can do a direct charitable contribution and Congress has changed that now to up to, "Okay, Jane, you could do it."

$111,000 a year out of your IRA.

- Only the weed scientists group can make that happen.

- Right.

(everyone laughing) But there are people that have been saving in their individual retirement accounts since 1975, and they're up there now, especially with some of the high interest rates we've had in the past.

I was looking at mine today, and I wasn't as excited as I was yesterday, but it's such a great tool because a lot of us have reached close to retirement age and we say, "Well, we don't really need that and we'd like to give it to a group that has meaning for us, so why don't we do that?"

And so ta-da, that's what I decided to do 'cause I... Well, can I say I'm on the board of directors of the 4-H Foundation, so that's added incentive.

If you're gonna be a board director, you gotta be in there helping them out too.

- So listening to that, I have to ask Dale.

I mean, obviously, you're very benevolent.

That's a given.

Why did you choose something like the RSA instead of say the Nature Conservancy or some other conservation organization?

What sold you on making your donation to the Stewardship Alliance?

- Well, we actually have some backup contingencies.

So if the RSA goes under, then the Winnett ACES and the Montana chapter of TNC will be recognized as... - [Jack] That's forward thinking.

- Kind of state planning.

- So I guess that was... We have more than that, but I guess to get to your question, I work or I'm very interested in local communities and supporting them.

And I think that's where conservation on the ground really works, is right within the community.

And so yes, we specifically made our donation local.

- Can I do a little bragging jack?

- You do all the time.

- The ranch is perfect.

Thanks, buddy.

(everyone laughing) The Ranchers Stewardship Alliance and the Winnett ACES, when you mentioned them, made me think about our Dan Scott Ranch Management Program.

And these public private partnerships these organizations have a real educational benefit.

Rachel Scott brings her students to both of these organizations in the summertime and puts these students on the ground, getting hands-on work, mentorships from people that are there, monitoring grasses, running bailers, believe it or not, driving a stick shift truck.

I mean, all those things that these people need to know that we don't teach them in the classroom, we're partnering with these organizations.

And I gotta tell you, it's a great thing and we really appreciate that.

- Thank you for doing that, those two organizations.

- And we enjoyed the school too.

It was a lot of fun.

It's nice to see that much, that interest out there in young people.

It gives us hope and it was a good deal.

- You might mention what Rachel's program is here.

- So the Dan Scott Ranch Management Program is a gated program that limited memberships involved through the Animal and Range Sciences Department.

And it's a way for young people to take classroom work, but then also partner that with a two year internship where Rachel takes the student and partners them with the ranch in Montana.

And I can name... There's such a list of ranchers that want these internships.

So the first year you go and you learn the ropes about the ranch, you work alongside those people, then you come back to school the second year.

And this is between your sophomore and junior year, so your senior year finalizing it.

And the junior year, you do a large project for the ranch.

So you might do, what would be the economic relevance if I sell 50 cow-calf pairs and I retain all my yearlings, what's the cash flow difference versus that partial cow-calf operation with retaining my years?

So we're actually putting these students in a situation where there's decision making processes that they learn from the ranch to bring it back to class so they're prepared to go out and work on ranches.

And as they work on those ranches, there's opportunity for them to move up into management and move through.

As we know, out of state ownership and everybody's looking for more and more ranch managers, not just out of states, but all across.

There's just not enough people, this is a way that Montana State University is trying to address that.

- All right.

Thank you.

I'm backing up here to a question that came in, and it's from Helena.

The caller noted that their knapweed is still green.

If they get a warm day, can he treat it with herbicide or is it too late?

- Yeah.

As long as the ground isn't frozen, I think you could do an application.

It also would depend on what herbicide you're using.

You would wanna use something that would have some soil residual so that... I mean, yeah, stuff is green, but it's just not growing like it would have been a month ago even.

So if you use something that would have some soil residual, so it's in the soil when knapweed starts growing again in the spring, it's gonna be ready to take that up.

So I think you could, but make sure the ground's not frozen.

You have a nice sunny, warm day.

The conditions are good, but I wouldn't expect the greatest results, you know, compared to doing it earlier.

- Can I follow up?

- Yes.

- Could you give me an example of a residual that you'd recommend?

- Yeah.

Products that contain amino pyralid work very well on the knapweeds, and they do have up to a two to three year residual in the soil.

So that would be anything that has amino pyrilid in it I think would be... - Would be good, - A good option.

Yeah.

- Okay.

Thank you.

I learned something there.

From Billings, from Marsha, "This color has grandkids in their 30s and great grandkids under the age of 14.

What is the best way to gift them money and avoid tax implications?

Yearly gifts for older kids and revocable trust for younger kids or just open accounts in their names.

Some suggestions."

- Okay.

Some ideas is there is the 529 plan for Montana and you can place money in that.

If this individual has United States savings bonds.

One of the things that if they're already mature, you need to know, it doesn't continue like it used to.

We had maturity rate of say 30 years and you just leave it there and Congress would allow it to build up.

We can't do that anymore.

But I found out as trying to help a consumer was that you can take those funds and put them in a 529 and that interest then isn't declared.

There is no tax on it.

So that's one way.

And we can give up to $19,000 to as many people as we want to every year.

So grandma could do that.

And one of the things grandma could also do is, is she could establish a testamentary trust, and she could say, "When I'm gone, the money goes into this pot here, and it will be managed by a trustee, and the trustee will use those funds for books and tuition, but not everything for college education."

Because she doesn't want her kids to grow up to be trust brats.

And so I understand when I'm dealing with some of those... - I volunteer.

(everyone laughing) - Yeah.

Well, and there's just a lot of tools out there and through MSU extension with our MontGuides that we have, we have 54 different MontGuides in the estate planning area.

And those have been updated over the last couple of years.

And so I would say get together with your county extension agent or look at the estate planning MontGuides that we've got.

It's a lot of information out there specific to Montana.

- And if you sit down and read 'em, it's a lot easier than trying to simulate it, listening to us talk here and so forth and so on.

- Right.

- And I had a comment here from Helen, and I think these people are probably a little off.

They wanna note that this panel is one of the most educated and dynamic that they've ever had on a program.

(everyone laughing) (Marsha indistinctly speaking) And I didn't pay anybody.

(everyone laughing) So on that note, I'm gonna do a little plug for the RSA, the Rancho Stewardship Alliance.

I am a member, and anybody on this... Yes, I am.

For $50 a year I think is a membership fee.

You can support the Stewardship Alliance and their conservation programs.

They're removing a ton of fence every year to enhance migratory animals, a lot of antelope moving down from Saskatchewan and so forth and so on.

You get this nice little annual report, and it's not so little.

I've noticed it's growing every year.

It's getting bigger and bigger.

It used to be two or three pages.

Now it took me at least an hour to read it all, and I am a slow reader.

But seriously, folks, go online, look up Ranchers Stewardship Alliance and if you support conservation, this would be a good organization to I started it years ago, and I look forward to getting the annual report.

I am far from a rancher, you know that.

But bottom line is, I learn a lot about that.

So with that, I'm switching over to Jane, and this call came from no location.

- All right.

- Okay.

Caller wants to know if there's a state law requiring every county to have a weed office.

He thought he heard this was a case on a previous Ag Life show years ago, but wasn't sure if this is correct.

- Yeah.

The County Weed Control Act is what establishes county weed districts.

And I believe every county is supposed to have a weed district, but I'd have to go... I mean, usually I'm thinking about that law in different ways than about actually establishment of a But yes, the County Weed Control Act, it's also the same act that tells us as landowners we should be controlling noxious weeds on our property.

- [Jack] And are we getting better at that in the state?

- I don't know.

That's a good question.

Yeah.

I mean, I've been thinking about noxious weeds in Montana for about 25 years now, and sometimes I feel like I hear some of the same complaints and some of the same praises and progress.

So I would say that if you look at the estimates of acres of noxious weeds in Montana, we're about the same.

And in a way that you can think of that as an accomplishment because these are invasive plants, all right?

These are not species that are easy to control.

They spread easily.

They grow aggressively.

So the fact that we are containing and with certain species decreasing, I mean, that's a testament to all the great work that people are doing out there.

- So in other words, the Bozeman City Flower known as a Canadian thistle is still pretty prevalent.

- Yes.

- Okay.

(laughs) - [Jane] Yeah.

Yeah.

- Interesting.

For Dale.

I get a kick out of this.

And you know I love comments and this is kind of a comment and it comes from Great Falls.

It says for Dale, caller wants to know if he remembers his room number from Langford Hall.

The caller's name is Adrian, and was Dale's old roommate.

- I think it was 402.

402, Adrian.

- [Darrin] I think I know Adrian.

(everyone laughing) - He's a character.

(everyone laughing) - Well, gotta watch those bankers.

- Yep.

Yep.

- All right.

From your stomping grounds, however, this person is considering... Actually, I have two questions, one from Glasgow also.

This person is considering seeding... Now, it's probably too late this year, but in future years, some cover crops.

Is that a wise ideal?

- You asking me?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Well, the first question, yes, it is, depending on your operational needs.

I always ask people why they wanna grow cover crops and what is the purpose of it?

Is it to fit into a program with NRCS or other farming programs?

If you're a dual purpose operator, we've shown, Perry Miller's shown some research at Havre that implementing livestock on these cover crops probably is a better cash flow operation than returning 100% of that biomass to the next crop and that we can actually weather some perhaps drops in our cash crop the next year by using cattle to graze it or sheep.

So the first question is what forage base are you trying to help and replace?

Are you gonna graze that operation in the spring, summer, or fall, right?

'Cause it's gonna be depending on what you wanna graze.

I mean, there's a lot of good people out there that know a little bit about that, but I would focus on what do you wanna graze in what time of time to whether it's a warm species, a cool species, or some sort of mix in between.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Dale, from Polson, this person would like to know whether you have any suggestions for other people that might be considering a land donation.

- Well, that's interesting that... I appreciate the question.

Thank you.

That one of the reasons we went public with this is we wanted people to have, say, another opportunity about what they would like their legacy with their land to be like.

And so basically, we'd like to go through and try to make this public.

If they'd like to reach out to me, we could tell you some of the professionals that we're working with, but we are working with a team, and we would like to make it as equitable for all the parties as we possibly can, that I have a long-term employee.

We have to make sure that their retirement, et cetera, as well as our retirement is adequate to be able to do this, but we wanted to continue the good stewardship and our community.

- [Jack] I don't see you retiring any time in the near future.

- That's a problem with my family.

(everyone laughing) - Work till you drop.

- That's our hope.

- One of the things that people like to know, and it's kind of a personal question, how many cow calf units do you have?

- We run about 650.

That varies depending on... We're moving back to long yearlings a and so our cow numbers will have to drop to that, so.

- Are you seeing... Darren's been involved.

We've talked about this with some of our economists and so forth.

Are you seeing local ranchers starting to increase their herds?

- We really aren't, but that might be just our individual situation.

My thought is, is if the Western US would get a little more precip, we would have expansion.

I really feel that the weather has been one of the major factors.

- One thing we've been seeing, Jack, and we've kind of noticed this, is that although our cow numbers are at record low right now, our beef production and consumption has not changed.

And so I'm beginning to wonder, and it's been a tragic drought for the big high plains area from Montana to Texas, and that's definitely driving some of these heifers go into the feed yards, right?

So I'm wondering, we know the cattle cycle's always going, right?

It may be narrow or sharper as the cycle is.

I'm wondering if we found that median, a new median level that we're gonna base these cycles on up and down, depending on drought or profitability.

I'm just guessing that's not an economist, that's a cow guy.

- I sat through some of the stuff with Celebrate Ag Week this week, and one message I got, and this came from the Wheeler lecture at the econ conference, he basically said that "Surprisingly, the price of beef has not totally impacted its acceptability and utilization."

I don't know what the economic term is, elastic or unelastic, but it's kind of interesting.

The demand for beef, even though the price in many cases has doubled, especially for burger, remains high.

So I think you're probably right.

I think we've reached a point, and I can get into climate change and how it affects that, but that's not for this evening.

While I have you up, nitrates, there's been a lot of concern about nitrates and feed.

You wanna touch on that a little bit?

- Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that.

As we start using more annual forages to mitigate some drought, because we put these in, whether you're reseeding grasses, a lot of people put those into annual forages, and there's not a lot of ways, once you've seeded your crop, to reduce nitrates.

You can let it get much more mature, develop more head, more stem ratio.

You can ensile it, which will drop it, or you forward plan.

Perhaps you're not putting near as much nitrogen on.

If it's looking like it's in a very drought status here, you try not to stress that.

You try and cut it at the afternoon or not in the morning to try and reduce those nitrates to a manageable level.

So I would say contact your local county agents.

You can test them, and you can get a little forward planning on how to reduce those nitrates.

And one thing I don't think people realize is if you're irrigating, which we have seen some nitrates and irrigated annual forages, believe it or not, you might wanna test your water and what your nitrates are in your water.

- Okay.

Question for Jane.

The one weed that you're most concerned about moving into Montana and where would it be coming from?

- Whoa!

- Ah, good one, huh?

- Did you make that up, Jack, or did that actually come from a viewer?

- I wouldn't do that to you.

- Well, the one weed, wow, I'm stumped.

I mean, there's so many that it's like, okay, it's not in Montana at all yet.

- They didn't say.

- Okay.

I'm gonna just baseline, it's not here yet.

I would still be really concerned about That's a species.

It's an annual... It's actually a centaurea species like our knapweeds.

It's been on the Montana noxious weed list for a couple decades, I think, and occasionally it has shown up and Montana has done a great job of finding it when it first showed up.

It's just been a few plants and eradicating populations, but you get into like the canyon lands of Idaho along the Snake River and whatnot and it's yellow star thistle and cheat grass and that's not a good mix.

It's a annual dominated system.

So I'll stand behind that one.

I probably could come up with some others too.

- Well, you can do that in two weeks when you host it.

- Okay.

All right.

(everyone laughing) Okay.

Yeah.

- Dale, from Malta, your home stomping grounds, any regrets about what you've donated?

- I don't think so, I guess.

When I donated the ranch, I was actually relieved because I felt that I'd found maybe a solution because I didn't really think that I'd ever... - [Jack] How long... I mean, this wasn't an overnight decision, obviously.

- No.

- [Jack] How long did it take you to work up to that decision to donate that amount?

- I think we worked on it for about two or three years from conception to going public with it.

- [Jack] Was there a triggering factor that made you start thinking about that?

- Well, I think some of my involvement with the grass bank, definitely.

I felt that that was really a good program for the community and got some young ranchers started.

- So the Nature Conservancy has, I think it's called the Webb Ranch or something like that?

- Well, that's the new one.

The old one that was started is the Matador Grass Bank, and now the Webb property that RSA will be administrating is the brand new one that I was just talking about that is coming online this year.

- So a producer is allowed to put 10 or 15 cow-calf units on or whatever the case may be.

Do they other than have the conservation credits that they have, do they pay a fee on that?

- They do, and actually, the Webb Ranch will be treated different, that the Matador Ranch was built on a conservation model, and the Webb Ranch is more of a young rancher model, so it'll be where you're starting in the industry, and it will probably have a out date that you will start in the project, and then 10 years down the road, you'll have to make room for another young rancher.

- All right.

Sounds good.

Medical savings account.

This person heard Marsha talk about it the last time you were on the program.

Briefly, can you touch on medical savings accounts?

- Okay.

Well, you can still have your own medical care savings account.

You can have it put the money in on December the 27th, and the amount for this year is $4,800, and you can have one.

Janet could have one.

Jay can have one.

- I do have one.

- Okay, good.

- So do I.

- And the advantage that that offers is just for the state of Montana, you get to take $4,800 off your tax, you know, income.

Look at it that way.

And I just am amazed that more people don't have 'em because you can use your health insurance as premiums, your social security, Medicare premiums for that, and you can save $250 plus each year.

Now, we'll see what it is next year, but I bet it'll go up 'cause we've had a little bit of inflation, but that's Montana and it's a great, great tool.

If you've got the money, if you don't, maybe there's an opportunity, a legacy where we could say, mom or dad or grandma and grandpa will give the kids the money, $4,800 and say, "You will open an MSA."

- Okay.

- Okay?

And they do, and the kids will save the money, and mom and dad or grandma and grandpa will feel quite proud that they were able to help them do this.

So we've got a MSA Mont guy, so just look up MSA-Montana, and you've got it with all the details there.

- All right.

Thank you.

- Yeah, I'd like to add that it is a good tool.

I agree with Marsha, that as a producer, we have one for the ranch too.

- I know quite a few people that, after listening to Marsha, have started them.

There's no doubt about that.

Have you started one?

- Yep.

- Good job.

All right.

What are we eating there?

- Yeah.

Well, I was driving along the frontage road out by the East Main exit to I-90 this afternoon, and lo and behold, there's some trees that still have a lot of green leaves on them.

And I pulled over, and I was like, "I bet that's common buckthorn," and it was.

Common buckthorn is a woody, invasive, noxious weed.

It's one of three tree species on the Montana noxious weed list.

And as the name is common buckthorn, and hopefully, we can zoom in here, you can see that at the tip of these little stems is a thorn.

So you can see that.

That's one of the diagnostic characteristics.

Another characteristic is the leaves.

They have about three to six sets of veins, so there's a great photo there.

And those veins curve up towards the tip of the leaf.

They don't go out to the edge of a leaf like a chokecherry leaf would.

So you wanna look for that.

You can also see the thorn on that photo.

And then the third thing to look for is these purple berries.

It looks a lot like chokecherry.

These are actually toxic, so you don't wanna eat them.

Birds do love them, but they actually give birds diarrhea, and of course that's how it disperses its seeds, 'cause the birds love to eat those, then they drop the seeds elsewhere.

The state... We don't really have a good sense of how much common buckthorn is in the state, and right now they're running this buckthorn bioblitz and encouraging people to be looking for this plant and reporting it to the state library through iNaturalist.

What's really cool about this species... Well, I mean, it's not really cool, but this is actually a great time of the year to find it because it is one of the last species to hold its leaves.

Like I said, I was driving down the highway and looked over on the bank, and there's a group of trees with green leaves yet, and it was buckthorn.

They're about the size of choke cherry, so it looks very similar to chokecherry.

There's a great photo of, that's my husband, in the woods in the winter.

I mean, it was like a November snowfall, and you can see the buckthorn still has the green leaves, and this is a great time of the year to be looking for it and reporting it, so we have a better sense of how much of it is in the state.

- [Jack] And you can't make wine out of it, so anybody... - You don't wanna make wine out of this.

- You know, something... Go ahead.

- I was gonna say, the park looks a lot like our flowering dogwoods.

- Oh, yeah, kind of.

- You know?

- Yeah.

- I can see where people make a mistake.

- I mean, this is one of those species, again, that was planted as an ornamental or kind of as a hedge species.

They have major problems with it in the Upper Midwest where it just forms these thickets.

It's in the understory of the deciduous forests, and it just kind of takes over and that's all you end up with in the understory.

So Montana wants to try to keep that from happening.

It does like wet areas, so a lot of times you'll find it along creeks and rivers and wherever we have the deciduous forests.

- Okay.

So I've been neglected.

I didn't bring up a picture of your ranch.

So if we could bring up a picture or two up in Malta, that would be great.

And while we're looking for that in the control room, a comment from Havre, "The caller thinks Dale is a man of vision, like the character and lonesome dove."

That's a good comment.

So thank you from Havre for that.

- Thank you.

That's a very nice comment.

- Okay.

Quick question came in and I heard a lot about this this week at the Celebrate Ag.

"Where are we heading with virtual fencing?"

- Well, there's a lot of opportunities out here.

We talked about grazing cover crops earlier.

This is an opportunity to manage and move cattle around pastures, whether that be intensive grazing, mob grazing, without interior fences, right?

It's a success story.

I tell this story all the time, Jack.

We knew back in 1994 or '96 when Derek Bailey and a few of us modified cow halters, but to put the dog collars right on a cow halter across the bridge of a cow's nose, and we were a little different.

We didn't have GPS satellites.

We laid in the bushes and when a cow came up to the riparian area, we pushed a little dog button, right?

So we knew cows would learn and adapt to these type of cues, right?

It took us 25 years, 20 years to get the technology, the sensors, GPS, and the weight on a collar to make it profitable producers.

I think this is a really interesting technology, and if you haven't heard, Montana's probably leading the nation in adoption of a virtual fencing because of this.

There's people that are segregating large pastures by sex of calf.

So they have their collars on their cows.

They know from calving there's steer calves and heifer calves.

They're moving these animals divergently across the side of pastures.

When the cowboys go out and gather one side of the pasture, they move them over to one side and that's all the heifer calves.

And then you'll have far less sorting time and depends on the (indistinct).

So there's unlimited uses with this, and it's real time, and it's really exciting.

- I heard a lot about that, the innovation conference and some other areas.

It's expensive yet, but I think the cost will come down.

Dale, have you used any virtual fencing?

- We have.

Right now our whole herd is on it, and it's our first season that we went through it.

And just with our moves, I think we have more grass left than we've ever had before.

I think it's probably the biggest opportunity I think I've ever seen.

And I too think the largest problem with it is probably the cost.

- And has that trended down?

- Depending which company you go with, it still is pretty expensive.

- One of the game changers now is we don't have to have antennas and saddle... People are using the low orbit satellites now and that's a game changer for Montana's rugged technology.

And so I think that's why people are dabbling in it is it becomes more cost effective, we get more competition in ERIC, (indistinct) brings downwards a profitability margin for cattle.

- All right.

(indistinct) - To give you an example, we did half the ranch last October and we tried to do the south half because it was rougher, bigger pastures.

We needed 17 towers.

I said, "Well, we can't afford that."

So we went to the north part of the ranch and we got by with seven towers.

- I'm fascinated by the technology.

Folks, the music's on, that means we gotta get out of here.

I wanna thank Dale for coming down.

I appreciate it.

I learned a lot.

- Thanks for having me.

- Marsha, everybody else, Jane, she's gonna moderate in a couple weeks.

I'm gonna be on vacation.

Darren, always a pleasure.

Next week, Andy Frecius and Winston Merrill, Weston Merrill with the Department of Ag on Trade.

Good week, good night.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] For more information and resources, visit montanapbs.org/aglive.

(gentle music) - [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 & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, The Gallatin Gardeners Club, (gentle music) and The Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(gentle music fades) (soft gentle music)