- [Narrator] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, the MSU Extension Service, the MSU Ag Experiment Stations of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, the Montana Bankers Association, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, the Gallatin Gardeners Club, and the Rocky Mountain Certified Crop Advisor Program.

(upbeat music) - Good evening folks, welcome to "Montana Ag Live" originating tonight from the studios, of KUSM, on the campus of Montana State University, and also from our homes and offices throughout the great and beautiful State of Montana.

I am Jack Riesselman, I'll be the host this evening.

Tonight, we have a special guest looking at making new crops available for the State of Montana, and how we get them registered, and how the growers began to utilize them.

But before we get to that, let me introduce tonight's panel.

On my left here in this studio, we have Perry Miller.

Everybody knows Perry, Perry is our cropping systems agronomist, Perry is very knowledgeable in almost all aspects of agriculture.

So, if you have any questions about pulse crops, hemp, whatever you want to know something about this evening, hey, it's your chance to get it answered.

Our special guest tonight is Weston Merrill.

Weston is with the Montana Department of Agriculture.

He's the business development specialist and he's partially responsible for the successful introduction of hemp into the State of Montana.

We'll get into that a little bit later on.

We'll come back to Merrill in a few moments so he can give us a little bit of what he does with the Department of Agriculture.

But meanwhile, let me introduce Tim Seipel.

Tim is our weed scientists, crop land weed scientists.

If you have any questions about weeds, and if you wanna delve into a lawn and garden, he'll handle those also.

And of course, Mary Burrows, Mary's our extension plant pathologist and part-time administrator here at Montana State University.

Answering the phones tonight, they take the phone questions at home, they send them to me via Slack technology, this little computer in front of me here, throws questions at me, and I throw them at the panel.

Answering those phone questions or inquiries tonight, will be Sharon Marygolf and Udem McCalvary.

So, the number will be on the screen, this program is not successful unless you send in the questions and all of them are interest to everybody else, not only yourself.

So, with that Weston, tell us a little bit about what you do with the Department of Agriculture.

- Well, first of all, thank you for having me on Jack.

As you said, I'm a business development specialist with the department and marketing officer.

So, a lot of what I do is market development and help connect our Montana ag companies with potential markets and help develop those markets.

So, you said it right.

I don't dedicate full time to hemp but definitely part of my time has gone to hemp.

I do pulse crops, I help out with pulse crops, and do some work with beef genetics and things like that.

And then any other of our smaller value we try to help those companies connect to markets and grow their business in whatever way we can.

- Okay, you know when I was still gainfully employed which has been a fair number of years ago, hemp was a nasty word.

Nobody would really delve into the process so we could grow industrial hemp in a state like Montana.

How did this come about?

And I was surprised to see how rapidly it did come to fruition.

You wanna touch on that a little bit?

- Sure, so as many people know the 2014 farm bill authorized States to develop pilot programs to grow hemp and Montana got right on it.

And it definitely, like you said, hemp, it got looped in to be a nasty word for some reason, and then there's been a lot of work to de-stigmatize that nasty word, make sure everybody knows that industrial hemp is what it is, different than what it might be stigmatized to.

So, there's been some work on that front.

But anyway, like I said, 2014 farm bill, we started a pilot program and then the state has continued to operate in that pilot program.

And then with the 2018 farm bill, it was made, I guess for lack of a better term, a little more official as far as the USDA coming up with the program.

And so, that's how it progressed, and now here we are, and this might come up later, but we currently operate under our pilot program and that's what we'll be operating under this year.

The program that Montana developed, and it was previously approved by the USDA but since they have released their final rule on hemp, we will need to go back to the drawing board and redo some of those aspects of our program so that can be accepted by the USDA.

- Thank you, I will say I still believe, and Perry, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but Montana is the leading hemp producing state in the United States.

So, Weston would definitely be the right guy to answer that.

The last couple of years we've had the biggest acreage, now, that doesn't always translate to the most profit generated, but I don't know where we are headed into 2021.

I mean, everything would be projected at this point.

Do you know Weston where we're at?

- Well, for 2020 we had right around 14,000 acres Right around 14,000 acres, I think in the ground.

10,000 of those acres are the seed and grain variety, or were the seed and grain variety in 2020 and the others were for a CBD variety, or something of that nature.

So, we had right around 14,000 acres, I believe, in the ground - But more to your point, Jack, thanks to the Montana Department of Agriculture.

They've actually had what I would call a national role in developing policy, and developing leadership around this crop.

So, that doesn't happen in a vacuum, there's been some really good leadership coming out of Helena on that.

I've heard that, and I agree entirely.

We'll come back tomorrow with some other questions that have come in through Facebook and And if you do have questions like that, you can get it on Facebook and also email them in.

Let's go to a Facebook question that came in last week, Tim, quackgrass control and garden without using Roundup, any way we can do that?

- I will tell you, I struggle with quackgrass in my garden at home too.

Without using glyphosate or without using herbicides, you really need to dig up and remove all the underground root pieces that you can absolutely get out and then watch the border of your garden too because it invades back in from the edges even if you do a good job of getting it all out.

If you want to use a herbicide, there's some grassy herbicides out there.

So, things we commonly use for wild oat and some other species that'll work fairly well on quackgrass if you don't want to use glyphosate.

Glyphosate I think will work pretty well on quackgrass.

But I think it'll take a number of applications to follow it up because it has a whole lot of underground root biomass and that's what makes it such a problematic weed.

- Hey Tim, and my home garden, I get quackgrass we're moving around the edges.

Glyphosate has worked really well.

I'd hesitate to think of how you do it without that, and you mentioned border control and I think that's the whole secret.

You don't wanna spray your whole garden area where you're growing your vegetables, that's fine, but if you can look after the borders around the edge of your garden, I think that goes a long ways.

- I agree entirely, thanks guys.

Question from Reed Point, Derid ,"All the pine needles off the bottom branches, are needles growing back or do the branches need to be pruned off, and when would be a good time to prune them?"

We don't have a horticulture specialist here, but, Mary I think you can answer that one.

- So, all the evergreens grow from the tips, so if you don't like how it looks you should probably prune it back, and then all the new growth will be on the end of the branches.

- Okay, back to Weston, question from Great Falls, they would be interested in growing hemp, they need to know what the deadline is to get a growers permit, and I was not aware until last fall that you need a grower's permit.

So, you might touch on that a little bit Weston.

- Very good, thanks for the question.

Our license deadline for a grow permit in Montana is May 30th, and the license, the hemp application, it goes in two stages.

So, if you're gonna grow, you're gonna fill out your license and that's gonna be the May 30th deadline, and you will put on that license things like variety, where you're planting it, those types of things.

And then after you've planted, because we all know agriculture can change with the weather.

So, the stage two would be follow up to say, yes, I planted what I said I was gonna plant, and where I said I was gonna plant, and that's a basic, just real basic.

You can find that information at our website at agr.nt.gov/industrialhemp.

- Thank you, Perry, from Three Forks, this person would like to know the current status of winter canola, and when will it readily be available for all growers in the State of Montana?

Well, yeah, that's a tough question.

So winter canola is one of these things where if we can get it to survive the winter, the yield potential is quite a bit higher than it is with Spring Canola.

And so, we would like to have stronger winter hardiness, and go one step further, even besides the winter hardiness, you often get variable survival, with the winter canola you get holes in your stands and whatnot, and so that can lead to uneven ripening.

And what I would really like to see are the new shatter pod technology that exists in spring canola, if we could get that moved into winter canola, and I know that they're working on it 'cause we're actually getting a chance to test the material this year, actually at the pulse farm with those genetic senate.

So, that would be a game changer because then this variable ripening issue would be a lot less of a hardship for somebody trying to combine winter canola.

- A question that I have, is winter canola grown in States like Kansas, or Nebraska successfully, where it's not as cold?

- Yeah, so a good question.

The key epicenters for winter canola right now is Kansas and Oklahoma, they've got a more open fall so they can get a better establishment For us, it's really tough, because we don't know when we're gonna get those breaking rains in the fall.

And so if we wait for our normal rain, maybe they don't start happening until the second, third week of September.

You just cannot get enough growth of the winter canola seedlings to get them large enough to get them through the winter.

So, we're coming up with some other ideas relative to a really early seating in chem fallow, so that you've got well-established plants.

So, normally we would seed winter wheat in mid September, well, now we're thinking maybe mid July we would be seeding canola.

So, when we're still got moisture, we can get it established but then you've got a whole other set of issues of how to manage that canola so that it doesn't start bolting, and if it starts elevating its crowns at all then it loses its winter hardiness.

And so, there's some things to sort out but I still think it's a crop that especially if we could get that shatter pod technology in it, I think would have a big potential for lots of parts of Montana.

- You got a lot of work ahead of ya.

- We're involved in a little bit of a grant through Kansas State University on winter canola.

- Weston, does the Department of Ag take an active role with increasing the acres of canola here in the State of Montana?

- That's a good question.

We take an active role anything that serves our farmers best.

So, that's a good broad answer for you.

And I can't comment too much 'cause I haven't been involved, I do believe we've looked at establishing, or that we've seen a tradition for a Montana Oil Seeds Advisory Committee, which canola would be a part of that.

I believe that, with that past, but don't quote me on that for sure.

But I do know there's definitely a need from the growers to have market development, research, education, check off with funds, those types of things.

So yeah, we take an active interest in what our farmers need.

- Appreciate it, Mary a question came in from Jefferson County.

They would like to know why they no longer sell seed potatoes in grocery stores.

I don't think that's quite right, is it?

- It depends on where you are.

Their grocery store may no longer carry it.

You do need to plant certified seed potatoes to protect our seed industry here in Montana.

And there is a program with the County Extension Office where they can order seed potatoes and sell them directly to you from our Seed Certification Program, and then your local garden centers should have them.

- Okay, thank you.

Tim, another question from Jefferson County, what is the best control measure for black henbane in alfalfa field?

I'm curious about that myself.

The alfalfa fields in it's third year, do you have an answer for that?

- Ooh, black henbane.

It's one that grows starting in the fall and I bet you there's some basal rosettes out there.

And so you really wanna control it before it gets very large, otherwise you're not gonna probably do a great job on it.

I would have to look at a few labels to see what is out there for black henbane control, 'cause I know it can be pretty tough to control.

If they're in an alfalfa situation, things like Pursuit are a couple of options.

I know the herbicide Pursuit would probably do a pretty good job on black henbane but they should call me and I'll follow up on that for them if they want me to.

994783 is my phone number.

- Okay, sounds good, thanks Tim.

Weston from Belt, this is an interesting question, it came in through Facebook.

They would like to know what they allowable concentration in Montana's industrial hemp crop is for the THC component?

And they also read that Kentucky has a bill to raise that level from 0.3 to 1%.

Are you familiar with that?

And what about Montana's situation?

- That's a good question.

So in Montana's, it's 0.3.

I'm not familiar with the Kentucky bill, but I do know there's a nationwide industry push, I've heard that from more than one place in Kentucky, I'm not super familiar with it, but in Montana it's, 0.3, is the allowable limit.

- May not be able to answer this tonight because they don't have a horticulturalist here but we have a question from Sydney, Australia.

Now let me qualify that, they just moved to Sydney from Bozeman, they want to grow pumpkin's in a pot inside.

When should they start the seeds?

Anybody wanna take a shot at that one, Mary?

- Well, if they're inside, they can start them at any time if they have a greenhouse situation.

They're going into fall right now in Australia and they'll be planting peas and stuff closer to May, June.

and then they go through their winter, and then the spring growing conditions will be opposite of ours of course.

So, I would suggest looking up some articles on pumpkins and seeing how they do, but I know the gardeners are very active, and there there should be some local gardening organizations that could help out.

- Mary did spend a sabbatical in Australia, so she is qualified to answer that question.

Kim from Great Falls, again, Facebook, how wide is Roundup resistance and is it only being found in agricultural situations or do you also find resistant weeds in horticultural situations?

- Tough questions, resistance to Roundup is pretty widespread.

And I can think of a few weeds that it's widespread in.

So kochia, it's very widespread in the state, mare's tail is another weed and there's a lot of Roundup resistant kochia out towards east of Chinook, over towards the Mondak, and then south towards Miles City.

Russian thistle has been shown to be resistant to Roundup in a couple of cases.

And it's not widespread across the whole state, there can often be pockets of resistance that's out there, but there is a fair amount of resistance to Roundup in a lot of our weeds.

It'll probably keep increasing 'cause we rely on Roundup and chem fallow a lot.

I'm actually screening some prickly lettuce right now for looking at Roundup resistance into it.

It's mostly a crop field problem because that's where we apply the most of it.

When we spray right away or we spray pastures, we often don't use Roundup because it's a non-selective herbicide so it kills everything.

So, we often use it in chem fallow or reuse it pre-plant.

So, that's where we see the most Roundup resistance in weeds in Montana, but it's pretty widespread.

The whole reason the Southeastern United States has moved to this 24D soybean cropping systems and Dicamba cropping systems that have caused a lot of crop damage is basically because most of the weeds, or a lot of weeds in the Southeast are So, it's a big issue.

- Okay, thank you.

Have you seen it in lawn and garden?

If you've mentioned that I missed that.

- I don't think we've seen it in lawn and gardens, I've talked to a couple people actually this last few weeks who are out in the Eastern part of the state and they're starting to see more Roundup resistant mare's tail show up in some of their hay pastures, we've talked about with a few producers.

But I don't think there's much in lawn and garden that I know of at least.

- Thank you, Weston, and this an interesting question.

This person recently read that Humboldt, California is considering banning commercial hemp co-elevation citing concerns with cross-pollination and the introduction of new pest to their cannabis crop which is the one that you don't want in Montana.

Have you heard about that?

And would that be a situation that could happen?

- Yup, go ahead.

So, I love when you start with, "This as an interesting question."

(Jack and Weston laughing) No, but that is a good question.

And there's definitely been talk about it as far as the cross-pollination and things like that.

So, I'm sure there's concern.

Like I said, at the department, we're excited about industrial hemp, so that's what we'll keep our focus on and make sure it stays separate, but I couldn't comment to specific measures that are being taken to avoid that.

I couldn't comment on those specifically, but I have heard there's concern, just like anything you're farming, you're bringing in something new or you're bringing in something different, there's always concern.

- So, the pollen transfer with hemp, with the cannabis family is it happens pretty readily.

And actually some of the things, or some of the concerns that I was hearing about two and three years ago were more from CBD growers who were concerned about the dual purpose grain growers, who their pollen was gonna be contaminating their CBD crops and destroying that higher level of CBD oil that they would wanna produce, and worse, well, that's essentially the way it works.

- Okay, you brought up CBD oil.

Between you and Weston, explain to the audience what is CBD oil and what's it used for.

- Weston.

(everyone laughing) - I'm definitely not an expert on CBD but it's a natural compound found in the plant.

And that's a big part of what the USDA has to deal with, and I know FDA, and things like that.

So, I need to share a little background here.

So, like you said, hemp was a nasty word not too long ago, or when were growing up.

Well, basically think about what has happened in the innovations in agriculture that have happened in the last 80 years.

That's the last time that hemp was legal to grow in the United States.

So, we've got an entire crop that has missed out almost on 80 years of innovation within our country.

Now I know it's grown across the world, so not entirely, but there there's a lot of studies still happening and things like that.

So, as far as making claims on what CBD doe, there's a lot of folks that use it as a supplement, as a vitamin, things like that, that's the tricky part about doing this, is you're not able to make health claims about it.

So, that's what it does.

There's a multitude, we have several processors in the state that process it, and they are so innovative and use it in so many different things.

And it's pretty neat to see, but that's as far as I'd be able to comment on what it does.

- So, hemp is a really interesting crop from a biochemical perspective.

It has a number of different secondary metabolites that it makes, and THC is one of them.

They're in the cannabinoid family, and so CBD is one, there's CBR, there's different derivatives that it can make, and they all come out of the these little glandular hairs that are on the floral bracts of the flowering part of the hemp structure, or the hemp plant.

If you wanna get a little high concentration of those compounds, you wanna have a lot of bud production but you don't actually want it to get pollinated.

So, earlier when we were talking about this cross pollination issue, that's one of the things that the CBD oil, that people were really concerned about.

Oh, hopefully I'm still there, oh shit.

- [Jack] Technical difficulty.

If those plants get pollinated, they basically stop their bud formation, and so you get a much, much lower yield of CBD oil, or basically, the glandular hairs on the flowers.

You want as much a bud production as you can.

And by the way, the same is true for marijuana.

You'd want as much bud production as you can to get really high biochemical yield.

- Are the oils that are all regulated by the Food and Drug Administration?

- Back to Weston.

- (laughing) Weston, do you wanna jump on that one?

- As far as I know, the FDA has not made any ruling on the CBD or any of the others, that's definitely something that the industry is excited to learn when it happens, but it's taken its time.

So, now there's no official ruling from the FDA on that type of regulation, as far as I know.

- Okay, thank you guys.

Back to Tim, and then I've got one here for Mary, but this is interesting, came in from Bozeman.

And this person would like to settle an argument between him and his wife.

He says, spraying lawn weeds is best method of controlling none wanted broad leaves, and she says that weed and feed is the best method.

You're up to Tim.

- Uh, we need a horticulturist specialist to answer that one, I don't wanna get in between a husband and a wife, so, I won't take a side on it.

So weed and feed actually has a herbicide in it, and so does just spraying our lawns.

And we often rely on synthetic oxen herbicides, which kill only broad leaf plants.

So, those herbicides are present in both the weed and feed product, and the product that you would apply, just to your lawn, just to herbicide.

When you add a weed and feed, you're adding a nitrogen fertilization to your lawn.

So, it's gonna grow more vigorously and maybe be a more competitive lawn.

So, maybe that's a good thing, that's a slight advantage, but otherwise I think they're gonna perform about the same when it comes to weed control.

- That's a nice way to say, you really are not gonna answer it, Perry you have- - Tim, I got to tell you a funny story, a few years ago, quite a few years ago, I bought a house and the yard wasn't in great shape.

And it had some weeds, and the grass wasn't growing as vigorously as I wanted, so I went and got some weed and feed material, and somehow I got it wet.

And so when I was spreading it, it was glamp on over the spreader instead of really spreading nicely.

And then the areas that were thinnest, I put extra on.

What do you think my lawn looked like after that?

I absolutely killed- - Up and down, all over the place.

- It was horrible, I actually killed grass 'cause I got too much herbicide on some areas, and anyways, I've never used it since, but that was definitely an applicator error.

(Tim and Jack laughing) - Sounds good.

Mary, this person from Three Fork says that the evergreens are brown mainly on the Southwest side of the house, the rest look fine.

Any indication what might've happened?

- This is a very common complaint this time of year when we come out of the winter and everything starts to green up except for the pine trees and the spruce, especially on one side, and that tends to be the Southwest side which gets the most sun and wind during the winter.

I think Paul might have some pictures that he can put up, but it's just a drought response.

Like right here, you can see some of those shrubs just have exposure on that side and are dying off.

They'll cast off those needles.

They won't come back but it'll continue growing from the tips.

And then Jack, I also looked up when the plant pumpkin's in Sydney and it gives a range of September to January, in tempered Australia.

So, that'd be the Southern part of Australia.

And so they should contact somebody local about the dates but you can actually store them directly in the soil, you don't have to start them in the house, because they have a lot more growing degree days than we do, so, it said in the article, December to January for a fall harvest.

- Okay, thank you.

Weston, a question from Great Falls.

This person had thought about applying for a hemp processing license.

I'm not sure what that is, but he was shocked to see how expensive it was to get one of these.

Can you tell him why it's so pricey?

- That is a good question, And would be a really good question for Andy Gray who is our Hemp Program Coordinator?

That would be a good question.

Him or Andy Fjeseth, but as far as I know, the processor licensing, those fees are used 'cause there's site visits that go into this.

So, to get a processing license, there's obviously different things that you need to do, but one of those things is a site visit.

So you've got to have staff come visit and that there might be a few of those site visits.

And I'm not saying that's the only thing, but there's definitely costs for the department to process the licenses and things like that.

But as far as exactly, those would be good questions for Andy Fjeseth, for Andy Gray, in our department.

- Okay, while I've got you up Weston, from Butte, this person noted that you were talking about a Department of Ag Newsletter.

they would like to know how a person can sign up to get these newsletters.

- Yeah, that is a good question.

And if you are interested in Facebook, Chelsea Bay who manages our communications in the department.

So, you can find her information on our website.

Our Facebook page is a great place, but anywhere on there you can sign up to receive whatever correspondence or information you want from us right from the department website.

I will say Facebook's a really good place to see a lot of the highlights and what things are of major interest at the department.

- Thank you Weston.

Perry, since we're on the topic of hemp, this person from Conrad would like to know is MSU doing an active research program with hemp, or are they standing by the wayside?

- Hello, that's a fair question, because we did stand by the wayside for a while but we have had active research 2018, 2019, 2020, this year, there's still a little bit of time yet, I don't know exactly what's gonna be in the ground for 2021, I know it sounds like up at Harvard they're at least gonna have a demonstration plot.

I think that may be all we have is some demonstration dual-purpose and some demonstration fiber plots that we can collect some information on, at the same time use for actually some student classes.

And then Chancy Chan has been working up at Eastern Agri Research Center on some proposals that would get some research done.

And so, I don't exactly know what the status of that is, whether any of that would happen for this year.

So, I guess I wouldn't say we're not formally standing on the sidelines, but at the same time it costs money to do research, you need funding, and so that's been really sort of the challenge, there just isn't a dedicated source of funding to use to do the trials that these people might be interested in, so that is a bit of a challenge.

- Okay, thank you.

And a followup question from Schoedel.

Do you believe that hemp is a solid crop or is it going to go the way of camelina, Jerusalem artichoke and a few others they mentioned?

We've had a lot of new crops that didn't make it and they were promoted.

- And so that's definitely a question for Weston, I'll give you my take first.

I think that it is an interesting crop and we're still, like, Weston alluded to earlier, we've gone 80 years without research, we don't really know what the competitive advantage is for this crop in Montana.

And so I think we've got to do some research to figure that out.

I think there are a couple angles that might might yield a useful industry, or useful crop, but I know Weston works directly with the processors and venture capital groups that are actually doing some pretty significant business or at least some significant investments with hemp.

So, what's your take Weston?

- I definitely take it back to what I said about that 80 year gap.

What a difference 80 years can make.

So, there's a lot of development that the industry definitely in the United States needs to mature and it's definitely happening.

So, I think you gotta do your homework.

If you're gonna plant hemp, you have to do your homework and you have to have a place for it to go.

Just like any crop, but it's gonna take some development to become such a commodity like wheat or pulses even.

And if you look at like what's happened in pulses in the last 20 years in Montana, that's been incredible.

So, is hemp gonna gonna that way?

Couldn't tell you.

But, one thing that I've seen just in my short time at the department working with hemp, is it's been exciting to see the hemp acres that are non CBD uses.

So, I need to back up from when you asked about acres, I need to correct that.

I said 14,000 acres in 2020, that might've been the projected, but actual acres we had right on almost 1100 planted and the 10,000, we had almost 10,000 that were fiber and grain acres.

For me, as growing up on a cattle and hay operation in central Montana, those are the things that I'm most familiar with.

So, I can see that hemp grain, that's an exciting crop.

Definitely it's gonna take some learning curve on how to grow it, and yields, and things like that, and like Perry said.

there's lots of research that needs to be done.

Fiber side, boy, there's an opportunity for fiber, I think, out there.

So, they pose some interesting and exciting opportunities, but not without challenges.

- So, when I look at a new crop, I'm trying to see what competitive relative to somebody else, and Weston mentioned pulse crops.

Well, we had such a strong competitive advantage because they get diseases everywhere else.

And so in this dry area, water use efficient crops have just worked really well.

With hemp, we're still trying to figure that out.

What is our competitive advantage?

It's a crop that theoretically you could grow just about anywhere in this country.

So, what can we do in Montana that somebody else can't do as well?

And I think there are some angles, with the grain production, especially in an organic production center with our robust group of organic farmers we have in the state, I think there's some angles there that could be pretty profitable and give us a bit of an edge.

- Right now it sounds pretty positive.

- Exploratory.

- Okay, sounds good to me.

- Tim, I love these interesting questions.

This is from Billings.

There are locally grocery and hardware stores that advertise 20 and 30% acetic acid as an alternative herbicide to Roundup.

Is this a viable alternative?

It's about $20 a gallon, so similar in cost to Roundup, use would be in the home garden.

I'm interested to see what you have to say - So, acetic acid has been a go.

And there are a number of organic herbicides that are out there that are based on acetic acid, or some sort of acetic function.

They can work for annual weeds.

So, weeds that just have a one-year life cycle.

You spray it on those weeds and that acetic acid will burn it down.

That's what the term we tend to use.

It'll basically cause the little seedlings to burn down and then they'll die, and you'll wipe that flush out with acetic acid.

Acetic acid is not gonna work on any perennial weed like Canada, thistle, quack, grass, field bindweed, or any of our really tough, tough, problematic weeds.

So, there is a use for it out there.

It's probably pretty expensive.

If you're an organic producer, you can use it to get an annual weed flush taken care of, but it doesn't have any residual in the soil, it doesn't affect it for any longer than that.

So, I think I'll say that, glyphosate would be much more effective probably for the task that you're looking at and probably much less expensive too.

- Thank you, we always encourage comments.

So, we have a couple of them.

First of all, I'm gonna read one from Great Falls.

The comment about CBD oils.

CBD is regulated by the FDA because it was approved a couple of years ago for the treatment of epilepsy.

The product is called Epidiolex and it's produced by GW Pharmaceutical.

So, that answers part of that question.

Then also from Laurel, Mr. Johnson says he had a comment on the pumpkin question, and this is interesting.

Growing pumpkin South of the equator, they don't grow ice pumpkins like we use for Halloween down under, they're called winter squash, butternut, and acorn pumpkins in Australia.

And that's probably what the people from Sydney asked.

He said, he's enjoying the show tonight.

So, those two comments and I'll move over to Mary.

And this person from Conrad, we're busy in Conrad today, they would like to try to grow some organic chickpeas or garbanzo beans, is that realistic in the Conrad area?

- I think it can be, they might wanna talk to the organic seed company up there about some specifics.

It all depends on how much water they get.

And if they're gonna grow chickpeas organically, either disease or coolies, they're going to want to delay planting compared to the peas or lentils because of the susceptibility of chickpeas to Pythium damping off.

So, ideally the soil temperature would be 55 before they would plant their chickpeas.

And we have a very successful organic grower near Big Sandy that does chickpeas every year.

And sometimes he does great, and sometimes it just doesn't turn out.

So, it's a risk always.

- But if you're successfully growing organic chickpeas, the value of that chickpea crop can easily double or more.

Am I correct there?

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

- Weston, I'm not gonna say this is interesting, I wanna put you on the spot instead.

A neighbor of mine near Scobey had around 60 bales of X59 fiber for sale.

And I don't know what X59 fiber is.

- It's a variety of hamper, a green variety.

- They would like to know where they could sell it or if they can show it, you wanna tackle that one?

- That's a good little I was thinking about points of interest for the show and things like that.

Well, something that we've done at the department, something small but it can be very helpful.

On our website we have a hemp marketplace.

So, if you've got bales of hemp for sale you can get on to our hemp marketplace and put your information, and we review it, approve that it can be posted, and then we'll post that for people to see.

If you're looking to buy, you can put your information on what you're looking for if you're looking to sell.

So, I would encourage you to use the hemp marketplace to sell that, you just never know, get it out there.

It doesn't take much to input your information on how people can get a hold of you.

But, that's where I would go first, to that hem marketplace.

But that's probably the hardest thing about hemp right now.

'Cause it's already in products that we use, there's hemp clothing all over the place, all imported.

You can go to Costco and pick up a bag of hemp hearts.

Most likely those hearts come from from Canada, imported.

So, we use it it's that processing side, and especially on the fiber that's gonna take some time to catch up processing fiber on a large scale and getting it to something that is usable.

That's definitely the bottleneck in our supply chain in the United States overall.

And we've got some exciting fiber processors looking at Montana, and we've already got some here.

- Question I have, how profitable can hemp be?

I'm always looking at the economics, can you make money at the crop right now?

So, I think without me naming a company, 'cause I don't think we're supposed to do that.

But I know there were some contract prices available last year for a conventional hemp that were in the range of 40 cents a pound and up, and I think organic was pushing closer to 80 cents a pound.

And so if you could get, six, 800 pounds to the acre of seed, multiply that by 80 cents a pound, you know, depending what your costs are, yeah, there's potential to make money there for sure.

- Beat spring wheat.

- Well, I could, some things have to go right, but yeah, it could.

- Tim from Great Falls, and there's been a lot in the press about dicamba and dicamba is also known as Banvel, but dicamba was used in their neighborhood and that caused some damage to linden trees.

Are there any regulatory changes anticipated for Dicamba, and will it still be available for use here in the State of Montana?

- Yes, we will continue to use dicamba in Montana.

We use a form of dicamba that is less volatile than what they've been using in the Southeastern and the Southcentral United States.

So, in the Southeastern, Southcentral United States, in soybeans, cotton, they've developed new cropping systems where the crops are resistant to dicamba, and they apply the product in the crop.

The problem that they had in the Southeastern United States is they were using a very volatile form of that dicamba.

And it has to do with its pH and the type of chemical molecule that it's tied to, but when they did that, it caused basically really huge drift problems that caused millions and millions of dollars in damage to crops, forests, gardens, neighborhoods, all kinds of things.

And the EPA has kind of gone back and forth on whether it will be allowed, they'll be allowed to use this more volatile version or not.

But in Montana we will continue to use the less volatile version, because we couldn't even think about it because we don't have the humidity, the heat, the evaporation here, we couldn't even begin to use the more volatile version of dicamba in Montana.

So, we'll continue to use it, Clarity, Banvel, are two of the names that are out there.

They've been there for a long time.

We don't have a lot of dicamba resistant weeds in Montana, so, I think we'll continue using it as we go along.

- Let me throw one other observation out Tim, if you're using Dicamba in your yard, and a lot of people have a tendency to harvest their grass clippings and use it for mulch around things, dicamba is a little more persistent than, say, your classic 24D formulations, so, you've got to be a little cautious there.

- Yup absolutely, on the msu.org webpage there's publication from Cecil Thorpe and his group about compost and residual herbicides in there.

- Okay, thank you.

Mary, our annual question from Bute, "How do you get rid of fairy rings?"

And for Auksis, it's the one and only time we're gonna answer it this way, Mary.

- So, it's important to understand that fairy rings are mushrooms growing out of decay, organic material.

So, you probably had a tree or something that you've cut down that now the mushrooms are feeding on.

You can't really get rid of them although you can try some fungicides, Jack you might be able to speak to that.

But you can fertilizer on to encourage the decomposition of the organic matter and make it a more even green.

- [Jack] That works.

- Mary does it ever fully decay, that organic matter?

I've had fairy rings in the same spot in my yard for 23 years.

And I'm wondering sooner or later shouldn't that decay and go away.

- Probably if it's a pine, it would go faster than if it was an oak.

- You know, if you water heavily and fertilize fairly heavily, it should break down Perry.

- I don't water at all.

- Well, then that's why you have fairy rings.

Pay the water bills.

(Jack and Perry laughing) Okay, this is both for Weston and Mary, are there any new miracle crops?

Are any new exciting crops projected for growth here in Montana?

Any thoughts on that guys?

- I'll let Weston take a turn here in a second, but I get that question quite often and there aren't that many miracles out there, and if I knew about it, the cat's already out of the bag by the time it gets to me.

I mean, I think we've talked about winter canola, as a promising crop, the pulse crops, there's some market things to sort out there, but that's a good fit and a lot of dry land cropping systems but I could mention a couple of crops, but there's such small niche market potential I don't... - Canary seed type crops.

- Yeah, or smaller.

- Or smaller, okay.

Weston, how about you, any thoughts on that?

- I would echo what Perry said.

I think it's important to always be looking for new things, but also no, let's stick to what we do best and let's do what's in our wheelhouse.

I'll tie that back to him a little bit.

I think that our farmers, we know how to grow grain.

So, if you're looking at hemp, let's think about grain.

We know how to grow those types of crops, so, that's what I try to stick to.

And I think it's important to do those things.

Always be looking for new stuff, but don't be afraid to stick to what's working either.

- Well, as I understand, canola acres are increasing in the state, is that true?

- They have, they're right in the order of 150,000 acres, and have been for about the last three years.

The challenge with canola is if you get away from irrigation very far, the seed cost for spring canola anymore with these modern genetics packages, which are worth it, if you're in an area where you can get the yield return on it.

It's challenging, if you're in a 20, 30 bushels spring yield or spring canola yield potential in Montana, it's really hard to get enough payback on those seed costs to make it worthwhile.

That's one of the reasons we're interested in the winter canola is 'cause ostensibly you could have twice the yield return as a spring canola, I've seen that often enough to believe it's possible.

And at the moment, the seed cost is actually cheaper for the winter canola too.

So, it's a riskier package to try and get it to survive, but from the raw economics of how much seed, or how much cost do I have in a seed, versus what I can return, it's probably a better bet.

- What about processing canola here at Montana?

If we're growing 150,000 acres, where are we processing this into canola oil?

Weston, you got a thought on that?

- So, that's a good question.

I know that there in Great Falls, they put in a big crushing plants for our oil seeds, so, it's definitely being processed, and as Perry said, the last three years, the acreage has just held steady.

But I think it's gonna look to increase as farmers look to diversify cropping systems and income.

So, yeah, we've got processing here in the state.

- So, canola price has really spiked right this winter.

So, I think just that fact alone is probably gonna encourage a little more production.

But I called a few guys and talked to 'em about it, and it still the seed cost aspect of them scares them a little bit.

- Kim from Shelby, their nights are 20 degrees and the days are running around 50, is this a good time to spray cheatgrass with Roundup?

Or should it be warmer?

Quick answer.

- No, this is a really good time, you wanna spray it before the plants get very big, do it between 10 and four in the day when it's warm and the plants are actively growing, don't do it at six o'clock in the morning.

- Weston, what do you project for acres, and I realized this is a guess, but this person would like to know what the projection for hemp acres this year would be in the State of Montana.

- Yeah, that's a good question.

I'd be hard pressed to throw at a number.

As you can probably see that our acres have gone up and down or, they were way high and then they decrease quite a bit.

But those fiber acres stayed pretty steady.

So, I would think grain and fiber variety wise, we could be steady, but it'll be hard.

It'll be something to see.

The application deadline's May 30th.

So, I could give you a good projection after that.

- (laughing) That makes sense on that note, and we're running low on time, quick answer here.

There was a company I believe called Isotech in Libby that was supposed to hire around 80 people in their hemp facility.

Is that disappeared or is that still functional, anybody know?

- I couldn't comment, but I haven't heard much about them in a while.

- A reminder to viewers, if you're interested in the "Montana Ag Live" newsletter articles highlights, visit montanapbs.org/aglive, and you can subscribe to the newsletter and get additional information.

Mary, one last question, any of after effects of snow mold?

- Not unless the grass dies, that needs just some reseeding to it.

- And any suggestions, how to tell that?

A lot of times the grass grass will come back a little bit later on.

- Yeah, it gets a little slow.

I would just wait until it warms up and the rest of the lawn's green to make an assessment.

- Folks, we're down to the last few moments of this program.

First of all, I'd like to thank Weston for joining us from Helena, he did a great job.

We learned a lot about hemp, I've learned a lot.

It's an exciting new crop, and we'll see where it goes in the State of Montana.

Thank the panel, Perry, it's good to have you back in the studio again, Mary, Tim, thank you for your input tonight.

We will be back next week.

Next week, we'll be an interesting program.

We're gonna look at the potential of the emerald ash borer causing serious damage here in the State of Montana, ash trees are prevalent.

With that folks, have a good week, good night.

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

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