- [Announcer] Montana AG Live is made possible by (calm guitar music begins) The Montana Department of Agriculture, The MSU Extension Service, The MSU AG Experiment Stations of the College of Agriculture, The Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, The Montana Bankers Association, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, The Gallatin Gardeners Club, and The Rocky Mountain Certified Crop Adviser Program.

(lively guitar music begins) - Good evening, folks.

You are tuned to Montana AG Live.

Originated and live from the studios with KUSM, on a very vibrant campus of Montana State University.

And also, our offices and homes around the beautiful state of Montana.

I'm Jack Riesselman and I'm honored to be your host this evening.

For those of you have watched this program in the past, you know how it works.

You provide the questions and we'll our best to provide a good answer to your questions.

There's a phone number on the screen.

There'll be on there shortly.

You can call that number anytime tonight.

We have a special guest.

Addressing range issues, lifestyle issues, tonight.

If we have horticultural questions, entomology questions, go ahead and send them in.

We'll use them next week.

We do have a Weed Scientist on the program tonight.

So, we do have a lot of noxious and obnoxious weeds in the state.

So if you have questions about that, please send them in.

To get started tonight, let me introduce our panel.

Here in the studio with me tonight, you all recognize Jane Mangold.

Jane is our Invasive Weed Scientist, I'd just like to call her an Invasive Weed Scientist or Weed Scientist, I don't care.

(chuckles) She knows a lot about all the weeds and we have plenty of them in the state.

Our special guest tonight is Rachel Frost.

Rachel is in charge of a really unique program here at Montana State University called the Dan Scott Ranch Management Program.

We're gonna learn a lot about that.

I don't know much about it tonight.

So I'm really excited to learn what's going on.

From what I've heard and read, it's a great program.

Also joining us tonight, is Clayton Marlow.

Clayton is kind of a jack-of-all-trades.

But he's a Range Manager Specialist and really knows a lot about Range throughout the state of Montana.

And for that matter, throughout the western part of the United States.

And Eric Glasgow.

Eric is a very renowned AG Economist.

So if you have any questions about AG Econ tonight, the economics are producing anything, hey, phone them in, and we'll take a good shot at answering those questions.

Before we start, let me go back to Rachel.

Rachel, can you tell us a little bit about the program that you're involved with?

- Yes, Jack, I can.

Thank you for having me on.

It's my pleasure to be here tonight and to talk about the Dan Scott Ranch Management Program here at MSU.

The program is located within the Department of Animal and Range Sciences.

And it's been started for about two years.

I was hired as the program lead just under two years ago, and it was the perfect opportunity to in ranching with a love of teaching and working with young people, and also the ranching community in Montana.

So, the program, the main purpose of it is a Bachelor's Degree in what we call Ranching Systems.

And this Bachelor's Degree, combines classes from the disciplines of Animal Science, Range Management, as well as Business Management And Economics.

So, it attempts to provide students with that really broad foundation that they need to become successful Ranch Managers.

So that they can deal with the livestock.

They can be good Conservationists of that they are overseeing, and they can also be good stewards of the finance of that operation as well.

- Okay.

- The program combines that really challenging curriculum with some real world experience and puts those students on working ranches for two consecutive summers.

So they get to interact with those ranch owners really learn day to day.

What it's like to be on a ranch, find new ways of doing things maybe then they're used to.

Even if they come from a ranching background.

And they do that for two consecutive summers so that they can get really well acquainted with the ranch.

And it also means that we are really dependent on the ranching community here in Montana to help us with this program and to help it be successful.

(tongue clicks) So Ranch Management is really a much more complex career than most people think it is.

And even though the program's only been around for two years, for the last 10 years, plus there's been some key players in Montana that have recognized a need for some more professional training for Ranch Managers.

And so they went about working with folks at MSU, working with others in the state to be able to get this program up and going.

And also to find some donors because the program is completely run through an endowment through the Alumni Foundation.

And so- - I have- - Go ahead, I'm sorry.

- Yeah, Jack.

Go ahead.

- A question just came in and they want to know where the Dan Scout name came from.

- Right.

The Dan Scott name came from Dan Scott, who was a longtime manager of the Padlock Ranch in Montana and Wyoming.

And his daughter, Risa Scott, is the primary donor of the program.

And so, she was able to name the program in honor of her late father, Dan Scott.

- Okay.

We'll come back to you but we have a couple of other questions that came in on Facebook and also through email.

And folks, if you don't want to make a phone call tonight, we do take questions via email and also Facebook.

Before we get there, Clayton, a question from Manhattan.

They have fencer stream to keep cattle off the wet areas.

And that's a very advisable thing to do, I know.

But now they have a Canada thistle and also some knapweed coming in along that stream.

They would like to know what they can do to spray those weeds and still not affect the riparian habitat.

Jane, you can jump in after Clayton.

- All right, sounds good.

- I appreciate the opportunity to share this answer with Dr. Mangold because our tendency is to immediately try to apply a herbicide.

And my experience, leads me to believe that a lot of the lead problems in riparian areas actually arise from not grazing the area.

Particularly with Canada thistle and knapweed, because the high vegetation productivity in that stream bank builds up a tremendous amount of litter on the soil surface that remains moist.

And we actually find weed species germinating in the litter layer and then rooting down into the stream bank.

And so these plants, the native plants can't compete with or hold out those weeds because of the litter buildup.

And we found in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, that judicious grazing of riparian areas will reduce that litter buildup and limit the amount of weed coming into that stream bank community.

So Jane, what about the herbicide control?

- Yeah, well, there are fortunately both Canada thistle and spotted knapweed can be controlled with the same herbicide products that contain aminopyralid.

And that product can be sprayed up to water's edge.

That's a good option in this situation.

I would also, given what Clayton was saying about the grazing and maybe the area hasn't been grazed well enough, maybe some mob grazing or targeted grazing.

We do know that cattle will eat both Canada thistle and spotted knapweed if they don't have a lot of other options.

They could consider some mob grazing at the right time of the year to help control those.

In addition to maybe some spot spraying as necessary.

- Okay.

I wanna throw this out.

You know, I fished the gout in quite a little bit.

Not so much Canada thistle, but I see a lot of spotted knapweed on the islands and so forth.

How does he get there?

I'm curious.

The mechanism by which we get seed all up and down our riparian and stream rivers.

- Yeah, well, - riparian areas and rivers are really challenging because they're high disturbance systems.

And weeds love disturbance.

They like the bare soil, the bare ground, the scouring.

And the seeds are moving through the water.

A lot of those seeds, a lot of them can drop into the water and move downstream and then land in these areas that have been scoured where there's fresh space for something to grow.

Weeds love riparian systems.

'Cause they're highly disturbed.

- Oh, well they do well there.

There's no doubt about that.

- Yeah.

- Rachel, a question from Drummond.

They would like to know, is this Ranch Management a four-year program?

And I think you mentioned how long it's been ongoing.

Have you had any graduates yet?

- The program is a four-year program for the degree in Ranching Systems, yes.

And we have not had any graduates yet.

Our first graduate will come out in December of this year.

We're excited to have him.

He was the first one accepted into the program.

If I could, I'll explain just a little bit because Ranching Systems is a four-year degree.

And anyone who comes to MSU and Department of Animal Range could declare Ranching Systems as their major.

However, to actually get into the program, towards the ends of their sophomore year, they need to go through an application process.

And that application looks at their current GPA and their activities and experience in ranching.

And the amount of credits that they have gained towards the program.

And at that time, students are evaluated by myself and another selection committee to see if they're accepted into the upper portion of the program.

If they are, then they'll start off with the internships and the rest of the curriculum, along with the specific Ranching Systems courses to take them through the end of that four-year degree.

- Okay.

Appreciate it.

Eric, bring you up here.

It's an interesting question.

Put you on the spot here.

It's from Josh and Bill Hicks.

This person says, "I will be attending MSU next year and I'm debating on majoring in AG, Econ or Business.

Looking ahead, are there good jobs for students graduating in AG, Econ and AG Business?

Or should they go to Business?"

- I love the question.

Well, I mean, you should come to MSU.

I think there are different options between the two AG Econ.

We've focused much more on the economic side of learning Agriculture.

There's a lot of specific things to Agriculture like Marketing.

So for example, I teach a class in Futures and Options, which would be in Agriculture.

Whereas, if you take a Marketing class in Business, you learn more about how to market product to consumers.

And so, it's really just, if you want to stay in Agriculture than AG Econ, it's really sort of been that mainstay.

The Business degree is much more set up for a general education if you want to go into Business.

So both are really good programs.

I would say a lot of the students that come out of the AG Econ program, tend to go into the lending and supportive agricultural industries.

There are a lot who like to go back to the ranch.

And I guess that's one of the appealing things about the Ranching Systems Program is that, it gets students, by the time they graduate, it has a really intensive internship program, so that when they graduate, they're not just in the classroom, but they've spent quite a bit of time on ranches and they really understand how they function.

- Appreciate the answer.

Good points.

Jane, I like this one.

This person from Missoula feels that dandelions should not be classified as weeds, but can be beneficial for home situations.

Would you please comment on the beneficial use of dandelions in - Yeah, well, a weed is in the eye of the beholder.

- Sure.

- So, the first comment there about the caller doesn't think that dandelions should be a weed, that's fine.

She doesn't have to think they are a weed.

And they're not a noxious weed in the sense that you have to control them if they're on your property.

I think one of the benefits of dandelion is it does flower early in the summer.

And it does provide some early floral resources for pollinators, for honeybees and other types of bees.

I see that as a real positive aspect of dandelions.

They kind of have that flush of flowers.

Then they kind of disappear for the rest of the summer (laughs) and people don't notice them as much.

So they do offer that early in the season.

- Yeah.

I am not a dandelion fan, but I have to admit it, I've seen some fields of alfalfa around the Garden Valley that are absolutely gorgeous based on the amount of dandelions.

I'm sure the bees are very happy.

- Yeah.

I've seen some of those too and they're pretty amazing.

- Let me throw that to Clayton.

Clayton, are dandelions have a nutritional value for grazing for cattle or not?

Can you answer that one?

- Not necessarily for cattle, but they're incredibly important.

And Rachel can jump on this too.

They're incredibly important for sage-grouse checks as they first come off of the nest because they're one of the early forbs.

So they're available for these checks and give them enough intake to survive that critical first three or four weeks off the nest.

Another species that makes incredible use of dandelions that a lot of people don't think about are beaver.

And just about this time of the year, the beaver moving out into the riparian areas, foraging on dandelions.

- I didn't know that.

- I don't know if any of our Wildlife Biologists have at what they're drawing from that, but they do make very heavy use of dandelions in that April, early May areas.

I tend not to think of dandelions as a critical weed to be dealt with because not only the pollinators, but also young grouse chicks rely heavily on those leaves to survive.

- Hmm.

Interesting.

- Yeah.

- I did not know that about beaver, Clayton.

Thanks for the info.

- Yeah.

I'm really happy (laughs) to have that information too.

'Cause I feel like every year, I'm trying to convince people not to get too worked up about their dandelions.

It's good to know there's some benefits out in the range and natural areas.

- I agree.

Rachel, a Facebook question.

It's from Dylan and anybody can jump in on this.

And Eric, you too.

There are lots of large ranches in Montana.

The caller is curious if most of these are family managed or are they investment ranchers owned by out of state owners?

You guys wanna jump on that?

For your opinions?

- I can start it and then, Clayton and Eric can jump in later.

That's really a great question.

And the answer is that, I don't think anybody knows exactly what percentage of ranches are owned by family and what percentage are owned as investment properties from wealthy people that may or may not be living out of state or being on that ranch.

And certainly, that percentage has changed a lot in the last year.

We have seen a real turnover in the real estate market as far as folks relocating because of COVID and just rethinking their lifestyle and how much they want to be on maybe larger pieces of property as well.

So yes, there are still some really large ranches that are family-owned and have been for multiple generations.

And those families have done a really great job of working through estate planning and being very careful about how they transition that property from generation to generation.

And those younger generations have also been really good about creating a place of value for themselves and a willingness and a reason to come back to that operation too.

And then we see these investment properties, a lot of them have professional Ranch Managers.

That's one of the services of this program.

A Ranching Systems is to provide trained individuals who can help these people who bought these properties in as investment, to really keep them operating and functioning as part of our agricultural livelihood here in the state, to keep them employing Ranch Managers and local families to do the labor, helping support those local communities as well.

So there's a place for both of those operations.

And the students from this program are gonna be equally prepared, hopefully, to go back to either a family operation as a multi-generation person, or to step in as one of those professional managers for someone with an investment property.

- Anybody else - Yeah, I just- want to jump in?

- Yeah.

I'll add to that.

I mean, Rachel hit it on the head.

You see real estate values moving the way they have and people want to invest.

We've seen across the country, of movement towards lifestyle or hobby farms and ranches.

One thing that that does too at least our graduates, if you think of, as they're getting to their senior year, looking for employment, I think historically, we would have had students at MSU go right back into their ranches or back into their farm operations.

But it does make it a little harder to get in.

And we have a lot of students, even though their families are running ranches, they have to find some employment outside of the ranch for a little bit, get some outside experience before there's room for them to go back to the ranch.

So I think that's where a program like the Ranching Systems fits in and gets good students on the ranch where it's really hard to get that kind of experience.

And frankly, it's really hard to get hired on some of those ranches unless you have some of that experience.

I think it's the landscape.

It's not something that has just recently changed, but we've been seeing this for the last 10, 20 years, at least in Montana.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Clayton, you've been around here a long time.

What are you seeing, ranches changing hands a lot or not?

- From a historical perspective, I would submit that we're probably about the same mix of out of state investors, large corporate ranchers, and family-owned operations.

Today, as we had, at the time, Montana entered statehood.

Admittedly, we had people like Grant and Kohrs and Story, the big Circle C out of the multi-country, that were owned by individuals, managed by individuals.

but there were just as many corporate ranches in the 1890s, 1900.

In fact, I would quickly point out that the little watercolor that brought Charlie Russell the fame and glory, was a response to the investor about their condition of their cattle during that severe winter.

- Hmm.

- And Russell simply painted the picture of the starving steer that everybody's seen and sent it back to the investor.

My feeling is it's about the same proportion as we've probably ever seen.

- Okay.

Thank you.

- Hmm.

- Back to Jane.

I have actually two questions.

I'll hit you at the first one from Bozeman.

They have a farm with a couple of corrals, full of various weeds including mallow, and I hate mallow, cheatgrass and others.

Is our native grass that they could plant to help control the weeds in a feedlot situation?

- Well, in a feedlot situation, again, you're gonna have this constant disturbance.

So I think it's gonna be really challenging to get something in there that will tolerate that kind of disturbance, season after season and year after year.

I'd have to think about that.

It'd be hard to get something in there growing that might not become a weed itself.

We have some pretty tough grasses, but then, those grasses end up going places we don't necessarily want them to grow.

- Okay.

And why I have you up provide her, can cheatgrass be controlled by burning?

- Yeah.

Cheatgrass can be controlled by burning.

The timing is really critical.

Cheatgrass is an annual.

So it's producing seeds every year to be next year's crop.

And the best way to...

So you have to control seed production.

Well, the best time to burn the plant and kill the seeds is when the seeds are still on it.

And that would be in the early summer.

It's hard to get a fire to carry well enough because things are still green.

But then, things get too dry and then you run the risk of wildfire.

You can do that, but it's very challenging.

I have heard of producers that have, with very small patches, they've used a propane torch to go around and burn patches.

But generally speaking, it's really challenging.

And if you don't get the timing right, you can actually encourage the growth of cheatgrass.

- And- - That was kind of a wishy-washy answer (laughs) but there's no easy answer to that.

- Plus your seed bank can last for, I'm told, up to 15, 17 years.

- Hmm.

Most of the seeds are germinating and growing within one to two years.

Okay.

All right.

I have a question here from Wisdom.

And this is an interesting one.

We'll let Rachel and Clayton handle this.

Can both cattle and sheep coexist on the same ranch?

Or is the Ranch Management Program just for cattle?

- Go, Rachel.

(laughs) - I will start off to say that it doesn't say it's the Cattle Management Program, it says it's the Ranch Management Program.

As Clayton pointed out earlier about the history of having corporate ranches in Montana, we have a really rich history of multi-species grazing.

In fact, a lot of your larger cattle ranches were probably built on the backs of similarly sheep (laughs) and the profit that they provided.

So yes, this program is well-designed to meet the needs of students who were interested in doing a multi-species approach.

I highly agree with that, from my experience and research that I've done in the past.

And then, just working with animals, understanding their dietary habits.

It's great to have both of those species run in a complimentary manner on rangelands.

Clayton can expand on that a whole lot more about the specific ecological benefits of that.

- One of the first things I'd point out and it really kind of falls in Rachel's wheelhouse, the incompatibility of sheep, goats and cattle on a single ranch is not really the animals, it's the willingness and skill of the owner and manager to handle all three species.

Because each species requires a little different approach, a different management style, different health concerns.

But from an ecological standpoint, sheep, cattle and goats are incredibly complimentary.

In fact, going back to James' comments on cheatgrass, one of my colleagues in Nevada has found that if you can get your sheep or cattle out on cheatgrass to infested areas in late February, early March, other than this year, they will actually consume up to 40% cheatgrass in their daily grazing.

And so you can really begin to set back that cheatgrass to the point that then, fire could be an effective tool in controlling it.

But you have to break away from your traditional idea of Grazing Management and start looking at taking animals out in February and March, rather than keeping them on the hay ground and feeding them hay.

But you'll make much better use, more uniform use of your entire forage base on the ranch, using sheep and cattle than you will, one species or the other.

And finally, some early work done in Mexico, they found that once you get sheep and cattle accustomed to each other and actually run them physically together, the cattle actually provide some predator protection to the sheep.

The sheep began to learn to move in closer to the cattle when the coyote show up.

So you can get that little advantage to putting them both together.

- I'm learning all kinds of things I did not know.

(chuckles) Thanks, Clayton.

Eric, interesting question from Kalispell Ben from Kalispell, says he grew up in rural Nebraska, as I did, and literally, every town had a meat processing facility.

That is not sold here in Montana at the present time.

Do you think that might change?

- Jack, that's a great question.

When I moved here 10 years ago, that was one of the first questions I got.

So it's always been on the minds of Montana ranchers especially.

'Cause there used to be a lot more processing capacity in the state.

The market has really moved toward consolidating some of those industries, especially in meat processing.

One of the biggest challenges to bringing more processing capacity into the state is that it's so much cheaper to produce two to process beef in those larger facilities.

So in order for a facility to work in Montana, you really have to figure out how do you create value for some of those products.

And so that's the big hold up is, trying to figure out how do you make up for that, those cost differentials.

I'm pretty excited.

We're starting a project this year with Dr. Ku over in Food Science.

Trying to figure out some value-added products for bison.

I think that's a step in the right direction.

The other part is just keeping animals in the state, trying to figure out the feed capacity, putting more animals on feed.

And then the other, I guess the last item is that, there's always a lot of interest in meat processing in the state.

And I do think a lot of producers would At the same time, it does take a very large investment from someone who's got to step in and take on the risk.

They can be risky investments.

I think until those walls are pushed through, I think we are where we are right now.

- Okay.

- Jane, from Bozeman.

This person would like you to repeat the name of the herbicide that controls Canada thistle and spotted knapweed up to the water line, and both the scientific and the common name.

- Yes.

So the active ingredient is aminopyralid.

Amino pyralid.

(both laughing) - Okay.

And please don't ask me to spell it at the top of my head.

And it's sold in products like Milestone, ForeFront.

Those are two that come to mind right away.

- Okay.

- Yep.

I appreciate it.

Rachel.

From Facebook.

And this is a question from Lewistown.

The are ranches interested in hosting an intern.

What are the steps and the requirements that they need to go through to do so?

- Well, that is great news to hear that there's more ranches that are interested in hosting interns.

That's again, one of the key things that's gonna make this program successful is being able to get those students out onto those ranches and have just a wide variety of experience.

And the more ranches that I get, the better.

Because I really try hard to match each individual student up with the ranch that's going to fit that student's needs.

So if the student is planning on coming back to a family ranch, then I'm gonna get them into a family operation that's working through that generational transfer process and is willing to share that with the student.

Conversely, if the student is really interested in going the professional route, I'm gonna hook them up with a professional Ranch Manager who can help them understand the complexity sometimes, of communicating with the ownership.

As Clayton said, they don't have Charlie Russell there to put those words into pictures.

Sometimes, they're gonna need to be able to really explain and paint a picture verbally for that owner and also to be able to speak that business language to that owner as well.

But getting back to that internship, if you want to host an intern on your ranch, the easiest way is to get in touch with me directly.

And you can find my contact information by going to the MSU website and searching for Dan Scott.

It pulls up the Dan Scott Ranch Management web page.

It's got my contact information either via email or phone.

And I'm happy to visit with you about the steps.

It's really a simple process.

You fill out a short application that just gives me some basic information about your operation and helps me understand how I could better match students to it.

But one thing to note is these internships are paid internships.

And so they would be your employee.

It's up to you to pay them the wage you would normally pay a part-time employee and they'd be covered on your Workman's Comp Insurance that way.

But other than that, it's a simple process.

And I would love to hear for more ranches and expand that base.

- A question I have.

If you get a degree in this Ranch Management Program, does that qualify you to manage a ranch outside the state of Montana?

Or is it just basically based on Montana situations?

- That is a great question, Jack.

And I would say, yes.

The answer is yes.

We are trying to keep this very principle-based, very systems-based.

So that, those principles of ranching can transfer from one region to the other.

I mean, granted, we may be studying in-depth some of the specific policies or landscapes that are here in Montana, but that stuff would be transferable to another state.

In fact, we do have a student that's currently serving an internship on the Padlock Ranch, the majority of which is Wyoming.

We'll even send students on internships to ranches out of the state if they provide a really great educational opportunity for students, yes.

- Rachel, how many students are currently taking this Ranch Management course or whatever you would term it?

- At this moment, I have four students who have been accepted into the program.

I have the first student who was accepted a year and a half ago and he'll graduate in December.

And I have three more students who are entering their internship this summer.

And they've been accepted to the program.

Interestingly, right now, it is 50/50, males and females in the program.

And so I've got lots of questions from girls before too.

So is was Ranch Management a female occupation?

And I think clearly, that there are plenty of young ladies who are going to be very well-suited to move into those positions.

And it- - What's the capacity?

What would be your - Yes, the capa- - capacity of students?

- Right.

We are set up to accept 10 students per year, maximum.

So we would have 20 that were fully accepted into the program and had already gone through the application phase.

But we could have an infinite number of students who had declared Ranching Systems as a major.

And we're working through those courses as freshmen and sophomore with that angle in mind.

- Great.

I love that program.

It sounds like something that the west really needs.

Eric, from Laurel.

A person in Iowa has noted that land values have jumped up rapidly for farm ground.

Is this impacting agriculture in the state, according to what you've seen?

- Yeah.

And we talked about that a little bit earlier too.

I think one of the trends that we've seen is with students having a hard time going back to the ranch or the farm.

Part of it is just, you see that as these land values go up, farms are forced into either consolidating or exiting the industry, exiting mainly just because of the opportunity cost.

If you have a farm in and around Bozeman for example, you are considering the value that you could get from selling that land.

That's certainly pushes AG away from the Montana cities and into some of the more rural areas where you see some of the herds consolidating a bit out there.

Also, I think just makes it more difficult for graduates just to start small in a farm system, just because the upfront costs are so large.

Land is expensive, equipment's expensive.

And so, for a college graduate to start into farming, it's quite an uphill battle.

- Okay.

Clayton from Manhattan.

This person would like to know, what willows grow best along a spring creek.

And there are a lot of spring creeks in the Manhattan area that are overgrazed for the years, but they're being reclaimed.

So what willows would do well there?

- The native willow that's most adapted in spring creeks and is actually very, very good for spring creeks because it will become a small tree, is booth or no, excuse me, not booth, but diamond willow or bebb willow is the other name for it.

It likes those high constant water tables that you have along spring creeks.

They only catch with bebb willow is that it's very slow-growing.

So you're going to have to protect it from deer in particular because they'll browse it down very quickly.

On the other hand, you can use the yellow willow, as it's commercially referred to, or Russian willow.

This is the one that you see around the old homesteads.

And it'll grow quickly and do very well in the spring creek but it's a non-native.

And on top of that, it also loses its branches.

It deliberately sheds branches through the years.

And pretty soon now, you have a woody litter problem in your spring creek, along with the herbaceous litter problem that Jane and I talked about earlier.

Finally, you can use booth willow on a spring creek but it isn't as well-adapted as bebb.

But may be easier to obtain.

- Clayton.

There's a Clarke-McNary program that provide willows for producers.

Do you know?

- I don't know.

I'm not familiar with that program.

I'm sorry.

- There is a program called Clarke-McNary that does provide at a reduced cost, various different tree seedling.

So if people are looking, you might check the Clarke-McNary program and see if the willows are available there.

Jane, do you have any idea?

- Well, I wanted to ask Clayton just how many species of willow are in Montana.

My understanding is there's a lot of species and it's one those groups of plants that are difficult to identify one from another.

- There's over a hundred different species and subspecies in the state of Montana.

Most of them, in Western Montana or the high elevations.

And Jane brings up a very good point.

One of the struggles with nearly all willows is they hybridized with each other pretty quickly.

And so, what was being called an individual species 20 years ago is now suddenly grouped as a subspecies with another one, because work with DNA has indicated it was actually a hybrid.

So with time, the true strong species will probably drop somewhere down around 80 to 90 different species, but very complex group.

- It is, yeah.

Thank you.

- That's pretty amazing.

Before I go any farther, I forgot to mention that Nancy Blake and Uta McKelvy are taking your phone questions tonight.

I'd like to thank them for sitting in and taking those questions.

Rachel, this is a good one.

Is the program that you're associated with, geared to produce students for absentee land owners or for family ranches?

- The easy answer to that, Jack, is both.

We're geared to produce students to manage ranches.

Who owns those ranches is pretty much irrelevant.

We do though, focus on students who plan to come back to the family ranch.

We'll also include special segments on how to communicate with family, how to work through a transition plan successfully.

And as I said, I'll pair that student with an internship that can provide them even further insight into how other families have successfully navigated that that threshold.

And then maybe advise them to take some electives that could help with industry diversification.

So that they could really look at how they could expand their economic opportunities coming back to the ranch.

But students will also be prepared to move into that management scenario for an absentee landowner which is critically important because as we mentioned earlier, a lot of these properties are still being operated from an agricultural standpoint.

And they're really important for the contributions that they make to that local economy and to that local community.

And so you've got families of Ranch Managers and employees that are attending the local schools that are serving on local volunteer boards and really taking a place in that community.

As well as performing those important duties of really helping that new owner understand really how to manage that landscape, how to manage that livestock and keep that land hopefully, in Production Agriculture, because the next option all too often, as Eric mentioned earlier, if that absentee owner was to become disillusioned with that property and a new way of life that he's invested in, then it could be easily sold into a subdivided position here in the state which is something that we would really like to see less of happening.

- Okay.

I appreciate it.

Good answer.

Clayton, from Bozeman.

This is a comment and additional information for you about beaver that eat dandelions.

This person has found that black and grizzly bears also really like eating dandelions in the spring and early summer.

And they observed this in Glacier Park So you can put that in your little file and you'll have more information next time you're asked.

- Well, - Okay.

- I really appreciate that.

When it comes right down to it though, I'd far rather run into a beaver eating dandelions on a creek (all laughing) than a grizzly.

- Good point.

Jane, from Helena.

This person has a two-year old bunch of hay bales that she's used for foundation insulation.

They had cheatgrass in them.

She would like to know, is that cheatgrass seeds still viable in there?

And does she need to burn or destroy those bales?

- I would assume that the cheatgrass seed is still viable especially if those bales didn't get wet.

And the best pathway would be to burn those to make sure that that seed doesn't get spread somewhere.

- Okay.

From Bozeman.

Rachel, this person says that there are some other Ranch Manager programs in Montana.

What is the advantage of choosing the MSU program and how is it different from others in the state?

Are you familiar with those?

- Well, there's not any other four-year Bachelor's Degree programs in the state.

There are some shorter term courses and a lot of those even are out of the state.

So back to the advantage of why you would go to MSU, I think it's a couple of reasons.

First, it's the completeness of the picture.

We really are approaching this from a systems perspective which means that we're really focused in with that student understanding how those different disciplines of Animal Science, Range Management and Business and Finance work together.

And how a decision in one of those could really impact you in some of the other sections.

And so how to really think about each decision that those students make from that complete, full picture perspective.

The other advantage to this program is the internships and that close relationship with the working ranch.

There's nothing like learning from someone who has been doing something and doing it successfully for quite some time.

The third aspect of it is, we really try hard to network these students within the state.

We introduce them to a lot of successful Ranch Managers, ranchers, also just professionals in every aspect of the state.

So when you come out of this program, not only are you gonna have those individual skills and abilities, but it is the goal of this program to make sure that each of those students has the connections that they would need to be successful in the future.

Connect them to those folks here at MSU like Jane, like Eric and Clayton, who can provide resources to the technical issues and questions that they have.

As well as helping them to create that full Ranch Management team.

As far as knowing what they need on their side, from a legal perspective, from a financing perspective, to be able to get the capital that they need to operate.

And all of the other aspects that go into it, estate planning, transition, marketing, all of those other skills as well.

The completeness of the degree, the internships and that experiential learning and the connections and the networking that are coming from being involved in this as a system, I think are really key to this program.

- Jack, can I ask Rachel a question?

- Sure.

Rachel, are there any other four-year degree programs in the US similar to what MSU has?

- That's a great question.

And until recently, there was not.

Texas Christian University is the only one who is starting a four-year degree program.

They have been much more known for their shorter term, nine months, really intensive program that produced some good graduates.

There's a couple of other universities They're following the lead.

And they have expressed interest in developing a Ranch Management Program because they've seen a need in their area as well.

But we were the first to tow the line and to get this four-year degree program up.

And we're gonna try to hold that position in the lead by also being the first to produce graduates and producing the best graduates out there that we possibly can.

- Yeah, that's fantastic.

It's such a great idea.

- It is a great idea It's great to see MSU leading the way.

- and really needed in the West.

There's no doubt about it.

We had a quick question here from Helena for Eric.

This person says, they believe the past year, the AG Economy in the state of Montana took a big hit due to COVID-19.

In your opinion, has it recovered fairly well?

- That's a quick question, Jack.

(laughs) I think in some ways, it has.

The local food system was definitely hit the hardest.

In the summers, especially operations that sold direct to consumer, found it really challenging to do that.

Even cattle producers, they saw prices drop pretty quickly last spring about a year from now, we were watching prices.

We were talking about potential, really big supply shortages in the field.

And so since then, things have stabilized.

There've been a few programs from the Federal Government, the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which has primarily gone to beef producers in Montana and across the country.

And those prices right now are about where they were before Coronavirus started.

So if we look at prices now, compare them to February, 2020, they're about where they were then.

The one thing that I think is still persistent is, at least ranchers that I talked to, who are trying to process in state, are still experiencing pretty long delays in their processing.

So they're gonna have to wait a couple months to get their meat processed.

And I think there's just a real push to have more meat processed locally.

And so, some of that's caused a bottleneck in some of our processing here.

- And let me ask you a follow up question.

I read an article recently in the "The Wall Street Journal", that in general commodity, prices nationwide have increased significantly recently.

As a result, land prices for farms, and I assume ranches, have also increased.

Are you seeing this here in Montana?

- Since Coronavirus, we've seen prices increased quite a bit, especially corn and soybean.

They were down pretty big last year and they're both up about 70% higher than where they were last year.

With prices, if you look at them in real terms, they haven't really gone up a whole lot.

But your question about how much of that gets driven into land prices is a good, and that's one that a lot of AG Economists spent a lot of time thinking about.

It really just depends on how stable, if you do see a price increase, is it gonna stick around for a long time?

And in real terms, for most grains, we've actually seen it as we've become better at producing these products.

The prices have actually gone down on a lot of those just because we're more efficient.

We can grow more on an acre than we used to be able to.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Rachel, we got a couple of questions here for you.

Number one, is there added cost for a degree in the Ranch Management Systems, Ranch Management Program than just a regular Animal Science degree?

- That's a great question.

And the answer is no.

There's not any added costs over and above the regular tuition cost that the student would pay.

We do provide a lot of other opportunities to go do some off-campus education, attend other workshops and events.

As much as we can, we try to find sponsors to help those students.

That's one reason we're continuing to seek donations for this program is, to help these students be able to take advantage of some really great opportunities to network with other folks or to take advantage of some speakers that are coming in for special events.

But just straight up above, no.

There's no additional costs that are required to get a degree in Ranching Systems.

- Okay.

I have another question here.

It just came in from Tom, from Wyoming.

And we are getting more and more questions from Wyoming and I appreciate that very much.

This person asks, "Wouldn't a ranching career be better served with a Gabe Brown approach?"

Which is I think a North Dakota program.

And he says, it teaches promoting multiple species upon the land.

It's in favor of no-till markets for multi-species so forth and so on.

Would you like to comment on that, if you have any information on that?

- Yeah, that's a great comment.

And Gabe Brown is well-known for the work that he is doing in the arena of soil health.

He's done some fantastic work there and he's been to Montana.

In fact, one of our students from the Ranching Systems had the opportunity to go to a Soil Health Symposium that was hosted by the NRCS.

And one of the people he wanted to hear was Gabe Brown speak about his way of managing, incorporating livestock into farm land and improving soil health.

We do touch on all of these aspects in our Range Management, our Grazing Management approach.

And really look at it from the standpoint of ways that we can use livestock production to enhance that land resource as much as possible in every way.

Whether that's using that high intensity grazing where that's appropriate, or just really, as Clayton said, paying attention to what species of animal that we have out there, the timing year that we have it out there, how long, and really doing the best job possible to manage the grazing of that animal in every season and in every way.

- Okay.

Appreciate the answer.

Quick one.

(laughs) This is not an easy one, but we'll make it quick.

'Cause we're running low on time.

Jane, this first one, I'd like to get rid of.

Quack grass and, or crab grass.

We don't have a lot of crab grass in Montana.

So let's say quack grass in a lawn or garden situation.

- Yeah, well, rapid fire question with the short answer it's almost impossible.

(chuckles) but you could brush glyphosate on it.

That's really about your only option.

If it gets bad enough, you're thinking about redoing your lawn, but it's really hard.

- It's tough.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

All right.

Clayton, from the power area, this person has noted that there are more junipers growing in the old cottonwoods along the streams.

Are they overtaking the cottonwoods?

- Yes.

They are.

- And what do you do about it?

- Yeah.

(chuckles) Well, you learn to live with nature.

The reason the juniper taking over the cottonwoods, is the stream or rivers adjusting itself in a different direction.

Jane mentioned earlier, riparian areas are known to be areas of high disturbance.

And that's actually what makes a riparian area healthy, is the regular disturbance inputs of sediment and flooding.

But when that happens, the channels migrate.

And where we see juniper taking over cottonwood stands, the channel is migrating away.

And the groundwater in that particular bank area is dropping below about three feet and the cottonwoods are no longer able to generate new cottonwood seedlings.

And so, the juniper began to take over the open space.

Short story is, learn to accept juniper or log it and try to plan it, replant it.

But then, you're gonna have to irrigate it.

- Okay.

We're down to the last few seconds.

I want to ask Jane a quick question that came in from the Manhattan area.

And they're seeing a lot of wild licorice also known as cockleburs in state areas.

Is that a noxious weed?

(calm guitar music begins) - It's not.

Licorice is actually a native species.

- Okay.

It's hard to control?

- Hmm.

A little bit.

(chuckles) - Okay.

Folks, we had a good program tonight.

I hope you learned a lot about ranching.

I sure did.

In some areas that I've found myself to really enjoy learning about.

Next week, we're gonna have Cooper Elwood, talking about the Nursery Association, Ornamental Association.

Tune in.

Join us next week.

Appreciate your viewing.

Have a good night.

Goodbye.

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

(calm guitar music continues) 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 & Barley Committee, The Montana Bankers Association, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, The Gallatin Gardeners Club, and The Rocky Mountain Certified Crop Adviser Program.