- [Announcer] 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 and Landscaping, the Gallatin Gardeners Club, and the Rocky Mountain Certified Crop Adviser Program (soft music) - Good evening, you're tuned to Montana Ag Live originating tonight from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus, and happy campus of Montana State University since the Bobcats were successful again this weekend.

We're all looking forward to next weekend to see what happens, but I have good confidence that this group here will be pretty happy.

Tonight, we have a kind of a special program.

We're gonna look a little bit at the labor in the ag Industry, labor in the State of Montana, so if you have questions about that, you can call them in.

We'll be happy to take a shot at answering them.

But before I do that, let me introduce the panel this evening.

On my far left is Mary Burrows.

Mary is part-timer in the Dean's office is the Assistant Director of College of our Associate, Assistant Associate (chuckles softly).

- Associate Director of Montana Ag Experiment Station.

- Okay, she knows what she is, and in addition to that she's a plant pathologist so if you have disease questions, hey, it's a good chance to ask them tonight.

Well, I think we all know Jane Mangold, she's a weed scientist, not an invasive plant specialists, but she likes to be known as an invasive plant specialist.

If you've got weeds in Montana and everybody in Montana who has property probably has a weed issue.

Here's a good opportunity to have those questions and concerns answered tonight.

Joel Schumacher, Joe's here as an Ag economist.

He's the Extension ag economist, does a great job in a wide variety of economic issues.

He's gonna try to answer some questions tonight about labor issues, especially in agriculture but throughout the state of Montana.

And I know very, very distinctly that a lot of industries in this state are having severe labor issues.

Nina Zidack, Nina I've known for years.

She's a director of Montana Potato Improvement Association, she's also a very knowledgeable horticulturalist.

So if you have questions either on potatoes or dandelions or anything else like that, melons, hey, it's a good chance to get them here.

Answering the phones here in the studio tonight is Nancy Blake, and taking questions remotely is Judge Bruce Lojo.

And Bruce has been on this program several times.

We appreciate his input and his assistance in taking questions.

Joel, tell us about what you do.

- Sure, well, I work for Extension within the Department of Agricultural Economics and we get a wide range of topics.

We're a relatively small department, so you don't get to narrow it down too much, but I like to do a lot with individuals, finances, some farm finance, some issues around retirement planning, work benefits, those kinds of things are certainly topics.

Tonight I think we're going to talk a little bit about some labor economics issues and specifically if you have any questions about what kind of world versus urban Montana, that's something that's always been of interest to me, so I'll probably highlight a few of those things tonight.

- Good, Joel I read some statistics not long ago that about 50,000, little over 50,000 people, roughly over 10% of the labor market, labor work in the state were involved with agriculture.

Is that still holding to... That was 2017 I think I read that.

- yeah, it certainly ag's a big part of the economy, but over probably 100 year trend we've had more mechanization in ag, we've had different types of crop comes in, that are less labor intensive so it's sort of been a shrinking portion of the larger Montana economy or other areas of growing.

And then in Montana, in the ag sector, even if it's maybe maintaining its kind of a smaller piece of the total labor market within the state.

- Yeah and Nina can jump in on this too.

Do you believe producers that need labor are having a difficult time finding it as the many other industries are?

- Oh, absolutely.

And they're also competing with those other industries.

So if like for example, when the block in oil boom was going 10 years ago and you could quickly get a very high paying job in Sydney, it was really hard to find somebody to come out for three weeks and help you in harvest, a kind of the historical wage rates.

So that's still true today as labor prices have gone up here this last year.

Ag producers have to compete with all those other options to find workers to come work for them.

- Yeah, I was at the Montana Pulse Day last week, and that was a big topic of conversation and it's keeping people from diversifying their crops even.

- Mh.

- Yeah, I mean I noticed multiple things that have happened in the potato industry.

First, I mean this is a trend that's been going on for a while that it is difficult to get farm labor, replacing farm labor with mechanization.

When I first came onto the job 13 years ago, when you went out to the farms during shipping season and during harvest, as they were getting the potatoes into the cellar, on each farm, you would see 10 or 12 people on a grading line.

Now they have vacuum separators that actually do a lot of that work for them, so they can do a lot of that mechanically.

Another thing that we really saw this last year was the push on labor costs, and it was very similar to what you see, like McDonald's, Burger King, you would see those jobs advertised at 13$ an hour, something like that.

All of a sudden you saw signs in town for 17, $18 an hour for that base labor type position, and we saw that very same trend on the farm because they needed to pay that to get those workers to come out there.

- Okay, we'll get back to some more on that, 'cause we have a couple of questions that have come in already via Facebook and email, and folks you can either call your questions in, you can do it via Facebook or email.

Anyway, I'm gonna go back to Nina with this one, this came in on an email.

They said despite healthy and very productive greenhouse tomato plants, they always ripen late and they are wondering why.

They have lots of fruit, they turn green, and they just sit there until usually mid-September.

Any reason why?

- Well, I've had that same frustration myself and I've experienced that, although this year, I did get a lot of ripe tomatoes, both in the greenhouse and in my garden.

But one of the key words there might've been very healthy and productive, which it's a very good thing, but there's a possibility that there might've been a little much fertility, so if your plants are a little bit high in nitrogen, a lot of times they'll continue to bloom and produce more fruit and don't ripen quite as quickly, so that might be one of the keys.

Another thing too, is maybe to take a look back and see exactly what those varieties were because they might be a variety...

I mean, varieties can range in maturity to ripening anywhere from about, 60 days to 100 days.

So they might be varieties that normally would take that long to ripen.

- Yeah, I think Cheryl Moore-Gough who was here one time said, "That once a tomato is mature, it takes almost two months before it is completely ripe."

So it's not unusual, but I do agree with the fertilizer fuel or fertilize... but you get a lot of green tomatoes.

And by the way, green tomatoes are really not all that bad.

- No, actually, right now at home, I am roasting my last batch of tomatoes (laughs).

So they're in the oven right now, so you can continue to ripen them and use them all fall so.

- Okay, good information.

Joel, this is a Facebook question from Missoula.

They see "Help Wanted" signs all over town.

And they're wondering, has Montana actually lost workers or we gained workers here in this state?

- You know, certainly when the pandemic hit the workforce shrank, people left the workforce and in Montana that was about 8% of the workforce went away within just 90 days or whatever of the start there.

But just in the last couple months, we've now gone beyond the size of labor force we had prior to the pandemic.

So, that's not true of the national story, they're still down about 5 million workers nationwide, but here in Montana, we're about 1,000 workers above where we were about almost two years ago now.

But our workforce is about 525,000, so 1,000 extra workers means we're pretty flat at the moment.

- And we've got a question here, I'm gonna come back to you in a little bit, but Nina, a question that was phoned in, they grow lentils and we are growing a lot more lentils in this state, it's a pulse crop, there's a good market for them, although it's variable.

They've had good yields but they keep hearing that they probably should be using a seed treatment.

What would they use a seed treatment for, and how would it benefit them?

- So most seed treatments have two components.

One is again what we call the OMI seeds such as Pythium root rot.

And then the other one is against the true fungi, so the Pythium causes more of a damping off, like the seeds might not even emerge from the ground.

And that's the one you really, really need on your soils in a cool wet spring.

And then the fungicide can help protect against those early season root rots beginning like two, three weeks after planting they're gone.

And then there's another product that if you have a risk of Aphanomyces you can use is called Ethaboxam.

- Fungi, where certain different types of fungi.

- Yeah, and it depends on what's in your soil and what your history is.

- Just out of curiosity, we don't have an inner moles just yet.

Do wireworms affect lentils?

- [Mary] Yup.

- And do a fair amount of damage?

- Yes they do and then Kevin Wanner was at the Montana Pulsate last week, and he talked about a new seed treatment that's been pretty effective on wireworms.

- Yeah, and Jane.

- Mary, you mentioned what diseases you see depends on what's in your soil.

Is there a way you can test your soil going into planting or just prior to planting?

So you would know what is worth?

- I'm working on that, it's like the long-term project though.

we're trying to transfer some technology I learned about in Australia to the United States.

Right now there's really nothing.

We're currently trying to get an Aphanomyces test for a grower and we were kind of struggling.

For pulse crops we can do Aphanomyces test just because my graduate student hasn't graduated yet.

- Okay (both laughing) - Yeah, on that note, we had Tim here last week and he said glyphosate roundup prices were way up, about 50%.

What about other farm inputs, are they up too?

Are you guys hearing much about that?

- Yeah, I think they are, a lot of growers were saying that they do have the prices locked in for next season, but they're not sure that they'll get any product and that's from fertilizer to herbicide to any sort of pesticides.

- [Woman] That's everything - Including farm equipment.

- Yep.

- Okay, a question from Cascade, We always have this one and this person has a severe cheatgrass problem.

You might join and explain what Cheatgrass is, they've used plateau in the past and it works, but they figure it also hurts some of the grasses that they don't want to hurt, any suggestions?

- Yeah, so I think, I feel like I talk about cheatgrass every time I'm on the show but that's because it is such a big problem all across the west.

It's a non-native winter annual grass that competes readily with winter wheat, if it's in crapping systems but range land species as well.

So it's coming up in the fall.

It emerges in the fall.

So you'll see these little green, just a green carpet of seedlings.

Well, a little earlier in the fall, perhaps, but fall's is a great time to treat it with plateau.

And you'll get about one year of control with that maybe two years.

But it's really just, there's not a lot of soil residual so you get one year of control.

As far as injury to other species.

If you get the timing right, which is when cheatgrass is one to two leaves in size in the fall, and you use about six Ounces per acre, it's not a very high rate for the label.

Your native grasses should do fairly well with that treatment plan.

When you start seeing injury to other grasses is if you get into higher rates, I think the label says six to 12 ounces, but some people use higher rates, like if they're treating leafy spurge, and then you will see that injury to perennial grasses, but I've done quite a bit of research with plateau.

And I've also visited with a lot of producers that have used it in the fall, six ounces per acre, and it works fairly well so I think, in regard to that question, I'm not sure what rates they might be using or they may think they're using a six ounce per acre rate but maybe they're not calibrated well.

So it is really important to be calibrated and use those rates so that you're not injuring your other grasses.

- Follow up question from me.

Can you control cheatgrass fairly effectively by saying grazing it at this time of year?

Does that work?

- Yeah so you can graze cheatgrass in the fall when it is emerged and, or in the spring when it's actively growing usually is earlier than other grasses.

One of the ways cheatgrass is so successful is it can grow it little lower soil temperatures than our perennial grasses so it comes out of dormancy and starts growing a lot sooner.

And that's a great time to use targeted grazing.

But if wanna to try to target cheatgrass with grazing, you have to be very careful about that too and thoughtful and get the timing right, and get the animals in there to take the cheatgrass off but then get them out of the area so the perennial grasses can grow without being overgrazed.

- Yeah Mary, I'm gonna throw this to you.

I've actually seen some people, they got some winter wheat in fairly early this year.

I know we're short of animal forage this year.

I've seen animals, cattle on winter wheat this year grazing.

Will that hurt the winter wheat crop?

- Should come back fine as far as I know.

- I Think that's a very common practice in the Southern part of- - Yeah, it is, Texas, that's what they do.

- And when you're short of food, you find out what you can eat.

(Joel Laughs) Joel, this is an interesting question.

It came in from Whitefish.

They want to know, number one is the minimum wage still an important factor and do you foresee eventually we will have a $15 minimum wage even though prices have exceeded that currently?

- Well, one thing about whether we'll have the minimum wage that exceeds that I'm not much not very good at guessing what the legislature's gonna do, that's not my forte, but sort of on the economic side of things I think what we've seen in the last year plus here is we've seen a real... For what would have been, I would say, lower paid wages we've seen a real increase in those wage rates over the last 18 months here as employers have really been looking for workers and they can't find them so they're increasing wages and benefits, and they're far above the current minimum wage in nearly every part of that part of the labor segment.

So at the current moment and really looking forward for the next few months, it doesn't seem like where the mandatory minimum is, is probably not very relevant to most employers.

- I think I'd agree entirely with that.

Another question from Whitefish, a lot of people in Whitefish watching this evening and I'll throw this, we don't have an animal science person on here, but they would like to know how important is cattle ranching in Montana, Joel, you can jump on that.

And the rest of it is, are there still Montana Cowboys in the safe?

(all Laughing) - Well, you know, absolutely.

Ag is a big part of the economy and a lot of times total sales volume between crops and livestock isn't that different, and obviously cattle is what dominates the livestock market here in Montana, but it's also going to vary a lot by region, the economy in Mile City and that's probably hugely important.

The cattle ranching, even if we look at another rural place, let's say Chester, Montana, probably not nearly as important because it's almost all crops just by the nature of the land.

So as much as we can talk about Montana averages, these local markets probably matter a lot more.

A good number of especially Eastern Montana counties and places down like Dillon, cattle ranching is gonna be really important to the economy of that county.

- So Joel, we've had like change over the last couple decades of integrated cow, crop, livestock to solely either cows or livestock.

Do you ever see that coming together again?

- Well, I think one of the driving factors when you saw people that had crops and livestock and part of it was equipment compliments was part of the story, but part of it was also they were managing risk that way by having both cattle and crops.

We've got, I would say more effective risk management tools in terms of crop insurance and some programs like that.

So having that diversity maybe isn't as important as it was 30 or 40 years ago.

So if the policy sort of changed those risk management options that are available, that might also change how farms and ranches respond and if those became less available, we might see farmers go back towards a more diversified mix as a way to manage their overall operation.

- I also talked to a couple of guys and they're like, well, my brother did the cows and I did the farming and I don't know how common those structures are any more.

- And you certainly see some of that, I mean, I know of a few sort of in the South Central rage where it's two brothers that are farming together in one primarily handled the cattle and one primarily did the farming.

And sometimes in terms of labor that helps out 'cause the busy times aren't always exactly the same.

So you can share a little labor, maybe at shipping time for the calves or you need help with haying.

It might not be the same as when you're harvesting wheat so sometimes it works out there where you can keep somebody employed full time without having sort of huge labor needs for part of the year and then not so much in trying to keep somebody busy.

- I was just in Fort Benton Thursday night talking to their Livestock Association and there were about 50 people in the room.

And I asked, "Well, how many of these people are cattle only or mixed operations?"

And in that room all but about one person had mixed operation so... (cross talk) I think I get the sense it depends where you are in the state and what sort of agricultural opportunities are there.

- And it might depend on the land you've got too.

There's no crop land available in some parts of the state.

So it's hard to be a wheat and cattle rancher if there's no viable crop land nearby.

- Yeah, absolutely, and a lot of it depends on prices of either the livestock or the commodity, and which way you kind of focus each year, which can be not good at times.

But back to Jane, quick question, is a cheatgrass native or an invasive species?

- Cheatgrass is non-native, it's native to Eastern Europe, Western Asia and Mediterranean region, and it is invasive, did I get both parts of that?

Not native and I would call it invasive.

Yeah, it's been called The Weed That Won the West.

So it's been a problem, mostly in range land all across the Western states for decades and it's also weedy and winter wheat as well.

- Does it...

There's a seed from cheatgrass survive a long period of time in the soil like wild oats or not.

- Not so much.

Some of the work has shown like a maximum of five years, but most of the seed that's produced in a summer grows that fall, 95% of it does.

- Like where you have such a carpet.

- Yeah.

- All right, yeah.

I keep seeing this French fry in my eyes 'cause I haven't had dinner.

Nina, you brought up potato and you wanna tell us what it is?

- So this is actually a potato for my garden.

So should I be proud of this potato?

It's rather large, but it is also very scabby and I can tell you a few things about that.

So this was a very, very hot, dry summer.

And although I do get scab, if you have dry soils, you tend to get a little bit more scab because the bacteria that naturally live on the surface of the potato will actually out-compete and keep the scab pathogen away.

So I think the dry soil, especially on 'cause I do use drip irrigation, got a little bit more scab on them, but people always wonder like, are these scabby potatoes safe to eat?

Absolutely, we're gonna do a little thing here where we're gonna see if we can peel it away and for the most part you can peel it away, but I also want to show you, there are a few little pinprick, little brown spots there.

So there's another thing going on here.

Yeah, you can see a few more of them.

See those little brown spots.

Those are actually where the larvae of the flea beetle penetrate.

And so flea beetles you'll see during the summer.

They make those little shot holes and they're also level black things that are jumping around.

They're a very annoying, little creature that does cause this damage to the potatoes.

Again, all you need to do is peel just a little bit deeper and you can get rid of any damage from those.

You can use just basic contact insecticides during the summer to control the flea beetles but you have to keep up with it.

As soon as you start seeing any shot holes, you need to basically control them for a significant part of the season.

- What's your variety there?

- So this I believe is a Challenger, which is a variety that is raised here in the Gallatin valley and it's what we call a yellow, yellow.

I've tried to make it look a little bit prettier, but if our seed potato grower were growing this, it would not look like this, but it is just a fantastic potato.

- So Nina, the flea beetle larvae are they in there then?

- Yeah, there probably are some larvae actually in there.

- So you can get your meat and potatoes.

(all laughing) - There you go, there you go.

- Is there a little store as well as one that does not have the scab.

- Yeah, it doesn't really affect the storage.

No, it doesn't really seem to affect the storage.

It really just affects the appearance and causes you to do a little more peeling.

- Okay, let's move to Joel.

This question came in from Sydney.

And this gentleman has been trying to hire full-time labor for a large agricultural operation in Richland county.

He's been unsuccessful, any suggestions how he might improve his chances of hiring people.

- Sure, well, you're competing for the labor market, for those workers that are out there and obviously a lot of different employers are wanting these folks now.

So what can you offer that's gonna make it attractive to that.

And you know, the simple things to say is to raise the wages and we've certainly seen that happen, but maybe understanding what else in that worker's life might be.

You might be able to offer an incentive, maybe it's housing in some parts of the states, that's really tight so if you can offer housing or maybe they need flexibility to drop kids off at school or something like that.

Maybe they end up being a six day a week worker, but they only work six hours a day so they can handle some duties around caregiving for kids or something like that.

Those are probably the avenues that might be successful, especially when you're looking for just one or two workers, you can customize.

We're not a chain store looking for 1,000 employees across the state.

We're looking, can we find a fit with one particular employee, potential employee?

And that's probably the angle that I would say they're gonna have the best success with is customizing it to a particular applicant.

- Another thing that I've heard some of our growers mention is that giving them the opportunity to maybe have a small enterprise of their own.

So, in our case, maybe another specialty crop, we've got a farm in the Gallatin Valley that one of their employees is raising garlic.

And they're facilitating that and working with them on that.

And another thing, is if you've happened to have an employee that has exceptional mechanical skills, they could maybe do, a little mechanic work on the side for other farmers in the area.

- Yep, and we've certainly also seen in the cattle business where they allow them to run a few cow with the herd.

And I think especially for younger people trying to get into ag, if they can build their herd up to 30 to 40, while they're working for someone that might give them the opportunity to go out on their own down the road.

And that might be a way to lure them to work for you for a few years until they can get that.

- I like that idea, that makes good, common sense.

Okay, I've got a quick follow up question on that.

But before we get there, Mary, we've had two questions tonight about Aspen trees, actually three questions, two of them relate to you.

A lot of spots on the leaves of Aspens this fall.

Any worry about that.

- No, it's probably Marssonina blight, occurs every year.

- You don't need to spray for it at all?

Rake your leaves up, you won't have quite as much next year, but it's still be there.

- So you would call that pest Marssonina, I would call it Marssonina.

(all laughing) - We can do (indistinct) - If it's a pest, it's gotta be a Nina or Nina, excuse me.

- Pathologists.

They all act this way and I try to stay out of it now that I'm retired so it's an interesting question.

It comes in from Great Falls and this person would like to know an average Montana farm.

He's probably talking Great Falls.

So he's talking a weed foul, maybe Pulse crop rotation.

"How many acres can a single farmer take care of by themselves?"

I know there's a lot of variability on there, but anybody have any thoughts on that?

- Well, maybe to start, it would be some of those variability points would be, you know, is it irrigated?

Most Montana farms are not, if you are irrigated, it's probably more labor, the shape of your fields, if you're in the nice square fields up in the triangle, you can probably do a little more wheat farming than somebody that's doing the top of coolies and things like that.

Those are certainly factors.

And then kind of how much not really hired help, but are you bringing someone else into fertilizer?

Is a seed company coming in?

Are you using custom cutters, those kinds of things.

They're not employees of your operation, but it's certainly reducing the amount of labor that you yourself are doing by hiring various local companies or maybe in the case of the custom cutter, somebody coming through to manage part of that input that's required to get your crop into the bin.

- Mary, you wanna add anything?

- Maybe, I agree with Joel, there's a lot of variability in anything from like less than 1,000 acres to over 10,000.

- Average firm size is about 3000 acres now.

- [Mary] Yep.

- I think most people couldn't handle that.

- Yeah, I wanted to follow up on one of your earlier comments, Joel, was, 'cause you talked about the number of laborers in the state had increased, but are those people coming in with jobs that are teleworking or are they actually... - Well, the data from the department of labor doesn't tell you, it just says whether they're working at this point in time and versus a later point in time.

And another thing that number doesn't tell us is, if you're in Sydney, it doesn't do any good that there's somebody sitting in Bozeman that's qualified for your job looking for it.

They've gotta be geographically near you.

So it's nice that we've got this growing labor force in the state, but locally that may not necessarily be the case.

And like we've seen in kind of a lot of things for the last 20 years, places like Flathead County, Gallatin County, Yellowstone County have been really gathering workers into their economies.

And then we've seen a lot of the other places of the state and especially some of our more rural places are having a shrinking workforce.

So whether that be pretty much the whole Highline area relative to two years ago has less people actually working.

So it does matter where you're at in the state.

- Okay, Nina you wanna go?

- Yeah, and so that begs the question you alluded to it a little bit.

So somebody is working for a company in Silicone Valley in California, are they counted as a Montana worker or as a California worker?

- Yeah, so that's a good question.

And there's been some issues around taxation around that too of where that employee should be reporting their taxes or is this Montana income if you're working for a Denver based company but you live in Cascade, Montana.

So there's certainly been some kind of... And not just Montana, but lots of state governments are trying to make sure we've got an appropriate way to manage where that employee is, where they belong, and how like workers' comp laws and those kinds of things apply.

But yeah, 'cause where it's a much more... Everybody got forced to try remote working in many settings or not everybody, but lots of people and some of we're finding out it's working so you certainly could have now relocated to somewhere in Montana and kept your job from somewhere else.

On the other side of that token, I talked to some folks from Hill County and someone had left their place of employment, and then they filled that position with a remote worker who's working in Omaha.

So it could also go the other way that there had been Montana based jobs that are now being filled by remote workers from somewhere outside of the state.

- Generation and dynamics in today's world, how labor issues have changed, definitely.

Nina, somebody was interested in your potato, but they wanna know they have green potatoes.

Why and are they okay to eat?

- So, yeah, that's a very, very common issue.

And so this potato is capable of photosynthesis just like the leaves of the plant are.

And so if a potato is growing at the top of the hill or the soil has washed away, you will actually get green potatoes.

And while it's probably not going to kill you, it's actually not good to eat.

So you should always peel the green away because when the potato does photosynthesize, it produces a toxin called solanine, and the solanine if eaten in large quantities could definitely give you a pretty good stomach ache.

So anytime you get that, just peel it away.

And it's also bitter too.

- If you store them on your countertop or something too.

- Absolutely, yes.

Thank you, Mary.

Yeah, do not store your potatoes on your countertop, even if they're prettier than this.

- They (indistinct) in the dark.

- Yeah, they need to be in the dark.

- I think that potato is really pretty.

(both laughing) It's different looking.

- It's interesting.

- It's like your Halloween potato.

- Do you wanna get pathologists now too?

- No, I don't wanna get in the middle of that.

- Alright, Jane, since you're up from Dylan, there's a stick weed type of weed is it beggar's lice, it's growing in their subdivision.

When should they spread and with what?

- It's a little challenging to know exactly what they might be talking about, a stick type weed.

What I would ask you to do is maybe next summer, get a nice sample when it's green and maybe some flowers and get it to your local extension office and we'll try to get it ID'd and then we can start talking about how to control it.

- Okay, Joel, next person would like to know from Ronan, who picks all of the cherries in the Flathead and where did they get the labor to do that?

I don't know for sure.

- Yeah, I'm not 100% sure on all of that either.

I mean, that's an industry which is a little bit unique for Montana and that they do have this real seasonal spike in labor needs so you see that a lot in places like Washington and California, where you've got a tomato harvest or a letter harvest or apples or things where you're bringing in migrant crews that may be moving and following the harvest, we see a tiny bit of that in terms of wheat harvest as we see custom cutters move.

But the cherry harvest in Montana is one thing where you do have this real spike and need for relatively short period of time.

One thing I would guess that some of those workers as part of the reason Flathead cherries are maybe so successful in the market is, they're coming ripe at a times, oftentimes when most of the other cherries in the US, their season is over.

So the only fresh game in town is these Flathead cherries and we really take advantage of that.

But that also means that a lot of the laborers probably from Washington are not harvesting in And my guess is that some of those labors do make it to Montana and help with our harvest as well.

- There are still migrant labor laws that allow seasonal workers into the state.

- Yeah, absolutely.

We see quite a few.

In fact, one of the few visa programs during 2020 that actually had increased number of people using (indistinct) visa, which is the temporary ag worker program.

And sometimes those are sponsored by not a specific farm but an association, and then the association members can utilize that person over the course, as opposed to them being sponsored by one farm and staying on one farm for the whole time, as opposed they might be sponsored essentially by a group of growers, which allows them to move with a harvest like that.

- Okay.

- Jane, this person would like to know, have there been any economic studies telling us what the value of controlling noxious weeds really are?

In other words are economic studies associated.

- Yeah, there have been some economic analyses, different states in the Western US have looked at the economic impacts of every species on the noxious weed list, Oregon and Washington have done some of those in the recent past.

In the 1990s, there was some work done in Montana looking at the impact of the knapweeds.

And I think the direct impacts at that time were about $14 million a year in losses associated with noxious weeds.

- Significant.

- And there was also an analysis done with the Dakota's and Montana for leafy spurge in the mid '90s.

And I think that came in for Montana about $18 million a year.

So, they're getting kind of old, mid '90s, we're looking at Montana specific studies, Kate Fuller, who is in the same department as Joel, she and I did an economic analysis a few years ago where we surveyed people who were grazing livestock on private grazing lands in the state.

And we asked them what weeds they were dealing with, how much they were spending on controlling noxious weeds, and then we also had some models, as Matt Rinella from Fort Keogh in Mile City helped us with this to estimate the loss in production due to noxious weeds.

And the number we came up with was about, I think, $1.40 per acre in direct losses due to treating weeds and losing forage because of weeds.

So that doesn't sound like a lot of money, $1.40, some per acre.

The average grazing unit size with our survey respondents was about 5,000 acres so it was over $7,000 a year.

And if you think about, I think there's about 40 million acres of private grazing land in Montana so 40 million times $1.40 something, you're looking at $50 some million potential impact.

That would be if everything was infested with noxious weeds, which it's not.

So that's good, but I think that's a good number to think about and a good motivation to keep healthy range land healthy and not infested.

- And a follow-up to that, if I can, you're talking about private land.

Is it a different story for public land or how do we think about public grazing land that might be leased out too?

- Yeah, you probably know more about that than I, and Kate definitely does.

But we've just focused on the private lands because it seems like a little simpler question to ask people about, there are leases on public lands, forest service and BLM and the state lands, the DNRC administered lands.

They're typically... Those leases vary from lease to lease in terms of who is in charge of controlling the weeds and the AUMs you can graze in those areas.

So it was a little simpler to just think about private lands 'cause you didn't have as many factors associated with that.

- [Joel] Sure.

- Okay, good information folks.

Mary, quick question from Richland County, this person wants to save his pea seed.

He thinks the peas are smaller than last year.

Will that effect the ability of the peas to germinate?

Should he save the seed?

- It shouldn't, but he should get a germination test.

And yeah, due to the drought, we've seen a lot of really tiny peas that were harvested this yeah.

- Okay, that makes sense.

I'm bad about this.

I like the great big, fat peas when I plant my peas.

I don't know if it's any better, I didn't have good peas.

- Yeah, (indistinct) have smaller plants.

I mean, the cod lean's smaller, the embryos smaller.

They might wanna think about, actually calculating their seeding rate.

- Yeah, it seems like the germination might still be high but just the vigor of the seedlings would be less, which could translate to smaller production or lower production.

- If it's too small, they might wanna just consider buying seed.

- So talking them about that.

This is something I always wanted to know and since Nina is here tonight I'm gonna ask her.

If you plant a whole potato like this one versus a little tiny slice, are you gonna get the same size plant and the same amount of potatoes- - Oh, that's a great, great question.

So if you'd planted this whole potato, there's something in a potato, a potato is actually like an enlarged salmon.

It has apical dominance.

So the buds at the end of the potato, which you can't see 'cause of all this scab, the buds at the end will actually keep the other eyes from sprouting.

The eyes are where the sprouts come out.

And so even though you planted this whole potato, you might only get two or three stems.

When you cut the potato you actually release that apical dominance.

So if you have a seed piece that has four or five eyes on it, you're actually a little bit more likely to get those four or five eyes.

Each stolon in general produces a stem.

So you are gonna get a higher number of tubers produced if you have more eyes.

But this brings us back to Hayden Ferguson.

I can remember Hayden talking about during the depression, when they would peel the potatoes and they would peel them pretty thick so that they could keep some eyes and they would plant the peels to grow potatoes.

So you will still get a potato but seed piece size, and then also how many eyes will definitely influence the vigor of the plant and the productivity of the plant.

And we just had our seed potato seminar in Missoula this last week.

And we actually had an invited presentation from Washington that talked about that exact topic.

- And I wasn't invited.

- Darn it, next year.

How's that?

- Joel, back to you, a couple of questions here.

First, I'm gonna make a comment.

Chairman of the Missoula Irrigation Districts who hires workers over the fall would like to know if there's a list or a database of ag workers who are finished with harvest, but still interested in further work.

If I don't know if there is, I'd say get ahold of Department of Ag or Department of Commerce.

- Maybe not commerce, probably labor, but also the Department of Ag and I'm sure they're gonna work together in this.

I have not seen a list like that, but it wouldn't surprise me if at least informally, they know a little bit about workers like that or operations that know they've got people here for another few months that maybe aren't as busy on their kind of main job that might be able to be loaned out or something to help somebody else.

- It's a great question, Neil, there should be.

If people wanna stay in Montana, is there an opportunity to find another job?

And on that note, when out of state or out of county labor works on Montana farms, why don't they have to pay state taxes?

Caller has been informed that immigrant laborer is exempt from state taxes, is that true?

- Some of the immigrant labor's exempt from paying into social security and a couple other of the programs but on the other side of that also is that then they're not able to have a claim out of that program as well.

So they're not paying in but they're not getting it back out as well.

In terms of the income tax piece I'm not exactly sure how that's handled.

- Jane from Missoula are their noxious weeds that goats won't eat, just out of curiosity.

- Oh, gosh.

I don't know of any, but that's not to say- - [Woman] Leafy spurge or... - No, they'll eat leafy spurge.

- [Woman] Cheatgrass doesn't get stuck in the leaf?

- [Nina] Maybe hound stock.

- I think there's certain species that they might not eat at certain times of the plant's growth.

I'm thinking about yellow star-thistle, (all laughing) which has spines on the flowers once it starts flowering.

And those spines are an inch or so long so I could see where maybe a goat wouldn't eat, wanna bite into that, or maybe some of the big, robust biennial thistles that get pretty prickly.

- How often do you have to like graze a goat on a piece of land to reduce your weed load in general?

- Yeah, well, you would probably wanna go in and graze at certain times and then take the animals off, let the plants grow back, go back in and graze, but it would be a long-term endeavor and the weeds may not ever completely go away, it would be more like a maintenance.

- Leafy spurge just being encouraged.

- Yeah, the leafy spurge is one of the species on the noxious weed list that we've had pretty good luck grazing.

There are operations that grays leafy spurge pretty readily and there's even operations where they move their sheep or goats around to different ranches to graze those... To graze to the leafy spurge.

- Okay, Nina this here came from the Galton Valley, and this person wants to know, has the acreage of potatoes been reduced due to a labor shortage here in the valley?

- No, it actually hasn't.

We actually have seen a small, about a 5% increase in acreage over the last couple of years, but that's because there's been a very, very strong demand for Montana seed potatoes and also seed potato acreage in other areas has been slightly reduced.

So our seed potato acreage is very strong and our growers are getting the work done but it's not without a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

- I can remember, been around here a couple of decades or centuries anyway, which you mentioned earlier when I first came out here in the early '80s and I went out to watch potato harvest and processing potatoes, there would be anywhere from 50 to 20 women and even some young kids helping to shore up potatoes.

That's all done now with mechanization.

- Right, absolutely.

So yeah, the growers have a...

There's a machine called a clod hopper, which basically the potatoes go over a series of chains and they bounce just a little bit.

And depending on their density, the potatoes will bounce a little higher than rocks and dirt clods and they get separated out on different chains so they can separate a lot that way.

There are also vacuum separators.

So they're using air to pull off all of the vines and all of the extra light stuff.

And then also the potatoes again are lighter than rocks so it actually kind of lifts them up a little bit and it'll put them on a separate chain and it'll let the rocks and the dirt go down a separate chain.

So, absolutely, and it's a very different economy.

Up until a couple years ago, actually, I think I did see probably a few women in their '70s and then also men that drive trucks seasonally, but a lot of those people just aren't available for those jobs anymore.

There aren't as many younger women that are willing to take those jobs and do that seasonally for a lifetime.

- I agree, okay.

Back to the labor issue from Bozeman, it's a good question.

"Is labor shortage at direct ag industry also spreading to supporting industry such as trucking and veterinary services, feed industry so forth and so on?"

- Oh, absolutely.

There's different workers bring different skillsets and obviously people can get more education, get training in different things.

You might not be a truck driver, but you could get trained to be one of those kinds of things.

So if the trucking companies are hiring people that person could have been available to an ag producer or maybe even being a mechanic or working at retail.

So all of those things are certainly linked together.

There's not a special group of people that have a label on them that could only work for one industry.

So a shortage in one area is definitely linked to shortages in other areas.

- Yeah, I think we were talking earlier, somebody, Mary, I think you said there was a student that came back here from Purdue or was that you?

Somebody mentioned we had a student that moved back here with a masters from Purdue and took a job in this state and may have been Nancy Blake as informed.

Are we having a lot of issues in the college of ag placing students?

Are there plenty of jobs out there?

- There's plenty of jobs.

I mean, ag is such a big field that, whatever you wanna get interested in, there'll be a position for you.

- I think it's excellent opportunity.

- We get questions probably every day, wanting students trained in our college to work for them.

- Another really good opportunity for younger workers right now is we have these baby boomers and they're all between the age of, I think 55 and 73, which is retirement age, phasing into the next few years.

And that's gonna take out a lot of workers that have been maybe directly in ag, but also in places maybe like NRCS or FSA or ag lenders or fertilizer dealers and as those folks retire, all of those companies are gonna be looking to replace those positions.

And so I think it's a great time to be coming into the job market right now, if you're at the right age to be doing that.

- So we're recruiting for the college of ag now?

- Absolutely.

(crosstalk) (both laughing) - I saw that and that's excellent.

Something that always comes up this time of year and we have two questions.

One came in from Facebook, the other also came in tonight, garlic, number one is a too late to plant it, and I'll let Nina answer that.

Number two, this person has had garlic that has rotted when they bring it out of the ground.

Anything about that, Mary, so have at it with garlic.

- So it's probably not too late but it's not optimal to plant garlic at this point.

- [Woman] I planted it this late (laughs).

And the thing is so if that's how you wanna use your time right now, get it in the ground.

I usually don't get around to planting my garlic and for the last seven or eight years- - I put in bulbs on Saturday (laughs).

- And it'll do great.

It'll do great.

I've been putting mine in end of April, 1st part of May and you know- - Dig it like three, four inches down though, make sure it gets covered.

When I shallow plant then I don't have as good- - Right, ideally you would get it planted early enough that it'll start to produce some roots before you get ground freeze up.

But I know people have been very successful.

There are multiple bulb rots.

I think there's a Fusarium that is very, very common.

- You probably wanna rotate out of that area or start with new seed stock.

- I think, yeah.

Starting with new seed stock is probably one of the primary things I would recommend.

- Garlic to me, has always been very inexpensive in the store.

- I'm really picky about my bulbs.

So like, I don't wanna peal.

I don't wanna work that much.

So I like to grow my own.

So it's very few large bulblets with those hardnecks, the stuff in the store tends to be able to softnecks, many small bulbs.

- I think we need to give you some garlic.

- [Mary] Yeah.

(both laughing) - We introduce you to some good solid neck garlic.

- [Mary] And I like it spicy too.

- Oh, yeah, there's some amazing garlics out there.

- Okay, Joel, this person has read from Helena that a lot of the workforce is choosing to get out early and that's a nationwide trend.

Is a true in agriculture and they would like to know why so many younger people are getting out of the workforce early.

- Yeah, well, I think there's a couple different things at play.

So one is, I mentioned earlier the baby boomers, but a couple of things have happened.

So one, especially with health risks and the coronavirus certainly hit older people harder than it did younger folks so if there were health concerns, if you were able to retire, maybe you're a year or two from retirement and some statistics back that up.

We certainly saw some people just say that they're done retiring.

And another thing that made it a little easier for those folks to do that is, we've had a really good stock market.

So if you've got a 401k or IRA savings and it's been doing well, maybe you can pull the trigger on retirement 12 months earlier than maybe you would have.

So a lot different than in 2008, when we saw the stock market go down and you didn't have that cushion if you wanted to retire early.

So for older workers, that's certainly a factor now for say, 25 to 55 year old folks.

When they do surveys of why people aren't working, the number one reason is caregiving.

And childcare is certainly a huge issue.

It's expensive, it's hard to find.

So that can be one reason, especially when we had maybe schools were partially closed or had days at home, that was a real challenge for some parents to deal with.

But the other kind of side of that too, is elder care.

So you may have an aging parent or spouse, or family member that you're caring for and so there's a number of people that leave the workforce.

Again, it's expensive to have someone in nursing home care, specifically when we had coronavirus and that was a high risk environment for those folks.

If you could keep them at home, a lot of families felt that was a good thing to do but that meant you're not working somewhere else.

- Great answers, thank you.

And it all makes good sense.

Quick Facebook inquiry, a Kalispell caller would like to know if there are any Montana suppliers of the state flower bitterroot.

She's been getting them in Idaho, she's never been able to find them here in the state.

So anybody have a quick answer to that?

- There was a native farm, I think they're still in business.

It's called Native Ideals out just North of Missoula.

And they were growing bitterroot at one time.

I would check some of the... Yeah, just inquire at wherever you can find seed of any type of species and just start asking for native species like bitterroot and they might be able to put you in touch with providers.

- Okay, yeah.

If anybody else has a comment, email them in, we'll get them in the newsletter or Ag Live newsletter.

or since we won't be back next week, we'll try to get it in next spring.

Quick question, Nina, where's the best place to store potatoes?

- Cool, dry place.

Ideally, if in an ideal world about 45 degrees.

If you store them cold or you can store them in your fridge, which works just fine but when they do get cold they convert the starch to sugar.

And if you make French fries, there'll be dark French fries.

But that really doesn't bother me.

But ideally 45 degrees, in the dark, cool, your basement, if it's 55, 60 degrees is just fine.

- I leave them in my garage and they don't- - Yeah, the garage is just fine?

Yeah, as long as you don't freeze.

- Okay, quick question then I'm gonna sign out for the evening, is it too early to buy a Christmas tree?

- I think so.

- I believe so, yes.

- Wait till after Thanksgiving, please.

- Curve your pumpkins.

- Okay, folks with that question, I think were gonna call it an evening.

It's been a good fall, we've had a good time.

We'll be back I think March 20th of next year with a whole new series.

If you wanna watch reruns were on Sunday morning at 11:00 AM.

We do have a good time doing it.

I'd like to thank all of the suppliers and the supporters of the program, it's been great.

We appreciate their input and their support, See you next spring have a good time, have a good week and good night.

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