- [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 and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, The Northern Pulse Growers Association, and the Gallatin Gardener's Club.

(mellow country music) (moves to toe-tapping, bluesy acoustic guitar music) - Good evening.

Welcome to Montana Ag Live, originating tonight from the studios of KUSM, on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University.

I'm Jack Riesselman, Professor of Plant Pathology, retired for many years.

I'm happy to be your host this evening.

In keeping with the spring theme that we introduced several weeks ago, we're featuring women who have had major impact in agriculture here in the state, in many And we have a special guest this evening and I'll introduce in a moment, that I've known for probably 30 plus years.

I hate to admit that, but it's been quite some time.

Before we get to that though let me introduce the rest of the panel.

On my far left Mary Burrows.

Mary's a plant pathologist and also functions a little bit in the Dean's office as Associate Director.

Our special guest tonight, and I've known Deimna Heiken for probably 30 years, give or take.

Deimna is president of Triangle Ag Services.

And she was an innovator in this state in many respects.

Her background was a crop consultant for many years when I knew her, and worked with her extensively.

Back in '98, though, she started a company in precision ag, and it's taken off.

And you know, that was visual because way back in '98 there were not a lot of people involved with precision ag.

And we'll get back to the Deimna, and she can tell us a little bit more about the company in a minute.

Eric Belasco, Eric is our, one of our Ag economists here at Montana State University.

very, very knowledgeable, in everything you wanna know about economics.

So if you got tough questions tonight we like to stump economists, so call them in and we'll get to them.

And of course, Abi Saeed, Abi is our horticulturalist.

If you have any questions concerning plants, horticultural plants this evening, why why it's not growing, why it blooms, why it does not bloom.

Here's a good chance to ask those questions.

And answering the phone tonight is Jennifer Weiss.

Jennifer, she'll take all your questions, and we also, have somebody remote who will also take your questions.

So call those questions in, the number's on the screen.

And Deimna, thank you for coming down from Fort Benton.

We appreciate it.

Tell us a little bit about what you do as President of Triangle Ag Services.

- So Triangle Ag Services is a small company, family owned.

We just hired a new person, that's not family yet.

But as he works there longer, I'm sure he's gonna be adopted.

And we specialize in precision agriculture.

So we don't sell big chunks of iron.

All we sell is the technology to improve farmers' bottom line and their quality of life.

- So when you started, I believe it was 1998.

- [Deimna] '89.

- '89.

Okay.

(Deimna laughs) I thought precision ag started in '98.

- Right, so the company started in '89, but I did crop consulting for like 10 or 12 years.

- [Jack] Okay.

- Before we switched over to Precision Ag Equipment and Services, but it's the same company.

- Was there much precision ag back in '98, 2000, 2005 in that area, or has it grown pretty rapidly?

- I think 2000 or 2001 was the very first Autopilot that we put in the state of Montana, and the state of Idaho down in potato country.

That was a number of years ago.

And I started doing precision ag in the mid-'90s.

- Okay.

I want to show how stupid I am.

What is Autopilot and how does it relate to agriculture?

- So Autopilot is actually a brand name, but it's the ability of the computer to completely drive the tractor at least down the rows for the farmer.

So he presses a button, it's plumbed into the hydraulics of the tractor, and it steers the tractor down the rows, and makes those beautiful straight rows.

- I could never do that when I was on the farm.

I guarantee you that.

Let's switch over to Abi quickly here.

This person from Bozeman, and we have plenty of dandelions in Bozeman.

They're curious, "Are dandelions in my lawns good for bees?"

- Yeah.

So that's a good question.

And I love it when people ask me this, but dandelions and other flowering lawn can be really good for bees and other pollinators.

Because a lot of times when they're blooming, or where they're blooming, there isn't very much else in terms of food for pollinators.

So it ends up being a really nice resource for bees, especially early in the season when there's very little out there, but those bees still need to eat.

- So if you want bees around, you don't wanna be using 2,4D on your dandelions.

- No, no, and one of the reasons why a lot of these lawn weeds stick around is there might be something going on.

Your turf isn't able to out compete the weeds.

If you have questions about that, we can address some of your turf issues and see how we can make it healthier.

- Okay, thank you.

Mary, a quick one here.

This came in last week.

This person wants to know where they can send unknown insect samples for identification.

- So I would suggest starting at our website, diagnostics.montana.edu and downloading a form, and we have a form for insects, and then sending as much information as you can, and the address is 119 Plant Bioscience Building, Bozeman, 59717.

- Got it.

I think everybody knows how to remember that one.

This is an interesting question.

And again, this came in a couple weeks ago.

We did not get to it when our dean was on.

This person would like to know, and both Eric and Deimna can answer this.

How big an economic benefit to producers are some of the precision ag concepts that we're currently using in agriculture?

So Eric, Deimna, who wants to go first?

- Yeah, well, maybe I'll set the stage, and I'll be curious to hear more about precision ag solutions.

But you know, in general, I think agriculture's always been very competitive and farmers look for ways to try to stay on top of their costs, keep their costs low, keep their revenues high.

With additional data availability, and our one wonderful students who are graduating, who can take that data and make management decisions, it's always this kind of fight to continue to pass that farm onto the next generation.

So finding ways to, get every dollar out of each acre is I think what companies like Deimna's are so good at doing.

Yeah, we have had this in agriculture for a long time.

And now, with a lot of the technology, it's exciting to hear about what people can do with that data.

- Yeah, I think we have a lot more adoption of steering technologies rather than database technologies.

Data is, can be, harder to make profitable.

Steering is pretty much green light is good, red light is bad.

It reduces overlaps, reduces skips.

Really improves the quality of life for the farmer, because he is not always trying to drive straight, and he's not twisting back.

He's paying attention to the other things that are going on in the cab.

I think the thing that pays back the quickest, I know it pays back the quickest is section control on sprayers.

It knows where you've already sprayed, so it turns off individual sections when you go into areas that you have sprayed before.

And it remembers to turn them back on when you go out of those areas to the end sprayed areas.

So the farmer's saving money, and you're reducing environmental impact, because you're not putting down those chemicals where they don't need to be.

- How about fertilizer?

Does the same hold true for fertilizer?

- Absolutely.

- I've heard the concept that machine, a fertilizer spreader, whatever you want to call them can go through a field, and based on soil type, it will apply 20 units of nitrogen or 80 units.

How does the machine recognize that?

- Generally you write a prescription ahead of time.

So there's a lot of groundwork that has to be done ahead of time.

You have to go out and you have to somehow define those zones.

And then you go out and georeference to make sure what you need to put down on those zones.

Then you create a prescription map.

You send the map to the spreader, and then the magic happens.

But there's a lot of groundwork that has to be done ahead of time.

Once again, it's a data-based technology.

And so it's tougher, but there are paybacks.

- That technology just fascinates me compared to when you just used to put the lever down, and drive as fast you wanted, and put 60 units over the whole field, and not worry about it.

I can see where that saves producers a lot of money right now.

And on that note, we had a question last week, why are fertilizer costs so high?

Eric, you wanna jump on that?

- Well, so fertilizer prices have been going up for a while.

The Ukraine conflict really didn't help with a lot of the fertilizer prices.

But whenever you have, you know, we teach in our ECON101, limited supplies and demand with prices kind of where they are, farmers demand more fertilizer.

And so both of those things have been lifting fertilizer prices up to prices we've really never seen before.

- Yeah, I'm shocked when I bought a bag of lawn fertilizer the other day.

Which reminds me, when should I fertilize the lawns?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

So I, there's usually, I recommend doing three applications a year, one pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet per application.

And you wanna start around Memorial Day.

And then don't fertilize in the summer months, but then fertilize again in Labor Day, and then again in October.

- Okay.

You know, Eric, back to, I'm going back in some of my previous memories.

Didn't we buy a lot of fertilizer from Russia for a long time?

Do we also get some from Ukraine, or has it just been primarily Russia?

- I believe it's primarily Russia.

- [Jack] Okay.

- I don't think we get much from Ukraine.

But I mean, a lot of those disruptions were starting before we had the conflict there.

We've just had less supply coming in.

And you've probably heard people too, just, it's hard to find fertilizer even, yeah.

- Makes precision ag even more important, correct?

- [Deimna] It's always important.

- Oh, (chuckles) good answer.

All right, Abi, we just passed Easter.

From Missoula, this person wants to keep their Easter Lily, and they would like to know how to make it re-bloom.

- Yeah, you can do this two ways.

One way is you can put it into the ground in a couple of weeks and it should re-bloom usually at the end of the summer, around August it'll re bloom.

or you can let it go dormant in the pot, and then take it out, store it over winter, and then set it out again the next year.

- How do you make a go dormant?

Just don't water it?

- Yeah, you don't water it, and then you can set it in a cool, dry place.

I usually put it in my basement.

- Okay.

Over to Mary, Facebook question from Bozeman.

We always have a lot of Facebook questions on raspberries.

They say that raspberry canes have died for the last two years.

Will this happen again with the recent snow?

- Well, I'll play off of Abi a little bit, but we've had late frost the last couple years, which the raspberry canes set their blooms on the cane from the previous year.

So if it has burst bud, I think you're at higher risk.

Is that correct?

From a freeze damage.

- Yeah.

So yeah, I would say I like you were saying, my raspberry plants are still dormant right now, too.

So I'm not that concerned this year yet.

And I'm optimistic that I'll have a good raspberry crop.

- [Nary] I'm optimistic every year.

(everyone laughs) - But you were pessimistic the last two years.

- No, I was optimistic.

My hopes were crushed.

(everyone laughs) - Well, it was not very good the past two years.

From Great Falls, this person would like to know how expensive is some of this precision ag software that you're talking about?

- Software or hardware> - [Jack] Both.

- Both.

So the hardware and I'm talking mainly about steering systems, Entry level would start about $6,000 going on up to $20,000, or more depending on what you want, the features, and things that you want.

Software is a really tough one right now.

There's a lot of online options.

Cloud options.

John Deere has options.

Trimble has options.

Case has options.

And there's still Egg Leader SMS.

So they're all gonna do different things at different price points.

John Deere's is free, so I guess you start at zero, but that's pretty much if you have John Deere equipment, too, I believe is gonna be your best use of that platform.

- Okay, so say I have a 1998 John Deere 4020, or whatever the numbers were back then.

Can you put that steering device on an older tractor like that to make it work?

I'm being tough on you tonight, but you are always tough on me.

- [Deimna] (laughs) I'm really glad you asked that.

I happen to have a video if they wouldn't mind playing the video right now, it's of a 1981 John Deere, 8640.

And not only does it have steering going down the rows, but it has automatic turnaround at the end of the rows.

So this is up out of Big Sandy.

This is not a new tractor.

- [Jack] No.

- But it is a farmer who also works in town.

And so he is really pressed to do as much work as he can in long hours, long days.

And so having the automatic turnaround and just having it all work is wonderful.

- That is impressive.

Now my next question is can you take a nap while you're driving these things?

- It's not recommended.

(everyone laughs) - Well, I have a theory is that a lot of these were installed after the good crop years in like 2010, 2011, because guys started texting me constantly.

- Yes.

- (laughs) While they out steer.

(laughs) - Yes, when they would first get it, and they would pick up the phone, and they'd be like, "This is wonderful.

I'm so bored.

Would you talk to me?"

(everyone laughs) - I think a lot of us are listening to podcasts.

- Yeah, yeah.

But having more connectivity with their phones, and having the equipment do more of the work really opened up a lot of possibilities I think for a lot of growers.

- I saw that tractor and that amazes me, because that's technology that I never saw when I was actually on the farm, or even in my previous position here at the university.

What about yield monitors on old combines?

Can you do that too?

- Depending on the age of the combine, yes.

For the most part we can retrofit on most combines, but not all.

- Okay, what is the, and first of all, I didn't explain what a yield monitor is.

Why don't you do that?

And then what is the benefit of having a yield monitor on a combine?

- So a yield monitor is a device that goes in the combine.

Most of them are a pressure plate.

So at the top of the elevator, the grain is going up on paddles on this chain, up through the clean grain elevator.

When it gets to the top, the grain hits that pressure plate, and the pressure plate then converts that into a yield, basically.

So you know what parts of the field yield more, or yield less so that you can make fertility variety, whatever kinds of decisions you need to make from that information.

- Does that go into at all mapping, the fertilizer use that you might use in future years to spot treat for 20 pounds versus 80 pounds?

- It's definitely part of that equation.

It's also part of measuring your results.

So when you're doing variable rate, it's always good to leave a check strip of maybe that 60 pound flat rate.

And what's the difference in a flat rate versus a variable rate over a whole drip of the field?

- Okay, interesting.

Let's move over to Abi.

This is a Facebook question.

And actually we had another question earlier a couple weeks ago we did not answer.

Number one, this person wants to know how long does grass seeds stay viable?

I'm thinking years, probably.

And then earlier we had a similar question about vegetable seeds that they have stored inside.

Have at it.

- Yeah.

So it depends on the seed.

It depends on the storage conditions.

It's hard to say definitively how long seeds will be viable.

But one of the things that I recommend people to do is a germination test.

So you put some of the seeds in a wet paper towel, and then you see how many will sprout in a week or two.

And you can use that to kind of decide what your seeding rate's gonna be.

So if you only have two or three outta 10 seeds, you might wanna get new seed at that point.

- Okay.

But you gotta keep that towel wet.

- Yes.

You do have to keep that wet.

Don't let a dry out.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Mary, from Dillon.

this person has heard that China has restricted some spring wheat from the Pacific area, Pacific Northwest area due to ergot, which is a disease that you have a sample of here.

I don't think we have much ergot here in Montana.

How about other areas around us?

- We do get it occasionally in the Northeast corner, especially I've heard some reports up, you know, Glasgow area.

And then out down in Dillon it would be in the hay crops, and especially those ditches.

So I'll show some ergot here.

You can maybe see.

They're black bodies and these replace the grain, essentially.

So this are probably rye ergot.

Rye ergots tend to be much, much larger wheat, so about the size of a wheat seed.

And inside that ergot body is just a mass of mycelia.

And so it'll infect the plant and flowering.

Little cup fungi come out.

And then the spores release, and they infect that flowering.

There's no fungicides or anything, just keeping the ditches clean, and not irrigating around flowering, that kind of thing is about all you can do.

And wheat and barley aren't nearly as susceptible as some of these grasses.

- You know, it looks like mouse turds, is what it looks like.

Bu you know we have, and we've had this question earlier, but we do get a fair amount of ergot here in the state in some of our grass seed production, or in our pastures.

Is that an issue with, it's a poison, if you get too much.

Is that an issue with livestock?

- It can be from time to time.

We get grain samples in, and they ask if, how much ergot, and we weigh out the ergot bodies versus the regular grain.

And it causes ergotism, which is like a vascular tightness, so they can get infections in the hooves, and stuff like that.

- The ergotin has been used to treat heart diseases years and years ago.

- There's a grower up in the Northeast who wanted to sell his ergot.

And so pharmaceutical companies will actually buy ergot to make pharmaceuticals.

And he had, I think, two semi loads full of ergot, so that was a bad year.

- Okay.

Thank you.

This caller actually left an email, and it says a guest a couple weeks ago, noted that, the guest Cassie Martin actually, said that 80% of Montana's grain is exported.

This person would like to know what the process is of exporting grain.

And that's kind of a good question, because you hear we send it overseas.

How does that work, Eric?

- You hear a lot that our ag markets in Montana are global, and for the wheat market, that's certainly the case.

A lot of the market starts at the elevators in Montana, and then starts heading West to the port of Portland.

And actually you mentioned Cassie Martin we're doing a trip this year with some MSU ag business students called We're following the grain out to the port of Portland where a lot of the Montana grain ends up before it shipped to Asia-Pacific region, Japan and places like that.

And so, you know, these eight ag business students and I we're gonna drive, you know, see the trains that take that grain out to the port.

As well as some of the inland barging system, which if you're growing grain in Eastern Washington, you're using the barges to go out there.

And so it hits that port and then gets loaded onto ships, and heads out to all countries in the Asia-Pacific.

- That's interesting.

I think Montana does truck some grain to Lewiston, Idaho that goes outta Lewiston, down to Portland by barge.

Is that still?

- It could, I mean, the barge, once you get it on a barge, the cost goes down significantly of transporting it.

Yeah, so you'd have to be pretty close to that barge system to get it there, to make it pencil out.

But most of it in Montana is, you know, we've had more of those large shuttle loader facilities, you know, in the last 10 years.

- Unit grains.

- Yeah.

Taking, you know, higher volumes out to the coast.

- Is there a unit trained facility in - Yes, I think there's two between Fort Benton and Gray Falls.

- Okay.

A caller from Geraldine, says, "It's nice to see Deimna on the program."

And the second part of the question is, "Ask Jack if he had a good time at Fort Benton last night."

(everyone laughs) I can't hide any place anymore.

I was at a conservation at Fort Benton last night, and had a great time.

And I'll put a plug in for Fort Benton.

For a lot of people in Montana, they may not know where Fort Benton is, may not have ever been there.

But if you want a nice weekend trip or even one nice day, Fort Benton has excellent food, excellent drink, good accommodations and a ton of history.

It's the area that was settled through the Steambowl Era.

And boy, the history is just great there.

And the people are wonderful.

So no, the Fort Benton Chamber of Commerce has not paid me to say that, but it is a great little town.

So if you want a vacation check in there, And yes, I did have a good time there last night.

Abi, we want to know, and this is from Pray, why their Forsythia is not blooming.

- Yeah, so like Mary and I were talking about.

In the past couple of years, we've had those late season, hard frosts in the springtime.

So winter injury can be a reason that your Forsythia might not bloom, because the blooms are on one-year-old wood.

And so if those buds have been damaged, it might not bloom, or improper pruning.

So if you've prune them too late, and you've pruned out some of the buds, that could be why.

Sometimes if you have too much nitrogen, that's gonna encourage the green leafy growth, not really encourage those buds and blooms.

So it could be a combination of things going on.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Deimna, excellent question here.

What's involved in converting a 20-year-old tractor to auto drive?

- It depends on which auto steer system they want.

We have everything from a friction steering, which is bolting a motor onto the steering column.

It's got a little foam wheel, like is on remote cars.

It rubs against the steering wheel and steers it.

It sounds like a joke, (laughs) but it works.

And we have, there's thousands of them out there.

That is the entry level system.

And then that, the next step up would be to take that motor, turn the motor into a donut motor, pull your steering wheel off.

There's a hub adapter.

The motor will go on and then a steering wheel will go on the top of that.

And that is more responsive, better performance.

And then your more advanced ones are hydraulic.

- [Jack] Okay.

- So a 20-year-old tractor, you probably won't do hydraulic.

But the system that we looked at on the video where it was steering those nice straight rows and turning around on the end, that was the donut motor.

- Hmm.

You know, I'm fascinated by all this technology.

My question is what percentage of the growers say in the triangle, which is Shelby to Great Falls up to Havre.

What percentage of the growers would you estimate are using precision ag technology right now?

- Once again, to focus on the steering and, mainly on the steering solutions, I would say about 80%, 85%.

But what surprises me is every year we get people who are buying their very first system.

And just when I think everybody has one, nope, there's still people out there that are still waiting, and still entering that market.

- That would be kind of like me.

(laughs) - [Deimna] I'm not gonna throw stones.

(everyone laughs) - All right, Mary.

From Glendive, this person says, "In between snow storms," and that is right now the snow capital of the state of Montana.

They've had just a ton of moisture out They want to know if their late planted winter wheat did not emerge, will it still emerge this spring, and will have vernalized?

- It should if it imbibes some water, especially next, last fall.

A lot of times you'll see them germinate a little bit, and they'll vernalize.

I know our winter wheat breeding programs planted pretty late some years, and they still get a winter wheat crop.

So what do you think Deimna?

- Yeah, yeah, it'll vernalize very nicely.

- You know, I noticed some of the winter wheat, in the triangle looks pretty good right now.

They need moisture there.

But out East they've really had some significant moisture.

I'm not saying it has broken the drought, which they've had a severe drought, but things are looking a little better right now.

And Eric, there's a question that came in last, two weeks ago, we weren't on last week.

We didn't have an economist on, I brought it back up from Great Falls.

They want to know your vision of wheat prices, six and eight months down the road.

- Oh, nice.

(everyone laughs) Get a pen, that's a lot of paper ready, right?

Your investment advice here is coming.

The markets have been really tough (chuckles) to figure out.

You know, we talked earlier about supply and demand lifting those prices up.

Wheat prices are really high right now.

And there's a lot of factors.

I mean, they were going up even before, right after COVID we saw them going up.

We saw drought hit Montana, they went up.

Right now, there's drought in Kansas, and Oklahoma and Texas, and they're going up further.

Russia and Ukraine export a lot of wheat into the global market.

With those reduced supplies, and Russia supplies were dropping even before this conflict was happening.

And so there's been a lot of upward pressure on wheat, mostly from the supply side.

And demand hasn't really relented, so You know, six months out, I don't know.

I mean, next December the futures markets says over $11.00 a bushel.

And that's kind of what's in the market now.

We'll see what happens kind of between now and then.

There's obviously a lot of production that needs to happen before that.

I mean, given that, a lot of the US has already seen some pretty dry conditions for wheat production.

I wouldn't be surprised if those prices remain high.

- Mentioning that, and just looking at the news, my old home state of Nebraska, which you don't anticipate as being extremely dry, because we're in a 20, 25 inch, or 30 inch rainfall.

They've had several significant fires similar to what we had in Denton this past year.

So yes, it's dry throughout the Midwest, and that does not bode well right now for the crops.

Now, that could change, there's no doubt about that.

Interesting question here.

Caller has a very old birch tree, Abi.

It hasn't been pruned recently, and maybe Mary, too.

There's a water-like fluid dripping out of the outer branches.

What is it?

And what should they do about it?

- So I would say I would like to take a look at it.

So if they could send a picture to my email, or if you wanted to send in a sample, to diagnostics.montana.edu.

It could be a pathogen that's causing that.

So it'd be good to take a look at it.

- [Mary] But realistically, we'd probably pruning it out while it's dormant.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But getting it diagnosed would be good.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Deimna, we're supposed to ask you about Triangle Ag Services website, and your ability to answer questions about precision ag.

Are you willing to do that?

- Well, we have a ask us questions link on our website.

So it's triangleag.com.

And we do get questions from people, generally on equipment.

Will this work on this equipment?

What are my options for this equipment?

Those are ongoing questions, and they can definitely put it on our website.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Question for me.

Do I remember John Mackey and in the Dillon area?

Yes, I do.

John was a county agent down there for a long time.

And I do remember him.

Deimna, back to you.

(panelists chuckling) Am I in trouble with Dillon, too?

(laughs) You know, it's tough traveling around this state with a bad reputation.

(everyone laughs) Okay, Deimna.

Question that came in via Facebook.

Are cereal crops as beneficial to precision egg technique, or concepts as higher value crops like corn and soybean?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- Okay.

- Once again, our growers are covering a lot of acres, a lot of hours spent in those tractor cabs, and the more efficient you can make the driver the better.

The other thing the technology does for the farmer is that he can put in new drivers.

It doesn't have to be a trained driver.

Well, they have to know how to run the tractor, but they don't have to know how to drive a straight line by sighting on the horizon.

They're gonna be able to go press the button, and drive just as straight a line as grandpa did.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Facebook from Laurel.

This person has several varieties of wheat grass in their pasture.

And many times a black mold will appear where the leaf meets the stem.

Mary, you have any idea what that might be?

- It could be one of the smuts.

It's not toxic to livestock at all, but we do see it occasionally.

I did bring some smut on barley, which affects the seed head.

And that's kind of a loose smut, so the black stuff you see in here is actually the center of the head that's kind of left.

It's covered in black spores.

And if you just break it open, it puts black all over your finger, and pretty easy to diagnose that way.

So it's not hard like the ergot, so the ergot's super hard.

The smuts tend to just break apart really easy and become dust.

- Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Abi, Darlene from Chester has two, 1,000 gallons stock tanks, they're pretty big, that leak.

So they're probably pretty old.

They have holes in them.

Can she use them as raised beds?

- So that, I've had questions like that before.

One thing that I'd be concerned about, because if they're old and they're deteriorating, leaching could be an issue.

So leaching zinc and other metals is a possibility.

They can be used as raised beds, but I would recommend lining them first before using them as raised beds, especially if they're older.

- It'd take a lot of soil to fill.

- It, would.

Yeah.

It's become pretty trendy to use stock tanks as raised beds.

People like doing it a lot, these beds.

- So do you like put some holes in the bottom, and put some-rocks down?

- Yeah, that's what, yeah, I do that.

And then first line it put some holes in the bottom, so it can drain.

They can get pretty hot though, so that's another thing to consider, and dry out pretty quickly.

So we have to keep up with the irrigation pretty well, but they look cool.

- Plant something around it for shade.

- Yeah, you can do that, yeah, you can do that.

- Okay, thank you.

Eric, a Facebook question.

Not only are grain prices up, but food prices have skyrocketed.

Do you see any chance that these may bottom out, or become less prevalent?

- Yeah, well, I feel like for the last year I've been saying, a couple months from now, they'll come back.

(Abi laughs) I keep pushing that forecast out.

No, like I said earlier, there are so many things that are sort of lifting up wheat prices.

And a lot of the other commodities have experienced similar things.

Where you have adverse weather and demand is strong for a lot of products.

So prices are going up.

And especially, at the retail side, a lot of the additional costs that are seen, like when we go buy food at the store.

A lot of those costs go up, because the labor costs, we've all seen those going up.

And then there's the expense for transportation logistics.

Yeah, we've seen a lot of high prices.

Last year it was about 8 1/2% of inflation on food.

I've seen some projections that say, oh, it should kind of calm down to about 5% by the end of the year.

But again, I feel like we've been saying that for awhile really.

I think what needs to happen is the supply chain needs to sort of get through.

What's happening in Ukraine is also interrupting.

But we have shut downs in different areas.

So anything that's gonna slow the global flow of food.

Even though it's not here in the US, it's gonna raise those food prices.

The Fed is taking some actions now to try to keep inflation down.

I don't know, we'll kind of see where we are by next year.

It's hard to imagine it going much higher than where we are right now.

- But, I'll probably get criticized for saying this, but food prices in the US are still quite reasonable compared to much of the world.

- Yeah.

Well, yeah.

And I think the reason you say that is the amount that the US spends on its food is still pretty low, and we definitely complain about it.

Yeah, in other countries, it becomes a much bigger issue, certainly when those food prices.

And they're seeing the same food price issues that we're seeing as well.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Couple questions here that everybody can jump on.

One is from East of Brady, and I'll read them both before we answer.

This farmer wants to know if the extreme drought will affect needed leaching of fertilizer and chemicals out of the ridge zone regarding planting other crops.

They're little bit worried about carryover herbicide, carryover, and whether or not there's gonna be nitrates in the area.

And the other is, this person from Fairfield is aware that they've had serious nitrate in the groundwater through the years.

And they would like to know whether or not precision ag techniques could reduce some of this groundwater contamination.

So I'll let Deimna answer that latter one first.

- It's definitely possible if you're over fertilizing in areas where the crop is not utilizing that nitrogen, then if we can reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer, we're putting down in those areas it's gonna reduce the runoff.

But once again, finding those areas is, people have to work at it.

- Okay, Mary.

- Well, I'm not a weed scientist, but Tim Sippel is.

And I get a lot of herbicide injury samples into the clinic, and especially in a drought.

You can look at the months after planting, or, you know, the months after application that you have to pay attention to, and then add a lot depending on the chemistry, but- - You're plant back times vary so much.

If they're tested during wet periods of time- - And pulses are very susceptible.

- Okay, perfect, thank you.

Abi, a caller from Belgrade did not get their strawberry thin last fall, and they really are overgrowing.

Now they've started to green up and are sending out suckers.

Can they still be thinned, or do they need to be thinned?

- I mean, if they're crowding each other, it is probably a good idea to thin them a little bit.

And if they're looking really unruly, that can be an issue.

You need nice air circulation to prevent disease issues.

And then the physical damage from them rubbing up against each other.

So if they are really unruly, you can thin them, now.

Ideally you would do that when they're dormant.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

I agree with you entirely.

And this question again, came in a couple of weeks ago.

I did throw out at that time, because we didn't have anybody that was really qualified to answer it.

But tonight Deimna is here, so she can answer it.

(everyone laughs) This person wants to know why yellow pea prices are roughly $1.50 to $2.00 a hundred weight greater than green pea prices.

We talked about it ahead of time, so Deimna has a great answer.

- So as I remember, this was something Perry Miller had told me.

And so I speculate that it plays a role in the price of the crop.

There's a rise in popularity of protein drinks that people like to drink.

Most people don't like to drink green liquids.

And yellow peas, the protein molecules fractionate off easily, and they're not green.

So you get high protein without the green.

- That's what I kind of anticipated, but I think that's absolutely right.

So we did get that question answered, and thank you.

Quick one, When should they plant rhubarb here in Gallatin County?

- I'm pretty fast and loose with rhubarb.

I usually plant mine in May, usually, mid to late May.

- My only problem was I put the rhubarb in the garage, and it dried out and like, decomposed before I planted it.

- Oh no.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But it's pretty easy to grow here.

- All right, here's a good one.

I like this one.

This person says, the average Montana farm is just over 3,000 acres.

I think it's a little more than that now, it's been growing over the years.

What's your best guess, how much money could be saved by adopting all of the precision ag techniques available to reduce their costs?

Deimna, you got any idea how much money one can save?

- Are you looking at a per acre, or percentage, or?

- [Jack] Well, let's just say, a ballpark figure for a 3,000 acre wheat and barley farm, or wheat and pulse crops.

- I would think 15, maybe, 15%.

- I think that's probably pretty realistic.

And how much reduction in environmental pollution might you have, assuming that you're considering excess herbicide environmentally not good.

- Yeah, I don't know how you'd measure that, other than once again the price.

Because when you reduce how many inputs you're putting on it would be a direct correlation.

Because as your input, as the amount of money you're putting into inputs decreases, that means there's that much less going in the ground.

So that much less going into the environment.

- I agree.

But let's examine that a little bit farther.

And Eric, you can jump in too.

So let's say grain prices right now are $10, $11.

And you reduce your fertilizer costs and your herbicide costs.

It would add up to a pretty significant amount of money, and let's say on a per acre basis.

Anybody have a guess there?

- I mean, I don't have a guess.

But I would say that any time you see higher prices, then you're gonna have more demand for those products that'll get you just a, whether it's a little bit more cost savings, or a little extra yield, the incentives for those.

So my guess would be in those times when you see good profitability in Montana, is probably when you see people trying to think about how do we take those extra funds and invest them into some new technologies?

For those years when green prices aren't great, and the rainfall's not great.

- Yeah, yeah, I think we have more interest maybe in the higher end solutions.

And then when things aren't so good, maybe they just start with the entry level systems then.

Or do more of a maintenance.

- Okay, you know, we're gonna pull up a picture here in a minute, or a little bit of a promotion.

But last, two weeks ago, I keep saying last week, last week was Easter.

There's a lot of interest in the Precision Ag Boot Camp that we have here, being offered in June at Montana State University.

And I think it's pretty full, but I think they can still do some work with webinars and so forth.

So if Paula could pull that up, which she just did.

You can contact Robin Happle, at 994, I think it's 2132, to get more information on this.

And if this is really popular, and I assume it will be, because the demand has been great.

I'm sure there'll be more of them down the line, right, Mary?

- Yup, I hope so.

- Yeah, I think so.

It's, I think, geared right now for people not my age, in other words, younger people.

- I think it's undergraduates.

- Undergraduates, and so forth.

But as we move more and more into precision agriculture, it's these type of programs.

Deimna you might even get involved with teaching some of these, because your knowledge base is really, really good.

I'm impressed with it.

Mary, from Richland.

If we get significant moisture, what is the Ascochyta risk on chickpea?

And first of all, tell them that Ascochyta can be devastating on chickpea production.

- Yeah, Ascochyta blight can melt chickpea, literally.

You can go in days to a nice green crop to not a whole lot.

It defoliates the crop.

It also can infect the pods.

And you can see these very characteristic target shaped spots that the lesion expands.

And at this stage it'll infect the seed, and then the seed will contain the pathogen, so that can be one way you get the disease.

The other way is you either had the disease the previous year in that field, or your neighbor did.

Which hasn't been a huge issue the last three years.

We haven't had that moisture to facilitate Ascochyta blight.

We recommend rotating out of chickpeas for three years just due to Ascochyta blight risk.

And secondarily, the root rots, as well.

That said, we've had drought for three years, so I think the risk is pretty low this year.

But you know, check your seed, make sure it's clean.

Always use a seed treatment.

- You know, that can change so rapidly.

You can get a wet period, or some moisture moving down from Canada, spore showers.

- [Mary] We've seen that before.

- We have seen that before.

And it can just wreck a crop, there's no doubt about that.

From Geraldine, "Deimna, do you miss crop consulting?"

(everyone laughs) You probably know who this came from.

(everyone laughs) - Sometimes, I think my favorite part of crop consulting was being out in the field maybe at 7:00 a.m., so it wasn't really hot, and the ground was just warming up.

And you dig in that soil, and it smells so good.

And the view is awesome, 'cause you're out in the middle of some field in the middle of the golden triangle.

Yeah, that's pretty nice.

- [Jack] It is pretty nice.

- Pretty nice.

- And you probably prefer that to sitting in your office and playing with your- - Click, click, click.

- I know that.

Another question here.

This caller knows a GPS is a lot of it's satellite-based, I believe.

- [Deimna] Yes.

- Are there any satellites, they'd like to know that are specifically dedicated for GPS for agricultural purposes?

- Whew.

(sighs) To my knowledge, our major vendor is Trimble, Trimble Navigation.

Trimble is technology-based, that's what their company is, and agriculture is one of the applications they have for their technology.

And to my knowledge they rent space on other people's satellites for their correction.

I guess I'm wondering if they're talking about correction, or the GPS signal.

GPS is a brand, GPS is the US brand of satellite navigation constellations.

The Russian one is GLONASS.

Our newer equipment is using constellations from five different countries for their positioning.

And then we have a correction signal that makes it even more accurate.

So the navigation satellites are dedicated for navigation, but not just for agriculture.

And the corrections I don't think are, either.

I think that's just rented space, as far as I know.

- Yeah, I learned something there.

I did not know that myself.

You know, it's amazing, as old as I get, what you can learn sitting here, is somewhat impressive at times.

From Gallatin County, the caller has a number of mature cottonwood trees planted to adjacent several planting beds containing exotic plants, I don't know what they are.

Is there a good solution other than continually pulling up the cottonwood suckers?

And the answer is?

- There isn't, unfortunately.

(everyone laughs) I wish there was, but yeah, you got to keep pulling them up.

- Okay, that's what I would expect.

Eric, this person would like to know, do you see prices also increasing for pulse crops here during this Ukraine crisis, and so forth.

- Oh boy.

I wouldn't think as much with the pulse market.

Just given that where export markets are.

I would think they'd be somewhat insulated from it.

The crops that have kind of more a global market, like wheat, if you have any sort of diversion, then it's gonna be experienced in the US, even though we're not kind of directly exporting or importing from a country.

So I would think that'd be less so with peas and lentils.

- Thank you, and on that note, Deimna.

There's been a fair amount of peas, lentils, and not so much chickpeas, but some chickpeas growing on the triangle.

Do precision ag techniques help say applying fungicides on these crops?

Has there been any work done in that area?

- The work that I'm aware of for fungicide application is more on sugar beets, some crops in the Midwest where they're trying to use remote sensing to find the areas that need the fungicide application.

And to be honest, I really haven't kept up to see the efficacy of those applications.

- I'm gonna ask, do we have another video we want to show quickly that you brought?

- Nope, that was it.

- We got them all done.

- Got it done.

- So from Bozeman, Eric, and this is interesting.

What are the pros and cons of the United States insulating Russian fertilizers from economic sanctions?

I didn't know they were doing that.

- Yeah, I didn't, I knew with oil there was.

Yeah, there's sort of a trade off.

Economists love to use that word, trade off.

If you're kind of using a political instrument to limit trade, which might be desirable, or might not be.

Then that's certainly gonna drive up prices.

We've seen that in the oil market where you had a lot of countries not importing oil from Russia.

And so you saw some of that result in higher fuel prices in different countries.

So yeah, definitely could happen.

- This question came in two weeks ago.

And I threw it out then, and we weren't sure.

So I'm gonna ask Deimna the same question.

This person wants to know when we expect to see autonomous tractors.

- Ah, yes, I am very excited for autonomy.

Once again, it depends on how you define autonomy.

Is it completely these tractors out there with nobody in the cab, nobody in the field?

John Deere released an autonomous tractor, four wheel drive, articulated, I believe for the market this year.

And the steps that we're taking like the video that we showed, those are the steps to full autonomy.

And so while all the farms might not be completely autonomous, I see more and more people going down the path towards fully autonomous.

Just like we are with our vehicles.

We have cruise control, and different sensors and stuff on our vehicles now.

The tractors are gonna go the same way.

We're just gonna keep adding, and adding and adding.

- Does that steering system reduce fuel costs?

Is there any data on that, out of curiosity?

- I guess I'm not aware of it.

- Okay, all right, Abi.

It's gardening season, according to this person here in Gallatin County.

They would like to know can they plant peas now?

And if so, can you promise they won't rot in the ground?

(Abi laughs) - I would probably wait a couple of weeks before planting peas, personally, because I wouldn't want the seeds to rot.

- I think you're probably right.

- What about you?

I can't promise anything though.

(Eric laughs) - I would wait until something's growing.

- Wait 'til, yeah.

- 'Cause you know, you can plant them, and they'll sit there, and sit there, and sit there.

But if you plant them when it's a little warmer they pop right out.

- Yeah.

- And they catch right up.

- Yeah.

- A good friend called me last week and said, "I want to plant my potatoes."

I said, "You know, you might be a little bit early."

Mary, you've worked with potatoes some.

When would you put your potatoes in the ground?

- Well, later than this.

I don't know, the potato growers probably go after the wheat growers, for sure.

- Yeah, probably around the first part of May.

- Yeah.

- No earlier than the last week.

And we've been cold this year.

Things are just not popping- - They're behind.

- Yeah, definitely.

Folks, we've come to the end of another program.

Deimna, thank you very much for coming down.

I envy you living in Fort Benton.

It's a beautiful city.

I really enjoy going up there.

Next week, and by the way, Eric and everybody else, thank you also, for being here tonight.

Next week, we have Kate Vogel, who is co-owner of North 40 Ag out in Ballantine.

And I'll tell you where Ballantine is next week, if you don't know.

But it's somewhere east of here.

So anyway folks, join us next week.

Thanks for watching this week.

Have a good week, stay warm, and good night.

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(toe-tapping, bluesy acoustic guitar music) - [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 and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, The Northern Pulse Growers Association, and the Gallatin gardeners club.

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