- [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, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, the Northern Pulse Growers Association, and the Gallatin Gardens Club.

(upbeat country music) - Good evening, welcome to another edition of "Montana Ag Live, originating tonight from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over the Montana Public I'm Jack Reisselman, I'll be your host this evening.

I'm a retired professor of plant pathology, so I'll stay out of the discussion as much as possible, (panelists chuckle) because we have a lot of experts here this evening.

As you all know who have watched this program this spring, we are featuring women in agriculture.

And last week I wasn't here and we had an all-women panel.

And Mary told me this week it would be hard to get an all male panel together in today's world.

(Eric laughs) And I suspect she's right, 'cause women have really become very active in agriculture.

Tonight, we're happy to have Chaley Harney with us.

Chaley is the executive director of the Montana Beef Council, and she does a wonderful job.

She'll tell you about it in a little bit, but before we do that, let me introduce this evening's panel.

Way on my left, Mary Burrows, plant pathologist and associate dean in the Dean's Office.

And our special guest this evening, Chaley Harney.

Chaley is with the Montana Beef Council.

You'll learn a lot about beef production and beef utilization here in the state tonight.

So if you have questions relative to beef, why it's so expensive and why it's so good, tonight's an excellent opportunity to ask those questions.

Eric Belasco, Eric is an economist.

We always like to have an economist on so they can challenge the other people on the panel.

(panelists laughing) And, believe me, economists do like to talk, right?

- Sure.

- And, of course, Tim Seipel.

Tim, he likes to be called a weed ecologist.

I don't go for that.

(Tim laughs) He's a weed scientist.

And answering the phones tonight are Nikki and Joe Vradenburg.

Thank you for coming in.

Glad to have you here.

Chaley, tell us about the Montana Beef Council.

- Thank you, Jack.

So the Montana Beef Council was created in 1954 by cattleman for cattleman.

And it was created as a marketing organization for beef.

Ranchers at that time and auction market owners got together.

They wanted to find a way to market their product.

And so they formed the organization and cattleman contributed to that organization to strictly market beef.

It evolved over the years and became a federal checkoff.

So it is a federal program now, and $1 per head is collected for all cattle that are sold.

And 50 cents of that dollar stays here in Montana and 50 cents goes onto the national level.

The funds can only be used for beef promotion, research, education, and producer communications.

And we have a board of directors that is very well rounded of nearly all the supply chain that make up that board and make those investment decisions all across the state.

- You know, I think you have a small film clip of some of your educational work.

And you start with youngsters, and I think that's great, because if you get youngsters interested in agriculture or in beef, and I don't know if we could see that clip right now, if we could bring it up, you can explain what's going on there.

- Sure, so, each year, we have the opportunity to make investments all across the state, and that might be with youth education, as you're seeing here.

We worked in Billings with all of the Boys & Girls Clubs across the city and brought them in for some education.

And, really, that education extends wherever at any age level that we can get.

So it might be nutrition information or how beef is produced, understanding sustainability, and then just what is good for you and what makes up a beef carcass and what that looks like.

So that education could be the different cuts that come in a half a beef.

So we put together videos to help understand that, or just general beef education to understand cattle production or beef production.

- You know, kids are a great way to get to it.

I used to be a grad student at the University of Nebraska, and they had a meats lab there run by a gentleman by the name of Roger Mandigo, he's famous.

Actually, he created some of the chicken nuggets.

And I always liked to be at the taste test when they served steak.

I wasn't so much for the process beef, (panelists chuckling) but I was always in line for when they had the steak taste test.

And that was a lot of fun.

I like beef.

There's no doubt about it.

(Chaley laughs) And on that note, a question from Custer.

And I'll throw this one toward Eric.

They wanna know what the outlook is for the cattle market.

And everything's up right now.

And, Chaley, you can jump in too.

So, Eric?

- Well, yeah, so some things are up.

It's kind of a mixed bag right now, because prices are good.

They're about 180 if you look at the futures market going out into the winter or even into next spring, so there's a bit of upward pressure there.

But I'm sure ranchers talk to you a lot too about the drought that's hitting us.

So drought's gonna raise a lot of your input costs.

It's gonna raise the price of hay.

In real terms, the price of hay is about double what it normally is.

And so, you know, prices are good, but they're sufficient to, I guess, offset some of those losses on the input side.

You know, all these things, and we'll probably talk more about the supply chain later, but there's just a lot of supply costs that are going up throughout the sector which are gonna drive those prices up.

- I believe that.

And here's another question that came in here.

And this came from Missoula.

And I'll address these two to both of you.

This person would like to know why beef is so much more expensive than pork, where, in reality, the carcass differences are not that great price-wise.

So is there an answer for that?

- Good question, you wanna start with some numbers?

- You wanna start?

Okay, well, I mean, so comparing the two, so I was talking about the cow-calf sector and how you have a drought that's driving up some of those prices.

For ranchers, the cost of production's gone up, but it's really the cost throughout the supply chain.

So cow-calf sector sees those higher price, fertilizer.

We were talking about labor earlier, labor's also gone up.

But then you go to the feed lot, you know, where we're sending a lot of our cows to, and then you have corn prices are really high right now, which are gonna drive up that price.

And so what that's done is it's kind of sped animals through the supply chain a bit more.

But then, even when they leave the feed lot, you're talking transportation, high fuel costs, high labor costs, all those things are up as well.

And so all those things are gonna drive up the retail price of beef.

Now, I guess comparing it to pork on the pork side, you do have a lot of vertical integration which you don't have in the beef sector which might cause a bit of that distinction.

But I would say the biggest motivator is really the drought that is gonna have an impact on the sort of near term price for beef.

- [Jack] Chaley, you wanna add anything?

- Well, I think they mentioned poultry as well, but just the difference in volume and the lifespan of creating that calf all the way through to finish versus in the poultry or even the pork sector as well in volume of the babies that you might get per animal as well.

But just a very increased input cost as well.

But we are seeing very strong demand on the consumer side still, consumers that are still willing to pay for that product.

And at Montana Beef Council, we have a lot of resources available for steak swaps, if you will, or ways to slice and save using different roasts and creating them different ways, or shredded beef four ways, for example.

So you can extend the recipe or extend the product a little bit further to still be able to enjoy beef and incorporate that into your meals in different ways.

- Just to add to that too, 'cause I think I didn't mention the demand side, but that's been kind of one of the surprises in the last couple years is higher demand for beef products, which, you know, I think given everything we've seen with the drought and just high prices, we'd expect the price to go up.

But then, when you have consumers demanding more of that product as well, like both of those things are gonna doubly drive that price up.

- Okay, Tim, I have a question for you.

This person has had a lot of problems with kochia in their spring wheat and they would like to know what you consider to be the best product to control kochia.

- Hmm, that's a really good question.

So can kochia can be a really difficult weed to control.

It's becoming more resistant, it's evolving more herbicide resistance in Montana.

So there's a number of different price points out there for different molecules that you have to use to manage kochia in spring wheat.

So there's some product lines, WideMatch.

There's something called Kochiavore that's out there.

It is another one that does really good.

Usually, these herbicide molecules are mixes of at least three active ingredients at one time.

And it kind of depends on the price that you really wanna pay, but yeah, WideMatch, Huskie, both available in crop.

And then Kochiavore is another one.

- Okay, thank you.

Mary, From Fort Benton, this person has a relatively new variety of wheat, Bobcat, and it has some spots on it.

Is that tan spot, they'd like to know, or is it something else?

- So that variety in particular does have some physiological spotting.

Growers might remember CDC Falcon.

The way you could recognize CDC Falcon was it looked like it always had tan spot.

It could be tan spot Septoria.

If it is been moist enough and the temperature's been high enough, it's still a little early for a lot of tan spot, but it has been reported out in the state, especially down in that Yellowstone Valley.

So if you're gonna think about spraying a fungicide, you wanna look at what your anticipated yield is, what the cost of an application is, what the cost of the product is, whether you can get the product.

And I think disease risk, since we've had three years of drought, is fairly low in most wheat fields.

- I would agree.

Okay, Chaley, from Manhattan, and I probably know who sent this question in.

They want to know what's your favorite beef recipe is.

- Oh boy, My favorite beef recipe.

(panelists chuckling) Thank you, beef fans out there, all beef.

I would say probably flank steak with chimichurri on it, a little Argentine style.

And tacos, you can't go wrong with tacos every day.

(panelists laugh) - No you can't.

Tim, this person would like to know if you can spray weeds at night, and if you can, is there an advantage in doing so?

- Well, that's a good question.

You know, I go around sometimes and people ask me this question fairly often, "Can I apply herbicides at night?"

You know, maybe they're under time pressure or they're looking for it to be less windy, something like that.

But, really, the answer is, no, you should not, for a couple of reasons.

Reason number one, studies have shown, with glyphosate and Dicamba, 50% efficacy if you spray after sunset up till 6:00 AM, and nearly 100% efficacy from about 10:00 AM to an hour before sunset.

And that's because the plants are actively doing chemistry and taking in the molecule and growing.

The second reason we don't wanna spray herbicide at night, especially in Montana, if you have a no-wind situation or a light-wind situation, is those conditions can really set you up to cause herbicide spray drift.

And that can end up in your neighbors fields, other places, and cause serious damage.

So, no, it's not a good idea.

- Okay, thank you.

Great answer.

This one I'm curious about, from Bigfork for Chaley, this person says, "My wife and I enjoy sweetbreads."

And by the way, I really do too.

And that might be one of my favorite meals.

"You don't see them on the market anymore," and they're wondering why is that?

I would say consumer demand is probably the biggest reason, as with a lot of our more variety meats, and it just depends on the market.

We don't see a lot of veal, for instance, in Montana.

There just isn't really the consumer demand for it.

It doesn't mean you can't get some of those products.

And especially I would reach out to a local processor, visit montanameatprocessors.org to find out some processors in your area.

But there are processors all over the state that might be able to help provide some of those locally, but demand for the individual item, whatever it might be would probably change that.

- I used to see those in restaurants quite often.

And this person's right, you just don't see sweetbreads on the menu anymore.

And if people have never tried them, they are really, really good.

- I thought veal was the calf that kept jumping over the fence.

(all laughing) - You know, beef tongue, beef tongue is absolutely delicious too.

When I was a kid, we ate beef tongue.

When I was up on the Blackfoot Nation, we had some great beef tongue recently.

- Pickled?

- No, just boiled.

- Boiled, okay.

I've had it pickled.

The texture is a little different, but I agree with you, it does taste great.

Okay, back... (panelists chuckle) Hey, I'm getting hungry.

- Me too.

(all laughing) - For Eric, this caller is curious, how much has the increase in diesel prices affected the cost of custom farming rates?

You have any thought on that?

- Custom farming rates?

- Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, the price of diesel, the price of fuel, it's gonna be an input into any kind of custom operation where you're heavily reliant on those inputs.

I don't have exact figures for you, but it's certainly gonna raise the cost.

The question is, can they pass that on to whoever they're working for?

Can they pass those on to the farmers or not?

- I'm sure if you're getting your wheat custom combined, it's gonna be more expensive this year than it was last year.

- Yeah, I mean, I would guess that's their largest input cost, and, you know, you take your largest input cost and raise that, it's probably gonna be pretty big.

- Okay, Mary, I hate to bring this up (Mary chuckles) because you've promised us this would be a good raspberry year.

(panelists laugh) And I believed you, but looking at the raspberries, they don't look great.

Do you wanna explain what's going on here?

- Well, I feel like my raspberries have become a running joke on the show.

(all laughing) So these are my raspberries.

You'll notice that the tips at the edge are pretty bare.

And I live north, or south of town up at a higher elevation.

I think maybe they just didn't have enough water through the winter, got some winter kill on the tips, but I wasn't sure if it was that or the deer that bedded down in my raspberries for a while.

(Jack chuckles) So what I did was I just cut the base of the plant and the tip.

And you can see the clear color difference between the base is very green and alive.

And this is shaved, I just shaved the bark back a little bit, and you can see that the tips are just completely brown.

So that's a good way, even on your trees, to tell if there's, you know, that you got some fire blight or something where the tissue's dead, it's just peel back the bark a little and look at whether it's green or brown.

- So your projections for next year's raspberry crop?

- It's gonna be fantastic.

(all laughing) - Okay.

- And I do have like 240 feet of raspberries, so I have plenty of raspberries, but, you know, it's just less to pick.

- [Jack] Are you gonna thin them?

- I do, yeah.

I got about three rows.

- [Jack] How do you thin your raspberries?

- Well, last year I just cut them all down, 'cause they were all dead.

(all laughing) I like to keep them on about two-foot spacing, and there's about a foot between each row, more or less.

And then just let things fill in over time if there's some gaps and, yeah.

- Okay, interesting question, and I had never thought about this, but this person from Facebook said, "If I bought a calf today, what would it be worth in two years?"

And if we knew the answer to that, it'd really be good.

(all laughing) - Eric!

- (indistinct) answering this?

- Oh, here's my crystal ball.

(all laughing) - Buying a calf today- - well, let's see, if you buy a calf right now, and calf prices are probably approaching $200 for a 400-pound calf.

- [Eric] Yeah, easily.

- You fatten that up and you mark it at 1,200 pounds.

How long does that take?

- Well, I mean, so in terms of the value, I guess there's two things to think about.

One is you've gotta have a good feed source to feed that animal, at least if you're gonna keep them in Montana.

We've seen some signs that there's gonna be a bit more grass in certain areas of Montana this year.

So that's promising for the production side.

On the price side, it does seem like, at least on the future's market, that the prices seem to kind of maintain that upside so you're not gonna be losing too much.

The gap between, you know, as they get older, obviously, the price is gonna go down, that gap hasn't decreased by that much in the last year.

So there's still a solid demand, especially right now.

You know, last year we saw a lot more slaughter than we typically see as these animals were moved through the feed lots faster 'cause of the high corn prices.

And so there is a bit of a gap.

And so there's that pressure on the the feeder cattle market relative to the live cattle market.

So I'm not saying you'll make money on that calf, but you could.

- It'd tastes good.

(all laughing) Are beef cattle numbers up in the state?

I know they went down for the last couple years.

I've been told they have, are they trending upwards again?

- This is actually probably the biggest drop that we've seen in a number of years.

We're at just under 1.3 million as of January 1 for beef cattle in the state.

In Montana Beef Council records, this is certainly, this past year was probably the most severe decline, or sell off, I should say, so increase in sales that we've seen in a number of years that we have records for.

So that is concerning.

But, you know, supply and demand and roller coaster.

And if we get grass, we didn't have grass and a lot of fire and nowhere to go.

And we couldn't find hay.

- They used to say there was a three to one ratio, cows to people in Montana, and now it's about one to one.

- Two and a half, yeah.

And now we're more people and less cattle.

So it makes it difficult.

But it'll trend back up, which will create better prices for ranchers for a little while.

But it has been in a decline.

But if we keep some grass around, we'll be able to get those cattle back and retain that.

- [Jack] And right now, looking at the state, we are improving.

And we're still not totally out of a drought.

- Fingers crossed, yeah.

We're only a week away from a drought.

You never know.

- Well, that's right.

But right now the state looks better and has grass-wise in the last couple years, for sure.

And hopefully that will start trending the cattle numbers back up again.

On that note, tell me about grass-fed beef.

Is there a lot of that marketed in the state of Montana?

- It's certainly easy to find.

You can find it anywhere that you look.

It's definitely around.

Yeah, so availability is definitely there.

It does take a little bit longer to produce, as far as inputs.

Kind of maybe misperception is that it might not always be the grass that we're seeing out in the pastures because it's not like this year-round in Montana, so they have to have other sources to get them.

So there are other varieties of grasses that they're eating, whether it be hay, you know, are there other inputs that are helping them get to that maturity and get to that finished weight.

So the taste is obviously gonna be different, a little bit leaner that way.

So it can require a little bit different cooking and preparation.

Nutritionally, there is not a lot of difference, not a significant amount of difference nutritionally in either a conventional or a grass-fed product.

So you're still getting a great source of protein and ten essential nutrients, whether you have conventional or grass-fed or organic.

- Is any of the grass-fed beef that's available in stores, and you see it here and especially in the specialty markets, is any of that processed in the state of Montana or is all shipped out and then brought back?

- It's really all over the board.

There's both, certainly.

I mean, we are a very cattle-heavy state.

So in general, a lot of our product does ship out of the state and is fed somewhere else and then brought back in in boxes and cases just because that's the dynamic of our, we don't have a lot of large-scale here in the state.

But just looking and sourcing that product, especially if you're buying from a local processor, then they're gonna be able to tell you at your local butcher shop, Daniel's Meats here in town, for instance, is gonna be able to tell you that, versus if you're just reading the label and understanding where your product, how it was produced and who processed it and if it's grass-fed or organic or whatever you might be looking for, you can find that.

- Okay, Tim, pigweed in gardens.

- Start pulling it.

It germinated in my yard.

(all laughing) Actually, yeah, I looked in my garden the other day.

We've had these nice sets of rains, and you can see the pigweed is really starting to germinate.

I could just see it, it was about not even an inch tall, and I took the scuttle hoe, or a stirrup hoe to mine.

And, hopefully, I wiped those out pretty good.

And I'm sure I'll have to chase up a few more flushes.

- That's a late germinating weed, isn't it?

It is a late germinating.

It's a warm season weed.

So, usually, first you end up with these mustardy-type things, the shepherd's purse.

Now you can really see it.

It's in seed.

You can see a lot of the other early season weeds.

And now, that first couple of warm days we really had around here, those warmer seasoned weeds start to pop.

So it's good to get to them right now when they're small and they're easy, because pulling them out later is gonna be tougher.

- Yeah, that's true.

And they're not an easy one to pull.

- No.

- From Butte, "How can I find a custom butcher or just a good butcher shop?"

And we were talking about this before the program, every community used to have a meat locker or a butcher shop, that's not available anymore.

Any suggestions where people, if you had a calf that you wanted to butcher, how would you get that done in the state anymore?

Nobody wants to answer my questions.

(all laughing) - Well, there is an organization in the state.

There's an association for everything, of course.

So the Montana Meat Processors Association, and visiting their website is a really great resource for that.

Of course, not everyone is a member of that organization, but we have seen quite the increase in processing plants, especially the availability of funds through the pandemic to make those a reality.

So there are a lot of smaller shops and processing plants that are coming online because of that.

And, thankfully, through organizations then there's the resources and education available for somebody that is starting out into the business and entrepreneurs that wanna learn more about that and do a good job of processing your animal.

- Yeah, well, and Jack, so you mentioned that you used to be able to see a lot more butchers, and that was certainly the case.

And the beef industry, like a lot of other agriculture, has seen consolidation at kind of the top end of the supply chain.

So as it moves in, you see really big advantages to these larger processors to process beef.

And the average cost per head just falls quite dramatically.

So if you're thinking about how do you process a small volume here in Montana, you've gotta make it up, maybe on some kind of a label maybe, or some kind of value-added that's gonna make up that cost differential.

- You know, speaking of that, I stopped at a little shop in Mile City last week, and there was, in the shop, a cooler that was selling locally produced Wagyu beef.

And I did ask the proprietor, they have to fill that every other week.

And it was a pretty good sized cooler.

So you're right, there are some niche markets that do very well with that.

A question for Mary here, their peas are yellow and white, clearer out on the top.

Do you think that's frost?

- It could be in many areas of the state.

And I did get a call this week from a producer that had patches.

Then they were trying to relate it to maybe some stress.

Maybe the plants were a little behind.

And then I did stop by Don Mathre's house, speaking of pea pests, and he had some pea leaf weevils.

And these are in big ag fields and they're gonna be on the garden peas.

If you see notching on the edge of your pea leaves, the larvae will eat the nodules if you have inoculated sunrise ovium.

But mostly, gardens, you just put a little fertilizer or compost on them.

But those are active and they're out there and they're laying their eggs and larvae and eating the nodules.

- It slows them down.

- It does.

- Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

My peas, yeah, I've got a lot of notches on them.

And, of course, it's not been a great year for growing things other than grass.

Grass is really good this year.

(panelists chuckle) But, you know, vegetables and stuff, and even peas and stuff around the state, they're slower this year, definitely.

- I think there's gonna be some replanting of my basil in particular, 'cause I planted it when I was a little too cold.

- Yeah, okay.

From an unknown location, this caller wants to know if there's an active feed lot in the state, not a background type of operation, but a finishing feed lot?

Is there one in the state anymore?

- There are feed lots in the state.

Yeah, I mean, they're not the kind of capacity that you might see in other states that are a little closer to corn, but yeah, we definitely have segments of the supply chain to where we can have feed lots within here.

You might have- - Absolutely, we have a feed lot industry and a feed lot association even in Montana.

So they're here.

- And the beef they produce, the finished beef, a percentage of that is processed in Montana, or is most of it shipped out state?

- It really just depends on what the seller has, you know, the cow-calf guy has set up, if he's retaining ownerships, say, and following all the way through to the processor or if the feed lot is owning them and then what program they might be part of.

So hard to say where they might be going.

But I would imagine some are being processed locally.

- Okay.

Thank you.

A Yellowstone County caller is asking about the pest problems and identification of ornamental shrubs and trees.

It was talked about on last week's show.

He said he went to the MSU campus bookstore to find it, but they didn't know anything about it.

Mary, you're not doing your job.

(laughs) - Yeah, well, these are pretty expensive to print.

So you have to order them directly from Extension, and you can go out to the Extension store online.

And they're free right now.

We do have a grant to cover the cost of their printing, but you pay postage to get them delivered to you.

They're not available in county extension offices, but every county should have one in their office so you can flip through it.

And in here are some really nice pictures of all kind... Look, here's black knot, one of my favorites.

This is how you recognize cherry.

And it has pictures and explanations of what causes it and how to manage it.

So it's a really useful resource for ornamental plants and shrubs that are here in Montana.

- Okay, from Facebook, and I like this one, and after Chaley answers this, we're gonna bring up a little clip of some of the meat products, okay.

So, Paul, if you get that clip ready.

And this comment from Facebook, their favorite beef meal, medium T-bone or ribeye, one-inch cut, and the collar is laughing as he says that.

(all laughing) And I don't disagree with him, but, Paul, can we see a clip that the Beef Council puts out about some of the meat products that they have?

We'll get it up.

- That's a very popular one as well, that cut.

- [Jack] Okay.

Yeah.

We'll get it up here, one of them.

Yeah, there we are.

Chaley, you mind tell him what's going on here?

- Yeah, so this is a video that we have on our YouTube page at Montana Loves Beef just describing what you get when you purchase a half a beef so consumers can understand if you're buying a larger volume like that so you can know what you're gonna be getting in that half a beef and understanding that the size of the animal isn't necessarily gonna contribute to that same amount and size that you'll be getting.

But then still helps you estimate, you know, what size freezer space you might need and understanding that.

And then the different ways that you can have it processed, whether you want more roasts or more ground beef or more steaks, whatever that might look like.

- So this call is from Florence, and this person would like to know whether or not that mobile beef processing facilities are available in Montana, or if there is a need for such a service, I guess you'd say.

- Sure, well, there is discussion for a mobile processing unit, I believe, by the Montana Farmer's Union, is working on an effort for that out of Great Falls.

So they would be a really great resource to contact about for their information for that.

- So how would that work relative to inspection?

I mean, if you're selling beef commercially, it's supposed to be inspected, am I correct?

- Right.

- So if you have a mobile facility, how would that be inspected?

- They would still be required to have an inspector service those products and inspect that, just like a brick-and-mortar facility is going to as well.

So rules don't necessarily change for that, but the that's all controlled by the Montana Department of Livestock.

- Okay, thank you.

Tim, from Liberty County, they would like to know if you've ever heard of a weed called corn gromwell?

And if so, what do you do to control it?

- Oh, so corn gromwell, it's a funny little weed.

We sometimes referred to as a stone seed.

The white one, it's a little white-flowered, annual plant.

And it shows up often in the edge of weedy fields, alfalfa fields.

Sometimes it can move into your crop fields.

It can be around your house and garden too.

There, I'd say, just pull it.

If you have it in your crop field, your winter wheat, most broadleaf herbicides work really well on it.

And other things like Ally or Glean also work really well on it too.

So it should be pretty easy to control.

- Okay, thank you.

From Bozeman, this person read an article in the "Bozeman Chronicle" recently about a new beef processing plant at Livingston which is operating as a nonprofit.

Do you have any information about that?

- Sure, that's called the Producer Partnership, and it is basically one rancher, but bringing together a lot of other ranchers that are working to end hunger in Montana and doing that through donating ground beef to food banks and centers like that all across the state.

So a pretty cool facility that they're building that you could consider it a mobile unit, because they have actually used mobile units to create, on their ranch, that processing.

And then they will be distributing that all across the state.

So Producer Partnership is their website and you can learn more about that there.

- Okay.

Well, thank you.

Tim, back to you, whitetop control.

Any thought there?

- Yeah, whitetop can be a tough one to control, especially if you're trying to save desirable plants or vegetation that you have in and around there.

Whitetop is a really rhizominous weed.

I was just out in Polson, Montana this week, and it's a really big year for whitetop.

Mostly 2,4-D, broadleaf, Group 4 herbicides will probably be what work on whitetop, but it's gonna take out most of your other things, so you have to be really careful in how you use it.

- Okay, so I haven't been around weeds for a long time since I retired, what's a Group 4 herbicide?

- Oh, a Group 4 herbicide is a synthetic auxin herbicide.

And it's a whole group of molecules, 2,4-D being one of them, Banvel being another one, Dicamba being another one.

They only affect broadleaf weeds mostly.

So plants that have two cotyledons that come off when they germinate.

And we use them in our lawns to control dandelions, and we use them a lot in our grassy crops, corn, wheat, to control the broadleaf weeds like kochia and all these other things.

- Okay, that's what it is.

- That's what it is.

- Okay, now I know.

(panelists chuckle) Chaley, this is a question I have, last week, I happened to have a cold beer with gentleman by the name of Bruce Cobb with the Certified Angus Beef Association.

We had a event in Bismarck, and I would like to know how a group like the Montana Beef Council interacts with something like the Certified Angus Beef group.

Do you have any information on how the two might interact?

- Perfect, so Certified Angus Beef is a branded beef program.

You might see that on a menu in a local restaurant that they serve Certified Angus Beef.

So that's a branded product.

Hereford also has a branded label as well.

And we interact with them through the Montana Angus Association, actually serves, has a seat on our board of directors.

There's 12 directors on our board, and Montana Angus association holds one of those seats.

So, again, that whole supply chain, and, of course, Angus is the largest breed in the state.

And so they have a pretty good representation across the state.

- Is there any difference between a red Angus and a black Angus?

- Color.

(all laughing) - Okay, I know that much, but I mean in palatability?

- Oh, palatability.

Oh, we'll all take a commercial break and test that.

(all laughing) You know, a lot of that's gonna, yes, technically there are certainly differences that all breeds are gonna have differences that way.

A lot of it though then can come down to what they eat and what they're finished on and what part of the country they're in as well.

- So if we're talking Certified Angus Beef, that brand, they have both red and black Angus that they're certifying?

- Oh, you've stumped me Jack.

(Jack laughs) That I don't know.

I do believe it's all- - I don't know either.

- I do believe it's all black.

- Okay.

I'm curious, but I wasn't sure.

- But they have certain specifications and certain criteria that you have to meet to be a Certified Angus Beef product.

I do know that.

- I know any good steak tastes good, and Angus included.

(Chaley chuckles) So this is a Facebook question that came in this week from Bozeman.

It's for Eric, and it says, "Last time Eric was on the program, you talked about a travel class for ag students."

Is there an update on that?

You want to explain that a little bit?

- Oh, there was.

Yeah, so right after graduation, we went out to the Port of Portland, and the intent was to follow the classes, it was originally Follow the Grain.

So we followed the grain from fields of Montana out to the Port of Portland to see it off into the Pacific Ocean, made some stops along the way.

Wheat Montana gave us a nice tour of their facility.

And so, yeah, just saw some different forms of agriculture in Washington.

One of the highlights for me was to see the barge system that goes down the Columbia and Snake Rivers down into the port.

Yeah, beautiful and just an interesting production system that I think we're not used to seeing out here.

We actually, when we circled back around, we went to the Agri Beef Processing Plant in Eastern Washington, which was great too.

We were talking about different branded products, and they have a Waygu product.

And I'm not marketing for them, but they do.

I think a lot of plants are gonna try to target different consumers with those different types of beef products.

And so, yeah, it was a great experience for students to, I think, see some things outside the classroom.

- You know, you've had several of those and the Ag Econ Department has generally been the leader in doing this.

What's coming up in the future for trips, any plans?

- Yeah, so next year, we're hoping to do an international trip where we go into Central Europe and understand a little more of the European Union politics and food issues that are out there, going to Holland and Germany.

And so it'll be a good trip.

- [Mary] So you need a pathologist on that trip?

- Maybe, yeah.

(all laughing) But, I mean, the feedback is, and you know, I traveled when I was an undergraduate as well, and it was just, I remember the experience of you learn so much stuff in the classroom, but then when you are able to leave and go and put that into practice and see it firsthand, I think it really is a great experience for our students.

- Okay.

I agree.

- Absolutely.

- And I've been really impressed with some of the trips that... And the students, when they get back, their eyes are like this.

- Yes.

- And that's good.

It's a good learning experience.

Chaley, this caller from east of Helena raises beef to sell to friends.

He's curious if there are any resources out there for pricing the different cuts of meat.

Also curious about small scale producers environmentally.

And I'm not sure what he means by that, but.

- Okay, I will take a stab at it, but I think Eric might have some good USDA resources as well for pricing.

(Eric laughs) But to start, so if you're direct marketing to consumers, some resources that we have are the Montana Beef Directory, which is on our website at montanabeefcouncil.org.

There you can list your farm or ranch or business, and then consumers can find you online, as we market that as well to share with consumers on whatever types you sell.

And then they can contact you directly.

So one way that we're able to help help with that.

Additionally, we have resources like recipe brochures or cut charts to help consumers understand what the different cuts are and then how to prepare them for a good beef eating experience.

And then, additionally, maybe some fact sheets that they might be interested in.

If you're attending farmer's markets, it's a great opportunity to interact with consumers and help them understand beef production or questions that they might have, anything surrounding beef production or beef education.

And then as far as pricing, well, I'll turn it over to Eric for some resources there.

(both laugh) - Okay, thank you.

- Go to the grocery store and your competitors.

- Just figure it out at the grocery store.

(all laughing) No, I mean the biggest thing is, you know, we keep a lot of data on kind of the average beef price across a carcass, but once you start getting into those different cuts, a lot of those cuts you'll see pricing from the Agricultural Marketing Service, AMS.

And they'll take some of those different cuts so you can kind of split out how they compare to that average price of beef.

But you can also send me an email and I'll try to get you that information as well.

- I will tell you, prime ribeye or prime filets, they're pricey.

- Yes, especially now.

- But they're good.

(all laughing) Especially now.

- Is all the beef we produce in Montana suitable for making into ground beef for different types?

I've heard that sometimes we need leaner beef to cut with our maybe beef that's going for all our filets or our prime steak cuts.

Is there a difference in the type of meat that's produced between those?

- Yeah, do you wanna go?

- Definitely.

So we certainly have, as animals age, you know, you might have culled cattle or bulls that are really gonna be just best suited for a roast or a ground beef and they're not gonna give you those, you know, highly marbled steaks.

Overall though, as as a country, we do import lean ground beef because we, as the United States, have such a highly evolved feeding process.

And that creates a very marbled beef product, end product.

So it is highly marbled.

So, yes, for what our retailers utilize or our food service operators, they need to blend in a little bit of that to change the fat content, you know, the 80/20 or 90/10, getting it to that right volume that they need.

So that's primarily the blending that we do.

- Yeah, and a lot of our higher end cuts are what we're exporting out to South Korea, Japan, those trading partners.

And then, on the import side, it's a lot of the ground beef and things like that.

And this year, it's been interesting, we've seen a lot from Brazil coming in, which we've imported from in the past, but China put a ban on their product.

And so what that meant, and also, U.S. beef prices are sky high, and so we've seen a lot more of those imports coming in from Brazil on the ground beef side.

- Okay, thank you.

This is a great question and it is from Augusta and he says, "At the risk of sounding ornery," which he's not, this caller would like to know, "Who is profiting the most from the current high prices on beef?"

Have at it guys.

(all laughing) - Not you, I'm sure.

(all laughing) - All right, I'll take a stab at it.

Yeah, so you see the price of retail beef, and especially, you know, when I talk to rancher groups, they see kind of that margin at the store and they're like, "Well, that's not the same margin that I'm seeing."

And then there's also all these input costs that come in.

You know, you have different segments of the supply chain, and it's certainly gonna be case that you can have some shocks to prices where you're gonna see the cow-calf producer get a fair bit of those profits.

I would say, kind of in our current environment, it seems to be the retailer, even though, but their costs are up as well.

But it seems like that spread seems to be a little bit larger than what the cow-calf spread is currently.

- And the processor.

- Yeah, right.

I forgot.

- Processor to retailer.

- Right, processor to retailer.

- But then rewind to 2014, 2015 and roles were reversed as the cycles go up and down and you see a really high profit, a higher profit margin that goes to the cow-calf guy.

- Okay, that's the answer.

And I appreciate the call.

It was great.

Mary, from Bozeman, this caller has a 30-foot Colorado blue spruce.

He thinks that it has needle cast.

What can be done?

This is not the time for seasonal needle cast on a blue spruce.

- No, you probably wanna get that properly looked at by his county agent or the diagnostic lab to figure out if it's the fungal or if it's the seasonal needle cast.

And then I think there are some fungicides pest control operators can apply, but I'm not exactly sure on the timing.

- You know, there's one other thing, and I would say get it to a diagnostic lab, because I had one Colorado blue spruce that had a tremendous amount of the scale insect on them.

And if you get a lot of those, you can get some needle casting from that.

- Yeah, and then you want a dormant oil at the right time.

- Yeah, we're past that.

- And generally just keep your trees healthy, like give them some water.

- Yeah.

Okay, back to Tim.

This is a good one.

(all laughing) - Get ready.

- Because, honestly, we've seen a lot more clover in lawns around the state.

This person wants to get rid of his clover in his lawn.

How could he do that?

- Well, you know, I just answered the 2,4-D question.

We have the Group 4 herbicides I explained to Jack.

So, generally, you can get an over-the-counter product at the hardware store that you can use to spray on your lawn, not necessarily a weed and feed, but something that you probably need to spray liquid.

And I think that should take care of the clover in your lawn.

- I'll be honest with you, clover seems to like 2,4-D. - It does.

(all laughing) - Sorry, it really does, but it doesn't like Banville or Dicamba.

- Interesting.

- So if you're going to really go after it... Then, if it's in a pasture, Curtail is a wonderful product.

- Yep, and those will all work, but those aren't necessarily available to the homeowner at the hardware store.

So when you head into the aisle at the hardware store, check closely for something that, I wanna look at the ingredient and it says, you know, "Gets the tough weeds in lawns."

(all laughing) And that will have the mixture of Dicamba, 2,4-D, and likely MCPA or Sulfentrazone in there.

- Okay, now we got that figured out.

(all laughing) Let's go to black medic, a caller from Boulder.

- Ooh!

(all laughing) - All right.

- We're not gonna let y'all have easy ones tonight.

- Dun, dun, dun.

They have two herbicides.

They'd like to know which would work better, Triclopyr, or a combo with 2,4-D, Banville and something else.

- I would say the 2,4-D, Banville and something else.

I don't know what that last, I bet it's supposed to be MCPA.

- [Jack] Probably.

- That's a tough question.

Black medic can be really hard to control sometimes.

I would say pull it and pull it now.

Don't let it go to seed.

Those seeds stay there for 20 years is the problem.

You're gonna come back every year and control new black medic plants.

But I would say the 2,4-D, Dicamba, MCPA or Sulfentrazone mixed in there will probably get it pretty well.

- I think digging them is still as good as anything, if you don't have too many, I've tried to- - If you don't have too many.

Or I pull them, but you have to really make sure that you pull them at the very base and get that whole taproot to come out with them.

- Agreed, okay, from Hot Springs, and this is an interesting question.

Chaley, what is meant by the term hanging weight of beef?

- That, we could have an example of that if we show that.

Roll that beautiful beef footage.

(all laughing) - Paul, can you- - That's when, after the animal has been slaughtered and harvested and then is hanging up on the rail, they call it, so that's gonna be the weight once, right there as you can see, once it's ready to then age and then be further processed into steaks and roasts and whatnot.

- Is it sold on the marketplace, you know, like the futures market as hanging weight?

Is there such a futures market for that?

No, just live.

- No, yeah, futures is just gonna be on a per pound basis.

- Okay.

All right.

For you from Great Falls.

(Tim chuckles) A comment from the caller about beef tongue, they state that beef tongue is very bland or fairly bland.

- Ooh!

- But suggest adding white cream sauce with horseradish to taste and it's very good.

- Exactly.

Delicious, I fully agree.

- Only one way to find out, right?

(all laughing) - You know, I like the texture of, I kind of like the bland taste.

I really like the texture of beef tongue after you've opened it and taken it out.

- And how do you cook it, boil it?

- Yeah, boil it, and in sort of a lot of spices, herbs.

- So Chaley, where can you buy beef tongue?

- You would have to search for that a little bit, a bit more.

(all laughing) I would say it's a little bit more regional.

Where did you get your last local- - The last time I ate beef tongue was on the Blackfoot Reservation.

So you might call them.

- Yeah, so closer to some of the reservations and the grocery stores there.

I believe at the grocery store near Hardin.

I've seen it there, along with some other variety meats.

Just, again, the consumer demand for it, but also asking your local processor, "Hey, do you have some?"

Because they don't necessarily have a place to go for it so they're having to ship it out.

- Some of the Mexican specialty shops too also have beef tongue.

- All right, now we know.

Thank you.

From Billings, a Facebook question, "How does the Beef Council partner with other organizations for the benefit of each organization?"

Do you have any suggestions or comments on that?

- Sure, so we have an annual funding process.

Our board of directors hears and reviews project funding requests from anyone, from all organizations, individuals.

And we're always looking for more ideas and ways to, again, promote beef or educate about beef or beef research, through our universities as well.

So if you are interested or have an idea for that, please contact us.

We do that on an annual basis.

And those project funding requests are actually due August 1st.

So it's a great time to start discussing those ideas and seeing what we can put in front of our board.

And then they review those decisions and see if there are those opportunities to see if they match up with our strategic priorities and our mission and if we have the funds available for it, and then we can make that happen and partner.

- Okay, thank you.

From Anaconda, the caller wants me to know that he used Roundup for Lawns after Jane Mangold recommended it and it worked really well for clover in lawns.

And that's not the glyphosate Roundup.

- That is not.

- That's another.

- That is very confusing.

So when you go to the aisle in the hardware store, it says Roundup for Lawns, it's 2,4-D, Dicamba, and Sulfentrazone, which is what we just recommended.

But it is not Roundup that kills everything, which can be really confusing.

- Okay, thank you.

From Bozeman, Mary, this person has planted his cucurbits, which would be cucumbers and stuff like that, two weeks ago, and they haven't come up yet.

Any problem there?

- Well, it could be a number of things.

It could be a little cold and they could have rotted in the ground.

So if they wanna dig them up a little bit.

There are some, I just went shopping yesterday at Garden Centers and there are some cucumbers out there.

- [Jack] Could they rot?

- Yeah, they could rot in the soil for sure.

- I just dug up, I had no patience either, and I dug up some of my pumpkins the other day and they were still alive below the ground, but they were just starting to germinate.

- [Mary] So there still hope.

- Yep, there's still hope.

I think it's been, that was about a week and a half ago.

- And sometimes you gotta, you know, you keep those seed packets for a while.

And I had some stuff in my box that was 2015, 2016.

So I planted them with hope.

- They do (indistinct).

- Well, you just double the seeding rate, right?

- I just poured it in the hole, yeah.

(laughs) - Okay, from Bozeman, this person likes to cook beef three or four times a week.

And as a consumer, how does the Beef Council help consumers?

- Thank you for cooking three or four times a week.

Let's make it five, six.

(all laughing) Happy to see that.

So we provide a lot of opportunities for consumers.

We are your local resource for all things beef, whether it be beef cuts, types, recipes, cooking preparation, cooking classes, education, even on the food service side for our chefs so they can have new ways to menu beef or continue to be profitable in their industry, as well as in the retail side.

So any way that we can to help you have an enjoyable beef eating experience, we are here to help you do that.

- Okay.

Thank you.

From Belgrade, Tim, how do they get rid of cheatgrass?

"It seems to come back even after spraying Roundup."

- Yep, well, it's too late for this year.

You know, when you look at the cheatgrass now and it has all the heads coming out on it, if you were to apply Roundup again anyway, the cheatgrass seed would become viable before the Roundup would kill it.

So, really, it comes down to try to clean it up as best you can in the fall, I think, after it germinates.

If it's germinating on, say, a sunny, south slope around your house or something like that with a lot of bare ground, I would say spray it out in the fall, plant some perennial grass seed this fall in there and hope it competes well against cheatgrass in the spring next year.

- All right, thank you.

A quick plug on some field days, Wednesday, June 22nd at Moccasin, June 23rd at Havre.

And I'll plug the rest of them next week because we'll be back again.

And we're running a little low on time.

I want throw one quick question to Hailey, or Chaley from Helena.

"What is the Montana Beef Council's take on country of origin?"

15 seconds.

- We don't have one.

We are not a policy organization.

So contact your local policy organizations.

- Okay, is that gonna come about eventually, do you think?

- I don't know.

(all laughing) - Ask your legislators, contact your legislators.

That that's what they work on.

We're strictly on the promotion side.

- Okay, Eric, this person wants to know are wheat prices gonna stay high?

- Yeah, I mean, the future market, the futures market show that they're gonna be high for a couple years.

So they got high initially 'cause of Russian and Ukraine, but, yeah, there's still upside pressure.

I mean, they're really high right now, $12, 11, $12.

- And it's great for our state too.

It is, well, especially with the high fertilizer costs.

- Absolutely, folks, we're come to the end of the line again.

We enjoyed this program.

Chaley, thank you for coming over and joining us this evening.

Next week, we're gonna have Kathleen Williams, who is the Montana state director for the USDA World Development Program.

Please join us.

Thank you for watching.

Had a great time.

Have a safe week, and good night.

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