- [Narrator] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, the MSU Extension Service, the MSU Ag Experiment Stations of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, the Northern Pulse Growers Association, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(gentle 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 your Public Television System.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired professor of plant pathology.

Happy to be your host this evening.

As I've mentioned in the previous couple programs, we have a theme of sustainability this fall, but we're covering a lot of other things that may be of more interest to you.

So stay with us.

You'll find some stuff that I know you'll learn tonight.

Before we get started let me introduce tonight's panel.

We're short one person tonight.

Abi, due to technical difficulties, our Extension horticulturalist cannot join us, but if you do have horticultural questions, and they're not too difficult, this panel will try to answer 'em.

Anyway, the panel tonight, Mary Burrows.

Mary is the Extension plant pathologist.

Also spends a fair amount of time in the dean's office.

Happy to have you back.

She spends a lot of time here.

She doesn't complain too much about it, so glad you're here, Mary.

Our special guest tonight, Marsha Goetting.

Marsha has been here many, many times.

It's been a few years.

Marsha is one of the world's experts, and I'm not exaggerating on estate planning, financial planning.

She does a lot for the state of Montana.

And if you have questions tonight about estate planning, all these things, hey phone 'em in and we'll make sure we'll get 'em on the air this evening.

Jane Mangold, our invasive plant specialist, invasive species specialist, but I'd rather call her a weed scientist.

Answering the phone tonight we have Bruce Loble remote, and we don't have Nancy tonight.

No, where's Nancy?

Anyway, we're going live to Marsha.

Tell us what you do here at MSU.

- Well, I think I have the best job of all the specialists with MSU Extension.

As a family economic specialist when I got here they said, we want you to do estate planning.

And they were right because that's what I've been doing primarily since I got here.

Also, financial management, but I respond to county Extension agents' requests to do educational programs out in the communities.

Except for the last two years it's been a little rough, but we've done lots and lots of webinars.

We've got Fabulous Fridays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Wisdom Wednesdays.

We've got Tuesday Tips, and MontGuide Mondays.

We went for using webinars to try to still reach people, and that's a way to do it, so it's really been great.

I've got 50 MontGuides available now in the estate planning area.

- That's a lot, and before I didn't introduce Cheryl.

Cheryl, I'm sorry I didn't give your name.

I was shocked to look over there, and see that Nancy wasn't there, and Cheryl Bennett was there.

So anyway, let's move on.

Before we get started, we had a question already come in, and they want to know where financial planning fits in with the theme of sustainability?

- Oh, financial planning is the in-term.

I also think of it as estate planning because what you're wanting to do is make sure you've got enough for your present life.

You've got some set aside for the retirement.

And then we've got many people out there in Montana that do wanna have a legacy that they can leave to their children, or their grandchildren.

So we're talking about finances being sustainable to accomplish all of those goals.

And there's mistakes that people can make, and not realize it by the way they have property titled, by how they've written a will or not, and lots of things that I cover in the MontGuides that we have available through Extension.

- You mentioned wills.

I see all these ads on various different places that you can make your own will just by phoning in, or emailing this, and they'll send you a blanket form to do your wills.

Are they any good?

- And then they say they are appropriate for Montana, or they address Montana law, and I'm really concerned about those.

I mailed in my $19.95 once and I got five pieces of paper, and you filled in the blanks at that time.

Now you can get it on the web and fill in the blanks, but the problem is if there's terms in there that you don't understand, per stirpes, right of representation.

I went around to my department and said, do you know what this means?

And those guys got all PhDs, no they didn't.

And so I don't want people signing something that they don't know the meaning of what they've done, and it's appropriate to have a Montana attorney do it.

Even if you moved here from another state, have them look over the will that you have.

It's probably fine, but still have it looked at to make sure it complies with Montana law because we're not, let's see, a common property state.

There are other states, and we have people move here from Texas, for example, California, Idaho.

- [Jack] A lot of 'em.

- Yep, and you need to have that will looked at to make sure it's appropriate.

- [Mary] Does per stirpes mean all your money goes to the right will place?

- No, and actually it's an old term, but I wish I had my slides because I could show you, but we think of mom and dad up here, and we've got the three kids, and right of representation means if this kid dies before mom and dad and then mom and dad die, then this share, this one-third if we had three, goes down to the grandchild, but if you don't put right of representation in there, it goes to these two kids, and you've disinherited a grandchild.

So it's just those are some of the things I try to explain to people in a way that I understand it, and, hopefully, they understand it.

- Okay, good advice.

This question would normally be for Abi, but I think we can answer it.

This person from Billings wants to know, is it too late to fertilize your yard this fall?

Mary, you want to take a stab at that?

- I just had mine done last week.

It is not too late.

I think up until probably hard frost, or what do you think?

- I think, it's one of the old recommendations I think it's still pretty accurate is that if you fertilize around Labor Day, and then again a light fertilizer around Columbus Day, which is coming up in about a week that is still adequate.

You don't wanna go much later than that, and you don't wanna fertilize on real hot days anymore because most of our fertilizers are urea-based.

Urea will volatilize and disappear, so.

Now I think is an absolutely perfect time.

Yes.

- [Jane] I have follow-up question.

- Okay.

- So for people who don't water their lawns, does that make a difference?

Because I know we don't water very heavily here in town, and, like, our lawn is not very green.

It's slowly getting green again, but there's still a lot of areas where it's not green.

Especially those areas that are still in the bright sun.

- What I think would work best is in a lawn like that, if you put the fertilizer on the day before it rains, or it's supposed to rain, you never know for sure.

- Right.

- It really is the best time to put it on because it penetrates the soil.

- And if the grass is still brown, that's okay, you just wanna get that fertilizer down in there.

- It's dormant but it's breaking dormancy as we have cooler nights.

- Thank you.

- Okay, now since you asked the question, we have one here and I find this one fascinating.

This person from Missoula would like to know when did spotted knapweed first show up in Montana?

- Oh, yeah, so spotted knapweed's been around a while.

I think the first record of spotted knapweed in Montana was 1920, in I believe Ravalli County.

So that's Hamilton and I think.

Oh, yeah, thank you Marsha.

I brought some spotted knapweed.

I actually brought a beautiful bouquet of noxious weeds tonight, but we have some spotted knapweed right in here.

Spotted knapweed was first found in North America in the late 1800s, so it didn't take too long for it to get established in Montana.

- [Mary] So did it come up with, like, hay or livestock, or?

- The theory is it probably was there were seeds of spotted knapweed in other, like, crop seeds that were brought to the New World, yeah.

- [Jack] It's really spread.

- Yeah.

- [Jack] It's all over.

- [Mary] It is.

- [Jane] Yeah.

- All right, on that note, we have a question that came in from Facebook from Townsend, and they are trying to rejuvenate a pasture that has lots of Russian knapweed, not spotted.

They want to spray with Clopyralid or Aminopyralid, and I want trade names when we get to 'em.

They wanna know if those herbicides will hurt the newly seeded species that they're trying to seed with.

- Yeah, so I think you said Clopyralid and Aminopyralid, is what they're treating the Russian knapweed with, which they're good active ingredients for any of the knapweeds.

Those are products like Transline, Curtail, that would be the Clopyralid.

And then Aminopyralid products are things like Milestone, Forefront.

So those are broadleaved herbicides.

They will affect anything that you seed that has broad-leaves like wildflowers.

And so it kind of depends on what they're seeding.

If they're seeding just grasses, there shouldn't be an issue, but if they're trying to put some broadleaved Forbs in the mix they could see some injury, especially with Aminopyralid, because that does stay in the soil for a couple years.

Sometimes what we recommend doing is if you're battling a broadleaved invasive plant, like one of our knapweeds is to use the herbicide, and integrate it with seeding, but just seed grasses initially, so that you can come back in with a broadleaved herbicide 'cause you'll probably get more of that weed coming back.

It will be less over time, but you don't wanna tie your hands in terms of being able to spot treat those weeds coming back in.

- Educate me, what's the difference between?

Don't laugh, it's still possible.

- That's about all I know, Jack.

- What's the difference between spotted knapweed, and Russian knapweed?

- Oh yeah, so there's actually quite a bit of difference.

So spotted knapweed is a Centaurea species.

Russian knapweed isn't even a Centaurea species, but Russian knapweed is actually rhizomatous, so it has creeping roots, which makes it more challenging to control, where spotted knapweed is a tap rooted species that only reproduces through seeds.

So Russian knapweed will produce seeds, but it also creeps and crawls.

The flowers look pretty similar.

Russian knapweed might have some white flowers, as well as purple.

- [Jack] Is Russian knapweed a noxious weed also?

- Yes it is, yeah, we have spotted, diffuse, which is more similar to spotted, and then Russian knapweed.

- Okay, thank you, you taught me something.

- Yeah, all right, great.

- I appreciate that.

Marsha, a question from Malta.

This person more of a comment.

They say they have several of the MontGuide publications, and they're very useful to them.

They would like to know what are some of the new ones that you may have out that might be helpful for planning financial purposes?

- Good, I'm glad to be able to share that.

One of the ones that I worked on during COVID, since I wasn't able to travel as much is selecting an attorney for estate planning, or to handle a probate.

Every meeting I've ever given, it seems like somebody wants to know that.

And so I can tell people, well, ask your friends, and do this and that, so.

It was great to be able to put together a MontGuide, and say there's a section of the state bar that deals specifically with estate planning.

And so I always want to know is that attorney a member of what they call the better group?

And it's the business, estates, tax, trust, and real property section.

These are the ones that go to continuing education seminars, and things that have to do with estate planning.

And those are the ones that I look to.

Those are also the ones that review our MontGuides.

I wanna make sure that the information provided is legally accurate.

So we send 'em out to several different attorneys.

I get the feedback from that.

I also send them to ordinary citizens and say, hey, what do you think of this?

And they will be quite honest and say, this sentence made no sense to me whatsoever, or, hey, this is the part that I like the most, and that's really helpful.

I also did another one on basis, and what is basis?

Well, Jack, let's assume that you came to Montana in '77, and you bought a house and you paid 45,000 for it.

- [Narrator] You're pretty accurate.

- Ah, okay, and let's say then that's your basis, okay.

And now we know what homes are doing in Bozeman, specifically, but let's say that you decide that you're going to give that house to me.

I'm your daughter, we'll pretend.

Okay, well, what happens when you make a gift like that is I assume your $45,000 basis.

And that means if I sell it for 700, let's just go sky-high.

If I sell it for 800,000, I don't have an inheritance tax.

I don't have a federal estate tax.

What I've got is a whopping capital gain tax.

- Yeah.

- Okay, now let's say that you decide, no, I'm your daughter, but you don't want me to have it until you die.

Okay, so next week you croak, okay.

- [Jack] I feel like it some days.

- Yeah, I can understand that.

So what happens then is their property receives a step up in basis.

So now I get the house at 800,000 and I sell it, no capital gain tax.

So that's why I think it's important because I have grandparents out there, or parents that are wanting to gift, might as well give the kids this now.

And your objective may be you don't care about the capital gain tax, or they're not gonna sell it, then we don't worry about that.

So I've got one on basis for that.

Another one I did was testamentary trust, okay?

A testamentary trust is one that you write in your will.

So let's say like, Mary, you've got minor children, okay?

And you really want to provide for them when you're gone, but let's say you die early, so you could write a testamentary trust in your will that says all my assets go into this trust.

And it's supposed to be used for the health, education, whatever it is you decide is important for you.

Support, education, you make the decisions.

So I wrote one on testamentary trust, and that would be another one people could get.

Yeah, it's done.

I've got several also in process, and those take a while to get all through the system, and the reviews and what have you.

- So all this is available to whoever's watching, whoever wants 'em by going to your county agent's office, or contacting Extension publications here?

- Yeah, they can order hard copies, or I also have a website where I have all 50 of them listed, and if you just Google, Marsha Goetting, estate planning, or I shouldn't say Google, should I?

Use your favorite browser and Google that, and you will be able to get the list.

And I like having that list handy.

I use it because somebody will send me an email and say, well, what do you have on beneficiary deeds?

And I say, well, not anymore.

We don't have beneficiary deeds in Montana.

We now have transfer on death deeds.

And that's for real property.

- [Jack] It's a complicated system.

- It is, I wish it was simpler, so we could do more things ourselves, but the legislature has allowed us to do some things.

We can do our own transfer on death deed, not recommending it necessarily, but we can.

We can do a payable on death designation on our checking and savings accounts.

We can do a transfer on death registration for stocks and bonds.

And these are always that the legislature has allowed us to leave property, and not have it go through probate.

You leave more money for your heirs, and that's exciting.

People wanna do that, they wanna avoid probate, so.

- You're scaring me, I need to go online to start building up on some of this stuff.

- Yes, do that.

- So if you're in a rural community, and you don't have one of these lawyers, where do you access that skill set?

- Well, that is really tough because local attorneys like to think that they can do, and they can do some of the basic estate planning, but when you get into really complicated estates with his, her, and our children, and you wanna provide for blended family children, you need to have somebody that really knows what they're doing.

So you can ask around and you can even call the state bar, and ask who is a member of the better section, and they will give you some names.

I can't do that, might as well say it.

As a state employee I cannot say go to this attorney.

- I appreciate that, thanks, great advice.

Mary, from Malta.

We're getting a lot of questions from Malta.

They must have woke up up there and watched us this evening.

- [Mary] It's the rain.

- Yes, it's the rain that helps, okay.

- [Jane] I hope it's raining up there, yeah.

- This person would like to know, do soybeans have a future in North Central Montana?

- I have seen them around that area and around, I mean, scattered.

We've gotten 'em into the clinic from, like, Choteau down in Huntley.

Mostly nutrient issues.

They have some, like, triple zero, quadruple zero varieties.

And if you've got some irrigation, I think that's probably the best spot for 'em.

You can try 'em, no guarantees.

- You know, we grew 'em for a while in the Billings area, and very successfully.

I think they rated zero or double zero relative to hardiness, but we didn't have a market for them.

And that's the issue with a lot of these things.

Unless you have a contract or a market, probably shouldn't mess with 'em.

Maybe long term.

20 years ago we didn't grow a lot of soybeans in North Dakota.

Now it's their second most common crop over there.

- They've got the elevators.

- Things do change.

Jane, from Butte.

This caller has a lot of thistles in their yard.

How and when can you eradicate them?

- Well, yeah.

Probably let's talk about one thing, and that's eradicate.

If there's a lot of thistles there, you're probably not going to eradicate them to the point where that means like you completely get rid of them, but now is actually a good time to spray thistle in the fall it's a good time for that.

It's a challenging species to get rid of 'cause kind of like Russian knapweed, it has those creeping roots, and if the thistles are well-established, you're trying to kill not just the above ground part of the plant, but get down through the roots.

So there are products out there that will work on thistle.

We were talking before the show that there's a product, can I say product names?

- [Jack] Sure, why not?

- There is a product out there.

It's called Roundup For Lawns and it's not glyphosate, which is non-selective, and you would not wanna put on your lawn, but it's a mix of I think there's two, or three active ingredients in there that are broadleaved herbicides, and that is an option.

It will probably be repeated applications.

If there's an application this fall, look at it again next spring, early summer and do some touch up.

If the lawn is just completely thistle you may need to think about kind of renovating that lawn, and reseeding.

- Well, even if you kill a patch you should probably put some seed on it to compete.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, a lot of lawn maintenance, and weed control in your lawn is it's all about taking care of the lawn, which I'm not that good at.

We're just talking about not watering your lawn enough, but watering well and fertilizing well, cutting to the right height.

It's about taking care of the lawn, and making that as competitive as possible.

- Got it, we'll work on it, thank you.

Interesting question for Marsha from Livingston.

This is a fourth generation farmer of retirement age wants to know how to transfer his property to his heirs not living in Montana.

He also wants advice on conservation easements to keep property and farming.

I don't think we can answer that as well, but you wanna tackle the first part?

- Yeah, first of all, if we're into the fourth generation, it's probably time to do a little bit of pencil-pushing, simply to make sure that we can transfer it.

And if we do have one local, the other three may not be interested in it at all.

So the first thing we gotta do is really decide who we wanna leave it to.

And then is there enough money there to have either one take over?

Is it sustainable for two or three?

And I get over and over again where you've got one person, and that one person now is paying the other siblings for the ranch and it just doesn't work real well.

And it's unfortunate because it's some of the same mistakes I see their parents made, and why are we making the same mistakes for this next generation?

And so that discussion is so important to have because you may discover you've got some kids they're out there in the world, computer genius, and they're making more money than the other three combined, and they really don't care.

You don't have to leave it to them, they're fine, but you don't know that if you don't have the discussion.

And as far as that conservation easements, there's a lot of information out there, of course, from each of the conservation easement people, and they have their brochures and those are good to read because it gives you sort of the background, but you'll still wanna make sure that you have some legal advice to protect you, and achieve what you wanna achieve with this conservation easement.

- [Jack] That's good advice, I know that for a fact.

- Oh, and also talk to some other people that have already done it.

- [Jack] Yes.

- Because, okay, that's how we learn and maybe they say, gee, I wish we'd have done this.

Well, then you would know to do that.

- [Jack] Okay.

- [Jane] May I ask a follow-up question, Jack?

- [Jack] Sure.

- Marsha, are conservation easements, is there general enough information surrounding those that you would prepare a publication, or or is it very specific depending on the trust in the organization?

- Most of the MontGuides that I've developed are based on questions that I receive at meetings and email.

And it used to be we had a wildlife specialist that had done one on conservation easement, so I backed off of that, and it's probably one that does need to be redone.

And so I guess it'd be appropriate for me to visit with the wildlife specialist to see if he wants to do that, or if he would want me to do that.

Right now I don't have any in process other than the four that I've got.

- Okay, yeah.

- But good question.

- Okay.

This is a question for Abi, but she's not with us.

This person would like to know, can they still plant tulips at this time of the year?

Mary.

- You bet, but if you have deer, be very careful where they go.

- Absolutely.

- Deer love tulips.

- There's no doubt about that.

We have another caller that just called in and wants to know what is the easiest way to get rid of voles without using any poison, or another product that's similar?

I'm gonna throw that question to Steve Vantassel.

I don't have his phone number.

- He just recently wrote a publication about voles.

- Voles.

- Yeah, they could Google it.

- You can use specific types of mousetraps, kinda like a mousetrap.

- And some of it is just the ecology like mowing the grasses so they don't have places to.

- Well, they like trash, but I have a yard that has a patch probably about as big as this circle living with voles.

And I can't catch 'em.

I guess I'm not a good trapper, but what I wanna try to do, and I don't know if this will work, before it freezes I'm gonna try to drown them.

I'm gonna run the water there for a long period.

What are you laughing about?

(all laughing) It may or may not work, but I have to try it to satisfy myself.

- Jack, do we know where that question came from where the viewer lives?

- No, it doesn't say.

- I was asking 'cause this coming week, several Extension specialists are on the Pest Management Tour in South Central Montana, and Stephen is on that tour, and probably answering this question in, like, seven different locations, though.

I don't know where the person is, but we're in South Central Montana.

Contact your county agent if the viewer is in that area, and see what the program is.

- Yeah, Stephen brings along all his traps, and shows people how they work.

- He does demonstrations, yeah.

- He's very good at it, yeah.

- He gives a great presentation.

- He's fun to listen to, and he has a lot of cute little tricks to get rid of all kinds of pesty animals.

So get ahold of Steve, you can find him online, Montana Department of Agriculture.

And his phone number is there because I call him every so often.

Question is kind of a follow-up again from Livingston.

This person has heard of a term called legacy planning.

Would you expand on that?

- Okay, legacy planning is going beyond looking at assets.

When I started that's what we talked about because there were federal estate taxes, there were Montanan inheritance taxes.

And so I remember going to a meeting in Sidney, and it was seven hours and all they talked about was taxes.

And so I thought, whoa, that's what I gotta pay attention to.

Well, as things have evolved, we can now leave a single person over $12 million, and not have a federal estate tax.

So 99% of Montanans are not in that particular situation.

- Do you have someone that wants to inherit your money?

(all laughing) - And then we don't have a Montana inheritance tax.

- [Jack] Right.

- Yeah, so I've started doing my programs, and starting out with a little bitty three by five card, and handing it out.

And I ask people, what do you want your legacy to be?

In other words, how do you want to be remembered?

Is it because you accumulated a lot of land?

Is it because you did this?

And their responses, I wish I'd thought of writing a book because the responses are coming back.

I want to be remembered as a good grandfather who taught values to my grandchildren.

I wanna be a grandma that taught my children how to make pies and sewing aprons, and different things.

And they're just precious because a legacy is a part of us that we want to extend to the next generation, and that they remember us for that and not, gee, how rich were you?

Or did you leave me something or not?

And I've started using that term estate planning/legacy planning, so that people are thinking beyond it because when my mom died we found this bell.

I look at my sisters and I say where'd the bell come from?

They don't know, but it's scratched on the inside of it 1874.

The story is gone.

- [Jack] Right.

- And so I want parents to think about some of these little things that seem like they don't have any, quotes, financial value, but you remember.

One was a rocking chair, and grandma used to read to the child on this rocking chair.

He remembers that, and he's hoping that grandma will remember, and leave it to him.

So, see, those are legacies that are just special.

So we need to be special to our children and grandchildren.

- All right, thank you.

I think a lot of us realize that this past couple days we've had some pretty good rainfall in the area, but this person calling from Stanford said that they've had just under three inches of rain, 2.8, which is really good right now.

And they want to know, number one, is it too late to put in winter wheat?

I'll throw that to Mary.

And number two, if they were going to use seed treatment for dry seed decay, do they still need to do that now?

- Not too late to get in your winter wheat.

And I would use a lot of these modern blends have longer lasting products.

So if they anticipate getting a deal, maybe invest in something with some Metalaxyl for the Pythium in there, and hope for the best.

- I think I would be putting in some winter wheat in a lot of areas of Stanford.

- I'd put in any winter crop right now, yeah.

- Yeah, well, you can't put Austrian winter peas in, no.

It's too late for that, but.

- [Mary] For winter, well.

- Jane, this was an email question that comes from the Big T, you know where that's at?

- [Jane] Big Timber.

- You got it.

They sprayed cheatgrass in a pasture, and now want to reseed it with, quote, good grasses.

Is it too late to do that?

- No, it's actually a great time to think about seeding.

Typically we call it a fall dormant seeding.

And what that means is you're putting the seed out there, and it stays dormant through the winter, and then it's in the ground for when the soil starts to warm and we get that, you know, we have the good soil moisture in the spring, so it's not too late really.

You can seed any time between now, and when the ground freezes, or we start getting snow that doesn't disappear.

- I like to tell this story.

This has been quite a few years ago, but a gentleman over in Park City harvested his sugar beets the day before Thanksgiving.

He took Thanksgiving off, and the next day he seeded a hybrid wheat.

We don't grow much hybrid wheat anymore.

He produced 156 bushel per acre seeding on the day after Thanksgiving.

- Wow.

- And he had a lot of leftover nitrogen, so.

You can get winter wheat in as long as it vernalizes, and you might even go as long as February if you have an extended cold period in February.

- [Jane] Right, and the ground's not frozen.

- Well, they call it frost seeding, but I don't recommend that anymore.

- Okay, okay.

- They've tried all kinds of stuff through the years here.

Marsha, this person has been told that the Montana Medical Care Savings Account are history.

Is that true?

- Well, sort of.

- [Jack] Sort of.

- Yeah, you can still put aside $4,500 in a year's time, and subtract that amount from your income, and save on Montana income taxes, but the legislature has passed a bill that eliminates our Montana Medical Care Savings Accounts in 2024.

So if you haven't opened a savings account yet for your medical expense, and you don't even have to use it that's the neat thing.

You can put aside that money because research shows when we get older we're gonna get sicker and we're gonna need that.

So we can put it in there.

Now just because we won't be able to add it anymore, although, I'm hoping the legislature reconsiders that, that's my bias, but you don't have to use it, and you still get to take that off your income.

So you build it up, build it up, build it up.

And that's what I've done with mine in anticipation because my grandpa had Alzheimer's, my and I'm thinking the chances are pretty good for me, so I'm gonna need some care in the future.

So I've looked into long term care, but I've got this Medical Care Savings Account that has been added to every year for years, so that I can call upon that should the need arise at some point in time.

- Just outta curiosity.

Was there a particular reason, you may not know the answer to this, why the legislature decided to disband the Medical Saving Accounts program?

- Well, from what I see that's there is this particular bill eliminates all of those deductions.

There's a farm savings account, there's this, there's that, in the interest of tax simplification.

So if you look on, I think it's page two of your Montana income tax return, you can see a list of all these things that you get to deduct.

Well, none of those are gonna be there come 2024.

Now rumor has it, and I'll just say rumor at this point, that it's gonna be introduced in the 2023 legislature to eliminate all those effective 2023 instead of 2024, but as of now, you can put that $4,500 in this year, and 2023.

- All right, thank you.

I've been sitting here, and I know you didn't bring me flowers.

You probably brought me some weeds, so do you wanna point out what you have in front of you there?

- I did bring you some weeds, Jack.

I was out for a run this afternoon, and just was struck by how beautiful the only color pretty much left on the landscape are weeds.

And this is a bouquet of either state, or county listed noxious weeds.

The yellow is common tansy.

We have this little daisy looking flower is a scentless chamomile, that's a county listed weed in some counties.

- [Mary] I smelled it and I thought it was an ox-eye daisy.

- Yeah, no, no.

And, of course, we have spotted knapweed in here.

We've already talked about that a little bit.

This other little ball of white flowers is hoary alyssum, an invasive mustard.

And then the last one we have is musk thistle, the big showy thistle purple flower head.

So what's interesting about these weeds looking so good right now.

These were in areas around town in the boulevard where it had been mowed at some point throughout the summer.

So these were only about 12 inches tall, but these really fresh flowers on them.

Probably none of them because they were mowed, none of these would probably have time yet to go on, and produce seeds before we get a killing frost in town, but I just thought it'd be kind of fun to make a bouquet of, I mean, these noxious weeds are really pretty, and some of them were intentionally brought because they are so pretty.

Your, like, tansy, or for medicinal purposes like tansy, and scentless chamomile, and whatnot.

- So let me ask, and we know Canada thistle, and I have a question here from Gallatin, where I'm gonna send your way in a minute.

Musk thistle is not a noxious weed.

- It is a county listed weed in several counties, including Gallatin County.

- Gallatin County.

- Yeah, and you all I don't think I can be on a show without you asking me about Canada thistle, so.

- It's not me, it's this gentleman from Gallatin Gateway who wants to know why there are so many Canada thistles on the right-of-ways borrow pits that are not being controlled by the county?

I know I shouldn't ask that, but I had to.

- Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of Canada thistle all across Montana, really all across the Northern Great Plains, if you think about the Dakotas and Wyoming.

Part of the challenge of managing these noxious weeds is just the scale of the infestations, and just the resources that we have to put towards trying to manage them.

If you think about rights-of-way borrow pits, they're also very highly disturbed environments.

And that's where these species thrive.

So, you combine the disturbance with just in a lot of places not enough resources to actually manage everything a lack.

Some people don't realize they're invasive.

So there's sometimes a lack of awareness as well, but you just start layering those factors on top of each other, and we have a lot of it.

- [Jack] We have a lot of 'em.

- Yeah.

- There's no doubt about that.

Mary, this person from Bozeman says our aspen are not looking well.

Is it due to lack of rain?

And will this recent rain that we've had the past couple days help the aspen survive and be healthier?

- Aspen are kind of a species that likes to replace itself, I believe, so they don't live forever, they're not gonna live 200 years.

You'll see lots of them coming up around the other aspen.

One rain is not enough.

We have had about three years of drought, so they're probably suffering.

Watering a lawn is not enough water 'cause the grass sucks it up.

So you really wanna water slow and deep along that dripline, so where the water drips along the edge of the tree, that's where the roots are sucking up the water, and do that all year round.

How late this fall can we water our aspen?

- You can water, they're hard to kill.

I would not be watering other deciduous trees now.

Conifers, yeah, you wanna water 'em yet this fall, but maples, ash, no, let 'em go dormant.

And, boy, we've had an extended fall statewide this year, and I am worried that if we get a first frost down in the low teens, that's a killing frost.

We've had some Jack frost, but we could lose a lot of trees.

You push 'em to grow if you keep watering them late in the season.

- Right before the show we were talking about the ease of gardening in Montana versus the Midwest, and other places we lived.

It's a competitive sport here, and the trees are kind of in the same situation.

It's not a friendly environment.

- No, you're absolutely right, but the challenge is fun.

- Yes.

- Okay.

Good question here.

And this came from Missoula, and the viewer would like to know the best way to plan his estate to leave things to a nonprofit?

- Ah, well, it would be very easy to do that because I would suggest the person talk with a nonprofit, explain what it is that he's trying to do.

And then the nonprofit would probably have an attorney that they have that provides information, but I think he would also want to have his own attorney, so that they could talk about what's going on.

And make it clear.

If he wants to leave the whole estate to the nonprofit, the nonprofit will be thrilled, and all that, but it's just how much does that include?

Is it 100,000, 500,000?

Is it a million?

And they would wanna talk to the individual about how do you want the money used?

Do you want it for scholarships?

For example, if you wanted to give it to the 4-H Foundation.

Well, do you want it to go for the People Partner Grants?

And that's where kids go out, and determine something in the community that they wanna do and they form a team to do that.

It's very educational for them to take along that thought process.

It's like adults only they're kids, and they're doing all these things.

Scholarships, MSU the foundation, well, maybe you wanna have scholarships.

So really what it is, what is your goal in leaving it to the nonprofit, and be clear in your mind.

I encourage people to write things down, and I suppose that's 'cause I do that.

It just helps me think about what I wanna accomplish, and how can I go about doing that?

And they may have some ideas that you haven't thought of yet.

- [Mary] What's your legacy plan?

- Yeah, it's your legacy, just think.

- Yeah, I've actually worked with a conservation organization that we've had some rather large properties donated to in advance of being deceased, and there are some real tax benefits.

- [Marsha] Oh, sure.

- If you step out and decide to do that in advance, it's huge, and that makes that estate worth more money later on, too, so that's another way to look at it.

Jane, creeping bellflower, can it be killed with heat?

And are there any other suggestions on how to get rid of this plant?

- Yeah, I'm not totally sure what is meant by can it be killed with heat?

I don't feel like I can make a comment on that.

Like Russian knapweed, like Canada thistle, creeping bellflower is another one of those species that just it creeps and crawls, and develops an extensive root system.

If you have creeping bellflower, I'm assuming this is probably like a lawn setting.

- [Jack] Most likely.

- I mean, you pretty much have to come at it from all different angles.

You can use mechanical control like mowing and hand pulling.

I've heard of people that have used the black tarps to kind of shade it out, and that might create some heat.

- That would, definitely.

- Herbicides, and then if it's so bad it might be till up the lawn and start over again, but you kind of have to come at it from all angles.

I did do a monthly weed post early.

I shouldn't say I did.

Dave Brink our Extension agent in Mineral County wrote a really nice monthly weed post on creeping bellflower.

And you can find that on my website is msuinvasiveplants.org.

I think it was the June monthly weed post or just Google, or use your favorite web browser, and type in monthly weed post, creeping bellflower, and I think you'll get to it.

- Okay, sounds like a plan.

Mary, from Laurel, this is not really in your area, but you can answer it.

What is the best time to aerate lawns, spring or fall?

- Spring.

- [Jack] And fall.

- It's, like, 50-50.

- I think spring for sure, but if you really want a topnotch lawn, you can do it spring and fall.

- I always see it done in the spring.

- You're right.

And one of the reasons is because you can pull a plug in the spring because we have more moisture.

- [Jane] The ground is softer, right?

- Softer, exactly, and that's why most of it is done in the spring.

Marsha, question from Lewistown.

You mentioned that the estate tax free is about 12 million now.

With the increase in land and ranch values in the state, do you think that people should be made aware of the fact that estate planning is very essential to pass that along free of charge?

- Yeah, and certainly there's ways that you can do that.

And married couples in particular.

They've got 24 million that they can leave, and we do have those operations that are that large, but the vast majority of people are trying to figure out how to get it to the kids that isn't a tax problem, but there are attorneys out there, and accountants that can show you, okay, we wanna do a marital deduction trust.

We wanna do different kinds of tools, so that we can take advantage of what is called the exemption for each person.

And even though I try to talk about exemption, let's just talk the exemption amount because it's a unified credit, and all that stuff, so.

And there's predicted that it may go up.

I saw this today and I thought, oh, I don't know I believe that, but because of inflation that it may rise to as much as 12 million, 900,000 with that.

And they're also predicting that the gift, the amount that you can give, like I can give you $16,000 right now.

- I'll take it.

- Uh-huh, and you don't have to declare it as income.

I don't get to subtract it from mine either, but next year I would be able to give you 17,000 maybe.

So we'll have to see.

I like to wait 'til the end of the year when the IRS comes out with the definitive, because what I'm seeing here are people that are making predictions based on the inflation they know.

- [Jane] May I ask a follow-up?

- Sure.

- Marsha, it seems like estate planning is pretty dynamic 'cause the laws change.

How often should somebody review their plan if they have one to see if they should make changes?

- Well, there's certain things that can happen, like divorce, definitely you wanna do.

If you get married, yeah.

If you have a kid, yes.

If there's been a death of parents, or something like that, you wanna look at it.

I like the idea of having what's called a contingency day, and the contingency day it can be your anniversary, or your birthday, and maybe it's not the best topic in the world, but you say, all right, let's take a look at what we have.

And my hubby did that and found out his will was a little bit out of date, and a person that he was going to leave a certain truck to is deceased, so we needed to change that in his will.

So every two to three years would be a good idea, just to look it over, and if nothing else familiarize yourself with it again, because what happens is we do it, we go, whew, that's done, thank goodness, get about our lives and then we forget what kinds of things are in there.

Particularly if it's real complicated.

I like attorneys that explain stuff.

- You might even forget where your will is physically.

- Oh, let's not do that, no, no, no, no, no.

- If you have to look at it every two or three years, it helps you remember where it is.

- Then you remember.

Most people think safe deposit box, but that may not be the best, but certainly home isn't the best because we got fire, we got floods, hurricanes, not Montana, but you can't have a fire, or you may have somebody that's going to inherit more under the law of intestate succession, then you're leaving them in the will.

So if I found that out, I might go, nobody's looking, I'm gonna destroy it.

And then that person would've died without a will.

And when they die without a will, all three kids inherit equally.

And maybe one kid was for good reasons wasn't to receive anything, so.

- All right, thank you.

This would've been for Abi.

I think we'll throw it to Mary.

This person from Helena has a lot of blossom-end rot on their plum tomatoes, and their San Marzano variety, which are both kind of spaghetti type tomatoes, and none on their slicing tomatoes.

What's the reason?

- A lot of it can be variety, especially some of my heirlooms that I've had have been very susceptible to blossom-end rot, but good management practices, mulch, or use landscape fabric and regular watering usually takes care of most of that.

- Okay, I appreciate that.

Jane, the caller doesn't say from where, has a lot of rye overtaking his pasture.

Is there a way to get rid of that?

- Yeah, I'm guessing it's annual rye.

That's an interesting question 'cause annual rye is a problem in some other states.

I haven't heard of it being as much of a problem in Montana.

So I'd actually love to hear from the viewer.

That's one I'd have to take a little time and look up.

- It says common rye, and I suppose it would be an annual rye.

They can send you a sample.

- Yeah, send a sample to the Schutter Diagnostic Lab.

If they want to email me directly, I'd love to know where that is, and a little bit more about the situation.

My email is jane.mangold@montana.edu.

- Okay, I've let you off easy tonight, but I have one here that is not so easy.

This person has an asparagus bed that is infested with bindweed.

They want to know how to reduce the bindweed.

- I think that question was supposed to be for Abi.

- [Jack] No, it's for you, nice try.

- [Mary] You mean those pretty little white flowers?

- Yeah, field bindweed is another one of those that hit it with everything you have, hand pulling, digging.

- And you'll get the asparagus hand pulling.

- Well, the herbicides, you'd have to be careful.

but is asparagus a monocot or a dicot?

- It's a dicot I think.

- Dicot.

- I think it's a dicot, okay.

- Yeah, you can't use 2,4-D on it.

- So you couldn't use a herbicide.

- I go in very early before they break dormancy, and use a little glyphosate to try and knock stuff down.

- That gets a lot of 'em.

And I don't know can you still get a product called Simazine?

- [Jane] Not that I am aware of.

- Okay, they used to use that and some people use salt, which I would not recommend.

We're getting a little low on time.

We got a couple other questions I'd like to get to.

From Kalispell.

Mary, what's the risk of stripe rust up there?

- [Mary] Low.

- Low, and you're sure about that even with this moisture?

- Yes, Washington's low, Montana's low.

There's nothing in Canada.

- And snow mold and lawns here in Bozeman.

Anything to minimize that?

That's it.

- Mowing right before it goes into dormancy.

So it doesn't have a lot of canopy, a lot of stuff.

There are some fungicides you can use, and, yeah.

- Okay.

Anything else you'd like to add about estate planning, what you foresee in the future?

I'll give you a couple seconds to talk about anything else you'd like to talk about.

- Okay, well there's people that are concerned about 2026 when we do a backwards flip to some old laws, but who knows what's gonna happen by 2026.

So I would say don't lose sleep over that now.

Take advantage of the MontGuides because I look at that as a way to save you money because you don't have to have the attorney explain so much to you, and pay that person between 100 and $300 an hour, we're saving, and I tell 'em, I'm your taxpayer dollars at work, so I don't charge, if somebody calls and they want an email, or something.

I've had people wanna offer me money, and no, no, no, we can't do that.

And I'm just their taxpayer dollars at work.

- And I have seen a few of those MontGuides that you've had, and they are really well done.

- [Marsha] Thank you.

- I think giving credit to other people that review 'em is classic, I think that's well said.

Folks, I had one question come in on Facebook, or emailed to me, and they wanted to know whether sodbusting is still occurring in this state?

Sodbusting was big in the '80s here.

It's still occurring to a lesser degree in Montana, but still over the last 10 years we've lost about 1.8 million acres in the Northern Great Plains.

Next week, Kent Wasson, from up north of Malta will be with us talking about soil health, and how he views sustainability.

With that, I'd like to thank the panel tonight.

Mary, thanks for coming in.

Marsha, it's always great to have you.

Good to be here, lots of great information.

Thanks for watching.

See you next week, good night.

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

(gentle music) - [Narrator] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, the MSU Extension Service, the MSU Ag Experiment Stations of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, the Northern Pulse Growers Association, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

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