- [Announcer 1] Montana Ag Live is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, 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.

(instrumental guitar music) - Well, good evening and welcome to Montana Ag Live, brought to you from the PBS Studio at beautiful Montana State University.

So I think we are all extremely happy that it's been raining and enjoying the beautiful green pastures.

I know some people have gotten a little too much rain which is a little bit hard to believe after the last couple of years, but we're thankful for what we can get and just enjoy it.

So, we're gonna have a great show for you tonight.

We're gonna have the opportunity to talk to some things that we don't have an opportunity to talk about quite as much, which are cattle and horses.

So we'll have a chance to visit quite a bit about those and also any bugs or anything that's going on in your garden.

So on the end, we have Eric Belasco who is an AG economist at the Ag Econ and Economics Department here at MSU.

He is a specialist in beef cattle marketing and economics.

So any questions that you have about cattle, please send them Eric's way.

Amanda Bradbery is a equine specialist, nutritionist, and physiologist for horses here at MSU in the animal science department.

So all of you that either have horses as part of your working operation or if you just have them as pets or enjoy riding them in arena or rodeo, you can give Amanda some good questions.

We have Frank Etzler who is an entomologist from the Montana Department of Agriculture.

He works with the CAP Survey program.

So if you've ever heard of a CAP survey, well, we'll get some information about him as to what that really is, so.

And Mac Burgess who is a small farms agronomist here at MSU.

He is also the director of the Towne's Harvest Program which is a local CSA program.

They provide vegetables for the Bozeman community and a lot of people really appreciate that.

I'm Nina Zidack.

I am director of the Seed Potato Certification Program here at MSU.

So I get to work with the potato farmers in Montana in their pursuit of certifying their potatoes as seed.

We have Jordan Ray who's gonna be answering phones for us tonight.

So please send a lot of questions her way and we'll get started.

So Amanda, could you just take a minute or two and tell us about your program in equine science at Montana State University?

- Yeah, I would love to.

So I've been at Montana State University for about three years now in the equine science program of the Department of Animal Range Science.

We are a growing section of animal and range science and most of my work is in equine nutrition but also growth and developmental physiology of future performance horses.

So I teach in the department but also do research.

And one exciting piece of new news from our program is that we have a new breeding herd of 13 registered quarter horse mares that we're excited to work into the program with both teaching and research.

- Great, thank you.

Thank you.

So we'll get started with Mac.

There's a question that actually came in through the Facebook page from Polson.

What are the pros and cons of seeding clover into your lawn or pasture to supplement nitrogen?

- Clover?

I can think of one con.

I got stung by a bee on my foot one time walking barefoot in the lawn.

- Yes, I know.

I've seen that.

- That's a thing.

I suppose if you're not gonna water or fertilize your lawn, clover will tend to do better than the grass will and maybe even take over and at least keep the ground covered.

- Yeah, and in my experience too, it also can creep into your flower beds and it's a little bit of a pain in the neck.

But yeah, it does make your lawn nice and thick but it's just kind of a personal preference.

Some people I think really like the clover.

- I think it must deep...

Deeper than the grass does because we have some parts of our lawn that we don't water and it stays greener longer than the grass does and then you end up mowing it.

- Yeah, that's a plus.

So, Frank.

Yeah, this is a question I'd like to explore a little bit.

What is a CAP survey?

I know that's part of your job.

Can you tell us a little about that?

- So the CAP survey is a cooperative agricultural pest survey and that is a survey for specific pests that we could have here in Montana and there's a National Priority Pest list set up by the USDA of pests of concern that could affect US agriculture.

So we survey for these pests of concern and that way we can say Montana is free of these pests.

So when we export our crops overseas, we can say, "Hey, we don't have it here."

And when they ask, "How do you know you don't have it here?"

Well, we have this many years of surveys.

- Okay, great.

So that's one of the ways that you're monitoring for emerald ash borer.

- Sort of.

- Sort of?

- Sort of.

Not quite 'cause unfortunately, Emerald ash borer has actually been pulled off of that National priority pest list because it's been established already in most of the United States.

So they've restructured everything towards a bio control program.

- Oh, okay.

I see.

So yeah, so where is the Emerald ash borer now?

- So near us in Montana, we have three directions.

We have the lower southeast corner of South Dakota, right there.

In Colorado, north of Denver, it's been established there for many years.

And then last year it actually was discovered in Oregon.

So we've been watching this situation in Oregon pretty closely.

We talk with the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

And because of we're now surrounded on three sides, I'm planning on starting next year to begin active surveys for Emerald ash borer with the department.

There are some community foresters in certain cities that do monitor for Emerald ash borer.

So, we are... Part of the area is looking for it actively.

- Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Amanda, a question came in from Missoula on horse supplements.

Do they need to give horse supplements to their 21-year-old horse during the summer?

They have sufficient pasture in there on a 50/50 grass-alfalfa mix in the winter.

He's still sounding good for short trail rides.

So what would you recommend for a horse like that?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

A 21-year-old horse is typically getting later in their years of performance and it's great to hear that this animal is doing well and is sound and still able to do performance events even if it's just trail riding.

From a supplementation perspective, it sounds like this animal's on a good high quality forage source both in the summer and winter months which is excellent.

So the need to supplement is likely not there.

Now, if you think that the animal might in the diet, you can certainly send those forages off for a analysis of some kind that will give you a breakdown of what is in those feeds and what may be missing.

If you don't want to do that testing, you certainly don't have to either.

And if you want to supplement something, just a standard multivitamin, multi-mineral would be appropriate.

Or even just giving that animal access to a trace mineralized salt block in their pasture wherever they're housed during the year.

- Yeah, I think that's really good information because I think a lot of times people are bombarded by advertisement information that suggests that they need supplements.

But I think sometimes maybe it's kind of like humans.

We don't always need supplements.

- Yes, that is very accurate.

The horse supplement world follows the human supplement world in a lot of cases and most of the time it's not needed.

And you wanna be very critical in your assessment of those supplements that you'll find over the counter.

Make sure that they have high quality ingredients, but make sure your horse actually needs it.

When you start doing potion making, as far as mixing up your animals' feeds, you can actually end up disrupting some of the dietary balance, but also just giving things that are inherently not necessary for the animal if they're on a high quality diet.

And given this horse example, if this horse is healthy at 21 years old and not exercising too hard, then chances are that forage-based diet is probably all that animal needs to survive and thrive.

- Okay, just like us.

- Yes, exactly.

- All right.

So getting on the... Or staying on the same subject of feed.

Eric, why are hay prices still so high?

- Yeah, hay prices about the middle of 2021 started going up because of the drought and have really stayed up since then.

And so in economics, we always looked for prices as that's the signal to producers.

When you see high prices, it's to produce more.

And we couldn't really produce much more last year.

The weather just wasn't quite there.

It was in some parts of the state but not across the state.

So production for the last couple years has been down in the state and as such, hay stocks are still pretty low.

You know, this year you will see.

The weather looks pretty wet so far.

But yeah, with two years coming off, it kinda record lows as far as production's concerned.

You know, we'll see for some kind of a rebound there.

And you know, potentially with these high record cattle prices, also the demand for those hay stocks and for horses as well might find a home for a lot of that hay that's gonna be produced hopefully this summer.

- Right, so the hay farmers still have good markets to look forward to for at least the next year.

- Yeah, I mean it's still like 250 a ton as long as there's lots.

- Wow, that's amazing.

- Yeah.

- That's amazing.

But it costs a lot to produce it too.

- It does, yeah.

And yeah, there are real limitations to produce it across the state.

- Sure, thank you.

So a question just came in from Great Falls on their potatoes.

So I think I can probably answer that one.

Her state certified potatoes from last year are coming up.

Will they be okay and should she let them continue to grow?

So I think this question is about volunteer potatoes, which I'm actually kind of surprised that you would have volunteer potatoes in Great Falls because usually the ground freezes hard enough in Great Falls that I would think that they would have frozen in the ground, but maybe they had some good snowfall in Great Falls this year.

I mean, in general, the short answer is no.

You should always start with clean, disease-free certified seed potatoes each year.

It's actually something that our potato farmers can contend with if they have high snow fall or if you have a situation where the ground doesn't freeze.

You can get volunteer potatoes and those volunteer potatoes can harbor diseases that can cause problems for the next crop and some of those diseases can be spread through the air and also through insects.

So it's always a good idea to get rid of volunteer potatoes.

So I think that's probably what they were going for with because I can't imagine that your certified potatoes that you bought last year would still be good to plant this year.

I think they would be little mummies, so.

So Mac, a question from Bozeman.

And this is a question that actually did come in to the studio this week and it's on Aspens and it appears that they've got something going on on the bark of the tree.

If you could just take a look at that.

They're wondering if that's Cytospora canker.

And if so, what can be done about it?

Can you just talk a little bit about Aspens and canker- - [Mac] How many kinds of canker are there?

- [Nina] There's a lot of different kinds of canker.

- I honestly couldn't tell you one from the other, but I think a lot of Aspen stands have them and Aspen trees don't live forever and it looks like there's a healthy stand of other Aspen trees around there and they're all connected together below ground.

And Aspens are a wetland tree.

Most of my experience with Aspens is in more of a forestry context than horticulture.

It's probably gonna die.

It looks pretty big.

You might cut it down and let the other ones grow back.

- Yup, I think it's eventually gonna girdle the tree.

But again, it looks like a very healthy stand of Aspens.

And Aspens are technically clones and they will shoot up the more- - And they thrive on disturbance, so.

- Right, if you take that one out, another one will come back.

- Yup.

- So Frank, I'm passing on a question from my nephew.

I was just in Winifred this last weekend.

In that area they noticed that the grass in the ditches and some of the CRP is actually kind of browning out early and looks just like it's really going downhill and that that problem is spilling into some of the neighboring wheat fields.

Do you have any idea what might be going on with that?

- I do.

That is gonna be the black grass bug.

So, it's very common at this time of the year here in Montana.

It's a native species.

It really thrives on wheat grass in native range land.

And so luckily for us, it's only one generation per year.

So, we'll be done this year.

But you should probably get on it before next year.

And ways to treat that, one way is a controlled burn.

I don't recommend that based on how...

The drought we've been talking about.

But another better way I would say would be grazing or mowing along that edge.

Knock down that range and on grasses especially along your field and then it'll knock down that population for next year.

So keep an eye on it too because if you have a high population this year, likely high population again next year.

- So is it ever recommended to spray insecticides like in the neighboring wheat crop where it might be be economically damaging?

- I would not.

It's probably more money to spray it than you'll protect it.

'Cause you have to time it just right 'cause it's a sucking mouth part.

So with the...

It's a hermit rind.

So if you don't time it just right, it's not gonna be worth that money.

- Okay, thank you.

So Amanda, a question just came in and this is something that I think a lot of people are wondering about.

There have been a lot of stories in the news about the horse deaths at Churchill Downs and just wondering, do you have any idea what might be going on about that?

I mean, I know you can't know what's happened with those particular horses, but do you have any theories?

- Yeah, it's certainly awful and not something that we want to see in our racing industry and our racing horses.

And it has been pretty hot in the media and appropriately so, I think.

Now, as far as what's going on, it's difficult to say.

I will say that all of those animals are undergoing thorough necropsy to try and determine what might be the cause of it.

And likely those necropsy reports will not be shared in detail with the community.

And I think that's okay as well.

They do have a lot of veterinarians working very hard on answering these questions.

One thing that I will say though is to kind of put things a little bit into perspective because we don't see the amount of racing that happens.

It's really just around the Triple Crown this time of year.

The Belmont Stakes just ran yesterday which was a very exciting race.

But one thing is, anytime you have an elite athlete that's performing at that level, you inherently get increased risk of injury.

Just like the Olympic athletes, they have greater risk of injury.

But statistically, these catastrophic breakdowns have been declining every year for several decades now.

And that number of catastrophic breakdowns is about 1 in every 1,000 starts that a horse races or any horse races in the US per year.

And so that's 0.1% of horses that start on a race breakdown.

Now that's not justifying certainly what happened at Churchill Downs because it is awful.

Most of those catastrophic breakdowns are typically musculoskeletal related as you can probably imagine.

And usually those injuries occur around the fetlock.

But I will say there's a lot more regulation and a lot more oversight than there used to be in thoroughbred racing which is great for the industry and it's improving overall animal welfare and wellbeing.

But it's certainly something that we need to keep being proactive about and making sure.

So for example, the horse forte that was the favorite in the Triple Crown was actually scratched the day of the race because of a foot bruise.

And that would not have happened.

10 years ago, that animal likely still would have raced.

So we are making strides to improve these regulations and improve animal welfare and wellbeing and we still have a ways to go, but I am optimistic that we're gonna continue moving in a positive direction with that.

- That's good.

Yeah, did get to watch the Belmont yesterday.

That was a great race.

- It was great.

First female trainer to win a Triple Crown race.

Excellent.

- That's right.

That was pretty cool.

So Eric, a question from Dutton.

Beef prizes are really high.

Is this just regular inflation or is it something that's unique to the beef industry?

- I mean, price volatility seems like it's unique to the beef industry over the last three years.

You know, in economics, it's always supply or demand related.

And so, we had COVID.

We had demand shocks, we had supply shocks on the meat processing plants and sort of the dust settled on all that and then we had all these droughts that came up.

We had it here.

You know, really the worst drought a couple years ago.

And then last summer, a drought that was more widespread.

And there are these lagged effects that happens in the cattle industry.

So you know, when you can't feed your animals, you kind of push them through the supply chain.

And then as those animals move through, then all of a sudden you see less production coming out.

So even though drought conditions have sort of...

They've diminished this year relative to last year, especially the beef prices that we're seeing right now, a lot of it's drought related from last year.

So you know, the future's market is showing over 250 a pound which is great, great for our ranchers here in the state.

We'll see how long it lasts.

I mean, those are 2015 prices and so...

But yeah, I think a lot of supply related.

And like I said earlier, what you would expect given those high prices is for some kind of a response to happen.

So then it says to ranchers, "All right, now's the time to rebuild."

And so those price signals are there and we'll see if there's some rebuilding which would stabilize those prices a little bit more.

- Okay, great.

Thank you.

So Mac, question came in on rhubarb.

Why is the rhubarb that they transplanted two years ago spindly and short?

- [Mac] I don't know, mine isn't.

(panel laughs) - Is it that you planted two years ago?

Or I don't know.

- Water.

It needs water.

Probably needs nitrogen.

- And you know what?

It probably could be suffering from not having enough water last year or the year before.

I would say that that's probably the case.

- You know, at this time of year, a lot of the growth you're seeing is still being pushed up from the root system and so you're looking at the effects of last year's, last summer's photosynthesis.

And so if water fell short or fertility was inadequate last summer, then you'll see that now.

- Okay, yeah.

I think rhubarb is definitely one of those plants that is extremely tough.

But I think even a lot of plants that we normally thought were super drought resistant the last couple of years were really hard on things, so.

- And the rhubarb plant in my front yard is underneath where we shovel, where we put all the snow when we shovel the driveway.

So it was literally under 10 plus feet of snow and it didn't melt off until late April.

And I know places where they just got an earlier start, so that could be part of it too.

- Yeah, it could just be late too, so.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, you never know.

So Frank, a question from Bozeman.

This person saw something about cockroaches in Montana.

Do we have cockroaches in Montana?

Is this a big issue?

- So, I think I saw that too on online and it's a concern about people bringing it in to Montana.

So we have a lot of people moving into Montana recently from places where cockroaches are native and they could bring it within their electronics and other things.

I don't worry too much about it spreading naturally in Montana.

It's too dry here.

Gets way too cold in the wintertime for cockroaches to be established.

However, if you are in an urban area, keep an eye out especially if you are connected to other dwellings, especially in an apartment.

And if you do see a cockroach, there's gonna be more than one.

But if you treat it and you catch it early, it should not be a problem for much longer.

- Okay, great.

Thank you.

So Amanda, a caller from Clancy is wondering, are wild horses feral and should they be eliminated or controlled?

- Wow, that's a loaded question.

(panel laughs) - Yeah, no controversy there.

- Yeah, I know.

So the term wild versus feral has typically surrounded whether they are truly wild horses being descended from a lineage of wild that they have always been that way.

Whereas feral has been the term that's commonly been termed for animals that have ended up in that wild BLM space.

So it's hard to say whether they are feral or wild and that's kind of a loaded question in that there's a lot of opinion driven on that piece of it and it's hard to say without doing true genetic testing whether they're wild and descended from those true either Spanish animal lineages or otherwise or whether they have escaped a ranch and just ended up contributing to that population.

As far as whether they should be eliminated or not, that's also challenging to address.

I do think our numbers are getting a little bit hard to control and that is something that researchers have been working very hard on is how do we control these populations.

Horses are inherently damaging to the land just based on their grazing behavior.

They tend to move more.

They tend to...

The way they eat the grasses and stuff is different than that of cattle.

And so they do tend to be inherently more damaging which is why even on the domestic side, the stocking rate is gonna be different than that of cattle on a given piece of land.

I do think we need to do some work on controlling those populations and there are researchers working on some reproductive controls particularly on the stallion side.

If they can give a lot of work in it in the vaccination side, if they can vaccinate this animal to make them sterile for a short period of time or permanently, then we can control population that way as well.

So there is a lot of work being done in this space and trying to figure out what's best for preserving those lands.

- So in Montana, the population is really... Aren't they mostly still in just eastern Montana in...

I'm trying to think of the name of the mountains.

- That is correct.

Eastern and Southern Montana is where we tend to see most of those populations.

- Yeah, when my family first moved into Fergus County in the seventies, there were still some that were left from the homesteader days.

- [Amanda] Sure.

- But those have have since all died out.

But yeah, they were some very, very old herds, so.

Eric, a call from Great Falls.

They've heard of some new beef packing plants in the state, lots of little ones and then a bigger one by Havre.

And then also too, I know in the last round of... Or I guess the main round of COVID funding, there were a lot of monies that were supplied to help support some of these plants.

Can you tell us a little bit about what's going with that?

- Yeah, well, I can definitely talk about the economics of it.

I mean, one of the things during COVID was putting these large packing facilities if we had outbreaks, but we've also had...

I mean, even before COVID, there have been fires that have happened at plants and there are real big impacts on the beef market from those.

And so I think the idea is to try to spread out the supply chain a little bit more.

Use some smaller facilities.

And I know there are a lot of ranchers in Montana that would like to take advantage of that.

They see a lot of value in their product.

The consumers value their product.

They don't feel like they get that value when they sell it earlier in the life cycle.

And so, it's an industry that we used to have that kind of went away and now I think there's definitely resurgence in there.

You know, there are a lot of hurdles.

You know, there's the labor issue.

One of the difficulties of having a viable meat processing plant too is you're competing against some of these larger plants.

The reason they're large is 'cause they can produce so much meat at a really low average cost.

And then the biggest challenge in Montana has always been to have a stable supply of inputs into the meat processing year round, which I know we have a very cyclical season.

But you know, a lot of those larger plants are put in places where they can field.

Before I was here, I was down in West Texas.

And there, for example, they can be fielding them from Kansas and Mexico and different parts of the country so they can stay full year round.

But you know, I do think the question is always, it's gonna be a higher cost to produce it at a smaller scale.

But if consumers are willing to pay that extra premium, are you getting enough to offset those additional costs?

And you know, I wish I knew the answer to that.

I'm really curious to see how these meat processing plants do and just because I talk to a lot of ranchers that really want viable processing in the state, I'd love to see them do well in the state.

- Yeah, and I think from the consumer standpoint, it gives people a little bit more choice and options.

- Eric, are these new small facilities focusing on higher price markets like grass finished or are we seeing- - Or natural beef.

- More feedlot activity here too to go along with that?

- Yeah.

- Both?

- I mean, I would think our advantage would really be in kind of the grass-fed market 'cause there you are taking a higher premium for it as well.

I mean, there is some feedlot capacity here that could... You know, the question has always been to get the right feed sources in here which would look a little different than in some of the larger feeding facilities in like the Midwest, for example.

But I guess I don't know the answer to that.

I mean, I would assume to make it viable, you'd have to have some value added.

- All right.

- Sure, thank you.

So Mac, a question from the Walkerville area near Butte.

They have a vacant parcel that's about an acre plus with a very gentle slope and they'd like to have as many trees as practical.

It's covered in grass and dandelions at the moment, so it appears to be good dirt.

They do not care about the type, fast or slow-going growing, wide canopy or tall, deciduous or fruit.

Basically, any trees.

They just would like some trees.

We just want to propagate something that can thrive the best.

Do you have any recommendations for them?

- See, Butte's at a little over 6,000 feet elevation and it's pretty dry and I think that's a place where you look at your north aspects and your south aspects and you have really different moisture regimes and that can be the difference between trees making it or not.

So my first question would be, do you intend to irrigate these trees?

And if the answer is no, I would say, well, think real hard about some Conifers.

But I do know that most of the cities, and I know that the city of Butte... Silver Bow County does have an arborist and they do have a website with a document listing quite a few species that are suited and I think that maybe more focuses on the urban forest where things are gonna be in an irrigated lawn.

So I would hesitate to recommend the Choke cherries or the real common urban trees for a parcel that big if it's dry and level.

But I would think hard about the aspect and if it wants to grow trees without irrigation.

- Well, yeah.

And in the short term, maybe think of some way that you could irrigate them for the short... Or you know, for the first couple of years to get established.

- But that's a little higher elevation than your typical Ponderosa pine, but that's Lodgepole pine or Engelmann spruce or... - Yeah, what I always think when I go through that area is the Rocky mountain juniper.

You always see a lot of Rocky mountain juniper in that area.

And... Yeah, no.

That'd be a fun project to work on.

So Frank, from Anaconda, they've been hearing a lot about bedbugs and bedbugs in some apartment buildings.

First of all, can you describe a little bit about that particular pest and how do you control them.

Is it a threat to other people in the neighborhood?

- So bedbugs are parasites of humans and they're often found along your bed.

Hence, the name bedbugs.

They are blood feeders.

So they do come and they'll bite you and they're very good at hiding.

So any crevices or cracks that you have anywhere nearby, you'll find a bed bug and they're very, very difficult to get rid of.

So you're gonna need a...

If you do have them, you'll definitely need to get some pest control company in to help get rid of it.

And you're gonna have to do mul... You'll probably have to do multiple tries to get rid of them.

So they are a problem now pretty much ever since the half-life of DDT has kind of gotten down over time 'cause everybody used to spray everything with DDT and that was great for bedbugs, but it was bad for a lot of other things.

So, now bedbugs are a big issue.

So you wanna...

If you do get them, again, contact pest control company.

If you have a neighbor that has them, especially if you live in an apartment building, they could come to you especially if you're next door to them.

So, they will migrate over.

So, you do wanna make sure.

It would be good if you do find them, let your neighbors know.

Be a good neighbor, let them know, and then they should probably treat it as well.

- So I know for other bugs, people will actually spray around the foundations of their houses or put... Oh gosh, I'm trying to think of some mineral compounds and things like that around the foundations.

Does something like that help with bedbugs?

- [Mac] You're thinking of diatomaceous earth.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Well, diatomaceous earth and there's something else that I can't think of right now.

- So if you live in a house and you're not connected to your neighbors, in Montana, you'll be fine.

The biggest, you'll bring it...

The way to get it into your house is you bring it into your house.

So it gets on some luggage of some sort if you go someplace.

So a good rule of thumb that a lot of entomologists do when they do go to a hotel is you take a look at... You put your luggage in the bathroom where it's tiled and then they take a look around the room and you wanna look in those crevices.

So, behind the headboard.

You look behind the headboard.

You look underneath the bed where it connects to the mattress, like the hard areas where you'll see something.

And if you see anything, they'll look like little black specs.

And if you see some black specs or reddish brown specs, you might wanna get another room.

- How often have you had to do that?

- Luckily, I have not had to do it.

But every single entomological conference I've been to, there's been stories.

There's been stories.

This hotel that we don't talk about.

- So, I travel a lot and I've gotten into bedbugs two times and one was in a hostel and the other one was in a very nice hotel.

So I don't know that they necessarily discriminate.

- Yes, they are non-discriminatory.

So they will be where...

Even if you're in a four-star, five-star hotel, it's always worth to double check.

- Yeah, you can still have bedbugs.

So Amanda, another great horse question that came in from Deer Lodge, kind of a little bit similar to the first question you answered.

They have an older horse that no longer works or is ridden.

They would like to economize on feed.

There are some pasture options, but what would be the best choice for feed that wouldn't cost as much as expensive hay?

- Sure.

So there's several options out there, particularly if hay is limiting.

One thing to keep in mind is that horses do have a long stem forage requirement to maintain gut health and that's around 1% of body weight per day.

So if you have 1,000-pound horse, that's about 10 pounds a day of long stem forage just to maintain gut health.

Now that 1% of body weight won't meet nutrient requirements for the animal.

But you could at least scale back the amount of long stem forage that you may be using for that animal and fill the gap with something else that may be more economical.

There are options on the market that are fairly easy to feed but also economical to purchase and they're called ration balancers.

There's a lot of major commercial feed companies that sell those.

And basically, they're high protein, high in vitamins and minerals that are meant to simply fill the gap that forage may not provide.

And they're fed usually at a rate of a pound or two a day.

So, very small volumes compared to most of the other commercially formulated grains that we typically feed to our performance horses or horses with other energy demands.

So, that could be a good option as well.

Also, kind of on the economical side, if we reduce that long stem forage intake for price purposes, you could also fill that gap with something like alfalfa pellets or alfalfa cubes or something as well.

Again, putting out a trace mineral salt block would be a good idea as well so you get some of those micronutrients in there.

But that's another option to keep things economical with hay price as what they are.

- My sister-in-laws used to feed her older horse beet pulp.

Is that a good option?

And what are the nutritional benefits of beet pulp?

- Yup, it is.

So beet pulp is very high in fiber.

You do want to be careful with some beet pulp if it has a lot of molasses in it.

Some beet pulp does, particularly if you have horses that have some metabolic issues.

Molasses is very high in potassium.

It's very high in sugars.

But inherently beet pulp is a great fiber alternative for horses.

There was a old myth that went around for a really long time that you have to soak beet pulp before you give it, otherwise it'll go to the horse's stomach and blow up and expand, and that's not the case.

It can be fed dry.

You do just wanna make sure the horse has water available so they can go and consume water following that pretty dry meal.

Similar to a dog that eats dry food, they're gonna tend to drink more.

But it is a great alternative fiber source and they can tolerate higher volumes of it than some other options.

- Thank you.

So Eric, a question that I think a lot of farmers are wondering about because of farm programs and people at the university are always following, what's the status of the new Farm Bill?

- [Eric] Yeah, it's my favorite topic.

- All right.

- So the current Farm Bill expires at the end of September of this year.

And so the normal process is to be drafting it.

I think at this point they're getting it kind of the markup and sort of taking proposals from different senators and representatives on what would be in that bill.

And it's usually hard to predict.

Although it seems like... One of the things that at least I talk a lot with my colleagues about is whether the Farm Bill will be signed on time.

Back in... What was it?

Ended up being the 2014 Farm Bill, you know, was gonna be the 2012.

There was a a couple year delay.

And you know, when that happened, we had a kind of a divided house> The executive branch and the Senate were in different parties and didn't always agree on the budgets.

And it seems like there might be a little bit of that going around this time too.

So, we'll kind of see.

As far as the discussions that people are having there, I don't think there's a whole lot of debate about what kind of should be in those programs.

People are looking to maybe... You know, there's always discussions of some of the SNAP programs.

You know, the majority of the Farm Bill covers food assistance programs and so there's some proposals on that.

There's some proposals on crop insurance.

But I would think that there's also a big push to kinda finish on time.

I think the senators and the representatives last year on those Ag committees paid a big price for not delivering on time especially after what happened after that.

I mean, if you guys remember, there was the snowstorm that happened in South Dakota and the government offices were closed and sort of there was no... We had a federal program that was... You know, that wasn't in place anymore.

And so no way to compensate those ranchers.

And so they definitely...

The politicians don't want that to happen again.

And so, we'll kind of see.

As far as stuff impacting Montana Ag, I think most of the stuff that we've seen in the last farm bills will continue into this Farm Bill.

So I wouldn't expect for there to be huge changes in this Farm Bill.

- So pretty much growers can expect some of the same insurance programs, risk management programs that they've had in the past.

- Yeah.

I would think a lot of those are gonna continue forward.

I mean, of course, I'd love to see more money put towards research.

- [Nina] Absolutely.

- But you know.

Yeah, but we'll see.

I mean, there's always a bit of variance in kind of the money that goes into that end.

But yeah, as far as farmer programs, I mean if... You know, especially if some of those programs, if they cut back on them, they hear about it from their constituents and so they're very reluctant to eliminate those programs.

- That's good and everybody needs to eat.

- [Eric] Right.

- That's one thing we can all agree on.

- [Eric] Right.

- So Mac, from Lincoln County.

Actually, in Libby.

They have a 30-acre hayfield that's been taken over by cheatgrass.

I know you're not a weed scientist, but maybe if you know a little bit about the biology, would it be better to put cows on it early to eat it down to allow other grasses or should they spray it?

And they're saying that spraying for them is the last resort.

- So cheatgrass is a winter annual grass wheat.

Seeds germinate in the fall and then the plants go dormant over the winter like winter wheat does and they need to be burnalized.

And then it makes seed very quickly in the spring.

So it's a bit late I think to be asking this question right now.

The time to do either was probably some time ago.

But yeah, grazing can be an effective tool to prevent.

But you wanna manage the seed set, right?

The seed bank longevity is not about a couple of years.

So if you prevent cheatgrass from making seed either by spraying or by grazing, then you can gradually whittle the population down.

And you do have an opportunity.

If it's the only green thing in the spring, you can use a broad spectrum herbicide, then that doesn't kill things that are not actively growing yet and that can be effective then.

- Yeah.

And two, if you do let the seed heads develop too long, can't they cause problems in the mouths of both horses and cattle?

- They can, yes.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, so that's a good thing to avoid.

So if they get in your socks and scratch your ankles, you probably- - It's too late.

- It's too late.

It's too late and you should not be letting your animals graze on them.

- They are a fire risk at that point too, right?

- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

- In some places, so.

- I hate cheatgrass, so.

- So a question from Great Falls for Frank.

What's the best way to control boxelder bugs?

- Oh.

I don't really know.

- Controlling boxelders?

- Yeah, that'd probably be the best way.

- I think we like our boxelders.

- Yeah, so I guess it would be try...

If it's outside, it won't be a problem.

But I know they really, really love to migrate into your houses in the fall.

Here on campus, I know they come into every single window.

Pretty much anywhere in Montana, there's a boxelder.

You'll have them inside.

So I would say probably about in the fall time, I guess get some diatomaceous earth around, like make a perimeter around your house or do a spray around your house.

And that'd probably be the best way to prevent them from coming in.

But once you're outside, there's just not enough... You don't wanna spend the money to try to control your boxelder bugs outside.

- Sure, sure.

Thanks, Frank.

So Amanda, a question came in on Facebook and this is something I remember too.

This person remembers that there was quite a bit of horse racing in Montana.

They had it in Anaconda, Butte, Belgrade, and other places.

Is there still any horse racing in Montana?

And is Montana a good place to raise racehorses?

- So not to my knowledge is there any more thoroughbred racing in Montana.

I do know that historically there were actually a lot of thoroughbred breeders that were based in Kentucky that would oftentimes full out their mares in Montana for elevation in an effort to make sure those animals are adapted to elevation, more oxygen efficient before they went in race.

I don't think there was any data supporting that.

So that has since trickled away, I think, as well.

I believe there is still a Montana Racing Commission, but I would probably have to double check on that as well.

It would be nice to see some racing come back to a Montana.

- [Mac] I bet a viewer would chime in on that pretty quick.

- Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

No, I used to remember going to the horse races in Billings, in Great Falls as a kid.

They were always associated with the fair.

And yeah, it was a lot of fun.

- I love horse racing.

It is something that I'm passionate about.

- So, thank you.

So Eric, we've touched on this a little bit, but maybe just if you could elaborate a little bit more.

So like what is the potential labor supply if all of these meat packing plants really do get built?

- Yeah.

I took a group of students.

It was last May.

So we visited the Washington beef meat processing plant which I think in Montana would be the largest plant in the state.

And you had... You know, I think they had about 90 workers per shift that were on there working different cuts and working in different rooms.

The difficult thing is it's a job that's hard to get people to do.

It's fairly specialized as well.

It's an industry that's become a lot safer over the years, but at the same time it's not really one that you could probably hire just kind of locally.

You'd have to bring people in with training of cutting and things like that.

So the labor has always been kind of an issue around these processing, especially a lot of the places you would think to put a processing plant.

If you're thinking about let's make it central to where beef or cattle production is, it being kind of the rural parts of the state, and that's really where it's the hardest to find labor.

And we've seen that kind of a cross ag and you're talking about really concentrating that labor in that one area.

So yeah, the labor issue is huge in processing.

- Yeah, and I can imagine too, you mentioned earlier that it's hard to keep a steady supply year round.

So keeping an employee 365 days a year, I imagine, would be a challenge too.

- Yeah, and so...

I mean...

I don't pretend to be an expert kind of in meat processing.

I think the people who are looking to build the plants have kind of looked at what kind of size would work for what they're trying to do.

I don't think they're looking for the same scale as some of those other facilities.

But yeah, I mean making sure that you have enough laborers.

I mean, it's.. Yeah, it's definitely an issue in any area.

You know, you would think about where would you have kind of the processing in the state of Montana and it's really not where you would have maybe the...

It'd be more the urban areas which might be, you know, further distance from where the cattle are.

So you'd like to keep them sort of- - [Nina] Right, closer than Omaha.

- Closer than Omaha, yeah.

- So I guess it's all relative.

- Right.

- So Mac, a question from Bozeman.

This gardener planted their green beans about 10 days ago and the birds are eating them.

What can they do okay about the birds eating their green beans before they even come out of the ground?

- I was gonna say it's only June 11th so they can't be eating the actual beans.

- No, they're eating them before they can even come out of the ground.

- Gosh, I've never seen that happen but it'd be frustrating if it did.

You know, one thing, green beans are a heat loving plant and you could put row cover, floating row cover like Agribon or Remay.

I don't know if they even call it Remay anymore, but that's what we used to call it, and it keeps it warmer underneath.

It's like a little mini greenhouse and I bet green beans would double their yield under.

- Yeah.

- Under row cover besides blocking birds.

But that's an effective tool for exclusion of lots of insect pests.

We don't have the bean beetles here as a problem, but if you're trying to keep flea beetles off of arugula or broccoli or something.

- Right.

- Same thing, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, many, many years ago and we had a truck farm in Billings, we would have problems with our corn and then also like with the pumpkins.

The birds would go out and they would just...

They would... You know, they'd find the hill or they would find like the row of corn and just go right up the row.

- And they would eat the seed out.

- And eat the seed out of the ground.

So, yeah.

- What kind of birds do that?

- Yeah, I'm not 100% sure.

Maybe blackbird or something.

I'm not exactly...

I don't remember what was it and it was very frustrating- - I suppose you could try a scarecrow or any of those kind of things to generally keep birds away.

But those don't usually last more than a couple days in my experience.

- Well, yeah.

And yeah, like in the fall we would use those cannons- - Those motions detector.

- And it scares them for about two or three days and then after that they're like, "Oh, nothing happens when that thing goes off."

- Well, I have quite a bit of area covered by bird net to protect berries and we're just getting that out now.

But green beans doesn't strike me as worth it and I imagine this is a home garden situation.

I'd get a piece of row cover and just enjoy the other benefits.

- That's right, exactly.

So a question for Frank from Havre.

Is this gonna be a bad grasshopper year and will all of the rain that we've been having reduce grasshopper populations?

- You know, it's always a tricky thing to determine if it's gonna be a bad grasshopper year, but I do feel that with this rain level that we've had, it's been very consistent, and it will definitely knock down the population.

So I'm hopeful that it won't be as bad as it has been in the past.

- Okay.

I think everybody is hoping that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

The last couple years were horrible.

- It's hard to tell.

But I guess in the next few weeks when the nymphs start hopping, you can kinda get an idea.

- I guess on the sunny side, they have a little more to eat this year.

- Yeah.

I do think it's gonna be pretty good about keeping the population.

- No, it's been rainy for a couple weeks but it was quite dry for the rest of the month of May.

- Yeah, it was dry earlier.

Yeah.

- So that might be a good combination though.

Might have made him come out early and then it rains so it knocks them back down.

- Does the rain support a disease of- - Yeah, a lot of fungus.

So they'll get some fungus as nymphs and then they'll die.

- So, follow up to the boxelder question.

Caller replied that they spray Tempo around their house.

Do you know what chemical Tempo is?

- I don't.

- What chemical class it is.

- I don't.

- But it sounds like it's probably a chemical name.

- Yeah, probably.

If I saw the label, I would probably agree with it.

- Oh, and then there's another caller from Glendive that says that the best way to control boxelder bugs is to smash them with a hammer.

- I would say rubber mallet.

- A rubber mallet.

Yeah, exactly.

You might cause some damage if you the grill metal hammer.

- We're talking about in the house now, not around the tree so much.

- Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I guess you can try whatever.

So Amanda, caller from Clancy has a question on why are horse prices so dang high?

- Yeah, that's a good question and I don't know if I have a complete answer to it, but I have to say I'm happy to see it.

Honestly, after several years of horse prices being low, one thing to keep in mind is that horse prices tend to follow the economy as well.

So whenever you get shifts in the economy, you're also gonna get shifts in horse prices as well.

The reasoning behind the pricing is usually a little different than on the cattle side of things, but it's hard to pinpoint one thing that's driving that.

I know it makes it hard on the purchasing side.

But overall, horse prices being high tends to be a good thing for the industry as a whole.

- And do you think it's worth the average recreational person to go for papers?

Or are pasture-bred horses just as good?

What's your opinion on that?

- Oh yeah, that's a great question.

So you know, having registration papers is great, particularly if you're potentially buying and selling or if you're wanting to get it more into the show and performance horse industry.

But with that said, a unregistered pasture-bred horse can be just as good as a horse that isn't registered or wasn't bred using advanced reproductive technologies and things like that.

You know, a good horse is a good horse and they're worth their weight a lot of times, particularly with families.

And you know, as I get older, I have a little less patience for the not great horses.

- Right, exactly.

Life's too short, right?

- Exactly, so I care a little bit less about sometimes what the paper say and more about breeding horses for a sound mind.

- Sure, that's great.

So, we've got a call in.

Maybe Mac can answer this.

This is from Missoula.

They've heard about alternatives to alfalfa that are increasing in popularity as animal forage, and maybe you guys know a little bit about this, that also help with nitrogen fixation.

Can somebody provide some information and research sources and maybe somebody at MSU that could also be looked at as a resource?

- Yeah, I think Hayes Goosey would be an excellent resource for that.

He's our extension forage specialist in the Department of Animal Range Science and I think he fields a lot of those questions and I think he'd have some good feedback on that.

- Great.

- They might be referring to sand flame which is- - Sure.

- Right, you're seeing a lot more that's...

If you see a beautiful purple, kind of a pink, purple field, yeah, they're gorgeous in the summer.

So Amanda, we've just got a little bit of time left.

Is there something that we haven't had a chance to cover that you would like to talk about with your equine science program at MSU?

- Sure, so one of the things that I'm really excited about at MSU is the growth of our equine science program and the support we have to grow it.

So we have more students coming in which is great.

We have more research happening which is a great opportunity for students, but also a great opportunity for us to get valuable information out to horse owners in Montana.

So that's one thing that I have been really excited to be a part of over the last three years is the growth and development of that program.

Also excited about this new breeding herd that we have and the opportunity to promote that and get that off the ground and running and get more community involvement.

So if you're interested in getting to know more about the equine science program or being involved in the equine science program in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out.

- Great, thank you so much.

So I think we're coming to the end of our show.

Just so you know, there will be no Montana Ag Live next week.

It's our summer break.

We'll be back on Sunday, September 10th.

So think of some questions for then.

Right now, I would just like to thank the crew that makes all of this happen.

The producer, Paul Heitt-Rennie, the people in the control room, all of the camera people, the students at MSU, thank you for being here and see you next fall.

- [Announcer 2] For more information and resources, visit montanapbs.org/aglive.

(instrumental guitar music) - [Announcer 1] Montana AG Live is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Stations of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, the Northern Pulse Growers Association, and the Gallatin Gardener's Club.

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