- [Narrator] 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.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (speaker laughs) - Good evening, and welcome to Montana Ag Live, brought to you from the PBS Studio at Montana State University.

So we have a great opportunity tonight to talk about some more issues with agriculture and conservation.

Jack Riesselman put a great season together.

Today we're gonna talk with a representative from USDA about this, and normally, and actually all the time politics are never a discussion for Montana Ag Live, but our special guest's appearance tonight here was almost a casualty of (Justin chuckles) the budget dispute in Washington DC.

So thankfully they got that agreement in place, and we're able to have our representative here from USDA, so we are looking forward to that.

To introduce our panel tonight, Uta McKelvy is on the end.

Uta is our Extension Plant Pathologist for potatoes and sugar beets.

She's also the Director of the Schutter Diagnostic Lab, which handles disease, insect, and weed identification.

So any questions that you have in that realm, please ask her.

She also knows a thing or two about wheat and pulse crops, so please have some questions for Uta tonight.

Justin Meissner, he is a Conservationist from the USDA, Natural Resource and Conservation Service.

- Yep.

- And he's gonna talk to us today about conservation easements in agriculture.

Joel Schumacher is an Extension Economist at MSU, and ask all questions for him about ag business or anything that you might just be curious about.

So, Abi Saeed is our Extension Horticulturist.

This is the time of year when everybody has questions about getting their yard in the best health and shape for next year and putting away that garden, so please be thinking about questions for her.

And as I am saying all of these, bring your questions, this is a call-in show.

We rely on you to ask us the questions to get the discussion started tonight.

My name is Nina Zidack, I work with the Seed Potato Growers at Montana State University to help them grow the potatoes on their farms as seed potatoes and certify them.

So in the studio tonight, we have Nancy Blake who is answering phones for us; and also Bruce Loble who is actually at home taking the questions online.

So we'll start off tonight with Justin.

Justin, could you please tell us a little bit about your role at USDA and a little bit about conservation easements?

- All right, so as you said, I'm the Assistant State Conservationist for Easement programs for the NRCS.

We have two real different types: The Agricultural Conservation Easement Program; ALE, Agricultural Land Easements, which is a working lands easement.

Primarily we will purchase the development rights, and we do that with through the Land Trusts of Montana.

So they're a really great partnership, they spend lots of time working with private landowners in order to bring an application forward.

And then there's the Wetland Reserve Easement Program, which its primary focus is to restore or enhance degrade wetlands to bring them back into hydrological function, provide the wildlife habitat, increase the carbon sequestration (Nina mumbles) (panelist chuckles) - Mm-hmm.

- And really make those wetlands back as they were prior to be integrated.

- So I've got a question for you on the land trusts.

I know in the Gallatin Valley, we have Gallatin Valley Land Trust, and people donate money to land trusts.

So how are those funds used to establish a conservation easement?

And do you work in partnership with those nonprofit organizations?

- Yes, for sure.

The partnership we have with MALT, the Montana Association of Land Trust is critical to the working lands easements, for sure.

We work with the Gallatin Valley Land Trust bidder admin, I think we have seven that are currently eligible entities to hold easements for the NRCS on those working lands easements.

Again, without them being in place and building those relationships across the state in their service areas, we really wouldn't be as successful as we are right now, for sure.

- Mm-hmm.

Great, yeah, it's good to see everybody working together on that.

So, Abi, a question for you.

A person has a cherry tree with some splitting bark.

Actually this call came in from Kalispell at the end of last week.

Is there something that they should cover it with?

- Yeah, so usually that splitting bark often times is probably as a result of winter kind of southwest injury or sunscald.

Usually occurs on the south and western side of your tree trunks- - Mm-hmm.

- Of thin barked and dark barked trees.

And so, especially younger trees are a lot more susceptible, but in terms of any sort of tree paints and things like that, usually those aren't recommended.

So one of the things I would recommend doing though is use like a white tree wrap this winter to prevent further damage and protect that tree further.

So that would be a good strategy to reduce those issues.

And any thin barked and dark barked trees, it's a good idea to protect those from that sun, sunshine.

So another thing comes to mind with a cherry tree and splitting bark, Uta, and that is bacterial canker.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, in that case, you probably wouldn't wanna cover or anything like that?

- No.

So that wouldn't be a winter injury, right?

That's an in-season injury.

- Right.

- I think there would be wounds in the first place that kind of help the bacteria enter into a tree and cause disease.

So maybe in a way like avoiding any kind of stress or injury to your tree is gonna help prevent that.

And then once you have that kind of canker, the best idea is probably to prune out affected branches to prevent further spreading.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so you always wanna prune a little below that actual canker injured area, and then take good care to sanitize your tools, so that you don't spread that pathogen to other trees that have been healthy so far, right?

That's always a good practice.

- Mm-hmm, okay.

Thanks, Uta.

So Joel, I guess at the beginning I said, we aren't going to discuss issues of (laughs) the federal government (Joel chuckles) and the casualties of politics, but the farm bill expired yesterday.

Are we gonna get a new farm bill soon?

(Joel chuckles) What happens if we don't get one soon?

- Well, yeah, I mean, so technically our farm bill, it's a five-year bill, and it did expire yesterday.

However, it's not as critical as like the government shutdown where offices were gonna close immediately.

And really as long as something is done by December 31st, there's essentially very little impact to most growers.

I mean, depends on where you're at in the country 'cause some folks are in planting season already and just the nature of- - Mm-hmm.

- Where Montana is at with our programs, that's not too big of an issue, but as long as something happens by December 31st, I'd say there's essentially very little impact to Montana producers.

- Mm-hmm.

- But the last farm bill, we could get a one year extension, - [Nina] Mm-hmm.

- Or we could get a delayed period where we're kind of operating on an expired farm bill.

And when it actually passes, sometimes farmers will get to make choices that are sort of retroactive back to whenever.

But I don't have a very good crystal ball about when that's gonna happen, but we certainly have about 90 days here where little consequences for Montana growers for an expired farm bill.

- So have there been any rumblings about any fundamental changes that might be coming in the new farm bill?

Any discussions?

- Well there's certainly some.

One thing to know about the farm bill, it's farm bill, but the biggest item in it is nutrition assistance programs.

- Mm-hmm.

- Right?

So that's the vast majority of the funding, so it has this label of farm, but there's these other pieces.

So a lot of times there's trade-offs in that program about total spending amounts, how much towards conservation versus different ag programs.

And even trading between, might be that they get votes traded, if they do this for the cotton program in exchange for this, for the tobacco program.

And you have to follow it a lot closer than me.

I usually wait till it's pretty close to final before I pay a lot of attention to what the details are for Montana producers.

- Thank you, Joel.

So, Justin, so you talked a little bit about easements.

How does a landowner apply for the different types of easements?

- So for the Wetland Reserve Easement, those are applied for at the local field office.

They'll go in and work with the district conservationist, they'll develop the plan, and kind of get that process rolling.

For ACEP-ALE, the Agricultural Land Easement Program, those applications are handled through the land trusts, where the land trusts actually is the one, who is the USDA participant that we actually work with, and then the land trusts works with those landowners.

And I said a lot of times, those land trusts will work with those landowners, I mean, sometimes three or four years to build that relationship and the trust, so that those landowners really understand what to expect as those easements move forward.

- And are these nonprofits that they work with, are those specific to a few counties or can you work with anyone in the state regardless of where you're located?

- So that's a good question.

They really vary.

I mean, The Nature Conservancy covers the entire state.

The Montana Land Reliance, they cover pretty much the entire state, and they have their focuses as well.

The Flathead Land Trust, the Five Valleys Land Trust, Bitter Root Land Trust, they're primarily on the west side of the divide, and they do have a specific service area.

So when the land owners call our field offices or call me directly, we try to figure out, what part of the state are you in, and which land trusts they could go and talk to.

Some of them do overlap, which is great.

They can kind of find which land trust really works with them, and kind of fits what their needs are.

- Mm-hmm, all right.

- Okay, thank you.

So, Uta, so I have to admit, I brought in some (Uta chuckles) vegetables from my garden that have problems.

(laughs) So a squash and a pumpkin, and I think you have a tomato sample to show also.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I have to say, I have a PhD in Plant Pathology, and I am struggling with a disease called sclerotinia or white mold in my garden right now.

- Mm-hmm.

- So can you tell us a little bit about sclerotinia and what you might do for it in your garden?

- Yes, I'd be happy to.

Well, I hope I never have it in my garden 'cause I'd probably be also at a loss, but... (laughs) So white mold is a really tricky disease to control, so I am not surprised.

So maybe let's talk about like what it looks like first, then we can talk a bit about the management.

So on this example that Nina brought in here, if we can see that on the camera, you'll see that kind of damaged area, and you may see that really wide dense groove, which is from the fungus sclerotinia that causes this disease.

And in this other example here, this is a bit of an advanced stage.

This is a tomato plant that had white mold, and something that you might notice during the growing season is that you have water-soaked stem areas that turn kind of bleached.

You'll see white fuzzy grove on the outside, and then if you split the stem open, you would observe these dark, what we call sclerotia, which are kind of like, they look like mouse droppings essentially.

I dunno if you can see that very well.

So that's a really good telltale sign of this disease, okay?

And so white mold really likes... Oh, so white mold has a super broad host range.

So essentially it can be an issue in every, like pretty much every plant we grow in our gardens, we call them brown leaves.

So it could be, it's our vegetables, but it's a lot of our herbaceous plants too.

It's even weeds, which makes it really hard to control, right?

So what this pathogen really likes is high humidity, moisture, and then moderately cool temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees, and so during that time it will infect plant tissue.

And so, in terms of control there's some cultural practices that we could do in our garden, is simply to try and decrease the moisture that we have in the canopy.

So maybe increasing the row width, the spacing between rows of- - Mm-hmm.

- Maybe our tomatoes- - Hmm.

- Squash might be tricky, right, 'cause they start growing pretty luscious.

- [Nina] Mm-hmm.

- Maybe decreasing plant density with tomatoes, what you could consider is pruning the lower branches, so there's more airflow.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then modifying the irrigation.

So especially around the time of the year where we still have those night temperatures around 60 degrees, we wanna make sure that our garden plants are not wet as we go into the night because those are perfect conditions for the infection.

So we wanna stop irrigating, so that the plants are dry during those temperatures to just remove the conditions that really favor infection.

Something else to know is that with the white mold fungus, it really likes when we have, for example, our squash or tomatoes or potatoes when the flower petals fall into the ground.

That's where it kind of starts feeding first before it attacks the lower stems of our plants.

And so removing those petals can be another strategy to kind of sanitize the environment and reduce the risk, but it's a really hard disease to control.

There's also not a lot of information on resistant cultivars.

I think I would look in my seed catalog and see if there is any, I think with tomatoes I don't know of any, but it might be worth checking into.

And these sclerotia fall into the ground and then they live there for...

They can survive there for five plus years, so you would essentially have to stop growing any vegetables for five plus years, and wheats for that matter, so maybe switch to corn (Nina chuckles) and then have another issue there.

So it's super-hard to do.

(Joel laughs) If you have a raised bed.

I mean, if I had that issue in my garden, I have raised beds, I would consider dumping the soil and starting fresh.

- Mm-hmm.

- But if you're having like a larger area that you're cultivating, it'll be really hard.

Plowing these sclerotia deeper into the soil can help, but then if you had this problem for several years, you probably have layers of sclerotia.

- Mm-hmm.

- So you plow one season sclerotia under and bring the other ones up, so then they'll still germinate.

So there are some fungicides, biological and chemical ones that can be used.

And I'm happy to provide a list of chemicals that would be suitable for Montana depending on the crop.

There's also a website cdms.net where you can search those products.

- Yes, yeah.

So our potato growers actually do use fungicides for sclerotinia or white mold, and it causes a- - Mm-hmm.

- Stem rot in potatoes.

In 99% of the cases, it will never actually infect or invade a potato, it's usually just the stems, but it will reduce the yield, and it'll also- - Mm-hmm.

- Kind of mess up the size profile 'cause you'll end up with a few big potatoes where you have a healthy stem, and then where it kills the stem, then- - Mm-hmm.

- You'll get small potatoes.

- Yeah.

- So, but you can spray fungicides, in that particular case you spray them at first bloom, and then at about- - Mm-hmm.

- 75, 80% bloom.

And the reason that you do that is because when the plant flowers and when the petals fall onto the soil- - Mm-hmm.

- If those spores from the fungus have germinated, they'll invade that tissue, and they'll use- - Mm-hmm.

- That as a gateway to get to the plant.

- Yeah.

- So it is a very insidious organism, but controlling it in the garden, there just aren't as many management techniques.

- Yeah.

- I've looked into the biological fungicide, but it's in like producer type quantities, so.

- [Uta] Right, right.

- And Uta- - Yeah.

- Sorry, what would your thoughts be on like mulches to kind of create any kind of barrier between those soil fungal pathogens?

- Hmm.

- Do you think that could reduce the disease pressure potentially?

- So essentially covering it up.

- Mm-hmm.

- Hmm.

Actually I have not thought about that or read about that.

Like I haven't seen any recommendations about, I guess it could, I mean, you bury it two to four inches, but mm-hmm, I don't know.

- So I hate to burst your bubble, Abi, but (chuckles) this year my tomatoes on plastic mulch- - Okay.

- I had horrible sclerotinia.

- Oh, okay.

- So somehow, I mean, maybe the sclerotia germinated just right in the little hole- - Yeah.

- Where the plant was.

Yeah, it was like.

- So you're saying mulches, don't solve every problem.

- Well, I think it was just the moisture we had this year.

- Yeah.

- I think it was a- - Definitely.

- A really bad year.

I mean, I've always had- - Yeah.

- Some sclerotinia in my garden, but this year it's just been- - Yeah.

- It's really wreaked havoc.

- I wanna point out one thing 'cause white mold is kind of a...

I mean, if we just talk about icy white mold, other things come to mind like powdery mildew.

- Hmm.

- Which is something that we see now, but also on grass.

And so I just wanna point out the distinction between white mold and powdery mildew.

If you have white grove on your leaves and you could rub it off, it's probably powdery mildew versus white mold is like a dense, fuzzy grove, you can't rub that off that easily, so.

- Mm-hmm.

- And if you're in doubt, you're always welcome to bring in a sample to the Schutter Diagnostic Lab or to your local Extension office to help differentiate here, and that will inform further management recommendations.

- Thank you, Uta.

So maybe someday we'll solve that one.

- Yeah.

(Nina chuckles) - So Abi, a question came in from Red Lodge, their whole neighborhood received a lot of winter kill this year, and I know that was a problem all across the state with the very, very cold temperatures.

Is there anything that they can do to prevent it or minimize it next year?

- Yeah, so yeah, like you were saying, it's been a really tough year for our landscape trees and shrubs, and that past winter was a really big issue.

And so, for our evergreen trees specifically, that's where we see a lot of these winter injuries.

Sometimes they're called winter desiccation, and it's because evergreen trees continue to transpire in the winter- - Mm-hmm.

- They don't go dormant, and so they keep losing moisture, and if there isn't enough moisture to replenish, if they can't get as much as they're losing, then you'll see the needles start to dry out and turn colors, and brown.

And so, one of the best things that you can do is water your trees well.

Make sure that they're not water stressed going into the winter.

Fall watering is really important to getting, make sure that those roots have really as much water as they need getting into this winter season.

And when you are watering your landscape trees and shrubs, something to keep in mind is you don't just wanna water at the base of those trees and shrubs.

So the active root zone is usually along the drip line.

So if you imagine your tree being an umbrella, it's where those droplets would drip.

So that's the area where some of the most active roots are, in usually the top 12 to 24 inches of the soil.

And so water slowly and in that area, so that it soaks well in that spot.

So make sure you do that.

You can also do supplemental watering in the winter months.

So if we have a dry winter, no snow cover, and temperatures are above 40 degrees on those sunny days, you can add water to that drip line of your trees.

Again, you might have to haul it out with buckets or something like that, but it can help reduce that kind of desiccation, especially we had such a long winter last year, and that was- - Mm-hmm.

- One of the issues too.

Other ways that you can protect your trees and shrubs is to use mulches.

You can use organic mulches, usually things like arborist wood chips, those are a really good type of mulch because they can slowly add nutrients back into the soil, and they help kind of insulate that root system, prevent moisture loss, and can also suppress weeds.

So incorporating a four-inch layer or so of these arborist chips around your landscape trees and shrubs is a really good way to kind of reduce that moisture loss.

- Mm-hmm.

- Thanks.

- [Joel] When you're winter watering, can the ground be frozen?

- Yeah, the ground can be frozen, and in those kind of, when those temperatures are above the 40 degrees, you'll see a little bit of thawing anyways, and so- - Yeah.

- They can get some of that moisture out of there, but yeah.

- Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- All right.

- Yeah.

And that's a follow-up question.

A Bozeman caller actually asked, if they should be deep watering trees and shrubs now, or should they wait for the leaves to turn yellow before they start watering.

- So yes, water them now, make sure you're doing that deep watering, make sure that there is no water stress going into the fall.

There has been kind of some debunking of the tapering of watering especially because water issues on new trees and shrubs, newly transplanted ones, they have those underdeveloped root system, so water stress is a really big issue.

So yeah, now is the time to be watering your trees and shrubs well, deep watering.

- Mm-hmm, great.

Thanks, Abi.

- Hmm.

- So, Joel, a question from Helena.

Local and regional foods are kind of all the rage these days.

What do you think is driving that interest?

- Oh, I just spent a week in Denver with a regional food development center project at MSU and the Montana Department of Agri gonna participate, and these were some of the things that were discussed.

And certainly during Covid when some foods were in short supply, there was a lot of discussion about our food chains, and maybe local you might have some advantage.

There's always been I think an interest in kind of buying local foods as it supports your local farmer, local producer, or a grocery store that you're buying local keeping those dollars there.

So there's some folks certainly doing it for that.

I also think there's kind of been a, maybe a resurgence in some of these non-national products, so some local foods, I mean, that are maybe only growable in a certain area, not something you can pick up at any grocery store in the country.

So I think that's part of it too, and whether those are ethnic or geographic in terms of where you can get them, a lot of interest in those types of things.

- Great, thank you.

So Justin, a question on the conservation easements.

How is the value of a conservation - So it's essentially two different appraisals.

The land trusts will work with the appraisers that they're comfortable with and familiar with.

And they'll be in an appraisal of the property prior to the easement, and that'll give it the starting value.

And then they'll give another appraisal of what is the average of the reduction in that value when an easement is on it, and it's the difference in those two values: The unencumbered value and the encumbered value.

And then for the USDA programs for ALE, the federal share can be up to 75% of that.

So if it's a grasslands, a special significance one.

If it's for soils, prime and important soils, then the federal share can be up to 50% of that, that easement value.

Then a lot of the land trusts have have their history with gaining donations, and sometimes they can backfill some of that, that difference.

- Okay.

Thank you.

So, Uta, do you have another show and tell today?

- Yes, yes.

Yeah, so what we're talking about... Oop!

Winterization and all sorts of tree issues and stuff, I thought I brought in... Ooh, I'm bringing in this sample here.

So what I wanna talk about a little bit is seasonal needle drop.

I thought we should talk about because it's one of the most common samples we're diagnosing these days in the Schutter Diagnostic Lab.

So in late summer, early fall, we often observe seasonal needle drop in our evergreens.

And so, this is not the disease as the name suggests, it's actually something that naturally happens.

So even evergreen trees eventually lose their needles, and that it depends on the type of tree, the species, when that happens.

Some do it at four years, some a little bit earlier.

But so the way to differentiate between seasonal needle drop and needle drop browning and dropping from a disease is that it would usually affect the lower branches, and then the needles on the inner part of the branches first, right?

And so, this is the time of year where we see this.

If your lower branches or the inner part of your branches is green, and then you have browning here, we might be looking at a disease, but this is normal.

I've been dropping a lot of needles since I've been talking about it, and no reason for concern, it's a normal process.

Obviously helping our trees be less stressed by watering them adequately and things like that will also help them maybe keep their needles a little bit longer, but so this is no reason for concern, other types of browning may be.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yep.

- Thank you.

So I worked in the diagnostic lab many years ago, (chuckles) and I would like to... Well, you can't count how many samples come in that actually look exactly like that, so it's- - Mm-hmm.

- We always, yeah, just called it like the ugly spruce season or... (laughs) Because a lot of people are wondering what's going on with that.

- Right, right.

- So a caller from Big Sandy has a question about German Butterball potatoes, so I'll see if I can answer that one.

They have brown spots throughout the potato, and wondering if it's safe to eat.

He planted certified seed.

Well, first of all, it's hard to know for sure what might be causing the brown spots throughout the potato.

There are some nutritional issues, water issues that can cause brown spotting throughout the potato, but I'm not 100% sure what it is, as long as the potato isn't actually showing signs of rot and doesn't smell bad, I mean, it's probably okay to eat.

If it's just brown spots on the outside of the potato sometimes, like if your potato has been fed on by flea beetles, the larvae- - Mm-hmm.

- Will actually penetrate the- - Mm-hmm.

- Skin of the potato.

And as you peel the potato, you'll see a lot of brown spots, little brown spots around, just right under the skin of the potato.

So what I can tell you is that a picture is sometimes worth a thousand words, and if you wanted to take a picture of it and email it to me, then maybe we can get somewhere, so.

My email is nzidack@montana.edu, so if you send me a picture, we'll see if we can figure it out.

So, Abi, lots of questions tonight about gardens.

So this caller from Missoula is a first-time gardener with a half acre garden or so.

- Wow!

- Oh!

- So they are starting out- (Joel chuckles) - Yeah.

- Very ambitious.

What should they do to wrap up for the garden season?

What are your best tips?

- Yeah, so that's a really good question too.

This is the time of year where you wanna set your gardens up for success.

A few things to kind of do with your gardens this time of year.

Sanitation is another, a pretty important part.

And so we had questions last week about apples with like spots, and things like that.

So if you had any sort of issues and disease problems, or if you have a lot of kind of foliage sticking around or any sort of debris, it's a good idea to remove that from the landscape because that can kind of increase those pressures of potential diseases.

Other things to kind of do, starting out with a half acre garden, I would also recommend getting a soil test because that gives you a really nice baseline idea of what your landscape nutrients look like.

And if you do have any problems in the future with kind of underperforming vegetables and things like that, then it's a good way to troubleshoot that because you know where you were starting from.

You can also incorporate compost at this time of year and have it integrate into the soil, and it's really good to kind of then set your garden up for a really successful spring season to give it that nice set of nutrients- - Mm-hmm.

- And help improve that soil texture a little bit more.

- So thank you very much for bringing up sanitation 'cause that's something that you and I missed Uta (chuckles) when we were having our- - Yes.

- Sclerotinia discussion.

- Yes.

- So if you do have some of these rotten squash and tomatoes and vines with the mouse droppings in the stems, it's definitely very important that you get as much of that material as possible out of the garden.

I try not to put it into my compost pile.

- Mm-hmm.

- I actually put it in the garbage 'cause again- - Mm-hmm.

- A compost pile will heat up enough to kill most pathogens, but most of us don't have a compost pile that's big enough that it has the biomass to really get that heating.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- So just probably put it in with your garbage and try to get rid of it- - Yeah.

- If you have serious disease issues like sclerotinia.

- In fact as soon as you notice the disease, you don't wanna wait until now.

- Right.

- Especially when it comes to white mold, you wanna...

If you had a tomato plant, for example, that shows those symptoms, remove it, and remove like four to six inch diameter around the plant with the soil to make sure that any sclerotia that might have fallen onto the ground already are removed too, so that we don't- - Mm-hmm.

- Have these really durable, survival structures persisting in the soil.

Yeah, a good point.

- Yeah.

Yes, thank you.

You can never remember everything- - Yeah.

(chuckles) - So.

(chuckles) - There's lots to say about white mold.

(laughs) - Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

Joel from Lewistown, many parts of Montana got more rain this year after a couple years of drought, and I think the rangeland all look beautiful this year.

Do you think ranchers are gonna start building up their herd numbers?

- Yeah, well, ranchers are in a lot better situation than they were a year ago.

By and large, the last couple of years they've been low on grass forage available, but also low hay production, especially if it wasn't irrigated, so.

That a lot of them sold down herds, which means they got less mother cows on that operation today.

So now we're in the situation of, we've had a good moisture year, and a lot of them had great forage over the summer.

Probably didn't have enough animals to probably take full use of that, so it's a great time to... You'd take advantage of that, you had a good hay year.

The downside is prices are good right now, so it's a little tough to hold back some of those heifer calves- - Mm-hmm.

- If you wanna build back up, so.

But I think in general, you're gonna see people looking to get back closer to their normal stocking rates- - Hmm.

- After a couple of years of drought.

- So when you said, the issue is prices, then people don't wanna hold back, so you're saying prices are good.

- Prices are good.

- Yes.

- Which makes it a little hard not to sell some that maybe normally you'd sell.

- Right.

- A similar amount, but this is a year you'd like to sell as many as you can when the prices are good.

- Mm-hmm.

- But also you wanna get back to having a number of mother cows that you're- - Mm-hmm.

- Typically having on a non-drought type year.

- And so how are things looking for producers in some of the states that were a little bit drier?

Like we've heard that the- - Mm-hmm.

- Midwest, Kansas- - Right.

- And down into Texas and Oklahoma really received a lot of drought, and that's important ranching country.

Is that influencing the market still?

- Oh sure.

And as big a country as the US is, there's a drought somewhere every year.

(panelist chuckles) It's a matter of how deep, and whether it's maybe specifically cattle country or where we're getting some of our forage supplies.

So that's kind of always an issue.

I don't know that we have particularly more drought this year nationwide than we have in any typical year.

It's just a matter of where it is.

But whenever you see that, you do see a lot of ranchers starting to cull mother cows outta the herd, which means you've got additional animals coming into the meat market- - Mm-hmm.

- And then down the road when maybe they get back to their normal grasslands, they're gonna look to either buy replacement heifers or hold back some of their own to get back, build those herd numbers back to where they were.

So that's just kind of the life of ranching in the US, and depends on where you are- - Mm-hmm.

- And whether drought has hit you lately.

- Right, right.

Well, at least I know our growers in Montana, I haven't seen haystacks like we have this year for a long time.

- Mm-hmm.

- Hmm.

- There's a lot of wonderful hay out there, so that's great.

So, Justin, I got on your website before the show tonight and it basically said that the mission of these agricultural easements are to protect working farms and ranches by limiting non-ag use.

- Yes.

- So I know in Montana, a lot of ranches are being purchased for recreational use.

So let's say I had the opportunity to buy a 20,000 acre ranch, would I be eligible for applying for a conservation easement for a land that I'm purchasing as a recreational property?

- So, yes.

the agricultural land easement doesn't have like a length of time you have to own it to apply.

You do have to be the deeded owner of the property, and it is for agricultural land use.

So if you were going to use it just for recreation, and not have any agricultural uses there, then that would become a question.

- Mm-hmm.

- Is this really ag land or is it recreational land?

The land use is still always gonna be there.

I mean, it's always gonna be rangeland, even if someone is only using it for recreation.

So it doesn't make it not eligible for ALE, but that would really be something that those landowners would work with their local land trust on.

And if the land trust is interested in it and willing to carry that easement, then that's things we can move forward and address those specific questions.

And we have land easements, I mean, really all over the state.

We have some that are right here in Bozeman.

30 years ago no one would've really thought that Bozeman would've spread out into the ag land as it has.

So being able to have landowners willing to put conservation easements on, so they can turn that property over to the next generation, in some cases debt-free, or just so that the history of that ranch where their grandfather or their great-grandfather worked that land that that'll stay in agricultural land perpetually.

I mean, that's a really big motivator for- - Mm-hmm.

- A lot of the landowners now.

And, I mean, the price of land for them to expand their operations is almost cost-prohibitive, especially in western Montana.

So these easements that they're able to put on, on their own property now is giving them an opportunity maybe to buy another piece of ground to allow there be enough room for the next generation to stay on that ground, for sure.

- Hmm.

- So Justin, on these easements, does the whole ranch need to go in or farm, or could you put in a chunk of it and then they could save apiece where they may wanna build a house for a son or daughter or grandchild down the road?

Or is it all or nothing or is there some options in between?

- No, certainly not all or nothing.

That's really when they're working with those land trusts, they kind of figure out what piece of ground that they're willing to put in or want to put into an easement.

And there are several that do, they'll put in half or three quarters of the property and keep some out.

There's also opportunities for building envelopes on those easement.

So if they did have 1,000 acre property and they put the whole thing in an easement, they can designate some building envelopes that they can use for future use for a grandson or a daughter or a son to come back to the place, and have a place to build that.

That's totally allowed within the easement setup.

And that's something they would work with those local land trusts on to identify those properties, those locations for the building envelopes that does the best job of protecting the agricultural land easement.

- Yeah.

- But still gives those landowners some flexibility, - Mm-hmm.

- And setting up for the next generation.

- Gotcha.

- All right.

- Okay.

Thank you, Justin.

So, Uta, this is a little bit out of the realm of plant pathology, but I think maybe something you might know a little bit.

A Butte caller is asking how to get rid of slugs in their flower garden?

- Oh, boy!

(laughs) - Kind of like white mold.

(Uta laughs) (Nina laughs) - Yeah.

Well, I don't know, I only know my grandma's recipes, and I cannot say that they really work.

So I feel like maybe, Abi, you actually have some more recommendations than I do.

(chuckles) - Yeah, so, I mean, slugs like a lot of moisture, and so a few things that you can use for slugs.

Mulches are really nice because it's a flower garden, you wanna have some nice mulch in there.

So that can be a nice barrier to prevent the slugs from crawling up onto those plants.

That's one of my favorite ways to kind of reduce those slug populations.

There are some products that are labeled for slugs, things like diatomaceous earth can kind of keep them away as well off your plants.

So I would try those strategies, but mulches have been very kind of effective in my experience for slugs.

They do like those kind of moist conditions though- - Mm-hmm.

- And we've had a very high- - Mm-hmm.

- Moisture season.

And so, it is going to be a little bit of a battle potentially with all of those moisture-loving organisms in general.

- Mm-hmm.

- But I would recommend trying out the mulch strategy.

- Okay, great.

Another question for you.

A Bozeman caller is just establishing a new flower garden in anticipation for next spring.

That's what I love about gardeners.

- Mm-hmm.

- As soon as you put it to bed, you're already thinking about next spring.

- Mm-hmm.

- So sod has been stripped off.

Should compost be applied now or in the spring?

Any great tips for getting this flower bed ready for next year?

- Yeah, so I like to do personally, and I mean you can do a spring application of compost.

I like to incorporate in the fall because it gives it time to kind of incorporate into that soil, so I recommend doing that.

I really like that strategy in terms of reflecting on what you want to do, and planning it out.

So definitely I would recommend planning it out and getting a soil test.

Sometimes what we do with compost is we over-compost our landscapes, and so it's a good idea to get that soil test.

Contact your county Extension agent and they can direct you to where you can do that, but that's usually going to be a good strategy, so you're not over-saturating some of those minerals in that soil, that can hinder your gardening activities.

- Yeah, and in my experience too, when you first do break up sod, you actually have very high fertility.

- Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- So the compost might be more for the soil structure.

- (mumbles) structure, yeah.

- The soil structure and texture.

- Yeah.

- Rather than the fertility because usually you get- - Absolutely.

- Really nice results- - Yes.

- For the first few years.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

So, Joel, so something that I enjoy every year is the ag econ conference that's held in October.

Can you tell us a little bit more, a little bit about what that conference is?

- Sure.

- What's on the program?

- Sure, yeah.

Well, first of all, it's part of Celebrate Ag Weekend at MSU, which is November 3rd, so it's mostly a Friday, Saturday event.

And Friday is our ag economics conference, starts at nine o'clock, runs till 3:00, we'll be out at the Grantree Best Western.

And we kind of do 20-minute talks, have a lot of different folks from MSU's ag econ department on different topics, research things that are going on.

We always bring in an outside keynote speaker, which this year is gonna be an MSU alumnus, Michael Taylor.

He's currently at Auburn University, and talk about foreign land ownership, and what's that's doing with impacts on prices in the US.

So that's kind of our main morning, in the afternoon we're gonna bring in a couple of folks talking about some precision ag issues, and how they're utilizing that- - Mm-hmm.

- Here in Montana.

And then we wrap up around 3:00 or 3:30, somewhere in that range, and some folks are gonna join some other events of Celebrate Ag Weekend.

There's a scholarship dinner that evening for some of the students that were received awards, and then there's a breakfast the next morning, and I think there's a "Ag Alley" tailgate where all the different ag organizations are in one area this year.

And then there's a football game Saturday afternoon, so.

- Great, yeah, it sounds, we just had homecoming and next onto ag.

- Yeah.

- So that'll be wonderful.

So, Justin, a Livingston caller would like to know why anyone would want to give up development rights by entering into a conservation lease?

What benefits or advantages are there for cattle growers, hay producers or others to entice them into signing up?

- So that question really varies by landowner.

There are ones that they just wanna ensure that that open space, that land that they've worked and steward for generations remains in agriculture, and they don't wanna see subdivisions and houses on it anyhow.

So it's kind of meeting that goal of where they're able to get some of that value outta the property for that development right where they're able to turn that land over to the next generation, or just to keep it in open space for wildlife migration, especially in the Livingston area.

To keep that open space for wildlife is important to some.

And with the expansion of where some of the bigger cities in Montana have been going: Bozeman, Kalispell and Missoula areas that are really expanding.

It helps them to ensure that their stewardship of that land, it stays in ag.

I mean, that's important to a lot of the people around, especially the farmers and ranchers that have been here- - Mm-hmm.

- For generations.

- Yeah, so it's really gonna depend on the landowner and what their- - It really does.

- Yeah, their value is- - Mm-hmm.

- For keeping that as ag land.

- Yes.

- So, great.

So, Uta, a question that came in from Billings.

The Crystal Sugar plant closed in Sidney.

What crops are replacing sugar beets in that growing area?

And kind of what can we expect to see people doing over in that area of the state?

- Right, great question.

It's certainly been a question for me this year.

I don't know what long-term the plan is, I think this year what I've heard and been told is that a lot of the acres probably went into corn because that has high nutrient demands, just like sugar beet- - Hmm.

- And the soil, or the fields would've been already prepared in such a way.

Long-term what growers are gonna do, I'm not too sure.

I guess we'll just see, I know that the research center certainly in Sidney is exploring a lot of new or different crops and varieties, to kind of enrich diversity in Montana agricultural crops.

So I guess that's something interesting to have an eye out for, and just see what's going to happen.

Soybeans might be moving in more, but I think it'll also really depend on how the climate develops, and you know what demands there are.

- Hmm.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's gonna be an interesting one to watch, for sure.

- Mm-hmm.

- And those are all irrigated acres, right?

So they're gonna be- - Yes, they are all irrigated.

- Irrigated crops- - Yeah.

- They'd be looking to- - Yeah, yeah.

- Replace them.

- And many years ago there was talk maybe of putting a potato processing plant, but I haven't heard of any.

(Nina laughs) (Abi chuckles) Any plans for that for many, many years.

But yeah, it'll be interesting to see if any potatoes- - Certainly.

- Might be produced there that would probably go to processing plants in North Dakota or Canada.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- Well, we'll keep our eyes on that one.

- Yeah.

- Abi, a question in from Townsend, is it too late to fertilize your lawn?

- No, and I'm glad that question came up.

I would say one of the best times of year to fertilize your lawn is that fall application, usually early to mid-October around Indigenous Peoples' Day.

That's kind of a nice reminder for me that timing, that's a really good time to fertilize.

So now is a good time to put down a fertilizer application to really set your lawn up for a really successful spring season too.

- [Nina] And about how much would you apply at this time?

- I usually apply one pound per, yeah.

- Per 1,000 square feet.

- One pound per 1,000 square feet.

I don't like to go above that- - Mm-hmm.

- Usually for any given application, you can go to one and a half, but I like to stay to the one pound per 1,000 square feet.

- Then reduce the amount of mowing you have to do in the spring, right?

- Exactly, yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

(Nina laughs) - And if Tim was here, I'm just gonna represent in a very tiny way, but fall is also a good time to treat some of those weeds, especially those taprooted- - Mm-hmm.

- Thistle type weeds, right?

- Absolutely.

- So almost a Weed 'n' Feed is a good- - Mm-hmm, yeah.

- Application around this time of year.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and I have a really nasty thistle that's just like showing off in my driveway or just the lawn next to the driveway, I'm gonna tackle that.

A good reminder.

(laughs) - Yeah.

- So, Joel, we were just talking about the crystal sugar plant in Sidney.

Have you heard any rumblings about what the economic impact might be in the Sidney area?

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I haven't seen a formal study, but there's kind of two groups that I would put this in.

First, you have the growers.

- Hmm.

- And I think by and large the growers are gonna find alternative crops.

- Mm-hmm.

- Sugar beets are grown in a rotation anyway, so the rotation is gonna change.

So likely they're gonna find other crops that probably have similar revenue streams.

So I I don't expect there to be a huge hit there.

But a sugar beet, the factory has a winter campaign that employs people from harvest time through kind of maybe late February, early March, as they get through the last year's crop.

So those jobs are gonna be gone from the community.

So those folks that were using that as a winter income source, for them personally it's not gonna be there.

But then also where they might've spent those dollars in the community- - Mm-hmm.

- Is gonna be missing as well.

So that's the piece that I think is probably more relevant to the rangeland community is those jobs in the processing plant and the value that that brought to the community.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and the oil industry has been volatile there- - Mm-hmm.

- In the past too, so I am sure there are some disruptions in the- - Mm-hmm.

- Sure.

- Labor supply in that.

Well, the job supply- - Right.

- (laughs) More than the labor supply in that particular area.

So, Justin, could you tell us a little bit more about the differences in the different types of easements in the programs?

- Sure, so we have, it's like, again, the Agricultural Land Easement program, that's the working lands program.

It's keeping working lands in working hands.

It has a couple different types of deed restrictions.

I mean, you have the minimally restrictive, and that's typically what the land trusts are using where the only development right that's being sold and purchased is that the development right and things like that.

Everything else really stays intact with the landowner.

How they graze it, how they farm it, that all pretty much stays the same, or the land trust wouldn't be interested if those properties have been maybe not managed to the best, maybe the land trust isn't interested in that, and that's who actually brings the application forward.

Then there's the Wetland Reserve Easement program, and that's different.

I mean, that has some of the most restrictive deed terms there are because that wetland had to have been degraded.

And that doesn't necessarily mean drained, but if it's been grazed, it's been in a pasture, or up in the Prairie Pothole Region where they've been farmed through, those ones can come in.

Those are the ones that do have that 30-year option.

So we can go in, scrape those potholes out and get them, so they can store some more water in the spring for that waterfowl migration, I mean, that's...

But those are the two that we have here in Montana.

- So one thing that comes to mind is you were talking about that, is there a lower acreage unit or an upper... Or acreage limit, or an upper acreage limit?

Like do you need to have a minimum of so many acres- - Mm-hmm.

- Or is there a point where it's like, once I've put my 20,000 acre ranch in.

(Nina laughs) - Yeah.

- Is that... (panelist laughs) Are there any limits either way?

- So there's not.

I mean, there's not a minimum number or a maximum number.

I mean, it does get to a point, if it's down in that, that 5, 10 acres in Montana.

Is that gonna be a viable ag operation?

And there may be some questions to that with the community ag idea with the high tunnels and producing vegetables locally.

Maybe, but the cost of that easement is gonna be relatively low.

- Mm-hmm.

- Especially for that footprint, the cost per acre.

But we do have some easements that we've closed in the last couple years that are in that 20,000 acres.

- Mm-hmm.

- So it really depends.

And then how the land trust works with those landowners moving forward to bring that application forward to really make it site specific, landowner specific.

- Okay.

So thank you.

So from Sheridan County, they had Ascochyta blight in their chickpeas this year.

Again, probably another disease that likes a lot of moisture.

- Mm-hmm.

- How will they know if the disease is in their grain?

And would it be okay to use it as seed next year?

- Hmm, great question.

Yeah.

This was a disease year, and boy, did we have Ascochyta, for sure.

So it can be in the grain, but it'll be hard to tell from just looking at it because it can be symptomless.

So what I would recommend doing is send a sample to the Regional Pulse Crop Diagnostic Lab, which is not the Schutter Diagnostic Lab, it's a different lab.

And they provide seed testing services where they check for specific pathogens.

The test that would probably apply here is called Ascochyta-Plus tests for that specific pathogen, and then a couple of other fungal pathogens that are also common in pulse crops.

And so that will tell you if you have the pathogen in the seed, and how much.

And we do have some guidelines where there are certain thresholds.

If it's like a really high level of infestation, we would recommend not planting that seed.

If it's a moderate level of infestation, you could still plant that seed.

We would certainly recommend a fungicide treatment on that seed before planting, but we could talk about those details once the sample has been sent, and then the test results have come back.

- Okay, great.

- Yep.

- Thank you, Uta.

So Abi, a caller from Big Timber is asking, when is the best time to cut down rose bushes: This fall or next spring?

- I mean, when they're dormant, you can do it either time of year, so fall or spring.

So I wouldn't say that either way would work.

Usually the season gets away from me in the fall, so I end up doing most of that in the spring time, but you can do that in the fall or the spring.

- Okay, great, thank you.

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

So Justin, is there anything more that you would like to add about conservation easements?

And how to do that through USDA NRCS?

- I would say for the working lands ones, talk to your local land trust, and really let them get into the details of how that might work with your particular operation.

That would be the biggest thing.

The application batching period will end in December.

So now is the time to talk to the land trust probably for 2025 'cause it does take a year or two to build that relationship and get that paperwork done.

- Okay, once you start the paperwork, I mean, you would actually be able to get it done by 2025, so it's about a two year process to get it done?

- So from the application to when we're able to obligate those easements and get that money set aside, that's within a year.

It does take another year, year and a half to get those easements all the way to closing where the landowners would receive that, that payment for that conservation easement.

- And for the wetlands easement, is that a similar timeframe or...?

- That one is a little longer.

Being that that one is government held easement where the NRCS owns all of the right, the surface rights.

That one takes a longer time, more deed restrictions that have to get looked at, more title commitments that need to get looked at.

So that one does take probably two and a half to three years after the application to actually get it to closing.

- So probably a lot of work on both ends, a lot of work for you and some work with the producer too.

- It is.

- And the landowner.

- It is, for sure.

- So, great.

Well, thank you so much, Justin, for sharing all of this information today.

That's great information.

Thank you to the panel.

I think this has been a really, really enjoyable discussion tonight.

- I think we all have had- - Mm-hmm.

- A great gardening season.

(Uta chuckles) And as gardeners we're all thinking about as are the farmers.

It's always next year country, so we're always looking, (Uta chuckles) looking to the next growing season.

Tune in next week for the show, Jack will be back.

It's on organic production and conservation with Nate Powell-Palm, who is the owner of Cold Springs Organics.

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