- [Presenter] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, (bright guitar music) MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(bright guitar music) - You are watching "Montana Ag Live," originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus we call Montana State University.

And coming to you over your Montana Public Television System.

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

Happy to be your host this evening.

We're gonna have a fun program this evening, now I guarantee you that.

So stay tuned, get your questions in.

And by the way, on the question scene, if you have some questions that you're curious about, you're not the only one that will be curious about it, other people watching the program will also enjoy those questions so don't be bashful.

When the number shows up on the screen, phone your questions in.

And we have an excellent panel tonight to answer those questions.

So with that, let me introduce the panel.

Way on my left, Darrin Boss.

Darrin wears a lot of hats.

He's superintendent at the Northern Ag Research Center, and that's up in Havre.

He's assistant director for research, dean, assistant dean, I guess, and associate director for the College of Agriculture.

So you have a lot on your plate and you do a good job of it.

I'll tell you that.

(panelists laughing) - Thank you.

- [Jack] Our special guest tonight, I always appreciate when she takes time out of her busy schedule to appear on "Montana Ag Live."

We try to get her at least every other year.

Waded Cruzado, who is our president and welcome, and glad that you're here.

- Thank you, Jack.

- Tim Seipel.

Tim is our weed scientist.

He likes to be called a weed ecologist, I refuse to do that.

He's a weed scientist in training.

And of course, Abi Saeed.

Abi is a very, very knowledgeable and well-spoken horticultural expert.

So if you have questions regarding any of those topics tonight or anything else, I like to play stump the panel and that's always a lot of fun.

We get more chuckles out of that.

Answering the phones tonight, and they're not yet ringing, so get on, Nancy Blake.

Nancy has been here for a lot of years.

She just retired this past fall, November.

She's been at Montana State University for about 40 years.

So Nancy, thank you for still taking time to answer the phone and retired chief water court judge, Bruce Loble.

Bruce has been a panel member for years.

He can't get rid of us, so he comes and answers the phone, which we really do appreciate.

Waded, tell us what's going on in Montana State University and the College of Ag.

- Oh goodness, many wonderful things.

It's hard to believe that the semester is almost getting to a close.

We opened this academic year with extraordinary success, 16,972 Bobcats signed in, and so we had a great fall semester.

Spring semester headcount, we had an all time high of over 16,000 students.

And that is amazing because that means that students are taking our message about the importance of persistent in school and graduating on time with less debt, right?

And go out in the world and make sure that you make a better Montana.

College of Agriculture is just going gangbusters.

They're doing amazing thing.

Just one little thing.

So this last year, we registered a new record in terms of annual research expenditures at $229 million.

The College of Agriculture alone, spend $50 million in grants, in opportunities that they make happen.

It is the number one college at Montana State University in terms of research productivity.

And I'm very proud of them.

- And I'm very proud of the College of Agriculture myself.

I've been involved with it for a lot of years.

- Thank you.

- People like we have here on the panel, they do a great job and they're dedicated and that's what you really need, is enthusiasm and dedication.

And we do have that in the College of Agriculture.

And you mentioned something, there has been a lot of figures thrown around through the years by administrators, by researchers, that for every dollar spent on research, there's an X return.

What is a figure that you would be using if you had it, spend a dollar on research, what would it mean in returns for the economy?

- Last time we checked, that number is about $4 for every dollar that we invest in research.

So that's not counting the trickle down effect on producers and communities and families, but just for Montana State University, in every dollar that we spent in research, we can track $4 that come back to the State of Montana.

And that is in the form of jobs, an increased productivity.

And now with our new emphasis on precision agriculture, we can expect that that number, it's going to be multiplying because we're going to help, be helping our producers be more efficient in the use of their resources and also maximizing their profitability as well.

- Good answer.

And by the way, agriculture is still the number one industry in this state.

- It is.

- And tourism, it seems to be catching up, but I think agriculture will be there for many, many decades to come.

- Yes.

- Question from last week for Abi.

This person would like to know, are there multiple colors of clematis?

Because they only see one or two colors.

Can you answer that?

- Yeah, so there are actually a variety of clematis cult of ours that work really well in Montana.

I've seen the blues and purples, pinks and whites.

But I would say the best way to find ones that work well for your region is go to a local garden center or nursery and ask them what cultivars they have available, but we have a lot of cultivars that are suited to Montana and you can have a nice kind of rainbow of clematis.

- [Jack] When do you plant them?

- I would wait until probably a few weeks from now to plant them.

Probably mid-May or so you plant your- - You don't think we're at spring yet?

- I'm skeptical.

I'm always skeptical in early April, yeah.

- I have seen people walking out of various different stores with tomato plants.

I think that's a little bit early so- - I think so too.

- Those people that wanna transplant tomatoes, another six weeks to be on the safe side.

You mentioned precision ag and I had a question in here from Darrin and for the president, there seems to be a lot of effort in having many new positions at Montana State University in precision ag.

Is that true?

And how's it going?

- If it's true, I'll take a quick stab at it, Jack.

We've just undertaken a cluster hire of four precision agriculture.

We were very fortunate to get some corporate private partnerships to jumpstart that with some non-tenure faculty a few years ago.

We now were able to hire an endowed chair, the Elizabeth & Whitney MacMillan Chair of Endowed Precision Agriculture, that position's hired is Dr. Paul Nugent.

So he will be in that position.

We've actually had two other hires and their paperwork is just now signed, and I don't want to release those names yet because the university should hear those first versus on the news.

But three out of four have been hired and the fourth one is still moving right along.

So what we see is a huge cluster that's now gonna push precision agriculture forward.

I mean, Norman Borlaug era is probably over, technology's what's gonna make the big advancement to feed the rest of the world.

- I'm gonna ask a question.

Are we behind compared to other universities?

- I wouldn't say we're behind.

If you remember back in '90s we had Dan Long working in precision agriculture in one of the very first one in small grains.

Budget cuts took that position away.

I think the reason we're seeing it advanced faster in the Midwest is because the profitability of the soybeans and the corns versus our small grains, but I don't say we're behind.

We can get caught up.

- Good.

- Montana State's gonna bring, you know, when we think about it and think about it with Paul and managing, well, Paul's from Fairfield, which is the epicenter of herbicide-resistant wild oats in Montana.

And so him and I have been talking about managing weeds and one of those things, you know, we're bringing new, we're applying technologies to Montana's cropping systems, which is I think one of the differences.

- Is it- - And Jack, if you remember when we, last time we had a search for a vice president for agriculture, that was exactly what took us to Sreekala Bajwa.

Sreekala is one of the, what was that, founder of one of the nine centers for precision agriculture in the U.S. And our hope is that with the help of the legislature, the state, but also our local producers, the private sector, that we will continue to expand then precision ag given her expertise.

The other thing that I think it's very interesting is that we see a renewed interest on the part of many young men and women in terms of precision ag.

- Absolutely.

- Right, it combines the best of the agricultural sector and engineering.

Remember when we used to have agricultural engineering?

So now we need to find the new way to make sure that we attract those students that are as passionate about taking care of land, but also integrating the technology of the future.

- I like the idea myself and I kind of agree.

I don't think we're behind, but we need to get ahead and move forward rapidly.

And thanks for some great answers.

And there, it's Facebook question, and this is a tough question, and it comes from Sunburst and I probably know who that is, but I'm not gonna mention this person's name.

He says, "I have learned and utilized a lot of research from Montana State University, from the College of Agriculture, and they've provided excellent service over the years."

Their concern is now, can MSU compete salary-wise?

And with the housing situation in Montana, can we compete for top quality scientists in the College of Agriculture today?

It's a tough question.

- It is a tough environment.

It is a very tough environment.

Particularly right after the pandemic, we started seeing a lot of stress in our system.

I will say one thing, where we were hurting the most was on the staff area.

- Okay.

- Thankfully, we have been able to make very competitive offers to our faculty members, our new faculty members, and I can tell you that throughout the we end up hiring the number one person that we want to hire, right?

That expertise that we want to have in the College of Agriculture, in the College of Engineering, et cetera.

Now, what it's also important to consider is this is the problem not just for new hires, right?

The market is so tight in Bozeman particularly, that we need to make sure that we keep our salaries up and up.

It's a constant battle because the more we fight with it, other states are experiencing a similar situation.

So it is a very difficult problem.

- I believe, and I assume, I know you can't speak for the University of Montana in Missoula, but I'm assuming they're having similar issues with- - Yes, absolutely.

- I can tell you, Jack, it's pervasive throughout the state.

- Yep.

- For our seven research centers, it's very difficult and have, or has less than 50 houses for sale right now.

And we have two brand new faculty coming in that are in those medium range houses.

So it's Kalispell, everywhere, we're struggling.

I think we just, we're very lucky for a lot of years and we're just getting tough right now.

- Okay, and for those people who do not know where Sunburst is, it's just north of Oilmont and just south of Sweet Grass.

And- - Some refer to it as the Sunburst Desert.

(Jack laughs) - I will say I was lucky enough to travel this state a lot of years and there's an area of the state called the Sweet Grass Hills that are up there that's some of the most beautiful, the elevation is higher than Bozeman by several thousand feet.

It's a great agriculture and it really grow some great malt barley.

Which brings me to the next question that came in and this person would like to know, how difficult was it to get a malting license for Montana State University?

A brewing license, I think.

- It was- It was difficult but not impossible, right?

As you know, we were number one producer of barley and we have extraordinary producers and great researchers and there's a generalized sense of enthusiasm in the state.

So what we wanted to do is let's bring our research so that we can further expand our knowledge in terms of growing and malting and brewing so that we can help all these wonderful new establishments that want to make sure that they produce the top quality beer and other type of distillation or distilled products in Montana.

- I will tell you, I have already applied for the taste testing.

(panelists laughing) - Excellent, excellent.

So we started last February, so we're ready to go.

- Okay, sounds great.

Abi, a question that came in also via Facebook and this person says, "My lawn care company said that they are not doing core aeration anymore and that's where you take the plugs out, but doing liquid aeration, does this work and it is a suitable alternative?"

And that's a great question, I haven't heard of that before.

- That is a great question.

I've had a few questions about that in the past couple of weeks.

And so liquid aeration is chemical where you use different chemical compounds and theoretically, it's supposed to penetrate in through the thatch and supposed to allow kind of a similar method of helping to aerate your soil.

But in general, I haven't seen any science-based information that proves that this is effective.

So there hasn't been any research to show that these compounds are an effective, suitable alternative to mechanically aerating compacted soils.

So if your main reasoning for aerating is to address soil compaction in your turf grass, I would say core aeration is the best method still.

And if companies are encouraging these chemical methods is to ask them what compounds they're using and ask for data behind whether they're effective.

- I agree, I mean, I like core aeration and it really makes your lawn much nicer, lusher, and it's actually somewhat successful in weed control because the lawn will choke out other things, I don't like the detaching that people do- - No, detaching is not necessary.

- Okay.

Question from Columbia Falls.

This caller is asking why MSU is getting lots of grants that is being, and what is being done to lower tuition for Montana students?

And I actually think our tuition is relatively reasonable compared to a lot of schools.

- Absolutely, our tuition is one of the lowest in the country.

And we have been able to, particularly for to tow the line.

So I would say Montana State University is one of the best values, not only in the western region, but actually in the entire nation.

That's why actually we continue to attract students from out of states.

Because even in some states as California and others, their in-state tuition is even higher than the out-of-state tuition at Montana State University.

So it's a very good value.

Let me also say, we're talking about two different buckets, right?

When I was talking about the growth in terms of research, those annual research expenditures go 100% to the research endeavor, right?

Those are proposals, grants, that our great faculty members write.

And say, I need X number of dollars to study this.

So those dollars will be invested in exactly the manner in which the faculty member and the researcher proposed to the agency or the contractor that we were going to do that.

What we do for, use for tuition is an allocation that comes from the State of Montana so, and in order to do that, then we also subsidize it with dollars that come from out of state students that pay a tuition that's higher than the resident student tuition.

- Well said.

I will mention that a lot of these research dollars help some students do research projects on And that to me is really one of the best things that these research dollars do.

It gets youngsters involved with research.

- Absolutely.

- And that's great.

- Yeah, I will- - Both graduate and undergraduates, Jack, they will get involved and there's a lot of undergrads we have involved in that.

- Exactly.

- I'm really proud of that too.

Okay, Darrin, while you're up, from Winnett, things are, (chuckles) they say greening up fast this spring and can they safely put cows into their pastures without any issues?

- Well, actually right now, you know, I think spring came in Montana on March 28th and it's been battling winter all along.

So, but we do have a lot of green grass and we had a lot of open winter, very mild winter.

So there's a lot of green grass showing up throughout Montana in this kind of weather that we're having.

And yesterday and today's a good example with the big snow, a little dips in temperatures.

We could be watching and being nervous about magnesium tie up or some grass tetany.

So you might be thinking about putting some high magnesium mineral out.

Talk to your feed dealers and be cognizant that this is the kinda weather, this up and down weather is when we see this grass tetany happen in there.

- Are cattle numbers starting to trend up?

They've been down.

- They are as low as they've ever been, but our beef production is kind of moving in an up direction because we're keeping cattle a little bit longer in feed.

But we are going to, we're at the lowest ever.

So we just can only build the herd from here.

So it's coming, it's just low.

- Okay, thank you.

On that note, a couple weeks ago, our last week, we had somebody call in from Miles City about not getting fair prices for their sheep that they're selling at the local sale barn.

And I've talked to a couple people, they suggest that maybe if you have a processor out there, you try to sell them on Craigslist, have them processed.

And I will tell you this, if you're successful on that, I will drive to Miles City and buy one of your lambs.

I definitely would because I love them.

Anyway, (Darrin laughs) Tim, weed control in brown mustard.

What is brown mustard?

- Yep, brown mustard is an interesting, it's a crop that we grow in Montana.

I think it's, there's more acres of brown mustard in Montana than there are acres of canola in Montana actually.

And great research person out of the Havre research station, Peggy Lamb can tell you more about it.

There's surprisingly very little for weed control or research that's actually been done on weed control in brown mustard.

Most people use triallate pre-planting to control weeds, but there's essentially nothing in crop that can really be used.

So it's pretty tough.

So people tend to plant it in the cleanest fields that they have and really clean up the weeds in the other parts of the year.

- Okay, thank you.

Question from Miles City.

This person is familiar with the Dan Scott Ranch Program.

They say really enjoy it and it's very successful.

They would like to know, number one, how's that working out?

And number two, are there other training programs similar to the Dan Scott program where it's hands-on experience- - Yes.

- That MSU is considering or using?

So you guys in the animal side, President you can- - Yep, yep.

I'll say a little bit and then Darrin can jump in.

The Dan Scott family program is actually, was actually the result of a great generous contribution from the Scott family who gave Montana State University a donation so that we could start this wonderful program that it's about, you know, land stewardship and preparing the next generation of wonderful people who will be able to manage our range lands.

It's working very well.

We started with one student, now we have over 30 students and growing.

the interest is growing.

Interest is growing actually, not only in our program in Bozeman, but also I'm hearing interest in other areas such as Havre as well.

So it's a great program.

It's very exciting for our very young people as well.

- Rachel Frost, who manages that program, has done an absolutely wonderful job.

- She's amazing.

- She is amazing.

We've had her on the program and I've had several people mention that they think that this type of program is really one of the better new programs that MSU is offering.

Second part of that question, are we looking at any other programs like that down the line that you're aware of?

I don't know of any, on the ground training?

- I don't know of any right now.

- That's something that we ought to, long-term start thinking.

I mean, it's a good way to train people how to work.

You know, a lot of people graduate and they're smart and everything, but they haven't had to work, that program- - One thing interesting about the Dan Scott Ranch program, it's and it's an application period where the students have to apply and be competitive to get in.

But when they get placed on a ranch in the summertime, and we're gonna have our first placement at the research center, ironically, this year, they go the first year and they learn everything they possibly can about that ranch operations.

And then they come back to the same ranch and those ranches are willing to open up the books and show them the other things that maybe you don't get exposed to in normal ranch operations.

So when they get graduated, they can go and work on a ranch and there's mobile transport for these people in progressive jobs.

I mean, you're never gonna graduate from college and run the Padlock or any other large ranch out there the first year you graduate, right?

So you move, there's ways to move because you have that training.

You now know how to work with attorneys, you know how to write land leases, you know how to work with public lands, public land commissions, NRCS and all that.

So that's the specialized training that I really think is important for the Dan Scott training.

- I like it.

- If I- you ask a very good question about are we planning on some more hands-on programs and that takes us directly to what we do at Montana State University with Gallatin College MSU.

So Gallatin College MSU is part of Montana State.

It's a college, like the College of Agriculture is a college of Montana State University.

What we do there is that we offer one-year, two-year, or sometimes some months type of certificate programs.

And they are totally hands-on.

One of the things that I like the most is, of course, we have huge demand in all the programs, including, you know, in construction and But one of the things we are also doing is that some of our baccalaureate programs and even our graduate programs are reaching out to Gallatin College.

So for example, optics and photonics, that's a niche for us, right, at Montana State University.

- Absolutely.

So now we also offer a certificate in that is also directly related to precision ag when you come to think about it, right?

So right now at Montana State University, a student can come and get a two-year certificate or a baccalaureate degree or a master's degree or a PhD in optics and photonics.

- That's great.

And I came out of the Midwest, I hate to say how many years ago, but back then we used to call something like Gallatin College trade schools.

- Yeah.

- They're one and the same basically are they not?

- They are exactly.

And when I arrived at Montana State back in 2010, we were emerging from calling them Vo-Techs, Remember?

- True, I forgot that name.

- Yeah.

- You're absolutely right.

Question in here from Custer.

I hear both positive negative comments on grazing cover crops.

Darrin, you've worked with that a little bit and Tim, you've been around them.

- Okay.

- I hear good things, I hear bad things.

Are they economical?

- Well, we did an eight-year study in Havre where we tried to integrate livestock into cover crops.

We had a, I've been associated with integrating a lot of different crops into crop fallow systems that had been very tough when we start stacking drought on top of drought.

So there's a reason we have crop fallow.

So we thought if we could integrate to bridge that gap of that shortfall in money, if you're not banking that water, it would appear and George Haynes is finalizing our economics of it, but our rough cowboy math is about $100 an acre from a traditional crop fallow system to grazing those cattle on those AUMs that you would produce an off year in the cover crop year.

What we haven't been seeing, and it takes a long time to change Montana soils, is what we're seeing in through maybe the Ohios down through those Mississippi region, there's a lot more rainfall, where we're not seeing as much infiltration, we're not seeing that, but it takes time to change Montana soils.

We saw very little change in organic matter or carbon, but we didn't crash the system and we very well could have, going into a continuous cropping system.

So I'm not sure what's going on.

We don't have data yet on that, but it's gonna be a long-term.

I mean, we haven't, if you thought about, Jack, you're old enough to remember when we transitioned to dragging iron to chem fallow, right?

And I don't think we've moved a half a percentage in a lot of the state in an organic matter in 30 plus years.

So it's a very resilient soil, but it's very slow to change.

- And that's, yeah.

- [Darrin] I think livestock's a key for cover crops, at least for now.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We used, I did a research project, President was talking about, you know, research dollars coming in.

I had a graduate student, this was actually in Moccasin at Central Ag and we looked at managing herbicide-resistant wild oats using forage crops, trader kale or a spring planted barley pea.

And when we did that, we could cut that forage off at the soft dose stage round 4th of July.

We could prevent any seed that in the wild oat.

And so we got wild oat control, we got some forage out of it and that provides some economic benefits.

I mean, there are lots of things when it comes to grazing of dealing with nitrates and all kinds of things in cover crops that are a huge, you know, that's, yeah, that's another bigger topic too.

- You mentioned Moccasin and this is an excellent opportunity to talk about field days because a lot of the field days have great lunches (panelists laughing) and I have to admit that I'd vote for the one at Moccasin as being at the top of the list.

Nothing against Havre, nothing against the one here in Bozeman, but it's really pretty good.

So let's talk a little bit, and maybe we have a photo of when the field days are going to be this year.

Who wants to do it?

(Jack laughs) - One of the most, I'll jump in first about something related to field days and Darrin, of course, is an expert on the topic.

On our first field day, it's actually scheduled in Havre, June the 10th.

Please join us.

But one of the things that I, that brings very special memories to my heart was when we first started the President's Annual Bus Tour, we tried to align those bus tours with every field day in the state.

So I'm here to tell you, Jack, after, it took us 10 years to go to each and every county in the State of Montana, but we did it.

So every summer, we took a bus with all the vice presidents, all the department heads, the deans, the directors of units, student leaders, faculty members, and off we went to a different group of counties year after year, summer after summer.

We had different names for it, "Follow the Beef," "Follow the Grain," right, "Follow the Energy."

We learned a lot, but it took us 10 years, but we visited every county, 56 counties.

The last two were last year, Tool and Liberty.

But in many of those we were fortunate enough to have fantastic lunches at every of the field days and have an opportunity for your land-grant university to be in close proximity to the communities that we serve.

So that was awesome.

- I'm gonna put you on the spot.

Which lunch was your favorite?

(panelists laughing) - [Waded] Havre.

(panelists laughing) - Yeah, - I figured that.

- I'm voting for Havre too.

Bear Paw Meats in Havre.

Yep.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- We're pretty proud of that 'cause it's all locally grown and locally sourced.

And so all our meat comes from Montana beef production and a local processor.

I will give a shout out to Western Ag Research Center, the lentil salads.

And they're locally, naturally grown.

All their food is grown right there in the valley also.

So they do a pretty good job and- - They all do.

- There's nothing more satisfying- - They all do.

- Than sitting and being an administrator now maybe not speaking as much as I used to, being around the wagons and seeing a banker, an ag banker sitting next to a producer, sitting next to a young student or somebody and them chatting back and forth and a producer leaning over and say this is why I need the loan 'cause this is what we're trying to do on my operation by intensifying.

And so that kind of gratification means we're doing a good job as researchers, making sure the next generation is profitable and we can hand that operation off.

- Good answers, I'll accept those.

Now, since grilling season is coming up from Missoula, this person wants to know when is the best time to put out yellow jacket traps and you know, they like medium rare steaks.

(panelists laughing) - Yes, they do.

I would say probably at the beginning of May would be the best time, 'cause you wanna, even at the end of April, if the weather's starting to get really nice, you wanna catch those yellow jacket queens.

After that point, you already have those nests established.

So as early as possible, as soon as you start seeing some yellow jacket activity, you put those out as early as possible.

- And that can be anytime now probably?

- It can be anytime now.

It's looking like it could be in the next couple of weeks.

- Yeah, the long-term forecast is pretty nice weather.

- Yes.

- Tim, quick one for you.

This person from Fairfield wants to know why are we still using Fargo?

- Oh yeah.

- Which is a wild, you mentioned what Fargo is, if you would.

- Yeah, that's an interesting, so Fairfield and I mentioned when I was saying something about Paul Nugent, the new precision ag hire, the Fairfield area is a big irrigated malt barley producing region in Montana.

And it's been the epicenter for herbicide-resistant wild oats really starting in the 1990s.

And people used Fargo for a long time and then some new herbicides came out and people moved away from using Fargo because it no longer worked as a pretty, as a herbicide.

But actually as people have kind of looked across some of the triangle now, the gene flow from the roadsides where the wild oat was susceptible, went back into the crop field a little bit.

And Fargo actually works more than it did 10 years ago in Montana's cropping systems.

Which is interesting- - It's also quite reasonable, is it not?

- It is very, it is cheap compared to most things.

- Not cheap.

The word is reasonable.

(panelists laughing) You got to get that down.

Okay, good answer.

A Facebook question.

And this one, you may or may not, well, both you guys can handle this one on the end of the table.

This is from Greg and Susan in Missoula.

Their daughter has just accepted position with a big 10 university in biotechnology that came with a seven-figure startup package.

Does MSU offer big startup packages in order to entice new researchers?

- We do.

- Good.

- We do, and again, it all depends on the But for example, for science and engineering, startups nowadays surpass at a million dollars.

So we want to make sure, as we said before, that we're competitive given that our research enterprises, it's very productive.

Some of those dollars that we collect as part of the indirect cost recovery are actually reinvested.

And what we do is use them for, use them for startup packages.

But it varies wildly.

- Absolutely.

- Right from, from one discipline to another.

This is also one of the things that some of the very generous donors that we have at Montana State University have allowed us to do with sometimes with current used dollars or sometimes with endowment, it allows us to go that extra mile for that wonderful faculty member that we want to recruit.

- Yeah, you might explain, and I have an idea, but what are these startup dollars used for and why are they necessary for a young scientist to get those dollars to become competitive?

- You want to go first?

- I can take a whack at it.

So let's just use one as an example of precision ag hire in Havre, Montana.

This is a position that's split 50/50 with extensions.

So they have outreach and extension abilities, which we know we have to help the new generation learn and educate, not just research.

So that's a great partnership.

So this person's gonna be doing a lot of on-farm work.

So they need a one ton pickup truck, they need a trailer and they need to all the equipment to be able to go out there and do that, whether that's a trailer full of drones or spray rigs, right?

That's the kind of stuff they're buying to be able to do on farm research.

Now think of that, translate that to some of our microbiology and immunology work that is very bench top and very specific, that can be very, could be HBLCs, you know, any kind of equipment.

And I would say the College of Ag, not that we limit people's start off, we're very cognizant of what we have.

So it's not like we're everybody's gonna get a DNA sequencer, right?

- Right.

- You know, it doesn't make much sense.

So we try to maximize our reach across all disciplines as best we can.

- Okay, thank you.

A Bozeman caller would like to know what new campus building projects are on MSU schedule and I admire what you did at the Ag Appreciation Week.

Tell us what is going on with building here at Montana State University?

- Well, this is a, well, first of all, we are about to open our Student Wellness Center, if you remember that was right after we lost the fitness centers back in 2019.

- Right.

- Then we decided to take a step forward by also bringing under the same roof, our Student Health Department.

So now we're going to be opening this what we call the Student Wellness Center.

So you will have fitness, you will have have health, You will have an emphasis on mental health.

So everything under one and the same building.

The month of April, we're going to be very busy because we're going to have groundbreaking ceremonies for the buildings that are going to be made possible, thanks to the generosity of Mark and Robyn Jones.

If you remember, Mark and Robyn Jones from Goosehead Insurance, gave Montana State University a very generous gift of $101 million.

With that, what we are doing is we're building new facilities in each of our distributed campuses that offer nursing education.

In November, we already had the groundbreaking ceremony in Great Falls, and that is in partnership with Benefis Hospital.

Thank you so much, John Goodnow, donated two acres and that's where that building is going to go.

Last week, we were in Missoula and that one is in partnership with Community Medical Hospital.

This week, this Tuesday, we have the groundbreaking ceremony for the Nursing Education Building here in Bozeman.

That's on Tuesday, please join us.

Thursday, we're opening in collaboration.

We have the groundbreaking ceremony in Billings and that one is in collaboration with both Billings Clinic and St. Vincent Hospital.

And finally, week after next or the next week, yeah, the week after next, Kalispell, in collaboration with Logan Hospital.

So this is something new that we have tried to invite the private sector to come and help us with this wonderful facilities.

And last but not least, two more projects.

On April the 17th, we will have the groundbreaking ceremony for the Gianforte Hall.

That will be the new home for computer science and film and photography and music technology.

And in the summer, we're going to have the groundbreaking ceremony for the collaborative project between the Wool Lab, the Department of Agriculture and our Vet Diagnostic Lab, all under one roof as well.

- Lot of projects ongoing.

- Yes.

- And I think we ought to be very proud of it as a state and also as Montana State University.

- Jack, there's a bunch of other stuff out in the state that we're very fortunate of that the President helped us with also.

- Absolutely.

- And I'd be negligent if I didn't thank the state legislature, our constituents, our ag clientele, and some specific donors that helped raise a lot of money for improvements at Western Ag Research Center for horticulture lab and office facility.

They really have an old barn and we'll have five new chemistry and instrumentation buildings at five different research centers.

When we have a soil microbiologist doing DNA work out of an old barn, and you can't understand why there's bat DNA in his brown soil, you know, (panelists laughing) it kind of falls out of the roof.

So we're getting new and updated labs, just as you said with precision ag, we wanna stay ahead of the producers and this is gonna allow us to do that.

And so it was very successful through the president's help and our ag clientele.

So I wanna make sure that we thank them very much 'cause it wouldn't happen without them.

- You know, I also, while you're talking about that, I agree entirely and we need to move forward in agriculture and we're doing a nice job of it.

I wanna give a little credit to a writer at the Bozeman Chronicle by the name of Isabella Hicks, who has really covered agriculture in this valley and in this state.

She's done a wonderful job.

So if you ever get a chance to thank her, do that, because she's good at it.

Tim, what's that bouquet that you bought?

- This is my beautiful bouquet weed of the, weed of the wheat.

This is, it's called, sometimes it's called catchweed and sometimes it's called German Madwort.

The scientific name's Asperugo procumbens and it's a borage and it's a really early season weed.

And if you rub the leaves you can find, kind of feel the hairs on it as a diagnostic thing.

It really occurs sometimes in crop fields, which pretty manageable, especially in cereals.

It occurs under a lot of houses and around old barns.

And it starts out rather small like this, but then it'll make a big, long viney knotted mess that'll tangle you up later in the year.

So go around with the weed wacker, knock it all down, mow it out, scrape it out, Dicamba, a lot of herbicides will control it too around the house.

- 2,4-D also?

- 2,4, yeah, probably, yep.

- Yeah, the hairiness doesn't affect some of the herbicides?

- No, not in general.

Not if you, it's a very, the leaves are very thin this time of year.

They're just trying to grow and so they're very susceptible to translocation.

- [Jack] Tell me you don't try to eat that one.

- [Tim] Nope, don't try to eat that one.

(panelists laughing) - [Jack] Weed scientists consider all weeds pretty much edible and- - You know Isabella Hicks, she did an article on, we actually ate Portulaca oleracea, purslane, and we put it in a pork verde sauce.

And it's actually super- - Oh my goodness.

- Super delicious.

- I'll take your word for it.

(panelists laughing) Okay.

Question from Big Sky.

This is an interesting one.

This person's a retired corn farmer from Iowa who moved out to Iowa to get away or moved out of Iowa to get away from heat and humidity.

They've heard a lot about Montana Ag Appreciation Week.

How do they become involved?

That's a good question.

- Goodness, we would love to have them involved with Montana Ag Appreciation.

It is always in the month of November.

Please call us, call us at the College of Agriculture.

Call our wonderful friends here.

- Yep.

- Call Sreekala Bajwa.

We accept nominations.

We'd love having nominations actually and more of a community involvement.

It's a wonderful way in which your land-grant university, devotes a good chunk of our time, four days just to celebrate the wonderful producers that we have in the state.

- And- - That's wonderful thing- - You have a great breakfast.

- We have a wonderful breakfast and a great football game.

- That's right.

- That's true.

Yeah, it's a fun weekend.

I've gotten involved the last few years and I actually enjoy it.

- Awesome.

- It's a good time.

- It's like- - And you get to meet a lot of people.

- It's like old home week for ag.

- It is.

- Everybody comes back to the university.

It's almost more attended than homecoming for the Aggies anyways because they get to see people they haven't seen for 20 to 30 years.

There's an ag alley, so all the commodity groups all get together.

So it's just one big group.

I mean, it's a really wonderful time.

I would encourage them to come.

I'd love to meet you.

I have an email they'll show you.

Happy to get you the dates and the information.

- Okay, thank you.

- That'll be awesome.

- All right, back to Abi.

And this is interesting, this Bozeman caller would like more information on why detaching is not beneficial for turf.

They also wonder if they could do it in a pasture and it would be beneficial for pasture.

And I'll throw that one more to Tim, but why?

- Yeah, So in general, detaching can really hurt your turf grass by affecting the crowns of that grass, which can slow down growth.

It's a kind of a really intensive, vigorous process that similar results and even more effective results.

So generally, we've seen research that's compared detaching with core aerating and the end results for core aerating for the overall success and health of your grass has shown to be better than detaching.

And so overall, kind of the stress that detaching puts your grass under, that process of it makes it harder for that grass to bounce back.

Whereas core aerating can do that in less of an intensive way and less of an aggressive way for your grass.

- And you get better infiltration of water and alive, okay.

- Yes, exactly.

- It's a great way of making your turf kind of rejuvenate.

- Exactly, and then I don't know if you have thoughts on- - Yeah, I don't know, do we, we don't detach pastures that much.

Maybe for put a cow on it to take the grass off it.

- Well, yeah, you get the hoof prints.

But are there, I've seen people dragging pastures.

What are they doing?

- Quite oftentimes, we're harrowing pastures to remove the manure or build up over the winter months to break those pats out, spread that out so we don't get that one area where the grass can't grow through it and moving different things around that way.

Most of the time it's just to get that manure spread out or feeding ground or the organic matter of feed build up over there, spread out through the patch.

- Does it smooth your lawn?

How do I smooth my lawn actually?

I need to, I have some areas that need to be smooth.

Either earthworms or kid's compaction or things like that what should I?

- You got a big roller with a lot of water in it on wet day?

- Yeah- - Wouldn't that make my compaction issue worse?

- Probably with a roller.

- Probably.

- Okay.

- I mean if you have earthworms and earthworm castings, I've been getting a few questions about that lately because people are noticing that before their grass really greens up.

That's really good for the long-term health of your grass, 'cause they're aerating your grass, they're adding nutrients back in.

So if you're not playing sports in your grass and you have the odd bump here and there, I would say it would be fine if your grass is healthy.

- I'm gonna invite Jack over for a chipping contest and we'll see.

(Jack laughing) We'll see who's better chipper and putter.

- I actually heard the other day you get a free drop if it's on a worm cast because it's an animal thing, you can free drop.

I did not know that in golf.

- There, yeah, - Enough of that.

(panelists laughing) All right, since we were on the subject of corn a moment ago, this Helena caller wants to grow corn in his garden.

He heard that growing in blocks is better than in rolls.

What does the panel think and how should he fertilize his corn?

- I'm still not a good corn grower in the Gallatin Valley.

It's just, yep, I miss the heat days, I think.

- And- - 30-inch rolls is what I like.

- 30-inch.

- Yeah, and in terms of the growing in blocks, it helps pollination.

So because corn is wind pollinated, it's going to allow all of your kernels to be nice and have those full kernels.

Whereas poorly pollinated corn ends up having like patchy ears and so that's why you grow it in that way.

Any other- - Is it really important for the super sweets too to make sure we get those pollination?

- Yes.

- And that's why I'm thinking- - And you wanna separate those- - Versus, 'cause if we do two rows down in one garden to keep it on the sunshine, like Tim said, we don't get near the resource if we can block it up and have that really close proximity.

Not super close, but close- - Yeah.

And you don't want your different corn varieties to mix because then you get the starchy kernels.

It doesn't taste as good.

So if you are trying to grow super sweets, you're supposed to separate them about a hundred feet or so away from your other corn.

- Tim, are you taking notes on this?

- I'm taking notes, yes.

I'm learning some of it.

- Okay.

I want you to be a better corn grower.

All right, question from Billings.

How did MSU become the lead agency for the SARE?

And you might mention what Western SARE is.

- Yeah, actually we, this is our second time that we are the host institution.

We have 13 different colleges and universities in 13 different Western states.

And we are very happy that we are providing, you know, the leadership to that.

It is my recollection, and again, I think that maybe here I have some help.

This is something that you apply to and then you put together a team and you put together what's the inventory of things that you can contribute to provide leadership.

And that's how we have been recognized now twice with being the leader of SARE.

- Yep.

Yeah, Jack, it's $100 million worth of money that the Feds get to the 13 states.

And let's not forget the territories on the western parts out in the Pacific also count and there's several grant opportunities It can be first strictly for researchers like we compete Timmy, Tim, Abi, and I all agree on, but then there's producer researchers.

So if you're trying, if you're a producer that's a little more proactive and doing and wanting to do research, you can partner with Tim or whatever on weed control or grazing and get a pretty sizable grant.

Or, and I think this is one of the most underused thing of Western SARE is just a producer grant.

So a producer can write their own grant to say, "I wanna try and I wanna intensively graze" and let's just talk about, everybody's carbon sequestration and developing that.

"I wanna intensively graze these pastures and monitor it over time to see what I'm doing for carbon sequestration," to make some numbers right, to develop numbers.

There's a grant opportunity at Western SARE for these producers to write their own grants.

So it's a very sustainable way, an educational way we can work through that.

- [Jack] Who evaluates these grants?

- So they do external peer reviews, but they also have an administrative council that's made up of producers, ag people, retired or emeritus professors that are on there.

Dr. Clayton Marlow, a lot of you remember that he was a range scientist, animal range for a lot of years.

He's taken over and is administering that program.

I would encourage you, his email's the same, have any questions about it.

You can also go online.

I believe the Western SARE website is up there.

Dr. Marlow is happy to, if you can't find him, email me.

I'm happy to forward those to him.

But I think these are some opportunities, especially for our producers out there in the state to look at some different practices and research on farm.

- [Jack] Have our producers taken advantage of that, just out of curiosity?

- Yes.

- Absolutely.

- Yep.

- Yes, they are.

- Yeah, yeah.

There's a really interesting one, the producer plus professional grant that I really like, five producers, one to two professionals at the university and you worked together basically on addressing research problems.

Very applied, I've had graduate student fellowships that have also come from Western SARE for students.

- Yep.

- Yep, it's a great program.

- So it's like a great network that allows us to, to share resources and expertise.

And this ties to your question that you were saying before, Jack, about how important it is for us to recruit the right faculty member, because you can see it, right, with Abi and with Tim, they come not only with great expertise, but with the disposition to work collaboratively with the producers.

So that's awesome.

- That's very important in the College of Agriculture, not only in Montana State, but any college of agriculture.

- Absolutely.

- I agree.

I had an email this past week from Wallace McClain, and he's an old time author, a lot of history about Montana agriculture, and he asked a question I should have asked last week, but I didn't get it in time.

He wants to know what a hair sheep is and we have a person that can answer that.

(laughs) - Well, I guess, Jack, I'll take a whack that these are not wool producing sheep.

They're actually hair producing type of sheep.

And I would encourage these people to contact Brent Roeder, our sheep and small ruminant extension specialists.

He's outstanding.

He grew up in Texas where a lot of those are derived in some of that also.

So we're seeing more and more moving through the state versus just our wool sheep.

- Okay, well, he said, and I'll verify this with Brent sometime.

He said that the meat from a hair sheep tastes more like venison.

And that's one of the reasons they're becoming popular.

I don't know if that's true.

I will hit Brent up this week with an email and next week, I'll have an answer for that.

But thank you for stepping that a little bit.

- You might have to go to Miles City to get one of them.

- I might have to.

(panelists laughing) From Lewistown and he say, "Greetings to the panel."

They love Lewistown, the Snowy Mountains, wonderful place to live.

They wanna know is MSU involved with agritourism?

- Oh, yeah.

- Well, yes.

That was the origin actually of our goodness, food and biosystem program, and also, one of the building blocks of our hospitality management program.

So when we came out with these two programs that are actually in collaboration between the College of Health and Human Development, Education, Health and Human Development, the College of Agriculture, and now also the College of Business, it's with the idea of developing a program and curriculum that will allow students to do both, right?

To become involved in number one industry in the state and also in the number two industry in the state in a, while knowing, you know, the tricks of the trade and how to make sure that we are not just training students to work for others, but also that we are training students who can, you know, establish their own tourism business.

One of the things that we heard at the time actually was some concern about how do we keep more ranches in Montana families, within Montana families.

And they have found that through agriculture or agritourism is one of the ways in which we can provide another source of income for those families in Montana.

- You know, we've had somebody on in the past, talking about agritourism and it is a big potential in this state.

- Yes.

- Montana draws attention, there's no doubt about it.

And people are willing to come and clean barns and pay to do it.

And a lot of people should be looking at it, the advantageous, I mean, rodeos, things like that, branding, you know, that, but there's a lot of other things that agritourism could benefit the state with.

- We're seeing it in our Western Ag Research Center and some of the fruits, come and pick the fruit.

I mean- - Yeah.

- You'd think that was someone wanted to take a vacation to pick cherries or, you know, other types of things.

So it's happening in Montana, Jack.

- When we started getting into the malting, I'm gonna... (laughs) (panelists laughing) Now, joking aside, quick one from Fort Shaw.

What's the president's vision for 30 years from now?

- Oh, my goodness- - And caught back, you don't have a lot of time so.

- Well, I will just continue to say that Montana State University is the premier university in the State of Montana.

We have great collaborations with University of Montana.

I happen to believe that our mission is again, so important about educating the sons and daughters of the working families of Montana.

For me, that it's absolutely preeminent that we continue to attract, yes, the best and the brightest students, but also that we don't reduce the promise of the land-grant university to just a few student, but to prepare all of them, take them from wherever they are and make them, prepare them into competent professionals and great citizens and happy and healthy human beings.

And that's our commitment to the State of Montana.

- You know, agriculture over the last several years, had become very dynamic in the state and prior to the program going live night, we talked about how diverse Montana agriculture is compared to 20, 25 years ago.

Personally, we're one of the most diverse states other in California, in the country.

That's exciting.

And the College of Ag is actively involved with that.

So what you've said tonight is great.

I wanna thank everybody for being here, Darrin, especially you, President Cruzado.

I'm glad you take time out of it.

You two are here all the time, so I'm not gonna bother.

(all laughing) Okay, anyway, we had a great program tonight.

Thank everybody for watching.

Next week show is Sunday.

Same time, Mike Giroux from the Wheat Quality Lab and Durum breeder.

We'll talk about what Durum wheat is and why we use it.

Good night, have a good week.

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

(bright guitar music) (bright guitar music continues) - [Presenter] "Montana AG Live" is made possible by, the Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, (bright guitar music) the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

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