- [Announcer] Montana Ag Live is made possible by...

The Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(light acoustic music) - You're watching Montana Ag Live originating today from the studios of KUSM on the dynamic campus of 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.

You know how the program works.

You provide the questions, we try to provide the best answers possible, and we do guess once in a while, but most of the time, we do have pretty significant answers to your questions.

Tonight's gonna be kind of a fun program, a little bit different than normal, and you'll find out in a moment.

This evening's panel, I'm gonna start on the far left, Jane Mangold, Jane is our Invasive Plant Specialist.

Actually, I prefer to call her a weed scientist, Joe Schumacher, an entomologist, I'm gonna call you an entomologist.

It's an economist, but if you wanna be an entomologist tonight, we'll let you do that too.

- Hey, we'll see how it goes.

(panelist laughing) - Okay.

And join us tonight, and this is kind of a special evening.

We have President Seth Bodnar, the University of Montana on with us.

- Hello, everybody.

- And you know, we have two universities in this state.

Well, we have several, but two major universities, University of Montana and Montana State University.

The public television system is a joint effort by these two universities, and we've really been negligent in involving the University of Montana because they do a lot for agriculture in the state, for the economy of the state.

And we're gonna find out a lot more about that this evening.

So if you have questions about the University of Montana and what they do, the programs, we'll get to it this evening.

Abi Saeed, Abi is our Horticulturist.

And answering the phones tonight are Nancy Blake and Cadence Lamuri.

So get on that phone and make those calls coming in.

And before we go any farther, Seth, thank you for joining us via Zoom this evening.

Tell us a little bit about some of the things that the University of Montana does relative to agriculture.

- Yeah, well, thanks Jack.

It is great to be here and thrilled.

We're very happy to be on this show and be part of the discussion.

We're grateful for the partnership between University of Montana and MSU when it comes to Montana PBS, when it comes to this program, when it comes to thinking about issues that matter to Montana's.

You know, our universities are very complimentary, you know, when you have in terms of an ag and engineering school there in Bozeman and a whole host of other disciplines, of course.

And then at the University of Montana, it's everything from, you know, the top wildlife biology program in the country to tremendous forestry and ecology and natural sciences.

So a lot that we do for the state and what we do together as flagship university.

So I'm just really excited to be here and engage in the dialogue with you.

- And I'm gonna add a little bit to that before I come back to you.

But over the next year or two, we're gonna have several people that have programs at the University of Montana on this program because there are a lot of unique and very important research programs that go on at the University of Montana.

Seth, I have to ask you a question.

I was on a plane, United, and I'm not promoting United, but they have a magazine called "Hemispheres."

And right in the middle of that magazine was a one-page ad by the University of Montana discussing some of these programs you have, how well your students do, but it also said that you are an R1 university.

Would you share what an R1 university is with the audience?

- Yeah, thanks, Jack.

It's a good question.

And we've been trying to be more vocal about that and about just the diversity of academic programs and research happening at the University of Montana.

You know, and a lot of people think, hey, you know, you got a STEM school in the state and then you got your liberal arts school.

And look, we have tremendous liberal arts at the University of Montana, but we have tremendous STEM as well and as evidenced by this designation as an R1 Research University.

So this is a designation given by the Carnegie Classification of universities.

It's really limited to about 4% of universities.

And the university has achieved this R1 status, which is highest output that a university can have.

And, you know, that's just really a testament to the growing research enterprise that we have at the University of Montana.

And I think an interesting stat is, you know, there's about 146 universities that have reached this R1 designation.

So again, these are your top tier research universities.

Those universities doing the cutting-edge research happening in this country.

Of those 146 universities that have achieved this status, only two have done so without having either a college of engineering or a medical school.

And those two are the University of Oregon and the University of Montana.

And I think it's really a testament to the University of Montana's strength in the natural sciences in like forestry, wildlife, biology, ecology.

It's really a great thing for our state.

- Thank you.

And we'll come back to Seth.

I have a couple questions already that have come in through this thing we call a mini computer and we also have a couple questions that came in during the week knowing that Seth was gonna be on the program from Facebook and through email.

But before we get back to Seth, Jane, from Bozeman, this person wants to know if you can get rid of Canada thistle by mowing 'em.

And I'd hate to see the entire Bozeman city flower disappear, but.

- Well, I don't think you have to worry about that, Jack.

We're not going to completely get rid of the Canada thistle.

You can contain and kind of control Canada thistle through mowing.

If you're going to take that approach, you have to mow repeatedly throughout the growing season for four or five years at least.

So you have to be very persistent and diligent.

But by mowing it, every time you mow it, it uses some of those root reserves to try to grow back.

And by mowing it over and over and over again, you can start to reduce the sugars, carbohydrates in the roots and just weaken the plant overall.

And it probably won't completely go away, but other plants trying to grow with it will be more competitive with it.

- Yeah, that's a good point.

And I'm bringing up something about weed control, I've been around Montana for a long, long time, but Missoula over at the University of Montana, there was a partnership that worked with Jerry Marks who was a county agent some, and Montana State University in trying to rid that area of several noxious weed, but specifically leafy spurge.

And that was a nice cooperation that occurred between the two universities.

So I just had to throw that in.

- Yeah, I have a whole list of things here that U of M has done with invasive plants.

They've done amazing work with noxious weeds and invasive plants over the years, trying to understand the ecology of those plants, like Seth was talking about.

And also trying to understand the ecological effects of us managing noxious weeds 'cause sometimes some of the things we do to manage weeds can have non-target effects and we wanna know what those are as well.

- So speaking of noxious weeds and invasive plants, Seth, you have a program over at the U of M about invasive species and you have a couple individuals I believe Do you and Jane wanna cover a little bit about that?

- Well, you know, we look at, you know, invasive species, whether it's plant, biological invasive species as well.

You know, we were actually talking a little bit before the show on, about the Flathead Lake Biological Station and really the work that they do to protect the, you know, it's really called the Sentinel of the Lake, looking at the potential for zebra mussels, which we all know as you drive over and get that boat check that the last thing we wanna do is see zebra mussels in Flathead Lake.

And just a tremendous amount of expertise at the Flathead Lake Biological Station.

And not just understanding, but detecting through DNA analysis in large the presence of aquatic invasive species.

So, you know, we obviously, as Jane mentioned, and I will defer to her in terms of the plant research 'cause she's the expert on that front.

And I know we have a lot of good partnerships as she mentioned on the, from a plant standpoint, but really, runs the spectrum from plants to animals as well and really important that we monitor those and better understand them.

- You know, I wanna say the entire state is on a partnership with invasive species, the Department of Ag, University of Montana, Montana State University.

We do have a lot of invasive species in this state and it takes the entire state to do a good job and manage them.

Joel, over to you.

This call came from Mile City, it says, with a smaller cattle herd, are we importing more beef and is that why beef has become so expensive?

And I don't think it's that expensive, but.

- Yeah, well, that's a good que...

I mean, the US cattle herd in terms of just total inventory is certainly at its lowest levels, you know, in decades.

And, but that doesn't necessarily mean that beef production is low by the same amount.

So we can keep those cattle in feed lots a little bit longer.

So that means every animal that's processed, you're getting more beef out of.

We also export a lot of beef too.

So a combination of doing some things like adjustments in that feed chain supply gets us a little more beef.

We certainly can adjust imports and exports 'cause we are things that we import tend to be hamburger, we tend to export a lot of things like steak and also offal, which would be kind of the less desirable cuts here in the US but there's kind of a whole bunch of things.

But a lower cattle, you know, if we were able to add 10% more cattle to the US herd right now, yeah, prices would probably have a downward pressure for sure.

- Supply and demand.

- That's right.

- Okay.

- I'm glad you took one economics class.

- Okay, Abi, I have a question for you, but before we get there, I don't understand this question, so I must throw it to Seth because I think it's kind of interesting.

Is there an ethnographic study being done at U of M?

And I don't know what ethnographic is.

Do you have any idea?

- Well, I think there are, you know, studying, I think there are those studies.

I'd have to have a little bit more detail to be able to answer that specifically.

So maybe it's a good one for follow up, Jack.

I always wanna be careful if I don't know the exact note of the question and try to answer it.

- I agree with you entirely.

And what we'll do is we'll find out this week and answer that question next week.

They also wanna know what department it's associated with.

Abi, from Laurel.

This individual has had two apricot trees that only produced three apricots totaled this year.

That's not bad for apricots in Montana.

What can they do to increase their production and yield in the future?

- So apricots are really tough in the state of Montana in most locations in this state.

And that's because they are marginally hardy in our climate here.

And we've, for the past two years, have had pretty extreme winter temperatures in the late December, early January period with minus 35, minus 40, and even colder than that with wind chill.

And so I think usually when you think about like production, apricots usually don't produce that much fruit here in Montana, but if you're trying to encourage a little bit more fruiting, maybe protecting those trees a little bit in those winter months because it's those floral buds that are damaged by those cold temperatures more easily than leaf buds and those are what are gonna turn into your apricots that's season, maybe connecting with your county extension office or your local extension office to see if they have recommendations on what your fertility schedule is.

You may need to add, you know, phosphorus that helps fruit production.

- You know what?

Montana's not built for apricot.

- [Abi] It's yeah, it's a tough state for apricots.

- Yeah, and they blossom early.

- They do.

- And invariably, we're gonna have a frost in May or mid to late May.

So that's what happens.

Let's go back to Seth, from Dillon.

This person relies a lot on irrigation water through the course of the year, and they understand that the University of Montana does a lot of work on evaluating the snow pack and what that can do for agriculture, the Anything to add to that, Seth, or tell us a little bit about that?

- Yeah, no thanks.

It's a great question and something that we're really excited about.

A number of years ago we received from the US Army Corps of Engineers a grant for more than $20 million to install something called the Mesonet, which is a series of 300 weather soil moisture and snow monitoring stations across Montana.

Why is the US Army Corps of Engineers interested in that?

Well, the Upper Missouri Basin, it's important to know what's happening with that basin so the Corps of Engineers can know what might happen to their dams downstream.

Now, the good news for us is those stations, those 300 plus stations give us real-time data so we can assist farmers and ranchers across that basin with moisture trends and some predictive analysis.

So we've seen, whether it's our drought assessment reports for the DNRC or the Governor's Drought committee, this project, this and it's run really out of our Montana Climate Office, Dr. Kelsey Jencso, who I think has been on this show before, this is an important not just decision support tool, but better outreach for folks to understand just kinda what's happening and so they can make better decisions.

- You know, I wanna add a little bit to that.

I don't think a lot of people realize that 96, just a little over 90%, 96% of the water used goes for irrigation and agriculture, which when I saw that figure, I was fascinated.

The majority of that comes from snow packs.

So those types of programs are incredibly important for the state.

Jane, this came in last year or last week from Facebook, and they're aware that you're not only a weed scientist like I like to call you, but a noxious or invasive species expert, they wanna know, are there any new invasive critters coming into Montana?

- Well, probably yes.

(laughs) Can I think of like, I mean, there's definitely high priority species that the state has been working on for five, six years now.

We've already mentioned like the zebra mussel.

And that work continues and it's a constant threat to our state.

The feral pigs is another constant threat that we're really working on.

There's a variety of weedy species, plants that of course, I'm always talking about, so I won't mention those.

But I think the best way to keep track of that is we have the Montana Invasive Species Council, which it's run out of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, but it's a collaborative effort among multiple state agencies, federal agencies, stakeholders in the state have a seat on the council.

And they are the ones that are keeping the eye on the horizon for invasive species.

I had the privilege of sitting on the council for about eight years and Dr. Jared Beaver is the extension representative on there now.

But really, they're the people at the front line of visiting with our neighboring states, being aware on a national level of the different species that are close to us and and threatening the state.

- You know, I talked to a county agent this past week on a tour from ECOLOC and she said that they found the amaranth, the- - [Jane] Oh, palmer amaranth.

- Yeah, down in that area.

- Yes.

So yes, Amanda found a plant on the side of the road 'cause she was looking for it.

Thankfully, that was a male plant.

There's male and female plants of that species.

The male plants don't produce seeds.

So we found a single male plant.

She's been scouting the area looking for more and we haven't found any yet.

And we've had a couple instances of that in the last few years, but yeah, thanks for bringing that one up, Jack.

- That's a nasty weed and you can fertilize it with Roundup, I'm told.

Are glad to say.

- Well, one of the trick, one of the issues with that plant, it is evolved resistance to a lot of different types of herbicides.

So some of our go-to tools don't work on it.

- Okay.

- Plant that's found on the roadside, is that probably transported via a vehicle?

Is that how it arrived?

- It's probably vehicle, yeah.

Equipment, it could have, yeah, could have been in some seed that would've, if something was seated in the field next to it.

- Okay.

- Some escapes could have been there.

It's usually very difficult to figure out exactly how something shows up, but yeah.

- Okay.

- Likely.

- Thank you, I had to bring that up.

Seth, question from Chinook, and this is really a good question.

This individuals have three kids who will be going to college over the next five years.

They're very concerned about the cost of college.

And they say one is going to U of M or plans to, one is going to MSU and the other one wants to go out of state, but they don't make the type of money that you might make in Missoula, Bozeman, Helena, what assistance or how would you help these people?

- Well, thank you.

And it's a great question.

I think the first thing I'd say is let's have all three stay in state.

(panelists laughing) You know, I will tell you, we as Montanans are blessed with an incredibly high quality university system.

And importantly, we have not just quality, but we are really leading the way here in the Montana University system to keep the cost of college down.

You know, at UM, in-state students, so Montana residents, you know, pay about $7,500 a year to attend UM, and that's 26% lower than a resident of North Dakota would pay to go to one of their institutions.

And it's about 30% lower than the average across our public university peers in Western states.

So that is a huge, huge benefit.

And that's something we work really hard at to keep the cost of college low and to keep debt levels low.

You know, about a third of our students at UM graduate with zero debt and the average debt load for our graduates is about $15,000.

And so when you look at the wage premium of a college degree, look across the country, it's about 22-ish thousand dollars a year and about a million dollars over the course of a lifetime.

So, you know, average debt load's about 15K, the average wage premium per year is about 22,000 with a lifetime benefit of over a million dollars.

It's a good value.

But we do recognize at UM, that for some families that's still a stretch.

It's why we implemented something we call the "Grizzly Promise" a couple years ago.

And the grizzly promise is a promise that if you're a Montanan that comes from a family that makes $50,000 or less, you can actually come to the University of Montana tuition free.

So we're really committed to keeping college not just high quality, but affordable.

- And great answer, thank you.

And I faced that one of my daughters, thanks for scholarships, but she went to Carnegie Mellon.

- Yeah.

- And that Montana State, University of Montana looks great when you compare the cost of an education at one of those schools versus here, and I shouldn't say this, but I'm not sure the quality of education is all that much better, but I did say that.

- It's not, it's not.

And I will tell you, and I think, look, this is a show where you want straight answers.

You can get just as good in education at the University of Montana or at MSU for that matter, as you can at any institution in the entire country.

And, you know, it's this perverse thing People think that if you pay more, it must be better.

I'm here to tell you it's not.

In fact, last year, Kolter Stevenson from Amsterdam, Montana, population 207, Kolter beat out all of the top students at all the Ivys to receive a Rhode Scholarship.

And he did so from the University of Montana.

And I will tell you, and look, we have great evidence right here sitting at that table of the tremendous faculty we have in the Montana University system.

So I wanna say loud and clear.

If you're a young person or if you're a person of any age, for that matter, thinking about getting an education, you are very fortunate to be here in the state of Montana and the quality of education that you can receive here.

- Very well said.

And I wanna add a little bit more to that.

Kurt and Andrea Stevenson from Amsterdam are to be commended for sending Kolter to the Montana State University system or the Montana system.

They've done a great job with Kolter.

I happen to know Kurt and Andrea very well.

Federal reserve- - I just saw a picture, a friend of mine was visiting Oxford and sent a picture of Kolter over there.

So he's doing well and representing Montana very well over there.

- Yeah, well said, thank you.

I'm gonna shift over to Joel and then I have one for you, but this is a trick one for you.

So we'll go to Joel first.

The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates recently by a half a percent.

Does that impact farmers in the state?

And this came from Custer, Montana.

- Yeah, it sure does have an impact on Montana operations.

So first of all, what the Federal Reserve, they don't actually set the rate that a farmer might borrow or invest in at a local bank.

But those rates move pretty close together.

So when the Federal Open Market Committee lowers that rate that banks can lend to each other, it trickles down to most other rates.

Not maybe exactly, but you know, if it goes down to half a point, probably the other rates are gonna move in a similar fashion.

So where that's gonna impact Montana Ag is a couple ways.

One, a lot of our producers get operating loans, so when they go to get an operating loan next spring, it's probably gonna be lower interest, which is gonna lower their costs a little bit.

Same if they're purchasing any new equipment, you know, the rate that they're gonna get on equipment loans is probably gonna be a little lower than before that change took place.

Now it's not necessarily gonna affect a real estate loan they took out 3 or 5, or 10 years ago, but it might open up an opportunity to refinance some loans like that.

And then the other thing that's gonna impact kind of on the other side too is, you know, many of our farmers do have savings, it's a risky business.

So a lot of 'em keep some cash reserves.

They're investing those, you know, in banks and stocks and other things.

And certainly bank rates like savings accounts and CDs tend to go down as well when the Fed lowers rates.

So if you've got money and invested in a CD when it comes time to renew, you're probably gonna get a little lower rate than you would've.

But if you're borrowing money, it's gonna save you a little money coming up in the future.

- Okay.

I'm gonna throw this to Seth.

Will that impact educational loans?

- You know, I'd echo what Joel said.

Ultimately it will, you know, the rates of student loans, just like mortgage loans, car loans, credit card routes, that, you know, that they will move, you know, in sequence with the Fed funds rate.

- Okay, thank you.

Your question... (Abi laughing) And I've heard this from a lot of people this year, why didn't the apple crop produce more this year?

- Yeah, you're right.

I've also heard this from a lot of people this year.

And I think similar to, you know, apricots, apples can be hardy depending on what cultivar and what root stock you have.

But because we had such a rough winter and especially such a dry winter, we had a lot of dieback in our apples.

And so when your trees are stressed out, they may not flower as much.

When you have those extreme temperatures, you may lose those floral buds that are gonna produce apples.

So I think a combination of winter-related injuries of how dry it had been, potentially root damage, those trees are just trying to survive.

And so they're probably going to invest their energy into their root systems and trying to survive as opposed to producing that fruit.

Now you continue to have issues with this, that would be something you'd investigate.

But a lot of times when we don't have very much fruit, it's because either those flowers were damaged or those branches that have those flowering buds were damaged.

- Okay, thank you.

And why have you up and quickly tell us a little bit about why hollyhocks don't do well in the state?

- Well, I would say they can do pretty well in the state.

They're a good plant for, if you're having a really dry landscape, they're a good Zurich plant 'cause you don't need to irrigate them very much.

But these are my hollyhocks and they're not very happy.

And there are a couple things going on.

So hollyhocks are prone to hollyhock rust, which causes these orange-ish yellow markings on the leaves themselves.

This can be a pretty big issue, especially year after year if you have this problem, it can reduce the vigor of your plants.

But in addition, my hollyhocks also have hollyhock weevil, where you see the holes from those female weevils, they'll chew into those seed pods and they're going either feed on the seeds or they're even gonna lay their eggs in there and their larvae will develop within the seeds.

And so a combination of these have meant a lot of thinning out.

And I walked around my Livingston neighborhood and found that almost every hollyhock that I came across had these hollyhock weevils.

And so with both of these issues, one of the best things you can do is sanitation, which means because the weevils will nest in these seed pods and debris in the ground, and also the hollyhock rust will nest in kind of vegetation that falls down and will reinfect these plants the next year.

Cleaning them up really thoroughly and preventing them from reinfesting is to reduce those populations.

- Okay, thank you.

Seth, this is too good to pass up, I have to ask you.

This question came from Polson, are you ready?

- I'm ready.

- Okay, they wanna know what happened to the Grizzlies defense line yesterday?

(panelist chuckling) - You know, I wanna know that too.

All I know is look, it's a team sport and sometimes one part of the team has to pick up another.

And I'll say, the good news is you had the second highest offensive output, I think in the history of Grizzly football.

And, you know, a win is a win, right?

In the column, it's not a half or a three quarters win, it's either a one or a zero in the win column.

And they got a win last night.

- You know, I happened to watch that game and it was an exciting ball game.

The Griz won, I think it was 51 to 48, but it was exciting right to the very end.

So, interesting question.

I had to throw it in.

You can't pass up a little bit like that.

Jane, this is an interesting question.

It comes from Libby and thank you up there in Libby, we don't get many questions from way up in the northwest part of the state.

They want to know if unlawful for an individual to spray noxious weeds in forest land.

And I assume that's National Forest.

- Yeah.

Wow, that's- - I got you, didn't I?

- That's a good question.

I think it...

I don't know if I wanna say it's unlawful, but I think it's, you would want to have a cooperative agreement or some sort of memorandum of understanding with the forest, the local forest managers.

A lot of groups, volunteer groups get together to manage noxious weeds on federal or on public lands, whether it's state or federal, including the forest.

And those types of efforts are usually done in cooperation with the Local Ranger District.

So I would certainly- - You check before- - encourage the person to... Yeah, check into it, visit with their local forest managers and try to form some sort of cooperative.

Usually the forest service is more than happy to get the help.

- And there are a lot of noxious weeds in forests along the roads and so forth, that's run by car.

- Yeah, and you certainly are welcome to pull, I mean, I pull noxious weeds along trails all the time.

My husband's often encouraging me to keep moving down the trail.

But yeah, so I mean, usually, they're looking for the help.

So I would suggest reach out to them and figure out how to make that happen.

- Okay, thank you.

I think that's an interesting question.

We may have to follow up a little bit more and get some more information on that.

Seth from Richey, Montana, and I don't know if you know where Richey is, it's way out in the eastern part of the state, and we don't get a lot of questions from Richey, so thank you out there.

They say they are hearing more and more about mental health in rural communities.

Can President Bodnar walk us through some of the programs that U of M has to address that issue?

And I might add a little bit after that, but have at it Seth?

- No, I think, look, we have a shortage of rural healthcare providers in this state.

And that's from a mental health standpoint, you know, that's from a pediatric standpoint, that we have an issue in terms of rural healthcare provision in the state of Montana.

And it's some we're really focused on in our college of health, whether it's our programs like our physical therapy program, our pharmacy program, I mentioned our physical therapy.

We're launching a PA program.

We also have our psychology program, which is the only PhD granting program in the state.

And then, you know, you think about things like our social work program, these are all efforts, and I could name three or four more, but these are all efforts aimed at serving the needs of Montanans, not just in cities but across the state.

And something we launched just a couple of years ago is called the Skaggs Institute for Health Innovation, which is all about outreach to rural communities and trying to minimize that gap between healthcare outcomes, between rural and urban communities.

Because there is a gap.

There's a lack of coverage and this institute is saying we wanna make sure that we have leading edge medical services in all of our communities across Montana.

Things like precision medicine where you can, you know, tailor specific pharmacological interventions based on the genetic profile of a person.

You know, why should it be just the big cities on the coast that get that, we ought to have that here in Montana.

And those are the types of things we're working on in our college of health.

- You know, I happened to read this a couple weeks ago and I don't recall where I saw it, but I noted that one of the most popular courses at the U of M was called Psychology of Aging.

And you know, that is an issue in this state, there's no doubt about it.

And I'll put a plug in for a program later this month.

No, in October, the last program of the year, matter of fact, Marsha Goetting from the Econ Department, we'll be talking about mental health, dementia, Alzheimer's, some of the early symptoms and the issues it presents in rural communities, also from a safety standpoint.

So that's coming up, you know, on that note, Seth, I was told that you had a geriatric program at the U of M for a long period of time, but it's no longer existing.

Can you tell us a little bit about what happened there?

- You know, I'd have to look into the history, actually.

I'm actually not familiar with what happened there.

But, you know, I think what we're try to do is look holistically at the needs of Montanans, you know, 'cause it's, you know, you think about a geriatric patient, yes, certainly different needs than say a pediatric patient.

But there's still, they have pharmacy needs, they have physician needs, they might have a needs for a social worker.

And those are the types of things that we're trying to look at interprofessional education for all of our programs.

Again, because a lot of towns, you might have a pharmacist and that pharmacist might be answering a lot of different types of questions.

And so we're trying to send our graduates out prepared to meet the needs, not just of geriatric patients, but across the spectrum.

So, but I'll follow up and get an answer to you on the history of the geriatric program.

- Yeah, I appreciate that.

And if you get, email me that answer or a little bit more about it, I'll share with the audience over the next couple weeks what we find out.

- Yep.

- (chuckles) From Bozeman.

I love questions like this.

This is for Joel.

And it's a very simple question.

Why are commodity prices so low and food prices so high?

- Ah, it's an excellent question, right?

And it depends on if you're buying or selling, whether they're too low or too high.

Well, there's a lot of things that happen between the farm gate, the actual ag producer, and when it ends up on your plate, whether that's in a grocery store or whether you're going to a restaurant and purchasing it.

And there's a lot of steps in that value chain.

So, you know, if we think about wheat, you know, it goes to the elevator, somebody might truck it from your farm to the elevator, or maybe you do that step, then it probably gets sent by rail, probably to a flour mill somewhere where it's then cleaned and processed into flour.

It's probably sold to a bakery that maybe makes the bread or the cinnamon roll, or the pancake mix, or whatever it is that you're buying.

You know, and then it ends up, and everybody along the way, you know, is adding value to this product, but then it's gonna end up in a restaurant maybe.

And, you know, you got somebody cooking that, and of course, the cost of labor's gone up here in the last few years.

You know, you're not finding somebody to work for $7 to work at your local bakery.

So all of those things end up in that final cost.

So, you know, the food price is certainly important and there's supply and demand based on like, you know, whether we had a good wheat crop or a bad wheat crop, but then, there's supply and demand on each of those steps through that value chain as well.

- You know, mentioning labor costs, I'm gonna ask President Bodnar, is the U of M having difficulty hiring replacement professors based on the cost of living in Montana?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's really difficult actually, one of the biggest challenges we face.

You know, I mentioned earlier our goal is we have this trifecta of commitments, right?

We wanna have a world-class education that is accessible to everyone at an affordable price.

And so that means we have to be incredibly good stewards of not just tuition dollars, but the state resources that we have.

And when you're trying to, to replace a faculty member or a staff member that's moved on, we're trying to attract people to a community where the cost of housing are incredibly high.

And and that's a real challenge for us, and I think that is something that we really have to address at a state level is how do we keep cost of living manageable to make sure that we can maintain the world class quality we have at our university system.

- I agree with entirely, it is a difficult situation.

I've got another question for you, but I wanna get to Jane first a little bit on that pretty weed or is that a garden flower?

- It can be both.

- Oh, it can, okay.

- This is one of the species on our state noxious weed list, Common tansy, that was intentionally brought to North America for medicinal purposes, but also for ornamental purposes.

So this plant was 4 to 5 feet tall.

So I just cut off the top to show people what it looks like, but it has these kind of fern-like looking leaves or like a feather kind of, feathery fern-like looking leaves.

And then it has these really cute (chuckles) pretty yellow button-like flowers.

They're bright yellow starting in about mid-August.

And then, you know, we're kind of at the end of the plant's life cycle for this year.

The flowers are turning a little bit brown and then you'll get the red stems as the plant continues to mature.

But this is Common tansy, it is on the state noxious weed list.

It tends to like a little more moist habitats.

I often see it growing kind of in the understory of some of the riparian forests in the Bozeman area, or you'll see it along like irrigation ditches.

It has a pretty robust root system.

So it's kind of like Canada thistle where like if you were gonna try mowing this, you'd have to mow it repeatedly throughout the growing season for several years.

We don't have any bio control for this species.

There are some herbicides that work on it and it's not super competitive.

So if you can keep other species doing well, they can compete with this.

But I just thought I'd bring it because it's been on the list for at least 25 years, I would say.

And doesn't get a lot of attention, but it is a pretty interesting plant.

If you look at the history of the uses of this plant, it's pretty fun.

- I won't go there, but if Tim were sitting here, I'd ask him what kind of salad he makes out of it because- - Well, it smells really pretty, I don't know if Joel can smell it at all, but it's very aromatic and it actually has like antifungal and antibacterial qualities and has been used like the early colonists to North America in the 1600s used it as a preservative for food and for our bodies, so there you go.

- That's more than I needed to know.

(panelists laughing) Okay, Seth, interesting... And this came in via email and this probably came from Jane's relatives, but it's from Ames, Iowa, and they're watching it on some computer method.

But anyway, they would like to know why does the University of Montana have the forestry school when that's normally associated with land-grant institutions.

And I don't know the answer to that.

Do you have any idea, Seth?

- You know, the short answer is I don't know how back, you know, in the turn of the 20th century that was decided, that the University of Montana would have the forestry school.

What I do know is, we're really proud to have a fantastic school of forestry and really grateful for the important work that our faculty in that school do.

I mean, and managing our forest resources, arguably is more important today than ever.

Understanding not just how to manage that resource, but the impact of fire and how we're seeing.

And, but I don't know how that was decided.

You're right, but I think it speaks to the point that I made at the beginning of the show is that, you know, you think about our universities, you know, Montana State there in Bozeman, University of Montana in Missoula, we compliment each other in a lot of ways.

You know, a lot of people like to obviously say, "Hey, it's Griz versus Cats," and it is on one Saturday in November, but a lot of us come from from houses divided.

In fact, I, myself, my wife is a is an MSU grad.

And I think it's just a testament to the wonderful university system we have and how these universities really are complimentary.

- You know, I'll mentioned something about school of forestry and how the two schools do combine a lot of the resources.

The extension forestry, which is Montana State University funded, goes through and is housed at the University of Montana.

And that's where our extension forestry should be, is in the school of forestry.

And that, by the way, is there a pretty good enrollment in the school of forestry?

Do you have any clue?

- Yeah, there sure is.

In fact, it's been our fastest growing school and speaks to students really wanting to understand, you know, how we manage our resources and really thinking broadly about sustainability and conservation.

Again, it's not about, you know, clear cutting or we don't cut anything.

It's about managing that resource and that applies to forest resources, that applies for wildlife resources and what we'd like to say that, that college is really building the resource managers of tomorrow.

- Okay, thank you.

Good points.

Jane, we've had several, several calls about Ventenata, which some people think it's we're running a losing battle.

Other people want to know what to do to control it.

Other people want to know where is it and what the impact on agriculture will be.

So a brief introduction of Ventenata.

- Yeah, Ventenata is an invasive annual grass.

So it's like cheatgrass, we've had cheatgrass around for decades.

Ventenata, we first started noticing it increasing in the state in about 2015 to 2018.

It really took off.

And I like to tell people it kind of moved along the I-90 corridor is where I noticed it.

So I first worked with it in Northwestern Montana, it's in Gallatin County.

You move along I-90, it's in southeastern Montana.

So that's where it is.

Every now and then, it shows up a little bit more.

We've seen it in Cascade County.

One of the biggest concerns with Ventenata is it has a very high silica content and silica is an element that glass is made out of.

- Right.

- So when plants have a lot of silica in them, animals don't like to eat it.

So for like cheatgrass, you can get some forage value out of that, for wildlife and livestock, what we've seen so far is Ventenata doesn't offer any of that forage value.

So that's one of the big concerns.

It's also just a species I've seen spread faster than any other species during my career thus far.

So it does have pretty high invasive capacity, but we're still learning about it, yeah.

- Your homework assignment next time you're on, I don't know what it looks like and a lot of people probably that are somewhat familiar with leafy spurge, things like that, Canada thistle, probably know what those look like.

You have to bring a sample of that.

- I'll try to...

Right now, just this past week, the seedlings come up in the fall and right now, the seedlings are about this tall with a single leaf that's about the width of a high-pitched guitar string.

So it's not very showy, but I can bring in some samples from previous years that we've collected and placed in frames.

- Okay, thank you.

Seth, interesting call.

It comes from Lewistown.

This person acknowledges that MSU and the University of Montana compete in a lot of different areas, especially athletically.

Do they compete for funding at the legislative level in the state?

That's kind of an interesting question.

- Well, you know, we really, we work with the legislator, legislature, excuse me, as a system.

So we have a commissioner of higher education and that commissioner works with the legislature to set funding levels for the Montana University system.

And then the Board of Regents allocates that state funding to the various institutions, UM, MSU and then the other 4-year campuses and the 2-year campuses across the state.

So, and that's based on a formula.

It's based someone on enrollment, there's a performance funding aspect to it.

But no, when it comes to speaking with the legislature, we speak as a university system and advocate on behalf of all the institutions in the state.

- And my compliments to you and President Cruzado, you guys do a good job in speaking for the university system.

I do wanna follow up on the university system a little bit.

Montana State University has Northern Billings, what are some of the other university systems associated with University of Montana?

- Yeah, so you really have what we call kind of two hemispheres, two affiliations.

So you have on the east side of the divide, you have Northern Billings, Great Falls College affiliated with MSU and Bozeman.

And then on the west side of the divide, you have the University of Montana and then Montana Tech, which sits obviously right close to the divide there.

And then University of Montana Western down in Dillon and Helena College.

So that forms what we call the University of Montana Affiliation.

And what that means is we really work together to be as efficient as we can, not just to save resources in terms of back office shared services, but to make sure that a student in Dillon can benefit from programming at the University of Montana and vice versa.

So we really work to be close affiliates each with our individual campus identities, but working together because we can not only be more efficient, but we can better serve our students when we collaborate.

- Excellent answer.

And I'm gonna follow that up while we have you up.

This question comes from Three Forks, your stomping grounds.

They would like to know, does the University of Montana have any programs similar to the extension service that MSU has?

In other words, outreach around the state.

- Yes.

Yeah, several, I mean, I mentioned already the Flathead Lake Biological Station that does just a tremendous amount of work specifically around Flathead Lake and other bodies of water.

And then we have our forest experiment station.

So Lubrecht Experimental Forest is a 58,000 acre experimental forest where we're managing and experimenting and learning about effective forest management techniques.

I already mentioned the Montana Climate Office, which is, has more than 300 climate monitoring stations across the state.

And then we have a whole host of efforts like the Bureau of Business and Economic Research.

And I'm grateful you're gonna have Pat Barkey, the Director of the BBER on the show, which does a lot of economic modeling and forecasting and information providing for the state.

And then we have things like spectrum, you know, which is the spectrum discovery area, which is bringing science education to youth, not just in Missoula, but across the entire state.

Served 84 different communities through our spectrum efforts in libraries and in primary schools, things like that.

So, you know, a number of activities that are similar to that.

And then a big one that I wanna emphasize and then I'll stop, which is called Accelerate Montana.

Accelerate Montana is really an effort to meet the economic and workforce needs of our state to deliver training and education in partnership with employers.

So short-term, not-for-credit training and things like construction, cybersecurity, software development, commercial driver's license training.

And to date, we've put about 3,000 Montanans, not just in Missoula, but across the state all the way out to Miles City and elsewhere through a short-term program, to get people the training they need to get into the workforce and give employers the staffing they need to deliver for their customers.

- Thank you, I think what Seth has just pointed out and what we've done here for years shows you that Montana does have a very vibrant and a very knowledgeable and very active university system and people need to take advantage of it.

There's so many opportunities to interact with faculty both at the U of M and Montana State University.

So I encourage people, if you have questions, if you have concerns and needs, get ahold of either your extension office, somebody at the U of M, don't be afraid to ask because there's a lot of assistance out there for you.

We're getting a little low on time, so I'm gonna just throw a few questions out.

From Helen, a caller who says their lilacs are losing leaves and the leaves have been chewed around the edges.

You any idea what it is?

- Yeah, so the chewed around the edges is probably a root weevil damage.

If you see like perfect semi-circular notches, in terms of losing leaves, that might be a good thing to contact your local extension office to confirm if that's the pest and come up with the idea of how you manage them, but that sounds like root weevil damage.

- Okay, thank you.

Joel, quick one.

I like this.

They want to know what the price of wheat will be on January 1st.

- Oh, well, that's easy.

Yes, it'll have a price.

(panelists laughing) - You know, that's a typical economic answer.

I'm sure somebody wants to sell next year and not this year.

- And you do see a lot of folks wait till January 2nd for tax reasons, you know, to start moving their pricing some of their wheat.

- Okay, and while I have you up, this is an interesting Facebook question for you.

Would red beets be a viable cash crop in Northern Stillwater County?

- Oh, that's a good one.

That's one I don't think I've had before.

Yeah, I'd have to look into that.

- Okay, you gotta have a lot of people that want to eat beets.

- That's true.

- And I don't think we have and they don't ship well.

- I don't think you can pile 'em like sugar beets.

- No, I don't think he can either.

Seth, quickly, a caller from Bozeman, a junior in high school interested in Is it difficult for a student to get into the University of Montana Wildlife Management Program?

- No.

In fact, you know, we do our best to accept every qualified student, especially at the undergraduate level.

As you get into the grad degree programs, there is more limited capacity.

But if you're an undergraduate student or a junior in high school, especially as a Montanan, you are incredibly lucky 'cause you're able to come to one of the best programs, often ranked number one in North America in wildlife biology.

And you're able to come at a fraction of the price that people come from all over the country to study wildlife biology at the university.

So come on over, we'd love to have you.

- You know, I knew a lot of people here years ago that were in wildlife biology, bobbing, people like that, they spoke highly of both programs.

So it's an interesting program.

Jobs are difficult to come by sometimes.

So with that, folks, we're getting down to the end.

I wanna thank the panel, Jane, Joel, President Bodnar, thank you so much for joining us.

We're gonna have more of your faculty over the next couple years, maybe some grad students next spring.

Abi, always a pleasure.

Folks, next week we're going to be looking at the Grain Growers Association.

The President of the Grain Growers will be joining us, Boyd Heilig, he's from Central Montana.

And I think you will enjoy learning a little bit more about grain, which is still comprises about 40% of our cash crops for state.

So join us, have a good week and thanks again.

Good night.

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