(soothing music)
- [Narrator] Montana AG
Live is made possible by
the Montana Department
of Agriculture,
the MSU Extension Service,
the MSU AG Experiment Stations
of the College of Agriculture,
the Montana Wheat
and Barley Committee,
the Montana Bankers Association,
Cashman Nursery and Landscape,
the Gallatin Gardeners Club
and the Rocky Mountains
Certified Crop Advisor Program.
♪ I've got hoppers in my wheat
and my corn is not too sweet ♪
♪ Taters lying on the ground
and my hay is turning brown ♪
♪ I've planted and I watered,
I've got everything oughta ♪
♪ Montana AG Live
where are you ♪
- Good evening.
Welcome to another new
edition of Montana AG Live.
Originating tonight
from our homes
in Montana beautiful
Gallatin Valley.
I'm Jack Riesselman, I'll
be your host this evening.
As you can see, we're
doing this virtually again,
this is our third effort
and we're actually
kind of enjoying it.
Although it's much more
fun to be in the studio
and have phone answers
there and the phone ringing.
Speaking of the phones,
that's important,
we need the questions because
this program would not have
been around for 25 years
had you as viewers, not
supplied questions of interest
to yourself and to other
people around the state.
So please phone in
those questions tonight
and we'll do our best
to get the answers
from this esteemed panel.
Let me introduce the panel.
First of all, Mary Burrows,
everybody knows Mary.
Mary raise your hand and
show them who you are.
Our special guest tonight
and we're really
happy to have him,
is our new Vice
President for Research,
Economic Development in
Graduate Studies, Jason Carter.
Jason came to us about
eight, nine months ago
from Michigan Tech based
in Horton, Michigan.
I'm not a Midwesterner anymore,
so I have a little trouble with
some of those Midwest names
but we'd like to welcome Jason.
He's gonna tell us a little
bit about what he does
and how it applies
to agriculture.
Laurie Kerzicnik, Laurie
is our entomologist.
We've got a lot of
insect questions folks
and we're gonna get to
a few of those tonight.
And of course, you
all know Perry Miller,
Perry is on every so often,
he's our Cropping
Systems Agronomist
and he's going to talk
to us a little bit about
some of the changes that
we're seeing in agriculture.
So before we get started
with the questions I have
and we have them
in from Facebook,
we're having a little
audio problems tonight
with the phones.
So if you have some
pertinent questions
you oughta email them
in, that will also work.
But before we move
into the questions,
let me have Jason, talk
to you a little bit about
the Vice President's
position here at MSU.
Little bit of his history,
I think he's kinesiologist,
I probably can't spell that
but tell us a little
bit about your history
and what you're
doing here at MSU.
- Yeah, thanks so much Jack
and thanks for inviting
me to the show.
It's been such a pleasure
to get to know people here
in Bozeman in Gallatin County
and hopefully I had planned
to do a lot of outreach
this spring semester
throughout the state,
that's been put to the side
but really enjoy your show
and thankful that you've
given me the opportunity
to be part of it.
As you mentioned,
I moved here with my
family back in September.
I was at Michigan Tech
University before that,
which is a a STEM
oriented University
not that very different from
Montana State to be honest.
Except that in Michigan,
Michigan State is our AG school
and our land grant,
but we do a lot of
work at Michigan Tech
and extension, and the
experimental stations.
There is experimental
station about two hours
to the west of Michigan Tech.
So I grew up in the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan and
there were really only about
two or three universities
I always kept an eye on.
I was always looking for a
place that had the right makeup
of programs in an area that I
thought I could contribute to
and then I wanted
to be around beauty
because I left a lot of beauty
and the Upper Peninsula.
I traded the waters for the
mountains but my family and I
were really excited when
the Montana State
position opened up.
And so happy to be here.
I can't wait to talk a
little bit in the show
about my impressions
of Montana State,
the faculty, the students
and the remarkable things
happening on campus.
So thanks for having me.
- Well it's a pleasure Jason
and we'll get back to you.
I do have some questions
that did come in via Facebook
and a couple email ones,
so we'll get to those
in a little bit.
But meanwhile,
Laurie from Bozeman,
this person has a bunch
of relatively new two
and three year old spruce trees
that the tips are dying back.
Any idea why?
- Yeah, that is probably
the White Pine Weevil
and that is a pest
that hits almost all of
our Colorado Blue
Spruce and spruce trees.
It's a small weevil and
adults come out in the spring
when the weather starts to warm,
they crawl up to the leader
of the tree and they lay eggs,
and then the eggs hatch and
they burrow into the wood.
And then mid summer, late
summer, they start to wilt.
The leaders start to wilt.
So then you start to
see that on some of
the rest of the tree
kind of competing,
the leaders competing
as codominant leaders.
So it's a little tricky to,
you could spray the terminal
with a contact spray and I
could help you with that,
and in any sort of context spray
that's labeled for
that tree will work.
There's also a systemic you
could apply in the spring called
and the active ingredient
is dynatratephron,
and it would have to
be applied now in order
for that to work.
So a little tricky to time
but it's also possible you
could really control just
by training a new leader.
You could cut out
where the damage is
and you could
train a new leader.
So you don't have to use
chemicals at all for this pest.
- I got several out
last year, it works.
But you do have to
train a new branch
to become the main leader.
- Yeah, you sure do.
- Jason, this question came
in via email from Conrad
and they would like to
know if your impressions
of Montana State University
experiment stations located
in six or seven different
locations around the state.
And they would like
to know do you plan
to attend any of the Field Days
if they are held this year?
- I mentioned that in my
opening comments there
that I was sent to go
with Dean Bourgeois
to a couple of the experimental
stations this spring.
In fact, we hesitated to even.
It was back I think
in January, February,
we had started planning
those for late February
or early March
and we kept them all the
way up until right before
the stay at home orders
got put into place.
But I'm really eager to get
out and get around the state,
and especially visit with
the experimental stations.
There's such great work
happening all around the state
in the AG stations and
I've been very impressed.
I'm very impressed
with the people,
the quality of the
research that's happening,
both here at the
mothership in Bozeman
and then all around the state.
So it is something
that I wanna get to
and I'm very hopeful that with
the count here in
Montana and the way
we seem to be
flattening the curve,
that there might be a
chance at some point
to having some of those events.
In a maintaining our
distance from one another,
wearing face coverings
if so be it but
if there are some of those
I will be trying to attend
and meet with people.
- I really enjoyed the
Field Days and Perry
you guys go to several of them.
Do you anticipate?
Have you heard anything at
all from any of the stations
about whether or not they're
considering delaying them
or maybe having them?
- I'll jump in
here for a second.
From what I hear they have not
been officially canceled yet,
they're hopeful but maybe that's
a couple week old information.
So I don't know if
that's actually accurate.
Mary might have
better information.
- I have not heard anything.
I think we live day
to day by policy.
- Mary while I've got you up,
quick question from Helena.
They have a 10 year old Spruce
that was fine a month ago
and now it's stone cold
dead, any idea why?
- Well that's pretty dramatic.
I would suggest they contact us
with anything that
may have happened
that isn't in that question.
They can call the
diagnostic lab at 994-5150
or email
diagnostics@montana.edu,
or they can contact their
local county extension agent
to get some help on that.
- Okay, thank you.
Jason, a question from Helena.
This person has been
told and has read that
MSU is one of the
top undergraduate
in the nation.
They'd like to know
how that is measured.
- Well, one of the things
that Montana State University's
is really proud of is
we have a designation.
It's called RI
Carnegie Designation
and that is a
designation that looks at
your research
expenditures as well as
a number of other metrics,
like your number
of PhD graduates,
and some of those other markers.
And so we are one of 130
that are in that category,
of those 130 only one or two
have a really high
undergraduate count like we do.
And so it's very rare
when you look at a lot of
the R1 research universities
that are out there,
they tend to be.
Sometimes universities that have
really large graduate programs,
they tend to have
cadres of postdocs
and maybe even are affiliated
with medical
campuses and colleges
but at Montana State,
we're one of those 130 and
that creates unprecedented
opportunities
for our undergraduates.
They become the replacement
for the postdocs
and the other personnel.
So I think undergraduates
here at at Montana State
have a tremendous opportunity
and it's because of the quality
of faculty that we have,
the research that we do,
and in my eight months here,
I've been so impressed.
I came from a university
that where I thought
we did undergraduate
research really well
when I was at Michigan Tech
to a place that is
just phenomenal at it.
We were talking before
the show started about
how unfortunate it was
that we had to cancel
the Inca National Conference
for Undergraduate Research
that was supposed to be hosted
on Montana State's
campus in March.
Which was really
unfortunate because
we had the second highest
number of abstract applicants
that were gonna come,
so we were gonna have
nearly 4000 undergraduates
and their advisors
here on our campus
to talk about
undergraduate research.
So the reason, if you ask me,
the reason why we have such
a strong undergraduate
research program,
is because of the dedicated
faculty that we have.
And it's because
they take the time
to involve those students
in their research.
We have an amazing
honors college.
One of the statistics
that is really remarkable
is the number of
Goldwater applications
that we have here at Montana,
since it's a highly
prestigious award given
to undergraduates for research.
We rank right up there in the
top 20 in the entire country,
right there with the
Stanford's and the Yale's,
and so for a university
to have that quality
of an undergraduate
is quite remarkable.
- Perry have you
had undergraduate
and in your programs?
- Yes, so actually,
we're fortunate
to have an undergraduate
researcher right now,
I think he'll eventually
parlay the research
that he's doing now
into a Master's Program.
He's been doing
some work on control
of perennial weeds
in organic systems
and using actually a pathogen
to try and get
some of that done.
Maybe he's a pretty rare person
but it's been a really fun to
watch and fun to be a part of.
- Mary, how about you?
- We always have
undergrads in the labs.
This semester we have
a Hillerman Scholar
from northwest Montana
and we had another person doing
their undergrad
research project,
and then we always have a
few that are just hourlies
and learning about science.
We usually get them
out in the field
and do a little
extension if we can.
- If I were a student,
high school student,
considering a university
and had curiosity
about various things.
MSU is a wonderful
place to be challenged
to do some research.
I saw it for years
when I was on campus
and it is impressive.
So with that Mary, let's
change tune a little bit.
This person in Bozeman,
question came in last week,
has tomatoes with
interveinal chlorosis.
He transferred those
into a container
that had once been bleached.
Is this the cause
of the chlorosis?
- Probably not.
Usually,
it can be a several
reasons but if he (mumbles)
and rinsed it that
should be fine.
A lot of times it's
nutritional deficiency
and that can be from cold
or it can be from lack
of nutrient in the soil.
And they could certainly
shoot us a few pictures
and we can help them get it
narrowed down a little bit more
if you wanted to.
- Bleach breaks down pretty
fast in sunlight as I recall,
so if it's out for a day
or so I don't think --
- Yeah.
- Unless you're pouring
bleach on there.
There are some municipal waters,
they actually add small
amounts of bleach to kill
(mumbles) in the US municipal
water for greenhouses.
- Okay, thanks Mary.
Laurie, this is a question
that everybody has
that tries to grow
vegetables in Montana.
Flea beetles, how do you
prevent them in brassicas,
or radishes or potatoes?
Their larvae, any suggestions?
- Flea beetles are
really difficult.
I think one of the best
things you could do
is rope covers early on, try
to protect the early seedlings.
They can take a
lot of damage from,
the leaves themselves
can take a lot of damage
from flea beetles
after they've grown.
So protect those
early seedlings,
try to plan a trap crop,
something like radishes.
They're so highly mobile that
they're difficult to control.
I got a question about using
parasitic beneficial nematodes
for flea beetles and
there on the label
and they do deposit
their eggs in the soil
but they haven't been very
effective for flea beetles
because they're so mobile,
and the same adults could
just move over a little bit.
So try to get those rope covers,
try to protect the early
seedlings and then just know
that they can take
a a lot of damage.
It's a constant problem.
- Years ago we use a
product called Diathanon,
it did a wonderful job but
they did not re-register.
- Jack, can I follow up there?
I don't know if
I'm muted or not.
- No you're not.
- No.
- So Laurie last year, we had
several demonstration crops,
different types of
brassicas at the post farm
and I was astonished
at how the flea beetles
went to the yellow
mustard instead of canola,
instead of Oriental
mustard, other brassicas
that we had in there.
I liked your idea of a trap crop
but wonder yellow mustard
seeds pretty easy to grow.
So I wonder if that would
work in a garden situation.
- That's a good idea.
- We learned something
tonight, that's good.
- (laughs)
- Jason from Helena.
They have friends that
work in the College of AG
and they're always talking
about overhead charges.
What are they and
do they vary with
the various different
departments at the university?
- Sure.
Overhead charges
is a term that we
are trying to move away
from actually, Jack.
It refers to a grant and then
there's what's called facilities
and administrative costs
above and beyond that.
So you say you get a grant from
the Department of Agriculture
or National
Institutes of Health.
You have what are called your
direct costs for research
and then you have
what had been previously
referred to as overhead
or indirect costs.
It was several years about,
probably about three
or four years back.
Where you might
remember early on in
the current
administration's timeframe
there was a lot of
questions about this.
There was actually,
some individuals in DC
that were were saying, "Why
do we have any of this?"
And that's really when
we started to move away
from the term
overhead or indirect
because things that are not,
things that are
indirect are not direct
and they're not important or
overhead had a bad
kind of connotation.
What it really is a
rate for the facilities
and the administrative
aspects of the research,
and it pays for the compliance
aspects for the research.
It pays for the office
of sponsored programs
to make sure that they are there
and available to help
the faculty members,
and other researchers
to be able to process
their grants efficiently,
and for facilities as well.
And so we do reinvest
what are what were previously
referred as overheads in F&A.
Now we call them facilities
and administrative aspects.
We invest those back
in to the facilities
and to our individuals
in various forms
but they're very
important to universities.
They really are important
to research at universities
and they really, I
think, if you look at
the growth of research at MSU
in the past couple decades,
it's been enabled
because of a lot of that.
The re-investments
that have been able
to be made in facilities
and research through those.
So that's really what
overhead is all about.
- I might follow that
up a little bit, Jason.
What is the out reach research?
I can't say out reach.
What is the research budget
in Montana State
University right now?
- We operate almost
exclusively off of that F&A.
We do have a small
amount that does come
from the state budget as well
for some research aspects
but it runs around
19 to $20 million.
Of that 19 to 20 million,
well over half of
that are fixed costs.
For example,
several years back, we
made a strategic decision,
and I think it was a good one,
to build a new chemistry,
biochemistry building on campus.
We're still paying off
the bonds on that building
as well as the operations
and maintenance budget.
So we reinvest a lot of
that into that F of the F&A,
the facilities portion.
So it's about 20
million or so, Jack.
- Okay, thank you.
We don't have the person on
the panel to answer this.
The scenario is in a
comment from Helena.
They have noticed many
of their neighbors
have been cleaning
their garages.
I can relate to that,
outbuildings, et cetera.
They would like to know if
there is a Toxic Recycle Day
for the counties this year?
If so, what does
the panel suggest?
What I'm gonna as
is that we'll check
with the Department
of AG next week
and we'll have an answer
for that question next week.
I'm sure in whatever
state they are.
Laurie you know
anything about that?
- Yeah, I was just reading
the last Lives and
Landscapes that publication
and it said that there is,
I don't know if they're
gonna do it this year
but they're supposed to have
a pesticide waste drop off
in the western
region in September.
That's all I saw.
- Well, we'll follow up on
that a little bit next week,
I'll find out from
somebody what's going on.
Please don't throw
it in the garbage can
that's not a good place
to put toxic pesticides
and so forth.
Hold on to them until you
can properly dispose of them.
Perry, this question came
in last week from Chester.
They would like to
know how climate change
will affect crops
on the Highline.
It's a good question.
- You can think of
climate in two ways
from a Montana dryland
farmer perspective
and one is that there's climate
change is a background trend
of things that are
usually general.
If it's temperatures
it's usually increasing
and if you reach a particular
threshold at certain points
that can actually
be very damaging
to crops at certain life stages
but for us, the bigger
factor is the variability
around that line.
Especially rainfall but it
can be temperature also.
And so to the extent
that that variation,
it's already pretty bad.
And so if that
variation gets worse
that will make it
even more challenging.
If you get a really severe
frost event at the wrong time
that can be incredibly damaging.
If you get too much rain,
if you get not enough rain
at the right time that
can be as damaging too
The precipitation part of this
is a lot harder to predict
than the temperature side.
We'll try to adapt
the best we can but
it would be best not
to have to deal with it
in a very large way.
- Certainly in years
I've been around Montana
which started in 1979.
We used to grow a
lot of spring wheat
in the Hardin County area,
great for spring wheat.
With temperatures
now in the summertime
at pollination exceeding 100
degrees almost every year.
We can't grow spring wheat
there so it's moved north.
Even in the northern part
of the state I'm told that
it's gotten hotter and some
of these spring wheat crops
have a tendency to abort
during the bloom period.
So it's changed,
we're growing a lot more
corn up in the Highline
than we used to.
So climate change
has a huge effect.
- Yeah, it does.
So Luther Talbert,
you know speaking of
spring wheat actually did
some interesting climate
change assessment over time.
He was probably being a
little bit tongue in cheek
before he retired but
he was worried about
whether there would be a need
for a spring wheat breeder
because things were
getting so bad.
But then you get a year like
last year where it was cool
and we never had any amount
of drought the entire.
That's that
variation part again.
- Yeah, I agree.
Jason, this question
came in from Belgrade.
How is the university
returning to research
in the wake of COVID-19?
I assume they're talking
about agricultural research
and also on campus in the labs.
- We took a real careful
and disciplined approach
when we started talking
here at the university about
how to scale down research?
We had some benefit
of being able to see
what happened on the East
Coast and the West Coast
that were ahead of us.
Some universities went
to a complete shutdown
and I can tell you,
after being in a call
with some other VPRs here
recently, a lot of them I think,
regretted going that far.
We took a different approach,
we developed what we called
research operation levels,
zero through one through four
and each of them had different
mitigation strategies.
During the outbreak,
we got to level two
research operations,
which was where we asked
all of our researchers
both here on campus as well as
in our experimental stations
and extension to
pause their research
in the data acquisition
phase if they could.
But we always allow them
to make an appeal under
what we term essential
research guidelines,
which stated that if you
stopped collecting data
it would cause irreversible
data or financial loss.
And situations like for
example, the birthing season,
you just can't walk away
from that type of research,
you have to do it in
a mitigated manner.
We had individuals who had
been collecting data for two,
three consecutive years
and we're coming up on their
longitudinal data points,
that would be irreversible,
irrevocable data damage.
And so we allowed
those individuals
to put together a plan
with our Office of
Research Compliance
to keep their operations
moving forward
in a mitigated manner.
I can tell you that almost
80, 85% of our faculty
did exactly what we asked them,
within one week they said,
"You know what?
"I'm able to go
offline for a while,
"I'll work on my papers,
I'll work on a new grant,
"I'll get to that data
that's been sitting there
"and I haven't
analyzed for a while."
And so for about
four weeks there,
they took a complete pause on
the actual data acquisition
but there was still
about 15 or so percent
that still needed
to do something.
And we had to work with them
on making sure they had good
personal protective equipment
that they were social distancing
and we did everything in our
power to keep them moving.
And that includes some
of our COVID research,
we had several
people that pivoted
a lot in the College
of Agriculture.
I'm sure we'll get to some
of that during today's show
that pivoted away from research
they'd been doing previously
to COVID-19 research.
And we definitely wanted
to be part of that,
we had to be part
of that solution.
And there's some really great
stuff coming out from that,
particularly related to
monitoring of wastewater
and other types of things that
I look forward to
briefing your viewers on.
I think it's really important
for them to understand
some of what we're doing to
help be part of the solution.
So we took a careful
approach Jack
and we were very careful in
making sure that we ramped up
and actually slowly
down our activities
but ramped up our
mitigation strategies.
And now we're getting to a point
where we just released
a memo on Friday,
where we're gonna be
going back to level one,
which is still very mitigated
but it's allowing even more
research to begin to go back
to that data acquisition
phase, beginning May 18th.
So I think a very careful
and disciplined approach,
and we've been
corresponding with academics
and Mary's part of that.
We've been working with
our department heads
and our center and
institute directors,
both on campus and off campus
to try to make sure that
we were making the right
policy decisions in this.
I think for the most part,
we did a pretty good job of
balancing the governor's order
and making sure we were safe
but also still
allowing exemptions
for those essential
research activities.
- As a follow up, this question
did come in from Bozeman
while you were answering
the first part.
They're curious,
do you feel that
with all the COVID-19 research
that is going on
nationwide right now,
that other grants
for other researchers
will be impacted negatively
because everything
focused on one area?
- That's a really good
question, we don't know yet.
The economic downturn
that's being caused by COVID
is certainly gonna be felt for
some years to come, I think,
and what that means for some
of our areas of research
is unknown at this point.
There are a lot of resources
that are going
into COVID research
but a lot of that is stimulus,
a lot of that is
stimulus dollars.
And we actually were having a
really great year anyway here,
a lot of that was coming
out of our College of AG
in other areas.
We are still projecting
a record year for
research expenditures
even though we've had a
little bit of a slow down
with our expenditures
in March and April.
We're having a great
you're actually.
Our faculty have been
submitting grants.
I think we're on track to submit
the most grants that we have
in at least recent history
that I've seen.
A lot of that is because
of some of the new calls
that are coming out from COVID
but the funding agencies,
the federal funding agencies,
were strong for
fiscal year 20 and 19.
So what happens in
fiscal years 21 and 22
is really a crapshoot yet.
We really have to wait
and see the outcomes of it
and could there be a
little bit of a shift
in some of the funding agencies?
I believe there
could be a little bit
and we have to monitor that,
and help our faculty
navigate those waters
because part of
it is diversifying
our research portfolios as well.
Engaging with industry,
engaging with foundations.
There's a lot of foundations
that are supporting research now
and giving our faculty
the resources and tools
to be able to
pursue other avenues
for their research beyond
just the federal agencies.
- Okay thank you, I
agree with you entirely.
We're getting a lot of
questions emailed, phoned in
about horticultural problems.
I'm gonna plug in for
next week's program,
we're gonna have a
gardening special.
So we don't have the people
to answer those tonight
but stay tuned next week
and we'll talk a lot about
gardening here in the state.
Before the program,
we talked a little bit
about some insects.
And there is a question
here that says,
"What does Laurie know
about the Asian Giant Horner
"that's been observed
in Washington State?"
And another question like that,
what are the big brown beetles
they're seeing around the state?
- Okay, the Asian Giant Hornet
I don't know too much about
but I've just recently,
just started reading
about it this weekend.
It was detected in a couple
spots in northwest Washington
in the fall 2019 and
in British Columbia.
And it will
decapitate honeybees,
bring back the second segment
of the bees called the
thorax and bring that back
to the nest for them to feed on.
It can reach up to two inches.
So it's a pretty
little large hornet and
I was just looking at
our Western Yellow Jacket
those are the queens that
that get to be that size
but then our Western
Yellow Jackets
which are one of our
most aggressive wasps
that we have here in the state.
The queen's will reach about
three quarters of an inch
to an inch.
For multiple stings it can
can release a lot of venom,
it's a very painful wasp
that could actually produce
fatalities but could be.
They're really monitoring
for it in Washington State
and hoping
that it won't spread but
that's about all I know.
And for the brown beetles
and I don't think they're
gonna show up very well
but it's good, pretty
good for TV here.
Those are May June
Beetles are out right now
and they actually spend most
of their time in the turf grass
but they will fly to
lights this time of year.
And that's why they're
called May June Beetles
and most of the time
you just see one or two,
it's not that big of a deal
but if you start to
see a bunch of them,
you might wanna try to test
your turf grass a little bit
and go down and
just do a tug test
to see if they're causing
some dead areas in your grass.
They should be closer to the
surface of the soil right now
but they can go down
as far as eight inches.
So just maybe, we have a lot
of problems with our turf grass
so it could be multiple issues
but if you see
multiple take a peek
and see if we've got some
problems with the turf.
- There's been plenty
of vole damage in turf.
- Yeah.
- Mary, this question came
in last week from Malta.
They have a lentil seed
that had been tested at MSU
and it showed that the
seed has anthracnose.
What can they do,
plant it or not?
And you might tell growers
what anthracnose is.
- So anthracnose is a fungus
that probably looks a lot like
ascochyta blight on lentil
if you don't know exactly
what you're looking for
but it's much more aggressive
on lentil than ascochyta is
and it can infect
many different plants.
If you do have some on
your seed that is a risk.
It really depends on how
much you have on your seed,
if it's 80% I probably
have other issues
with your seed anyway.
If it's 5% or so,
I would just use
a seed treatment,
fungicide that has activity
against anthracnose
and you can find activity
versus chemistry table
on my website, the extension
plant prep website.
Use a seed treatment
with advocacy
and make sure your seed is
healthy and has good germ.
And then watch during the season
you may have to
apply a fungicide.
This one comes in kinda late.
- Mary,
you've got a lot to do with
the Pulse Seed Diagnostics Lab.
Any idea on what's happening
for demand for lentil
seed this year?
Is it hard to find good seed
if somebody's got disease seed
or do you have any
idea about that?
- I don't know about demand.
We have gotten a lot
of lentil samples,
there's gonna be a lot more
lentils going in this year.
Most of the seed
coming through the lab
has been pretty clean.
We had enough drop out last
year that it cleaned up a lot of
the seed stocks.
- Paper says that we'll
probably see an increase
in pulse crop
production in the state
because of the high protein
and possible shortage of meat.
We'll see if that holds true.
The phones are not
working again, folks.
We had some problems
with phones coming
in kinda cutting out.
If you have questions
get on the phone now
and you'll see a phone
number on the screen.
Give us your questions and we'll
do our best to answer them.
Interesting question, Jason.
This came from Azure.
What is your opinion
of patenting research
supported by public dollars
in Montana's universities?
- I think investments
in research by the state
are really important.
If you look at other states
that have strong public
research universities
there is an investment
in the state
and we have that here in
Montana in various forms.
Whether it be through
some allocations
of the general fund resources,
all be it a very limited amount.
Funding of our experimental
stations is a great example
of how the state is
investing in research
and then even previous
to when I arrived
and I know prior
to COVID hitting,
we were talking about
the M-Ready Program
which was the economic
development research initiative
that they had in 2016.
Public investment in
research pays itself back
many, many fold.
You look at what it can do
as far as bolstering
infrastructure within the state,
bringing in high quality
individuals that can then
become contributors
to the public,
answer questions that are
relevant to the public
and also create a great
tax base for a state.
I've always said
this about research.
The federal government
as tough as it is,
it's never gonna stop spending
in research and if anything,
on the backside of COVID
there's a lot of health
sciences research
that's gonna continue.
States that decide to invest,
they're gonna create
infrastructure
and those are gonna be
the states that will have
those influx of resources.
So why shouldn't we have
the best individuals here,
in Montana conducting
some of that research?
Why does it always have to
be in Tennessee or Virginia,
or these other places, Texas?
We can have that here in Montana
and we have that
both at Montana State and
the University of Montana
to a certain extent.
And so I think it's a big part
of the economic development
ecosystem for a state
to have really strong
research public institutions.
- Okay thanks, Jason.
Perry,
this game from Chester again.
Their question is, do you
believe that Montana is right
for a canola explosion in acres?
- Well, so canola is a crop
we haven't grown very much of
and we talked about
climate issues earlier,
and one of the reasons we
haven't grown much canola is
it doesn't tolerate heat
very well, in the summer.
So it's something that you've
gotta get growing early,
try and avoid some of that heat.
There are breeding or genetic
companies actually active
in Montana right
now that claim that
they've got better heat
tolerance varieties
or more varieties that
are more heat tolerant
than in the past.
There has been a game changer
in the canola genetics world
and that's the development
of shatterproof pods.
It used to be if you had a
field that was ripening unevenly
and canola was very
prone to shattering,
that could be a real challenge
for the grower to deal with.
And if you have green
canola in your crop,
green canola seed,
it's a serious dockage factor
but now with these
shatterproof pods,
I'll tell you what?
My limited experience
at our plots is,
boy, I just can't believe
how well they're working.
So that allows the crop to
stand a little bit longer
and for it to eat, all evens
out and all come matures.
So that's a real plus.
It may eliminate that swathing
costs so that's a positive.
There's been some work
going on with winter canola
and so that's looking a
little more promising,
and that's something
that you would plant
kinda like winter wheat.
And so really get a
jump on the season.
Right now winter canola would
be growing pretty vigorously.
Some years we've actually
had it flowering by May 1st.
Now, wouldn't be the case
this year but typically,
it can certainly be
flowering by June 1st
and beat a lot of the heat.
So there is a lot of
interest in canola right now,
we haven't had, Montana's been
looked at as a potential area
to diversify into that crop
and there's some things
changing genetically
that might make
that more realistic
than it used to be in the past.
- I like canola but I don't
like seeds that are shatterproof
because I like to hunt doves
and doves really,
really love canola.
So good news and bad news.
Good for a farmer,
bad for us hunters.
Laurie, when do they
spray for coddling moth?
You might just say what
probably coddling moth is.
- Coddling moth is they
kinda call that the worm
that's in your apple,
so it hits pear,
it hit some other things too
but mainly apples and pears.
Kind of tunneling in and and
kind of ruining the inside
of the fruits.
Commercially we get
them in the backyard
and they're a little bit
difficult to spray for,
to time it right but basically
and it differs around state
so when we're in bloom
that's when we start to
see the adults come out,
the males come out, they mate,
and then they lay
eggs on the leaves.
The larvae feed on the
leaves for a little bit
but the whole, and
I can help anybody
if they need to time
spraying depending on
how many apple trees they have,
but never ever want
to spray during bloom.
So we use a calculation
called degree days,
which is based on temperature
and the development of the,
50 degree development
temperature of the insect.
It's a little tricky but
if you only have one tree
then practice sanitation,
pick up those apples,
try to thin your fruit out
but just just remember there's
several products available
and don't spray during bloom.
- And any of your local nursery
would have the proper
insecticides, I assume.
- Yeah, yep.
- Okay, Jason, (chuckles)
Facebook is amazing.
Question came in
from Fort Collins
and he is a student and
he would like to know,
I don't know if it's he.
They would like to know, if
MSU's graduate student stipends
in AG are competitive with
other Western universities.
- We're working on our stipends
for our graduate students.
I just wanna thank our graduate
students for what they do
to this university and we
talk a lot at MSU about
our excellence in our
undergraduate education
but we've got some really
phenomenal graduate students.
And what I can tell you is that
we have varying levels
across our different colleges
and it goes across our
different programs.
There's not a single rate
and so we have a
basal rate, of course,
that we have for a lot of our
graduate teaching assistants
and so forth
but then we have other rates
that are funded through
the grant programs,
the external grant programs and
when an individual
or a graduate student
is externally funded by a grant,
it can actually be
very well funded,
very well funded
graduate students.
It's hard to answer
that question because
there's can be such a wide
spread of graduate stipends
but it's something that
we're keenly aware of,
that it's really important
and very, very tough
for graduate students to
live in areas like
Bozeman and other places,
and still do their education.
So I think our faculty
are strongly committed.
I know our office is
strongly committed
and that's it actually Jack,
one of the reasons why President
Crisado actually added.
My predecessor was
the Vice President for Research
and Economic Development
and my title is Vice President
for Research, Economic
Development and
And one of the reasons for that
was because the executive team
and the administration decided
that we needed to do more
for our graduate students.
That we needed to put
them at a higher priority,
work with them
and research really is the
way that we should be funding
our graduate students.
So we're doing some pretty
great initiatives here
to try to bolster up some
of the graduate stipends
and graduate opportunities here.
And I'm pretty excited
about where we're gonna be,
it's gonna take a
little bit of time
but we're very
committed to that cause.
- Okay, thank you.
In my limited experience from
graduate students years ago,
stipends are important but
who you're working with
and what you're
really interested in,
If somebody really wants to
work on cropping systems,
Perry would be as good as
anybody in the country.
So it's that kinda thing
that graduate student should
also take into consideration.
Mary,
from Hailsham, this person
would think they had late blight
in their tomatoes.
Last summer the tomatoes
wilted and died quite rapidly,
any clue what that
might have been?
- I doubt it was late blight
just because we didn't.
Well, there's a little bit
in Idaho, I think on potato
but they should
get that diagnose.
A lot of people think
it's late blight
and it's actually early blight.
Another really common
disease of tomato
that can take them down
rapidly is fusarium wilt
and they could have
submitted a sample last year,
and in with those vascular
wilts you really wanna
use clean cropping material.
There are resistant
varieties that you can choose
and you wanna rotate
out of that area
for instance all the salinatious
crops out of that area
for an extended period of time.
So if they do plant some
tomatoes in that same soil
and get the same symptoms.
Send us a sample, we love
seeing little spores,
they're really cute.
So we're happy to
help with that.
- Mary knowing the Hailsham,
years ago we had a lot
of curly top there,
killed tomatoes out
there quite rapidly.
You think it's possible at
curly top virus might have been
part of that problem?
- It surely could.
I don't know if there
is a bunch of curly top
in Wyoming last year.
So it could come through.
- Okay, Jason.
- That one's a leaf
hopper transmitted virus
and would come in
from another area.
So then there would
be no risk this year,
unless the leaf hoppers
decided to come again
with the virus.
- Okay, thanks Mary.
Jason, this person
would like to know
your concept of basic
versus Applied Research
and do you see a role for each
in the College of Agriculture?
- Great question and I'll
answer the later part first.
Absolutely, I think I do see a
role within the College of AG
for both basic and
Applied Research.
So Applied Research
is gonna be a research
that has direct applications
to whether it be everyday life,
the ecosystem,
whatever it might be.
Basic research is
something fundamental.
It's really studying something
for the sake of
understanding it.
A lot of the basic science
and basic research does
translate at some point
to Applied Research
levels, at some point.
But it can take years, it
can take many, many years
and I think we've had several
examples over several decades
that have shown the importance
and the value of basic research.
I think there's a really strong
bias within some sectors
of the federal funding
agencies for Applied Research
and others that are more
appreciative of the basic side
but even the Department
of Defense, for example,
which is the largest
funder of Applied Research
still has these categories
called 61, 62, 63
and the 61 category is
for that basic research.
So even the federal agency
that values Applied Research
more than any other still
values that basic research
and so in AG it absolutely
has to be there.
I think a lot of efforts right
now are on the applied side
but without that basic
we can't forecast
where we're gonna
need to be five, 10,
20 years down the road.
- I think there's a pretty
good balance of both
in the College of AG,
I believe here at
Montana State University.
- That's my impression as well.
That's my impression as well
from what I what I've seen and
in particular, again,
back to some of the work
that's happening on
the COVID-19 side.
Some of our researchers that
have been doing basic research,
looking at gene editing
and CRISPR technologies,
and other types of
things are now being able
to very rapidly turn their
research into something
that is very important
and very applied.
- Thank you.
Laurie from Darlene
in Dry Creek.
They had a grasshopper
situation last year
and they anticipate
one this year,
do you know anything that
would stop grasshoppers
in their situation
or do you foresee another
bad grasshopper year?
- Grasshoppers get
tricky depending on
if it's a backyard situation
or if it's a range land area.
So I think a lot of the.
We had no low bait and
a couple other baits
that we could order to kind
of deter the grasshoppers but
one of them I think there's
a fire in Durango, Colorado,
so that wasn't available
and I think the baits are
hard to get right now.
They can certainly contact me
and we'll figure out what
kind of situation they have
because they'll come in
and they'll eat everything
in the backyard.
Depending on what they have,
what they're concerned about.
It's tricky because
over winter in areas,
in ditches and things that
we don't really know exactly
where they're over wintering.
They definitely
follow drier years and
it could be a bad
year just depends.
- Okay, thank you.
Perry, from Fort Benton.
This person would like to know
has the hemp acres increase
significantly in the state
and what type of research
is being done on hemp?
And also for the audience,
what do you use it for?
- So hemp is this is a very
versatile and very old crop.
The seed can be just
consumed for human nutrition,
it can be pressed for oil,
there's actually some
medicinal properties associated
with some of the oil extracts
that come out of hemp seed.
It's been used in fiber
production for a long time.
It's a pretty versatile crop.
We were actually, the
last two years in a row,
we've had the most
acres of hemp production
anywhere in the United
States in Montana.
That doesn't necessarily
mean the most production
but we have been a
pretty active player
and I really wanna
do a shout out
for the Montana
Department of Agriculture.
They have shown some real
positive genuine leadership
on trying to get this new
crop situated properly
for Montana farmers.
Right now I think we've
got, the collective we,
I think there's something
like 12 processors
that are either in operation or
in construction phase
to be processing hemp
in different capacities.
Most of that is CBD oil
extraction and that market is,
I wouldn't know how to
characterize it other
than it's pretty.
There's a lot of sorting
out going on right now
as the prices were
very high at one time
and now those prices are
ratcheting back down as supply
is getting figured out.
Still there's a there's
a lot of interest
and there's some really,
this is all secondhand,
but I have some really serious
investment in processing
and harvesting machinery
in the state of Montana.
So somebody thinks that this
is gonna be useful crop.
Hemp is classified as a narcotic
and so it's been something
that's been difficult
to get funding for.
We have done a little bit
of preliminary research
with the proper
licensing and whatnot
and so we're still and
I would say at MSU.
We're in an exploratory phase.
One of the real
problems right now is
there's a maximum allowance
for the psychoactive component
of cannabis sativa
and that's THC.
When you're producing CBD oil
sometimes you can run close
to that 0.3% limit
and so we'd like to
know more about genetic
and environmental
factors when we start
to run into higher THC levels.
That's probably one of
the most pressing issues.
- How many acres (mumbles)?
- Last year, sorry
did I get that.
Was a question how many acres?
- Yeah.
- Last year,
seeded was around 52,000,
harvested not nearly so many.
Remember we had
that early winter
and that early October snow
that caused a lot of trouble
for hemp growers in Montana,
it was not good actually.
This year, I sit on the
Hemp Advisory Committee
for the state of Montana
and it sounds like
acreage is down
but nobody seems to know
exactly how much down
from last year.
- Jason, you had a comment?
- Well, I was just
gonna follow up
on something Perry
mentioned which was.
This fall one of
our classes at MSU,
it was a an
interdisciplinary class
where they had a
business student
and someone from
agriculture and other areas
and even people from
arts and humanities,
and there was a pitch
pitch program on hemp.
It was fascinating.
I went to the event it was
an hour and a half event
and everything from the
fibers that Perry mentioned,
I think one of the most
novel ones that I heard was,
when we weed whack
around our house
with those plastic
things that spin off
and we are injecting plastic
all into our our lawns
and our home care.
They had put together
a prototype of using
to use that as a weed whacker.
Now it needs to
definitely move on
to some validation stages
but it was really
fascinating to see
those students, those
undergraduate students,
challenged how can we use hemp
and how can we use it to
its fullest potential?
And that was one of the ones
Perry mentioned was the fibers.
It isn't always just about the
oil, and the oil extractions,
and the THC that everybody
gets focused in on
but there's a lot of potential
with the fiber
structures as well.
- Okay, I like it.
I'm familiar with that program.
We had a couple other people
on last year that (mumbles).
Laurie we're getting low on time
but a quick answer
would help here.
Ponderosa Pine Spruce, all
kinds of evergreen trees
have scales right now.
Good time to to
control them or not?
- It depends on which one it is.
So usually
we have some plant indicators
that when they're in bloom
that could help us with control.
So you can contact me if you've
got a question on scales,
it just depends on
what scale it is
because you wanna try
to control them during
the active stage called
the crawler stage,
and they're only out
at certain times.
- Okay, thank you.
Jason, 30 seconds.
What do you think of
agriculture in Montana?
- Well, I think it's obvious
there's a huge history.
It's gonna be and
remain a huge aspect
of the research at MSU.
I'm proud of what I see coming
out of our College of AG.
It's amazing that the
quality of the faculty
and the students
that we have out of
the College of AG is remarkable.
- Thank you and thanks
for coming tonight Jason.
As I said earlier, next week,
we're gonna have a
gardening special.
A lot of the questions that
we did not get to tonight
pertaining to gardens,
we'll cover next week.
Everybody, thank you
for joining us tonight.
The audience out there,
lots of questions.
We appreciate that, without
you watching the program
we wouldn't be here.
So with that you folks see
everybody next week, good night.
(soothing music)
- [Narrator] Montana AG
Live is made possible by
the Montana Department
of Agriculture,
the MSU Extension Service,
the MSU AG Experiment Stations
of the College of Agriculture,
the Montana Wheat
and Barley Committee,
the Montana Bankers Association,
Cashman Nursery and Landscaping,
the Gallatin Gardeners Club
and the Rocky Mountains
Certified Crop Advisor Program.
(soothing music)