(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)