- [Narrator] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by.

(rhythmic country music plays) The Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, and The Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(rhythmic country music continues) - Good evening.

Welcome to "Montana Ag Live", originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University and coming to you over your Montana Public Television System.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired Professor of Plant Pathology.

Happy to be your host tonight.

Those of you who have seen the program in the past know how it works.

You provide the questions, we provide the answers.

And I will say this, if you have comments, we also will hear the comments.

We might screen them a little bit, but in all honesty, we do like to hear your comments too.

We're gonna have a real interesting program tonight.

I'm gonna learn a lot because I don't know a lot about our subject matter tonight, which is durum wheat.

Durum is associated with pasta and we'll get into that as the program goes along.

But before we do that, let me introduce tonight's panel.

Way on my left, Frank Etzler.

Frank is an entomologist with the Montana Department of Agriculture.

We borrow him every so often because we need the entomology input because this state is loaded with lots of different bugs and we need solutions to control 'em.

And if you have bug questions tonight, Frank is here to answer 'em.

Our special guest tonight, Mike Giroux.

Mike is a durum wheat breeder.

He's also in charge of the Cereal Quality Lab here at MSU.

Mike's been around here for a long time.

He is done a lot of good work and he is gonna explain everything you want to know about durum wheat and pasta and the semolina (indistinct) and we'll get into what that means a little bit later on.

Sam Wyffels, Sam is Extension beef cattle specialist.

Sam's been here several times.

We welcome him back.

If you have cattle questions or beef questions or how to cook beef.

(group laughs) He'll answer those tonight.

And of course Abi, our horticultural specialist and if you have any questions about what to grow, how to grow or when to grow it in your garden, house, so forth and so on, get those questions in and without those questions, this is a pretty boring program.

So, get those interesting inquiries into us this evening.

Answering the phone and taking those inquiries tonight is Cheryl Bennett and Judge Bruce Loble.

And for those of you who don't know Bruce, he's been on the program years ago.

I won't mention how far back, but he was a Chief Water Court Judge for the State of Montana for several years and very knowledgeable in that area.

And that reminds me, we need to revisit that again maybe this fall.

Mike, I'm gonna turn it over to you.

Give us a little bit of information about what you do here at MSU.

- Well, the thing to talk about tonight is durum breeding.

So durum is an important crop for Montana, where there's over 700,000 acres of durum grown each year in Montana.

It's also kind of a unique crop because it's really only grown in North Dakota and in Montana, about 60% in North Dakota, 40% in Montana.

It's not really grown other places significantly at all.

So, it's a unique crop compared to spring or winter wheat.

Spring or winter wheat, there is hard red, hard white, these different classes.

In durum, there's just one.

It's all hard and it's all yellow endosperm in color.

And you can't see that well if you just look at these seeds, these are durum seeds, and none of it is red, but it's amber in color 'cause that has high carotenoid content.

And these two bags actually are two different varieties where one makes yellower semolina or flour then does the other.

But you really can't see it from the seeds.

But if you mill it, and before the program started, Jack asked me what semolina stands for.

It actually is Latin for flour, but it only refers to durum flour.

And you can see one of these, the one on my left, is more yellow than the one on my right, but these both have higher yellowness than any hard red spring or hard red winter, which makes white flour.

So this yellowness is really characteristics of durum as is the way they mill.

So once a company has this semolina, they turned it into pasta, where they rely on upon the fact that we have very high protein content in durum, high gluten strength.

By that, I mean the gluten protein stick together and they're very extensible.

So they're so extensible you can make pasta out of it.

So this is an example of pasta from, I just got it at the store.

I'm sure it was growing in North Dakota actually, 'cause the company that produced this pasta is in North Dakota, but you can see it's very yellow.

If you made this product from hard red spring, even though it's called hard red spring, that red is only in the outer layers, not in the endosperm.

This endosperm from durum is always yellow like this, so you end up with yellow pasta.

Pasta in general is made only from durum.

And the package I got this from said it contained only water in its manufacture and 100% durum semolina.

That's it, nothing else.

So the thing about durum too is that there's no hiding.

So in a product, pasta is only durum semolina, nothing else.

This isn't artificial yellow color.

There's no xanthan gum, there's nothing in this but durum, so.

- So I have a question about pasta.

Now I can go into a grocery store and I can buy say linguini and it's yellow and it may be $1.29 per pound.

Then you look in another area and you'll find pasta that's 4.29 a pound.

Any idea why the difference?

Is there a better quality durum wheat goes into the pricier pasta or not?

- So durum in general has protein minimums where the growers might get docked.

So we shoot for a minimum of 13.5% protein content.

Most of that difference that you'd be paying for is not increased quality.

If you wanna ensure you're getting the best quality pasta, again, look for that 100% durum semolina.

- Okay.

- And you have it.

It would be in all likelihood from North Dakota, from Montana, where each variety has been released only because it meets the quality grades for durum wheat, so.

- We'll get back into some of the other characteristics of durum here in a little bit.

Before we do that, we've had several questions the last couple of weeks that have come in.

And these questions come from the panel to me via this little computer up here and technology called Slack.

Frank, we've got you here.

We've had lots of questions the last couple weeks.

Grasshoppers, are they gonna be bad?

- Yes they are.

It's gonna be bad.

- [Jack] That's not good news.

- A lot of red on the map.

- What are we gonna do about 'em?

- That is a big question every year.

So in rangeland, it's responsibility of the and manage their populations, but there has been some pushback by other people about that and also limited funding.

So there has been some meetings about USDA with USDA APHIS on how much money's available to spray in public lands and sometimes they work with private land growers.

But you have to do an application for that and usually by the time our populations start popping, the other states have gotten that money and we are left with nothing.

- Okay.

- It's what happened last year.

- Beef cattle, they don't eat grasshoppers, but grasshoppers will eat a lot of grass.

Is that an issue for cattle producers this year, do you think?

- Well, we're so early this year, I don't know but if it's as bad as what you're saying, then I would suspect so.

So like the last few years when we've had those warm drought conditions, especially throughout a lot of Eastern Montana, unfortunately, and I'm sure you can correct me if I'm wrong, but these warm drought conditions seem to be conducive to grasshopper population numbers.

- Yeah.

- And so what little forage there is a lot of times gets consumed by those grasshoppers and you end up with really, really low forage availability for cattle, AUMs go down, you know?

So yeah, so if it's gonna be as bad as what you're thinking, it has a huge impact on beef cattle production.

- So if we had a wet spring, cold, wet spring from here on out, would that reduce the grasshopper numbers?

- [Sam] It would, yeah.

- Okay, and it doesn't look like that's gonna happen for the.

- No, not this year, it's gonna.

- [Jack] Okay.

- It looks like it's gonna be dry and perfect storm.

- All right, thank you.

And we'll come back to a couple questions similar to that in a little bit, but question from Gallatin Gateway.

This person has heard that there's a glycemic index associated with white bread that is not good for you.

Would you explain glycemic index and does durum have a glycemic index that's better than some of the other wheats?

- Well, all foods have a glycemic index and some is lower than others and the highest is 100.

And that's essentially the rate at which sugar would enter your bloodstream after eating the food.

And that is the number you'd get for pure glucose.

And white bread can be almost as high in release of sugar as pure glucose.

It breaks down very fast.

Pasta is actually a healthy food in that it has a lower glycemic index.

And while the wheat is somewhat similar, right, to hard red spring or hard red winter, the way we make this product is different.

So pasta is made from semolina, which is coarser particles and then it's dried.

And if you like your pasta al dente, which many people do, a little bit firm, that has a lower glycemic index than does white bread.

So pasta is more a nutritious food, high in protein content and has a lower glycemic index.

It can be about 50, where white bread can be in the 90s.

- Okay, you mentioned something and I've talked to you about this.

I read one of your posters of, a poster that you gave at a scientific meeting.

You have a trait that you were able to introduce into pasta that reduced the likelihood of overcooking.

You can keep it al dente for much longer period of time than the 10 or 12 minutes that you normally boil pasta.

You also told me that it will probably never be suitable for the market.

You want to explain why that might be?

- So the issue we have and that we've had in hard red spring and hard red winter is we can design wheats that have added value.

So that added value would have value to end users.

But the difficulty is that a lot of those may have reduced agronomic yield because we've added additional genes and that can come with linkage drag that lowers the yield of that crop.

So unless we identify end users willing to pay more, it's difficult to get growers to grow those varieties.

In the case of this trait, if you increase amylose, we can do that by decreasing amylopectin.

Those are the two types of starch present in cereals.

And amylose is slower to digest, but they're kind of like two paths for the carbon to take, either amylose or amylopectin.

So if you decrease amylopectin by knocking out a starch synthase enzyme, you get more amylose by default.

- [Jack] Okay.

- But that gives you a seed that's a little bit smaller because it lowers starch content a little bit.

So we have, and I didn't mention him but till now, but Andy Hoag works with me.

We've worked for 10 years on this to identify mutations in these genes that have, should have near-normal seed weight and have at the minimum increased pasta firmness.

They may not have large increases in dietary fiber and reduced glycemic index, but they will be firmer pastas.

The ones we've tested so far that you read the poster about were ones in which we'd increased amylose quite a bit.

So those had potential for that trait, but the problem was they had smaller seeds.

- [Jack] Seeds.

- So that lowers semolina yield, so because it lowers seed size and semolina yield, it's hard to grow those and make money for 'em.

The other issue, as you would know, is we then would have to have segregated grain.

- [Jack] Absolutely.

- To capture the value and that adds to the cost as well.

So, there's a bunch of factors.

What we like to do is over time shift the entire group.

So like what's happened for these, even these semolinas where one is yellower than the other, this one that's not as yellow used to be more of the standard.

I don't know if this is showing up on TV, but this now is about the bottom of what we'd look for in terms of acceptable levels.

And now we have ones higher than this in terms of yellowness.

So, things change over time.

So I think it'll lead to changing standards, but that'll take a while.

But really it has to be also that they have as high yield as the current varieties before they get accepted.

- Thank you, and that makes good sense, it really does.

Quick one, Abi, Easter lilies.

Everybody, not everybody, I didn't buy one this year, but those of you who bought Easter lilies, this person from Livingston wants to know can they plant it in their garden?

- Yes, you can, you can put your Easter lily in your garden.

I would wait until like nighttime temperatures are a little warmer, so wait until nighttime temperatures are in the 50s, but they can be hardy up to zone 4.

So if you plant them, you know, in the next few weeks when things warm up a little bit, you might have another bloom at the end of the summer.

- [Jack] Okay, thank you.

- Mm-hmm.

- This is an interesting question.

I'm gonna throw it probably to Sam, but this person says that they know that durum is a cereal grain, wheat is a cereal grain, barley and corn are cereal grains.

We feed barley and corn to cattle.

Why don't we feed wheat to cattle?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

And I mean it really comes down that we certainly could.

The trick with wheat is and we kind of, you kind of touched on it a little bit on your glycemic rate, but is the rate of starch release as the And so wheat out of those grains in terms of how that starch is released and breaks down inside the rumen of the cow, wheat is the highest.

So you end up with this huge, potential huge release of starch and starch breakdown with those rumen microbes, which can lower the pH of the rumen really quickly.

And so corn is quite a bit slower in the way that works and so it's a more safer alternative in terms of making sure your cows don't get acidotic and things like that.

And then barley is kind of an intermediate between wheat and corn.

You still gotta be a little bit careful.

It's, you know, you'll hear people use the term hot feed and so wheat would be a really hot feed.

Barley's pretty hot.

Certainly a lot of people feed it up in Canada.

And then we've done some trials feeding it here in Montana as well.

But it's, you know, it's a little slower than wheat in that release, but not as bad as corn.

But certainly still have to be a little careful with the barley as well.

- Okay, thank you.

From Miles City, Frank, they're interested in grasshoppers.

Do you have an estimate how many grasshoppers per square foot is damaging to rangeland?

- Well, there are some simple tests that you can do in your land.

So some general guidelines is pick about 10 spots and then imagine probably about a foot, a yard square and go out and walk towards that.

And if you see two jump away, mark that down.

And if you get to all 10 of those spots and you have two grasshoppers jumping in those square yards, you should start treating.

And I think now, once it starts warming up and you see the nymphs, that's scouting time.

- Do you think they're out already?

- I, it's hard to tell.

In January, I was in Lewistown and someone was reporting nymph activity in December during that warm snap.

- [Jack] Okay.

- So I don't know how that's gonna change things around 'cause early activity, then we got cold again.

So that could play around with things, hard to predict.

- You know, we have greened up and as I was telling Abi ahead of time, I harvested asparagus today, April 14th.

That's as early as I've ever picked asparagus in the state.

Used to be generally the first week of May if you were lucky.

Now, mid-April.

That's unbelievable.

On that note, Abi, I have one here that came in via Facebook.

The person has chokecherries with black clumps on some of the branches.

They want to get rid of 'em.

Do they need to?

- That is a good question.

So that's black knot.

So black knot affects cherries, chokecherries and ornamental Prunus species as well.

And it's a fungus.

And so you can, it will continue to reinfest it and high concentrations of infestations can impact the health of your trees and shrubs.

But you can prune these out.

So if you have just one tree or a couple of trees, you can prune these out about four inches below where the infestation is, where those knots are.

Make sure you sanitize your pruning tools in between each cut.

But that can be a simple way.

There are also fungicide options available, but the pruning works pretty well.

- And now's the time to do it.

- Now is the time to do it.

- Okay, a couple questions that are kind of interesting.

I'll go to Mike with the first one.

This caller from Helena was wondering why durum wheat grown in Montana is shipped to Italy, turned into semolina and pasta, it's made there.

Why don't companies in the state make this pasta?

And you might want to jump on that because you're familiar with that.

- Well, there are companies in the state that make pasta and there's one near Great Falls that makes pasta.

And I had a durum production map showing that a significant amount of durum is grown in North Central Montana.

And most of that is just one variety.

And they've selected that variety because it has very good yellowness and very high gluten strength, so it makes very good, firm pasta.

And in fact, they believe that variety is good enough that they can even use it in casinos and hot deli trays.

It'll remain as firmness under lights for a long period of time.

So, they do.

And in North Dakota, Barilla is in North Dakota and they buy and promote high quality durum.

So that's what we're doing as well, so it is used both domestically and some is exported.

- [Jack] There's nothing wrong with exporting stuff out of the state and get a premium for it.

- Absolutely.

- I think 70% of our spring wheat is exported or more.

This is a good one, I like it.

(Sam laughs) What are you laughing about?

Okay, caller from Turner, Montana.

Turner is way up next to the Canadian border, north of Malta.

This person is asking about bird flu affecting their dairy cattle.

If that were to happen, will that carry over to her beef cattle and how would you detect it?

That's a tough one.

- Yeah, yeah, I, to be honest, I really have no idea.

I do know that I have seen in the news lately that bird flu is kind of becoming a big deal and I think I saw in the media that they have detected it in a cow.

But in terms of infectious disease transmission and where it goes and how to move it and how infectious it is to cattle and then the mode of transmission, you know, I don't know.

I, so you'd probably be better to talk to somebody about disease transmission than, but me, but I would guess as long as your dairy cattle and your beef cattle aren't sharing locations and grazing spots and you know, there's some separation between, you could probably limit some of that.

But that doesn't mean that there couldn't be some kind of vector in between infecting both of them.

- How, you know, maybe between all of you, Frank, you may hear it from the Department of Ag people, how extensive is bird flu in cattle?

Anybody know?

I see it on the news.

- Yeah, I mean I don't remember hearing that being a very big issue until recently.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Like I haven't really heard about it until you know, last couple weeks.

- Okay, from Chester.

Interesting question for Mike.

Put you on the spot.

This caller says winter and spring wheat have poor prices, and I think we are familiar with that.

They would like to know how do durum prices compare to winter and spring wheat prices?

- Well, prices for crops fluctuate of course, but currently, I suppose because of demand and the fact that durum is only grown primarily in two states, durum prices are better currently than and hard red winter.

So, durum currently has a premium compared to those crops.

- You know, we are talking about durum ahead of time and a lot of growers on Northeast part of the state grow maybe a fourth of their acres in durum and they don't sell it every year.

They put it in their bins, make sure they don't have insect infestations and it's kind of like a savings account for those growers.

And they bin it and when the price grows up, because durum has limited acreage in the country, the premium hits what they want, they'll sell all of it and then they'll start banking.

It's like their bank account.

And I do remember talking to growers about that in Northeast part of the state.

Pretty successful.

Comment for Abi, Easter lilies are toxic to cats and should not be planted.

Is that correct?

- We have a lot of plant species that are toxic to animals.

A lot of lilies can be toxic, but I mean in terms of we grow a lot of lilies in our landscapes, but that's a very good point, especially if you have indoor pets and indoor lilies, lilies can be very toxic.

- That's true, we know that.

Facebook question, and while I have you up, what's a good way to prune Brussels sprouts so that they produce well, bud out well?

- I mean, I would say keeping up with the pruning kind of in that midsummer month when they start to get a little bit wild, get a lot of growth, kind of pruning them back a little bit to encourage more of that kind of growth would be a good way to do it.

And kind of if you're not sure too, that could be something.

We have some mod guides on growing Brussels sprouts and they have information on kind of overall health and improving your.

- [Jack] I peel the lower leaves off.

- Yeah that can reduce the competition with the actual sprouts and the rest of the foliage.

- But it makes it easier for the aphids to find the Brussels sprouts too.

- That's true, that is true.

- Which is my biggest concern.

- Yes, yes.

- I mean, of course a few aphids just add protein to the Brussels sprouts so who cares?

- Exactly, a little bit of sweetness.

- Okay, I have a question here from Havre.

And I have a suspicion of who sent this in.

They would like Sam to talk about the upcoming nutrition conference that's being held this week, I'm told.

So you wanna touch on that a little bit?

- Yeah, yeah, no that's great.

I'm glad somebody's been listening and looking into that.

So yeah, we are holding the Montana Nutrition Conference and Livestock Forum next week, so it is April 16th and 17th.

So it'll start on noon, I believe on that, on Tuesday.

And then we'll do a half day of speakers and stuff like that and then we'll have a dinner.

We're gonna highlight some past Montana Feed Association Scholarship winners and do a little bit of a dinner, live auction to generate some more scholarship funds for potential students.

And then we will wrap up the next morning session with some more speakers.

And we really, I feel like we really highlighted a good realm here.

So we got people coming in from Denver from the Livestock Marketing Information Center to talk about cattle markets.

We actually have a, parasites have been an issue for a lot of producers recently.

And so we have Don Bliss coming in from Wisconsin.

And it's kind of a funny story about Don is he used to play football for the Green Bay Packers and then I guess he traded one shade of green for another and became a internal parasite specialist and is one of the most renowned ones in the country.

Flies were a big issue last year, especially in Eastern Montana.

So we have someone from Central Life Sciences coming in to talk about external pest control.

We have a climate specialist from the Montana Climate Group coming in.

We have a whole gamut.

And I guess to maybe hit on that bird flu question, we actually have somebody from the Montana State Veterinary Office coming in to talk about specific Montana issues that we're seeing in the beef cattle world, so.

- [Jack] Who's invited or who can attend this conference?

- Anybody that wants to, so we have quite a bit of industry folks, so Feed Association industry folks that attend, and then we are really trying to get our producer content up.

We'll see some faculty members, Extension agents there.

And so yeah, I think for producers we have a $100 registration fee and then for like an industry professional, that's 175 and that includes the entire two-day event plus the dinner.

- I've gone to one years ago and I tell you what, I'm not an animal scientist but I learned a lot there and I really did enjoy it.

So, it's open to a lot of different people.

- Yeah.

- You'll learn a lot by attending.

- Yeah, we even have a trade, a little bit of a trade show and then we have a graduate student poster competition.

So we'll highlight some of the Montana Animal and Range Sciences department graduate work that's being done there too, so people can get around and see what's going on in the university as well as interact with students and other people to discuss some of these issues and topics.

- Thank you.

Mike from Kalispell, this person understands that cadmium, which is a heavy metal, I believe, is an issue in some durum wheats.

Is that true?

- Well, an issue, I'm not sure to what degree I'd use the word issue.

So there are metals in soils and some plants take up more than others and some durum varieties have what I would call normal cadmium levels, which I would not describe as being dangerous.

But there is a single gene that can be incorporated in the breeding programs to lower cadmium content.

But the US government has not said that the levels that we're seeing in any durum variety are dangerous.

- Okay.

- [Mike] So.

- Not an issue.

- Not a significant issue.

The way it could become an issue is if some export countries say they would only take certain durum varieties.

Over time, I think just like increased yellowness, it may be just another trait we add in that becomes uniform across varieties.

I think in terms of people's diets, the normal levels of cadmium seen in durum varieties are not a significant issue for our health in comparison to so many other things.

- [Jack] I agree.

- That can be issues for our health.

I'd hesitate to tell you what I ate today.

Many, many things were not that healthy.

(group laughs) But durum, if I had, no matter the durum would've been a healthy choice.

- I won't go into what I had because it's pretty obvious that I didn't eat very healthy today.

(group laughs) And I don't every day but you know, sometimes moderation is fine.

I happen to like pasta.

My wife likes it even better than I do, but I don't eat it every week.

A potato's pretty good too.

- It is.

- So yeah.

Abi, how do you keep moss from growing on retaining walls or brick pavement?

- So that's a good question.

Moss is an opportunistic organism.

They don't really have a root system.

So they are, they need a lot of moisture.

- [Jack] Right.

- In the landscape.

So if there's some sort of a moisture issue around the brick, like if you've had a kind of irrigating nearby and stuff, just that high level of moisture is gonna let it keep growing there and around the walls.

So I'd kind of address the moisture issue first, and you can physically remove moss pretty easily, but as long as there is moisture, it's gonna opportunistically grow there.

And you, we see the same thing in lawns that have compacted soils.

Moss will start to take over if it's very waterlogged.

- Yeah.

- So that water is that key.

- Okay, thank you.

From Billings, this person wants to know do we have June beetles in Montana?

- [Frank] We do have June beetles right there in Billings, so.

- And what do they do?

Are they devastating to anything?

- No, not really, they're.

- Is that the white grub that, is that the larval form or whatever it is?

- Yeah but in Billings the biggest issue, they have local Japanese beetle, which is a major defoliator and also in turf.

- [Jack] Okay.

- Pest.

So the Japanese beetle there is the bigger problem than the June bug.

- All right, sounds great.

Caller from Whitehall wants to know why durum is only grown in North Dakota and Eastern Montana?

- I would say primarily because of selection in those areas.

And so while we do selection throughout the state, we breed wheat varieties for who wants to grow 'em.

And that has been North Dakota, North Central and Northeast Montana.

We would be glad to select for other regions and even glad to work with growers that wanna host trials on their farm potentially.

That hasn't been really the case so far.

So then most of the selection has been for Northeast and North Central Montana, where rainfall is not that high but yields, what we're shooting for is consistent yields each year in those environments primarily.

So if we have interest from other areas, we'd be glad to do yield testing in those areas as well to develop varieties specifically for them.

- [Jack] It's kind of tradition too in that area, yeah.

- It is.

- And tradition in agriculture is kind of hard to overcome sometimes.

I think we know that.

- There's tradition, but also cost.

- [Jack] Cost.

- So like if you look at the stations throughout the state where we do testing and each of the durum breeding programs is a big collaborative effort across the state with the research center faculty and staff.

So we pretty much have centered based on those traditional regions.

So we do testing at the Havre Research Station, Western Triangle, Central, Northeastern and so on, the traditional regions where they'd be growing these wheats.

- Okay, I've gotta throw this curve in.

I mentioned it before, but we grow a lot of durum in North Dakota, a lot in Montana, some in Canada.

We also grow what's called Desert Durum in Arizona.

And a lot of that is exported to Italy, as I recall.

What qualities make Arizona capable of growing good quality durum that is different than we have here?

I mean, it's a tricky question but I'm curious.

- Well, I would say it's irrigation really, of course.

- [Jack] Okay.

- That they have access to irrigation.

For us, it's our environment doing it for us.

And so I would say, and of course I'm biased, but Montana and North Dakota have the number one durum crop.

And of course just in terms of numbers, we're far, far ahead of the Desert Durum in terms of types.

- [Jack] Okay.

- Typically the ones selected, there are not ones that would do well in Montana.

- I believe that.

And you're knowledgeable, a lot of different wheats.

And this is an interesting question from Billings.

The caller asks why there is not more spelt growing in Montana.

The caller says spelt does not have acidosis, which I think is an issue with cattle, and it seems to be better for feeding animals.

So between you two, tell us about spelt.

- Go right ahead, Sam.

- We're talking about sprouted?

- I don't think so.

I think probably hard, yes, grain.

- Hard grained wheats that may or may not have a hull attached to them, so that would affect the digestion properties.

- Yeah, yeah, so I mean I guess from the cattle standpoint, I mean the reason why I would guess that it wouldn't have acidosis-type properties is because that starch is so contained that it's actually hard for the bugs to get.

The trick is that you want that starch for those bugs 'cause that's what produces the bottle of fatty acids that essentially then improves the energy and the product, performance of those cattle.

So in fact like with corn, a lot of times when we feed corn we don't necessarily feed whole corn.

We'll, you know, roll it or crack it or something like that, which helps expose it.

The problem with wheat is that the starch will degrade so fast that it can become an issue.

So we don't typically feed it in cattle in terms of a feed like that.

This, I'm not as familiar with this in this question, but it sounds to me it's just that the starch isn't as available.

- Okay, spelt is pretty pricey I think to feed to cattle, I would assume.

- It'd be pricier because it's not as intensively bred.

- [Jack] Exactly.

- So yields would be substantially lower.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- So you'd have to look at that as a factor.

- And you mentioned corn and we have a question from Hamilton.

This is another good one.

You know, it's fun to have you here.

(group laughs) We get some good ones.

This person wants to know how much corn it takes to put 100 pounds of gain on beef cattle.

- Oh man.

(Jack laughs) I don't know the answer off the top of my head.

I mean, there's so many factors that go into that.

I'm like, where's that animal on its growth curve?

You know, is it when it's young and actively growing or are we talking about something that's So there's a lot of pieces in there, but we do have models, you know, available online through the Beef Cattle Nutrition we call it the NRC that kind of predict that for you.

But it really depends on the energy level of the cow, what kind of cow we're talking about and you know, how much is it eating?

Things like that.

But you know, I would say most of the times, you know, I see like feed conversion rates a lot of times.

And so like a full, total mixed ration, shoot, I'm trying to remember what we normally see on that.

You know, it depends if you look on gain to feed or feed to gain.

But you know, you can feed an animal five to six pounds probably, or even up to 10 pounds for one pound of gain kind of thing.

- They're not quite as efficient as hogs.

- No, not as efficient as hogs and definitely not as poultry.

So I mean, that's one of the things that.

- No, or fish.

- Yeah, or fish.

- Yeah.

- Those guys, those animals have way better feed to gain ratios but they're not as tasty as a nice.

(Jack laughs) They're not as tasty as a nice ribeye steak, at least in my opinion.

- I don't disagree with that, a good ribeye is pretty hard to beat.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Although a good pork chop about that thick is not bad either.

And while we're at it, lamb chops are also very, very good.

So we're not picking on any specific producer type.

(group laughs) - There you go.

- Frank, this is a Facebook question that came in and it's from Plentywood and they want to know are wireworms, you might tell growers or people what wireworms are, but they wanna know are they less of an issue in colder climates than in, say, Southern part of Montana?

- So wireworms are the larval stage of click beetles and the reason why they're important in Montana is they attack the germinating seed and prevent germination so you don't get any yield 'cause there's no plants.

They'll do fine in cold environments, so they're found all over Montana, going up into Canada.

So actually I would argue in the colder areas when we start planting is at peak activity so we're, that's why they're such a big issue.

- Okay, they are definitely an issue in grains, they're.

- Yes.

- Yes, no doubt about it.

What's a good, I mean I've been out of it for a while.

What's a good seed treatment for wireworms and cereal grain now?

- I don't know the generic name for it, but there's one that's come out recently.

I don't know if I'm allowed to say it because.

- [Jack] Yes.

- So, but there is one that's a brand name that's out.

- [Jack] Okay.

- You'll see some billboards on the side with some wireworm killer.

- All right.

- It's pretty good.

They've done a lot of research.

- You know, I really don't mind people saying what really works, so.

- Yeah.

- But yeah, this is an interesting one for Mike and this is from Billings.

I gotta get the Billings caller wonders what the difference is between the price of hard red winter wheat and durum.

For example, will 75 acres of durum equal 100 acres of winter wheat?

Tough question, you can generalize that one.

- Well, perhaps not.

And the reason why it might not is most always the yield for a winter crop is much higher than a spring 'cause they have that growth advantage.

And there's, we do not have winter durum.

All durum has been spring.

We have tried to work on winter durum, fall planted durum, and durum has not been intensively bred as long and the genetics just were not there.

So we had to move the winter genes over into it to create those.

And in our first trials of growing those, none survived Montana winters.

So, we haven't done it.

So the biggest issue for this question is that, that the winter wheats probably will yield more.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- Than durum and even more than the 25% difference it would take, so.

- But there are times when the premium on durum, every three to four years in that bank account, might add up if you don't have to market it right away.

- Right, so it'd be close.

- [Jack] Okay.

- And I don't want to say it would definitely do it, it'd be close.

It depends how much premium that is, and of course it depends upon what happens with the weather.

- And winter wheat is a little more touchy in the durum areas of Northeast Montana, even though most of our winter wheat varieties have better winter hardiness than we used to have.

But you can still have some winter damage to winter wheat up there.

- Mm-hmm.

- I also have a question.

You say a lot of times moving genes into it.

What does that mean?

Are you doing it like traditional breeding?

- It's traditional breeding and actually the issue with that is not that it's hard, but say I have one variety and this variety, it's one of ours that's nice and yellow.

So if I move four genes into that, four genes into that and then do backcrossing, it's difficult to do that.

It takes several years, but also the variety at the end to which I've added four genes will not be exactly the same anymore.

It'll have carried along some genes from each of those donors.

And even though it seems like the yield should be exactly the same, even after backcrossing, it doesn't happen.

So we have derivatives of the winter wheat variety Yellowstone that were produced by Phil Bruckner and Vida by Luther Talbert.

And moving genes into those to make improvements is great.

It can be done, but it's difficult because it limits what you can choose out of it.

So say we have a variety that's adapted, one that's not adapted, but we want to introduce four genes.

The percentage of the progeny that'll contain all four genes is very low.

So then it's very inefficient also, as you add genes.

What we ideally do is cross just two elite lines that have all these genes fixed and then the odds of success are much higher than where we're integrating new genes.

So over time, then we can become fixed for genes among our parents but it's hard to do fast and expect to have success.

- Yeah, agreed.

Several questions.

Homeowners would like to know how to control grasshoppers, what to treat it with, when to do it.

And it's Livingston, West Riverside near Missoula, Polson, hop in.

- So I would start looking now and if you start seeing in your garden some nymphal stages, so I would probably go with some baits around the house.

So that's more targeted, they'll come to it, you'll have to go, I don't know any off the top of my head those baits right away, but I would recommend a bait.

- You know, in a homeowner's situation it's hard to control grasshoppers.

- Yeah.

- Because.

- You're gonna get some from your neighbors.

- Yeah, so are there any trap crops that you can use to?

- I, they eat everything, so.

- Mm-hmm, yeah.

- If they're hungry they will eat everything.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Including cedars, yeah.

- Mm-hmm, and I've heard like, well, people have had success with kind of wire mesh covering.

- Yeah.

- So row covers with wire mesh if you're starting to see a higher activity can reduce that damage on your crop, so if you can do that, that could be helpful.

- Okay, and we have another question too from West Riverside tonight.

While I have you up, Abi, is it too late to cut back rose bushes?

- If you're seeing kind of active growth starting, I would hesitate.

But if you have a really kind of overgrown rose and you haven't had disease issues, it would still be okay to do that.

- [Jack] Okay.

- But usually when they're starting to actively grow - Thank you.

From Billings, this person remembers when there was a big push to incorporate Charolais genetics into beef cattle production.

They don't see that happening anymore.

Is that a thing of past?

- I wouldn't say it's a thing in the past.

I know several purebred seed stock, Charolais breeders in Montana, actually.

I know there's some up on the Hi-Line, there's some over kind of towards Choteau area.

You see a lot of Charolais used.

So you know in, so sometimes you'll see 'em used as a cover bull in an artificial insemination program 'cause the calves will come out that smoky color rather than a jet black or something like that.

And so yeah, you still see quite a few Charolais out and about and Charolais bulls.

I don't know, and you still see quite a few of 'em, or at least Charolais crosses in the feedlot.

So I still think there's plenty of 'em out there.

Maybe there's not as a big of a push as what there was because they are usually typically pretty big framing type cattle.

So maybe they're cutting back and maybe in Montana because Angus-bred cattle are so huge that it's kinda taken over.

But yeah, there's still some Charolais around.

- What was the original theoretical advantage of incorporating Charolais into other, you know, as a hybrid vigor I think would be a term.

- You know, that's a good question.

I think that you know know, it, I wouldn't say Charolais are the only ones.

Like, we have all kinds of, you know, the classic, you know, white-faced black cow where you crossed Angus with a Hereford or things like that.

So you're looking for hybrid vigor and I'm guessing with the Charolais that just more growth potential, carcass size, things like that.

- Okay, this person from Billings would like to know Mike, what are you working on for new traits or additional traits in durum that might be beneficial for marketplace?

- Well my marketplace for me, my main goal is increased yield over time.

So we're working on higher tillering wheats that'd be more adapted to the environment.

And I have a PhD student now working on this, Caleb Hale.

And in this we've identified that mutations in a gene called Teosinte Branched1 increases tillering.

And this is really exciting because we've grown it in the field the last three years and last year, Caleb had densely planted trials across the state in four locations and he averaged 3 to 5% more yield in those and substantially more tillers without changing seed size or protein content.

So, that's one I'm really excited about at the moment.

This changing and adapting of genes over time and enriching the genes is something we're doing.

The tillering is a good example of that, as well as changes that should result in improved yield.

Can I show my visual now?

- [Jack] Sure, yeah, absolutely.

- And so I brought another visual example and so of course in my hands I have a tall and a short wheat.

This short one is called a semi-dwarf durum variety.

The one on my right is a standard height.

And so these semi-dwarfs are increasingly popular.

But the issue with that is that the size reduction can be too great between 'em.

Another issue is that semi-dwarfs, when we cross with them, a lot of the lines have lower protein content and lower seed size, smaller seeds.

So we have lines now that are intermediate in height between these two that have about the same seed size and protein content.

So that's another trait we're interested in, is intermediate height wheats.

- Luther, who was our spring wheat breeder before he retired, introduced something from North Dakota called the Stay-Green gene.

Is there anything similar that could be introduced into the durum lines?

- There is, and so what we'd want for that is Stay-Green as well as I think probably earlier flowering.

- [Jack] Okay.

- So most of our lines do not flower particularly early, but when we look across all of our selections, some of the best ones flower three to four days up to a week earlier than some of the other ones.

And so they've had an increased chance of having high yield.

The big advantage of those lines is they beat the heat stress that we often see at the end of the first week of July, when normally they flower.

So if you have high heat stress at that point you can have seed abortion and lower yields.

So, we'd want both.

We'd want earlier if we could get it as well as a few days later.

The problem with doing some of these things too is those traits aren't obviously compatible, right?

Early and late.

- Right.

- In the same lines.

So it'd be a rare combination.

The other thing that people think when we say these things sometimes for Stay-Green is that they would stay green too long.

And actually, it's not that big a difference.

It's probably a couple days' difference, but if you have 'em side by side, you could pick out the Stay-Green genotypes.

- Okay, thank you.

We're getting down a little bit on time, but we have several other callers here.

I want to throw this one to Frank.

This person's concerned about spraying grasshoppers due to beef cattle prices.

How many applications will it take to deter them and does this affect the saleability of the cattle?

I don't think it does, but.

- Yeah, I don't know.

It would depend on how many acres, but I do recommend just 'cause you wanna knock down the population, not eliminate the population.

- Do we still have Nosema available?

Which is a biological for I think grasshopper control in large acres.

- I don't know off the top of my head.

- I'm not sure, we'll have to check that out.

That might be one of the things that we look at.

Columbia Falls, caller asks where to buy durum flour and whether it has any additives.

Semolina, can you buy semolina flour?

- You could buy semolina flour I imagine from General Mills in Great Falls.

It'd be a good place to buy semolina flour.

You can buy it at your local markets generally too.

I know stores in Bozeman carry it and if you want your noodles pasta to have this bright yellow color characteristic of it, that's what you'd want to use.

It doesn't have additives.

100% durum semolina in the best pastas, that's it, made with water and semolina.

- Pretty easy.

You don't have to put any eggs with that at all?

- No, no, you do that at home.

And if you do that at home with all-purpose flour, right, the yellowness from the eggs gives it the color.

This yellowness, that's all from semolina.

- [Jack] Mm-hmm, that's pretty amazing when you think of it.

- It is, it is.

- Yeah, Abi, this person wants to know can they clean their perennial beds or is it too late?

- So that's a good question that came up.

So one of the, it's firstly, it's not too late, but in general, perennial beds can offer habitat for pollinators.

- Right.

- So bees that are nesting in woody stems and things like that, as well as leaf litter.

So I would say that if you wait on cleaning it up or don't clean it all up to the same level, clean it up in varying heights, that's best for the beneficial organisms in your landscape, but it's not too late.

- Okay, thank you.

And we're down to a minute or so.

Quick one for Sam, sainfoin versus alfalfa nutritionally, are they different?

- Yeah, you guys need Hayes Goosey, our forage specialist up here.

He would know off the top of his head.

Nutritionally for both of those, they're high protein.

The biggest benefit with the sainfoin I believe is that it's a non-bloating high protein, so you don't have to necessarily worry about bloat.

However, I don't think it's as high yielding as alfalfa.

So it's kind of what your goals are.

- And wild game, deer, antelope, elk love sainfoin.

- [Sam] Oh yeah, big time.

- All right folks, we're down to another program.

We're about done here.

Next week.

(gentle country music plays) We're gonna look at Montana's malt barley industry with Karl DeJonge.

He's an owner here in the Gallatin Valley with Gallatin Valley Malt Company.

Thank you Frank, Mike, thank you for coming in tonight.

It's great to have some new guests, these two that you're here quite often, so thanks for coming anyway.

Folks, we'll see you next week.

Meantime, have a good week.

Stay safe and stay warm, goodnight.

- [Narrator] For more information and resources, visit montanapbs.org/aglive.

(gentle country music continues) - [Narrator 2] Montana Ag Live is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, and The Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(cheerful music plays)