College of Agriculture
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As the foundation of the land grant mission at Montana State University, the College of Agriculture and the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station provide instruction in traditional and innovative degree programs and conduct research on old and new challenges for Montana’s agricultural community. This integration creates opportunities for students and faculty to excel through hands-on learning, to serve through campus and community engagement, to explore unique solutions to distinct and interesting questions and to connect Montanans with the global community through research discoveries and outreach.
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Item High Tunnels Are My Crop Insurance: An Assessment of Risk Management Tools for Small-Scale Specialty Crop Producers(2013-08) Belasco, Eric J.; Miles, C.; Wszelaki, Annette L.; Ponnaluru, S.; Galinato, S.; March, T.High tunnels are being used by specialty crop producers to enhance production yields and quality, extend growing seasons, and protect crops from extreme weather. The tunnels are unheated, plastic-covered structures under which crops are planted directly in the soil, and they provide greater environmental protection and control than open-field production. This study uses field-level experiments to evaluate high-tunnel production. The results suggest that investments in high tunnels can provide increased profits and superior protection against adverse risks relative to crop insurance.Item Interacting agricultural pest management practices and their effect on crop yield: Application of a Bayesian decision theory approach to the joint management of Bromus tectorum and Cephus cinctus(2015-02) Keren, Ilai N.; Menalled, Fabian D.; Weaver, David K.; Robinson-Cox, James F.Worldwide, the landscape homogeneity of extensive monocultures that characterizes conventional agriculture has resulted in the development of specialized and interacting multitrophic pest complexes. While integrated pest management emphasizes the need to consider the ecological context where multiple species coexist, management recommendations are often based on single-species tactics. This approach may not provide satisfactory solutions when confronted with the complex interactions occurring between organisms at the same or different trophic levels. Replacement of the single-species management model with more sophisticated, multi-species programs requires an understanding of the direct and indirect interactions occurring between the crop and all categories of pests. We evaluated a modeling framework to make multi-pest management decisions taking into account direct and indirect interactions among species belonging to different trophic levels. We adopted a Bayesian decision theory approach in combination with path analysis to evaluate interactions between Bromus tectorum (downy brome, cheatgrass) and Cephus cinctus (wheat stem sawfly) in wheat (Triticum aestivum) systems. We assessed their joint responses to weed management tactics, seeding rates, and cultivar tolerance to insect stem boring or competition. Our results indicated that C. cinctus oviposition behavior varied as a function of B. tectorum pressure. Crop responses were more readily explained by the joint effects of management tactics on both categories of pests and their interactions than just by the direct impact of any particular management scheme on yield. In accordance, a C. cinctus tolerant variety should be planted at a low seeding rate under high insect pressure. However as B. tectorum levels increase, the C. cinctus tolerant variety should be replaced by a competitive and drought tolerant cultivar at high seeding rates despite C. cinctus infestation. This study exemplifies the necessity of accounting for direct and indirect biological interactions occurring within agroecosystems and propagating this information from the statistical analysis stage to the management stage.Item Group Risk Income Protection(MSU Extension, 2006-07) Johnson, James B.; Hewlett, John P.Group Risk Income Protection (GRIP) is a federally-subsidized risk management tool to insure against widespread loss of revenue from an insured crop in a county. Crop producers whose yields are highly correlated with county yield are most likely to use this product to insure that the combination of yield and price results in a particular level of revenue. Unlike the related Risk Management Agency-approved Group Risk Plan insurance, either a price or yield decline may result in a producer being indemnified. If total revenue (price times yield) in county is less than a producer’s trigger revenue, the producer will be indemnified for revenue losses due to insurable causes. But producers need to recognize that they could incur reduced revenue from the insured acres of a crop and not be indemnified if there is not a commensurate decline in county per acre revenues for the crop.Item Regulating State Trading Enterprises in the GATT: An Urgent Need for Change? Evidence from the 2003-2004 U.S.--Canada Grain Dispute(MSU Extension, 2006-02) Smith, Vincent H.State Trading Enterprises (STEs) are one of the bete noirs of agricultural and other trade relations and trade negotiations. An STE is a government enterprises or quasi government enterprise that operates with special protections and/or privileges granted by its country’s central authority. STEs generally exist for one of two main reasons. Sometimes, as with many African parastatals, they are created to tax the domestic industry and/or imports for government revenue generation purposes (or income transfers to members of ruling elites). Alternatively, an STE’s mission is often to increase revenues or profits (though not necessarily both) from sales for domestic producers and/or processors and other marketing chain operations. In pursuing these revenue or profit objectives, STEs create trade distortions by implicitly levying tariffs on imports, taxing domestic sales, and subsidizing (or, on rare occasions, taxing) exports to different countries at different rates. They may also be vehicles through which domestic subsidies are more or less discretely funneled to producers, with corresponding implications for the effectiveness of disciplines on domestic supports. Hence, STEs are problematic in the context of trade negotiations.Item Harvest-Time Protein Shocks and Price Adjustment in U.S. Wheat Markets(MSU Extension, 2005-06) Goodwin, Barry K.; Smith, Vincent H.Dynamic relationships between three classes of wheat are investigated using threshold VAR models incorporating the effects of protein availability. Changes in the stock of protein are found to generate significant impulse responses in the price of hard red spring wheat and hard red winter wheat but not soft red wheat. These impulse responses to identical changes in protein stocks are larger when the absolute deviations of protein stocks from normal levels are large. Shocks to the prices of individual classes of wheat result in complex impulse responses in the prices of the other wheats. Notably, however, a shock to the price of hard red winter weak appears to result in little or no impulse response in the price of hard spring wheat, though, importantly, the opposite is not true.Item Agricultural Chemical Prices in Canada and the United States: A Case Study of Alberta and Montana(MSU Extension, 2004-12) Smith, Vincent H.; Johnson, James B.Differences in retail prices for similar or identical agricultural chemicals have been a source of controversy in the Prairie Provinces of Canada and the Northern Great Plains States of the United States since the mid-1990s. Such differences may exist because of differing pesticide regulations between the United States and Canada. Different regulations may inhibit trade between the two regions and isolate markets from one another. If this is the case, then regulatory harmonization that allows Canadian and U.S. agricultural producers to purchase agricultural chemicals in Canada or the United States would generally lead to harmonization of agricultural chemical prices.Item The Canadian Wheat Board: Government Guarantees and Hidden Subsidies(MSU Extension, 2004-07) Goodloe, CarolThe operations of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), a state trading enterprise, have generated controversy over the years, partly because of an alleged lack of transparency in its operations. This study examines one aspect of operations that is not well understood – the government guarantee of CWB borrowing and export credit sales. The CWB is able to take advantage of this special privilege to generate a “financial cushion,” or non-market based revenue, that it can use to enhance returns to producers, discount export prices, or pay administrative expenses. Current WTO negotiations should build on U.S. and EU proposals on STEs and export credit guarantees to address potential trade-distorting practices of STEs such as the CWB.Item Marketing Assistance Loans, Loan Deficiency Payments and Marketing Loan Gains for Minor Oilseed and Pulse Crops(MSU Extension, 2003-11) Johnson, James B.Marketing assistance loans are available to Montana producers of minor oilseed and pulse crops. The USDA differentiates county-level loan rates from national rates for minor oilseeds and dry peas. County-level lentil and small chickpea loan rates for all pertinent counties throughout the United States are differentiated at the multi-state, regional level from the national loan rates. For each of the pulse crops-- dry peas, lentils, and small chickpeas the county-level loan rates are the same in all Montana counties. Loan deficiency payments are available on all or a portion of harvested production when posted-county prices for a loan commodity are below county-level loan rates. Similarly, marketing loan gains are available when posted-county prices are less than county loan rates at the time marketing assistance loans are settled.Item 2008 Oilseed Performance in Central Montana Trials(Central Agricultural Research Center, 2008) Wichman, David M.This paper evaluates 2008 Oilseed performance in central Montana trials. 2008 Central Montana crop growing conditions were generally less than ideal, particularly for spring crops. Droughty conditions of late 2007 persisted through early May and commenced again in mid-June following above average precipitation in May. Early spring weather consisted of frequent dry windy days with almost daily freezing and thawing of the surface soil through March and early April. The frequent freezing and thawing coupled with low relative humidity broke down the surface soil structure leaving it quite powdery. All five crops, camelina, canola yellow mustard, flax and safflower, had their highest 2008 yield from the April 17th seed date (Table 1). The germination and emergence of seedlings from the April 17th seed date occurred after area temperatures dropped below zero and wind driven snirt (snow & dirt) grated on emerged plant tissue. Earlier emerging seedlings experienced more weather related stress and some mortality. In general, Moccasin yields of cool season oilseeds, camelina, canola and yellow mustard are reduced when seeding is delayed till mid April (Table 2 & Fig. 1). The need to get cool season oilseed crops seeded in early spring may not be as critical in areas with similar growing season temperatures and deeper soils (greater plant available water) or more July precipitation.Item Evaluation of Fall Seeded Winter Pea and Lentil Line Performance (Western Regional Winter Dry Pea and Lentil Evaluation Trials) (2008)(Central Agricultural Research Center, 2008) Wichman, David M.; Chen, Chengci; Neill, Karnes E.; McPhee, K.; Short, R.W.; Vavrovsky, JoeThis paper evaluates winter hardiness of fall seeded winter dry pea and lentil lines. A difference in spring stand (visual evaluation) amongst the winter pea lines was exhibited, with Granger Austrian winter pea having the best stand, but was significantly similar to five other lines (Table 3). Upon visual observations, large differences in winter survival among the winter lentil lines were observed (Table 4). Turkish-type (“T”) lines LC02600449T and LC03600295T had the poorest spring stands with an average score of 1.6 and 1.8 (out of possible of 5), respectively.