- [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 Mountain Certified Crop Advisor Program.

(bright upbeat music) - You are tuned to Montana AG Live coming to you from the studios of KUSM here on the campus of Montana State University.

We're glad to have you with us again tonight and hope you're getting ready for the snow storm that's getting ready to move through Montana.

We have some special guests tonight.

I want to first introduce those.

To my left is Laurie Kerzicnik.

Laurie is an extension insect diagnostician is housed in the Schutter Diagnostic Lab.

And then we have several of our other regular panelists with us tonight.

Mary Burrows is our extension plant pathologist, you all know Mary.

Bruce is with us tonight.

Bruce is inside plant Ecologist.

I guess you would call it.

And then Mary Saeed is our extension horticulturalist and we're glad to have her with us tonight too.

So we'll be getting to all of those panelists here a little bit later on.

But let's begin with Laurie tonight.

She's going to be talking about the emerald ash borer and that's an interesting topic and hopefully she's got lots of good information for us.

So take it away Laurie.

- Yeah, I'm happy to be here today to talk about the emerald ash borer.

It is a wood boring beetle that was introduced into Detroit in 2002.

It's invasive, it was introduced from Asia.

And it is since spread to 35 states and five Canadian provinces.

And so it is because of the extent of its spread, it's considered the most economically and environmentally damaging pest that's entered the United States.

And we are a very high-risk state, Montana is, because at least in about 20 of our communities we have a lot of our Boulevard trees are 40%, are greater Ash species.

And some are even in our historical districts or even 75% to 80%.

And it is not yet been detected in Montana but this is a pest that spreads naturally by flying and it also spreads through humans and through firewood, through infested nursery stock and also through infested wood packing material like pallets.

And we expect this pest to be in the state at some point, if it's not here already.

And I don't wanna cause a lot of panic, we're here kind of more for education rather than any sort of panic state here.

But I'm sure people have a lot of questions.

And a lot of people have probably heard about the pest already.

- Okay thanks Laurie.

We'll come back to you with some more questions I'm sure.

So we're depending on you folks that are listening and watching tonight to call in.

Our phone operators are Nancy Blake and Bruce Lobe.

They're waiting for your calls.

The number's on your screen there so hopefully you'll send in all your questions that you have.

But let's begin with some questions from last week that were left over.

Abi, I have a question for you.

This is from Roundup.

This person has tinted acrylic windows and gets lots of lights but the plants don't do well.

Is this due to the windows?

- I actually don't know how those windows might affect the plants that are growing in the house.

If they're getting additional growing lights, I don't think that those acrylic windows would really impact it.

So I don't know about that.

I'd love some more information.

So if the client wants to give me a call at 9946523, we can try and get to the bottom of what might be going on.

- Okay, we'll hope they're watching this week and we'll get in touch with you.

Mary, here's a question.

It's very pertinent to this time of the year.

The seeds I'm going to plant are very sensitive to seed decay and damping off.

If I don't want to use a chemical seed treatment what options do I have to ensure a good standard plants?

A lot of people are getting ready to plant.

So give us some advice along that line.

- Right for the whole garden and for large scale commercial producers some of the best things you can do is actually just wait a while to plant especially for those large seeded legumes to, for the soil temperature to be above 55 degrees.

And that really allows the plant to grow fast and escape those plant pathogens.

- [Don] So don't get into big, too big a rush.

Is that right?

- Yeah that's right.

- Okay.

Bruce, this question came in last week.

Wild oats are going to be an issue in my paddy this year.

What chemistry is best to minimize this weed?

This came in from Townson.

- Well I'm afraid I don't have a lot of modern information on that but there are several herbicides that, that you can use on wild oats.

Most all of them are most appropriate at a very early stage of the two to three leaf stage.

But if it's any later than that, they don't work very well.

There is a couple of programs.

I think Bare company, the Bare Company has a set of herbicides that they're suggesting.

And the good part of that is that they're specifically developed so that or timed I should say, so that they reduce the onset of resistance which has become very common in wild oats across the spectrum of different chemistry families.

But I will say that barley is actually one of the more competitive crops with wild oats.

And if you can go to a narrower row, you know something six inches or less, that often is a good solution.

And the other one is simply going to something like winter wheat in a rotation because that, that definitely inhibits wild oats and as does no till.

So there are wild oats become less of a general problem across mud and because of the increased acreage that's in no-till.

- Okay, Laurie from Belgrade, this is from Dan.

He says my ash trees didn't leaf out until late last summer.

Could that possibly be emerald ash borer?

- That's a good question.

We had, I think it's back in October of 2019, we had a really big freeze in an early freeze where our ash trees lost pretty much all their leaves.

And, and then we had some of our, in 2020 some of our ash trees didn't leaf out till July.

But that was not from the emerald ash borer.

So that's not a symptom of emerald ash borer infestation.

- Okay we'll come back with some more questions about emerald ash borer.

Abi a viewer from Pinedale, Wyoming.

It's good to see viewers are down there in Wyoming.

This person has slugs in their garden and what do they need to do to remedy the problem?

- So there are quite a few things that you can do to remedy slugs in your garden.

Slugs thrive in higher moisture conditions.

So depending on the types of plants that you have you can utilize slug control products that you can buy.

Make sure that they're labeled for control on the specific crop that you're applying them to as well as forest legs specifically.

You can also, if you, if you utilize a mulch at the base of your plants you're gonna minimize the amount of slugs that are going to be on your plants.

And then reducing that kind of a foliar or water application is also gonna reduce the impact of the slugs.

So making that a healthy growing environment and applying some slug control products will be in a pretty simple way to manage slugs in your landscape.

- Have you had any experience of using a pan of beer to control slugs?

(laughs) - I have done that for fun just to try it out and yes, you do, you do get slugs and quite a few other types of insects as well in those little beer cans.

- And what if the slugs get drunk?

Do you suppose?

(laughs) - Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe it'll be a slug party.

- Okay.

(laughs) Mary this question is, what is your prognosis on how severe wheat streak mosaic virus is gonna be this year?

And what are you basing your prognosis on?

- Right so we get the worst wheat streak when we have a fall with a lot of infection and then we get some moisture to help support both the mite and the virus.

So a good healthy plant growth means it can also grow very well.

In Iris we did not have very much wheat streak last year.

So I don't anticipate a lot of problems this year.

And also the drought this spring will help keep the virus down.

- [Don] So there are some good things about drought then.

(laughs) - Well, I always tell growers that high yield potential means high disease potential and I think they would prefer some high disease potential right now.

(chuckles) - Oh okay.

Bruce from Highwood, this person used Dicamba and a very low rate of tordon two years ago to control problem weeds.

Can I grow peas now?

- That, that sounds like a dangerous situation.

I would definitely not plant a field full of peas right now.

What I would do is, is collect some of the soil and put a bean in, a bean seed that's viable into those, into those cups or into that soil and let them try to grow.

And if they are damaged, then that tells you that you still have either one of those chemistries that are present.

So do a bioassay for yourself and you might save yourself some major damage on your crop.

If the beans grow fine, they're ultra sensitive.

If they grow fine, then you're probably okay to plant the peas.

- We've had some problems around Bozeman with contaminated soil and compost and I encourage people to do that bean test because it really does work well in there.

They are very sensitive.

Okay Laurie here's a question that came in this evening from Vita.

He has a shelter belt of green ash trees 25 years old.

On the South side of the trees the bark is peeling off the entire length.

No evidence of worms or insects.

Do you have any idea what's happening?

- The barks peeling off.

Well it could be it one thing.

I don't know if he's seen any woodpeckers come to the tree.

But we do have another pest called the western ash bark beetle.

And it could be that the woodpeckers are coming in and going after that pest underneath the bark and stripping the bark.

And that happens a lot with some of our ash trees.

But it also could be something abiotic as well.

- Okay.

Abi here's a question that came in.

My evergreen trees are turning brown at the tips and most of them look like the branches are dead.

What is wrong with them and what can I do to help them?

Came in from Gallatin County.

Fairly typical thing in the spring.

Any ideas?

- Absolutely.

Yeah we have been getting a lot of samples in the Schutter Diagnostic Lab of winter injury which is what I suspect that this is talking about.

And so what happens is when we have these warm winter months with limited snow cover on the ground and limited moisture then you end up having these evergreen trees transpire and lose that moisture faster than they can recoup it from their roots.

And so that ends up affecting the younger needles.

So you'll notice the tips of the branches starting to get brown first and then sometimes entire branches can So the best way to mitigate this, one you don't necessarily have dead branches but take a look, do a little bark scrape test to see if those branches are alive.

And then watering well into the fall and adding mulch to the base of the tree will help minimize that water loss and make sure that the tree is set up for a healthy winter.

- Okay good idea.

Looking six months ahead of it now.

(laughs) I'm sure we're gonna have winter again.

Laurie from Bozeman, this person wants to know should they be treating for the emerald ash borer right now?

- No, we have not detected the emerald ash borer in the state and we do not recommend treatment until it's within the vicinity with about, within about 30 miles of where it's been detected.

And this is because the, there is the, some of the treatments that we have and one of the key treatments, emamectin benzoate is really an effective treatment.

And so we just even up to about 50% canopy loss.

So we recommend that you keep your trees healthy right now.

And I think there is an ad in the Bozeman paper a couple of years ago to tell people to start treating for emerald ash borer and we just do not recommend that.

So when it's here, we will spread the word quickly and we have emerald ash borer response plans for almost all of our cities now.

So we are very well-prepared for the pest to come in and we will let everybody know.

But there's no reason to do preventive treatments when the pest hasn't been detected in the state.

- Do you have any idea at all or any guess on when it might first drive in Montana?

- There's a chance that it could be here already.

And it's a lot of the early infestation stages are the trees are asymptomatic.

And they found in areas where it's been detected, recently just in Boulder, Colorado a few years ago.

That it's usually in the tree for four to five years if, by the time it's detected.

So it is very hard to detect early on.

And that's why we're doing a lot of monitoring and a lot of outreach about the pest.

But it could be here already.

And as I said, we do expect it to be here because it's spreading through mostly firewood.

- Okay, keep our fingers crossed.

- Fingers crossed, yeah.

- Very good.

Bruce here's a question that's a little bit different.

Came in from John and Helena last week.

He says, is there actual hard data that shows Montana is warmer now than 25 years ago?

- Yes.

(laughs) There's a very definite a warming trend in Montana across the last, your choice.

Or you could say 25, 30, 50 years even over a hundred years.

So yeah, it's statistically significant.

And so that's one that we're quite confident in that number.

And so, but keep in mind that there's a difference between climate and weather.

And so climate we often have it is scaled as a, as a 30 year pattern.

Weather is what happens day-to-day.

And so we can have a lot of variability in weather.

And as we've seen this spring, having quite a cool spring at times or at least in April.

Who knows maybe May will turn to what March should have been.

(laughs) But we get a lot of ups and downs through the year.

And that, but climate is when we combine those and usually over space as well.

So definitely over the state we've increased.

And in fact interestingly enough, we've increased at about twice the rate of the average in the United States.

But that's true for most of the landlocked States because the oceanic States are, have, are buffered by the ocean which tends to cool them a bit.

So we've increased our temperatures greater than many of those States.

- Well I just look at the weather that Bozeman had today, high of 64, tomorrow snow at a high of 32.

I don't know whether you'd call that climate change or not but it sure makes the weather interesting.

Okay Abi, here's an interesting question for you.

This person has trouble with tree roots in his sewer.

Do tree roots grow as fast as the above ground part of the tree?

Any thoughts on that?

- That is a good question.

I think that would be dependent on the type of tree that you're dealing with.

And most of the time that spacing beforehand like when you are incorporating trees in your landscape is really important thing to consider.

Because generally most of the root system of trees can be concentrated along the drip line of that tree.

So when you notice kind of that overall shape of the tree above ground.

Most of the roots below ground are also reflective of that.

So different tree roots will grow at different rates depending on soil conditions, depending on growing conditions and depending on the type of plant that you're dealing with as well.

- Okay, good.

Laurie, are you ready for a show and tell?

- I am ready.

Yeah, I don't.

I think we could do the show and tell or we could do the pictures.

I'm not sure.

I think I will do the show and tell first.

So I wanted to show first off, if anybody has questions about the emerald ash borer, that we have a really good fact sheet that we've put together for, that you could get on ipm.montana.edu/entomology.

And this is a collaborative effort through several different organizations, MSU Extension, The DNRC and also don't move firewood campaign and USDA, MISC and also Montana Urban and Community Forestry Association.

So this will give you a lot of information on, on what to look for and what other things other than EAB, emerald ash borer might be.

And it shows also has treatment advice on the back here and something that's, that would, it's a good guide for knowing what to look for.

And this is one of the, this is a piece of ash bark and this shows the emerald ash borer.

And if you, the way that the emerald ash borer works is it is a wood-boreing beetle and it'll lay eggs on the outside of the bark here.

And the eggs will hatch and the larvae or the immatures will burrow under the bark.

And, and then they will actually, the way that they damage trees is by, they will end up feeding on the phloem and the cambium.

And by doing that, they will end up girdling the tree and eventually you'll have branch dieback, canopy dieback and it'll end up within about two to four years will end up killing the tree.

So it takes about 25 to 35 different larvae or immatures to, per meter square to actually start showing some symptoms.

And in about four years into the infestation of the tree then you will start to see death of the tree.

- Okay well, you have some more that we'll come back to later?

- [Laurie] Yeah I think we're gonna show some pictures too.

So I think - Okay.

- [Laurie] that those will probably be the next ones that come on.

- Okay let's go to Abi again.

From Bozeman, when should she start watering her flower beds?

Is it too soon with the onset of cold weather?

Really cold weather.

(laughs) - Yeah I would say, I would wait until the temperatures in the daytime and there is no snow covered.

So with the expected snow coming in, I don't think that you need to be watering your flower beds right now.

I would wait until there is no snow cover on the ground and temperatures start to warm up again.

- Okay we'll just wait then.

Bruce this is a question from Bozeman.

Porcelain and they have lots of it in their garden but they're told it really doesn't do very much damage.

And so we should just ignore it and leave it be.

Your comment.

- I agree with that statement completely.

I think it's a great ground cover.

It's a great living mulch.

I would not, I would not try to get rid of it.

In fact I'd encourage it.

I do in my garden.

- Wow that's just what I wanted to hear.

We've got a tremendous amount of it in our Gallatin Gardener's Club garden.

And we debate back and forth about whether to spend a lot of time cleaning it out or just let it be.

And you know, some people would like to even eat it.

And I haven't tried that yet but I understand it's pretty good.

Have you eaten it yet?

- Yeah it's quite tasty.

You should add it to your salads for sure.

- To the salad, okay we'll do that.

Mary, this is a question about quinoa.

I'm not sure I pronounced that right, quinoa maybe.

It's a new crop for their garden and they can, can they expect it to be disease-free because it's a brand new crop for the garden or are they likely to see some disease come in soon?

- Yeah quinoa, I have not seen many diseases here in Montana.

A lot of them tend to be root rot.

So it really depends on what you've grown previously.

That said, it should be a good fun crop to grow.

And you know, as long as it doesn't get too moist and everything, it should stay away from the foliar blights.

I think the biggest problem on quinoa has been a lot of insect pests.

- [Don] Have you, tried growing that yet yourself?

- I have not.

I've done farmer bean but I just really think it's easier to go to the store and buy quinoa so.

- Okay.

Laurie here's a question that came in tonight from Billings.

How can she prevent her neighbors bees in hives from coming into her yard and bothering the kids?

She grows lots of flowers.

How do you keep the bees out?

- Yeah I wonder if it's, definitely would wanna check too if they were wasps and not bees.

But they, cause they look pretty similar from a distance.

But yeah I think, we just had some questions going back and forth about, they might be coming in for a water source.

So maybe that, that neighbor has a water source that's bringing them into the yard.

So maybe you could talk to the neighbors about providing their own water source.

So I don't know what's bringing 'em in but maybe the guard's very attractive it's, I think it would be very difficult to, to keep 'em out.

And I mean, they're not gonna be aggressive when they're foraging.

And if they're, cause they're not gonna be defending their nest.

But if they are aggressive then that might be an indication that it's, that it's a wasp or another, a bee look alike.

- Good, good, good suggestion.

That I had never really thought about bees being a pest but maybe they are at times.

- Yeah, yeah.

Usually when they're going after something that they don't seem to be very, very pest like but maybe Abi's got something to add as well.

- I was just gonna say, yeah it would be pretty difficult to but as long as like Laurie said, as long as you're not, you're not bothering them they're not gonna be bothering you either.

But that sounds like you have a beautiful garden that's very attracted to beneficial insects like pollinators.

So keep up the great work.

- Okay Abi as long as we've got you up here, this person that would like to know can they fertilize their lawn now or should they wait?

This came from Park County.

- So with the upcoming snow that is forecasted in this area specifically, I would say wait to fertilize it until there isn't any snow cover.

And the, you know, a spring fertilizer is a pretty good recommendation but the earlier that you fertilize the more mowing you're going to be doing.

We discussed this last month as well.

So I would wait a little bit before you fertilize your lawn.

- Okay.

Laurie, here's a comment from Billings.

She says her 20 year old ash tree died last year due to emerald ash borer.

What do you think?

- Well, it would have been really great to maybe look at that tree cause there's a very good chance that there could have been a lot of reasons that the tree died.

And we have, in Boulder they had a tree that was slated for removal.

And that's how they found that, the emerald ash borer.

So it could have been, we had a lot of winter kill and a lot of, a lot of our ash trees didn't recover at all.

So it could be some of our ashtrays are at the end of their lifespan as well.

So we can't say for sure but what might have happened to that tree, but it's, it's, there's always a chance that it could have been from the emerald ash borer because as I said, we do expect it to be in the state but can't say definitively without seeing some of the, some of the evidence.

- So they should definitely send it into the Schutter Clinic so you can see and confirm it for sure.

- Yeah, so it is tricky to confirm that the presence of the pest because especially we do have the adult beetle and what we do in the early stages and what we do if we don't see the beetle itself is we look for exit holes from when the beetle emerged.

And we also will scale back the bark to look for what we call galleries.

And that's the, that's what I showed before.

That's the beetle feeding and also leaving, leaving wood particles like an insect excrement called frass, behind.

So that's very distinctive.

So that's what we do is we peel back the bark and we'd look for evidence of that.

- So you indicated earlier that there's a quite of a plan developed for what happens when the borer does show up.

Can you tell us a little bit about what various cities are planning to do?

- Yeah it's gonna depend on each city but we do have an, the DNRC, the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation put emerald ash borer state-wide plan together.

And a lot of the cities put plans together from the statewide plan.

And just looking over Bozeman's recently, it's, the goal is to, we're lucky as a state that we can prepare for the pest before its arrival.

I mean, Detroit didn't have that option and or Michigan didn't have that option.

And so we know that we have, we have some to prepare for the pest.

So they've the city, most of the city foresters and give them all a pat on the back.

They've done a fantastic job.

They've done a lot of inventories to prepare it, to mark the ash trees, percentage of ash we have in the state.

And then also flag some of the trees that are, that should be removed.

So they're starting to remove and having removing trees for years.

And then when the pest gets here they will try to treat all the, the healthy trees that they can and try to shoot for more treatment of trees rather than removal.

Because it's more economical to treat rather than remove trees.

So most of our trees, our city, a lot of our publicly owned ash trees are, a lot of our publicly-owned trees are ash trees.

So you will see a lot of the cities during the treatments and the removal.

So, but it depends on the city in, but so I think you'll see a lot of treatment plans involved and it is gonna, and a lot of replanting as well as we prepare for the pest.

- So Abi, being a horticulturalist, what are some trees that you would recommend that the cities consider to replace the ash tree?

Any thoughts there?

- Yeah, absolutely.

But I wanted to jump in and ask Laurie a follow-up question first if that's all right.

- You bet.

- Yeah so with the stress trees from the 2019 fall really cold temperatures that affected them.

Are emerald ash bores or other insect pests more attracted to trees that are stressed and how might that impact an infestation in that type of tree?

- Yeah, so it is.

So since we had a stressful year in 2019 going into 2020 we did see another pest, the western ash bark beetle.

We saw a lot of pressure from that pest.

And, but then we also, the emerald ash borer will attack healthy trees as well.

So it is more attracted to stress trees because the stress trees will release volatiles that are more attractive to the pest but it'll also attack healthy trees.

So it's, if emerald ash borer comes into a city it'll attack all the trees in its vicinity.

So preferably stress trees but it has the option, it likes trees and open sunny areas too.

So that's, that's its first point of attack.

But yeah.

Since it's invasive and doesn't have any natural predators with it and no resistance to the pest, we actually will see them hit our healthy trees as well.

- And then thanks so much Laurie.

And then so for alternatives to ash trees, I think that there is a pretty great menu of options for Montana.

We have a lot of varieties of trees that you can plant depending on the site conditions.

But there's some great options like maple, different types of evergreens, like blue spruce.

So basically pretty much anything that you are thinking about planting you can just check the growing zone requirements and make sure that you have the right type of soil and right type of sun exposure for that tree.

But there are a wide variety of options for Montana if you are thinking of planting trees in your landscape.

But I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry about giving up on ash just yet.

- Okay.

And I would imagine that if the trees have to be replaced in the parking those are owned by the city, the city will make that decision for you.

- Yeah.

- Is that the way it works?

- Yeah I think that they're not recommending planting new ash so, but they are I mean, they have right now, they also have, in Bozeman at least they have a tree share program or cost share program which is I think it's completed for 2021 but they have recommended trees on their website as well.

- Okay, Laurie this came in from Red Lodge.

They said, you mentioned an invasive species emerald ash borer?

From Detroit spreading to 33 States.

When it arrives in Montana what effect will it have on hay, grass and cattle producers?

- It won't have.

I mean, unless you have ash trees in your vicinity, it won't really.

It's host specific.

It just hits ash species only.

So anything in the fraxinus species.

So I hope that answered, answered their question okay.

- Okay.

But if you, unless you have a shelter valid or something, that's providing a lot of shade for the animals, it won't impact any of your production.

- Okay.

So the emerald ash borer doesn't attack raspberries or alfalfa or wheat or any of these other crops.

Pretty much limited to the ash tree - Just the ash tree and not mountain ash cause that's not a fraxinus species.

So it's just it's so that's a sorbus species.

So just, just fraxinus species.

- It's good to know.

Abi, this person would like to know what's the best time to plant and prune raspberries.

- So the spring, so right now would be you know, waiting until the weather is going to be amenable for you to be able to do so in this, the soil is workable.

Spring is a really good time to plant your raspberries and pruning as well in the spring is a good idea to kind of rejuvenate your plants.

Thin them out a little bit.

Raspberries produce on the second year growth so if they have produced on canes you can remove those canes from the plant and kind of thin them out and refresh them for this upcoming year.

Fall is another good time but usually later in the fall when the plant is dormant ends up being a difficult time to put them into the ground and ends up being pretty late in the season.

So spring right now would be a really good time to plant your raspberries and prune them.

- Okay, but not in the snow tomorrow.

(laughs) Hopefully not.

- No, not unless you're very brave.

- Okay.

This is a question for Bruce.

What do you consider to be the worst weed a gardener must contend with and what's the most economical way to control 'em?

- Wow that's, the worst weed.

That's a tough one.

There's plenty.

Really depends onto where you are in the state, I guess.

But I think the, the one that I hear the most about is actually field bindweed which is because it crawls up things and it's it, it's hard to tell when it's a seedling that it's gonna be a vine and it can be, it can be a real challenge so.

And it's, and we don't have any really easy way to control it.

It's something that you just have to stay on top of and be able to recognize the seedling cause it has a very distinctive leaf shape.

You can often pick it out but that's a tough one.

The other ones that we, are common I guess, are pigweed and lamb's quarter.

There tend to be in all gardens.

- Have you had the mallow before?

- Oh mallow yes.

(laughs) Mallow is you know, it's interesting because that's, I think Gallatin County is the worst for mallow.

I don't hear people in the other parts of the state really complaining as much about it as we do but yeah, mallow is, is a tough one because it has a really, well it produces a lot of seed and they, and it, once it's established it's not an easy one to get rid of so.

Good, good for reminding me on the mallow.

But like I said, I think we're especially bad here in the Gallatin.

It's kind of like Canada thistle is, is another similar one in our area.

But yeah, I don't hear as much, as many reports from other parts in the state.

- Oh, it certainly is a big problem in our Gallatin Gardeners club garden.

And it's got a root that's as tough as anything I know to hoe.

It's a tough one.

And like you say, it produces all these seeds.

It just gets worse every year.

But we have to deal with it.

Okay Laurie, this person from Missoula would like us to post the Schutter Plant Diagnostic Lab email.

And can you tell us what that is?

How can people get ahold of you via email?

- Yeah the best way to get ahold of me is, I'll give you my easiest email.

It's insects@montana.edu or I think my other email might be popping up there to LAUREN.KERZICNIK@MONTANA.EDU.

So, but insects@montana.edu is the best way to get in touch with me personally.

- [Don] Okay.

There we go, yeah.

- Do you have any more show and tell, have gone through all of those?

- I did want to show this one branch sample that we have here.

This is the western ash bark beetle and this is a common pest that we have here in Montana and it is not the emerald ash borer.

So if you're just tuning in, just know that this is not damaged from the emerald ash borer.

So this is a bark beetle and the exit holes are kind of shot hole size.

And this is a pest that we've had established in the state for many years.

And we've had, it's actually, it's a little bit of our stress trees.

It's, it's gotten a little bit worse.

And so we've seen, last year we saw a lot of woodpecker damage, a lot of woodpeckers going off of and feeding when stripping through the bark and actually going after the immature or larval stages of the beetle.

And so we've had, we did lose some trees to the western ash bark beetle this past year.

But just to be, look at this is a pest that that is, is common in the state.

And I just wanted to show too that we have these, each County agent and reservation should have one of these emerald ash borer kits.

And so if you have some, a homeowner or client that comes into the office within this kit you have a piece of bark that shows some damage from the emerald ash borer.

There's an adult emerald ash borer in a vial and also larval stage of the immature, of the emerald ash borer inside this box.

And so this gives you a kind of a good reference sample to look for the emerald ash borer.

- Okay.

Mary a question about pulse crops.

What's your prognosis for diseases on our pulse crops or peas and chickpeas and things like that.

Any idea of what might be developing this year?

- Luckily, we had a pretty dry year last year.

We're not seeing a lot of disease issues on the seed coming into the regional post-grad diagnostic lab.

We're starting to see a little bit of an uptick in portraitist of chick pea which is fairly persistent.

It forms a sclerosia and you just wanna rotate away from that.

Most post growers should be rotating three to four years between every pulse.

And a lot of the die cuts are particularly susceptible to botrytis.

Use a good seed treatment if you're a conventional producer and keep an eye on the crop especially after that first flower and that canopy closure and if you've had a lot of moisture.

- Do you have any thoughts on what the acreages are gonna be like this year?

Are they going to be up or down?

- The, I have not seen the perspective planting report yet.

I assume peas are gonna be up, lentils hopefully pretty stable and I'm not quite sure where chickpeas go.

Peas might be up because the Chinese market bought quite a bit last year for the protein use in noodles and other uses.

We're increasing the amount of chickpeas we grow because we have increased consumption in the domestic market.

And COVID-19 was actually very good for shelf stable legumes, such as pulses.

- Okay well hope the growers will respond and produce accordingly.

Okay Bruce, this person has weeds in their asparagus bed.

Any suggestions?

- [Bruce] Wow.

(laughs) - That's a tough one isn't it?

- It is a tough one because asparagus can, can come up so rapidly.

If you, if you're early enough you could, you can treat weeds that come up before the asparagus with Roundup.

But boy be careful.

If they're showing at all, you'll kill 'em.

So that's a dangerous one but chemically, there's not a lot of, a lot of options that I know of any ways that are registered.

But again, I'm not exactly a herbicide expert.

I think I'd contact Tim Seipel on that one.

I don't know if we have his number.

I don't have it at the tip of my tongue here.

But you can probably get it to the Schutter Diagnostic Lab as well and they might, might be able to make a recommendation but- - Hey Bruce.

- [Bruce] Yeah.

- I have asparagus with really bad weeds as well.

And I do a lot of mulching to try and suppress those early seasons seedlings and try to keep it as clean as possible.

I usually do like a glyphosate spray in like February when you get those warm days and just try to get it way before the asparagus is gonna emerge.

Maybe even about now I don't, my ground's frozen so the asparagus has no hope of emerging yet but there's quite a few grasses coming up.

So it's probably a good time.

But I'm in a cold area of Bozeman and just trying to really suppress those little seedlings and then the asparagus is so, there's sort of shade that it really suppresses a lot of the weeds.

But yeah getting in there with a hoe in the field during the season is it's just kind of heck so.

(laughs) - [Bruce] Yeah, thank you.

- Okay Laurie from Bozeman, is it too early to put up wasp traps for the queen?

Tell us a little about queens and wasps.

What's going on here?

- Yeah it is, what they're probably asking about is the western yellow jacket traps.

And there are yellow traps.

They're colored yellow but they're traps available for western yellow jackets and not for vestibular species which is what the western yellow jacket is.

And they're baited with heptyl butyrate and that will attract the queens early on.

And so every trap queen of the western yellow jacket will, will prevent a nest from establishing cause every year they, they make a new nest.

And it is just a little bit early.

I usually, if you're in the Bozeman area, I usually try to have mine out by, by Memorial Day.

So they won't be out for a little while.

It's never really too early.

So maybe if you wanna think about, about mid-May, but that lure that you put in there it really only lasts, depends on which one you get.

Some last for three months, some lasts for a month.

So it will, it will make, if you put the lure in there it won't last as long.

- Where do you get the lures?

- You could get them at, at any of the hardware stores or garden stores.

And they're, they're pretty, they'll stay for a yellow jacket traps, and it's pretty much, it's the same lure that goes in each of the traps but some of the trap designs are just a little bit different but they're all, they all work the same.

- Okay, Bruce from Billings, any suggestions for morning glory control and pastures.

- That's interesting one as well.

Another very difficult weed as I said before in the gardens even.

A tough one in pastures.

It's interesting we don't see it as much in, in pastures and it kind of depends on, on what other species you have in that pasture.

For example, if it's a mix of alfalfa and grasses for example, that could be, makes it difficult to make a herbicide recommendation.

But there are herbicides that will take it out.

I think Dicamba and there are some others that, pickle brine I think is another one you can use at low rates.

And but they won't kill the grasses but they'll grow up probably significantly impact the rest of your dicots or your broadly species.

So really have to know what you're, what you're managing for there.

And if you have a mixed dicot and monocot community I.e grasses and broadly, then your herbicide options pretty much go away and you're, you're looking at probably mowing.

Real consistent mowing.

If you can get it every 18 to 21 days and you have to do it all summer long till the end of August, and then you can, can really deplete the underground structures that support the rhizomes and land for roots in the morning glory.

So not, again, not an easy one to deal with but and it's showing up more and more I think, especially as we have reduced tillage even in cropping systems.

And certainly organic growers it's one of the top weeds that they're trying to deal with.

There's some research going on over in Corvallis, Montana on the population dynamics of a field bind weed, the morning glories species.

So they should, you might wanna contact Zach Miller there at the Corvallis Research Center, Western Research, Western Montana Research Center.

So he probably has the most up-to-date information.

- Okay Abi, here's a question that's very pertinent right now.

Is there any advantage to planting bare root fruit trees versus ball and burlap trees?

Cost, convenience.

What's your thoughts on this?

- So it, I would say it would depend on availability at your local nurseries and that cost factor is going to be important to for bare root versus the B and B, burlap trees.

Ball and burlap trees usually can take off a little bit faster than the bare root trees and are probably available a little bit earlier than the bare root ones.

But it would depend on what type of tree it is and kind of what your budget is going in, how many you want to incorporate into your landscape.

But there are benefits to both of the, of these types of fruit trees in your landscape.

- Okay.

It's very pertinent at the time of the year.

I know people are trying to, to get those fruit trees in.

Laurie, I think we didn't cover this yet.

It says, does the emerald ash borer kill the tree or does a fungus that goes with it, the borer actually kill the tree?

Like with Dutch elm disease, it's spread by a beetle but it's the fungus that really is killing the tree.

Same thing true with emerald ash borer?

- No, not the same thing with emerald ash borer.

So it does not carry a fungus.

And so it's, it's actually the, the girdling of the tree and the way that its constricts the movement of nutrients and water that's actually killing the tree.

So in this case, it is not carrying another fungus to, that kills the tree.

- Okay.

Bruce, we're back to weeds again.

This person says, the weeds in my garden just seem to be getting worse every year.

Should I just give up gardening for a year and cover the entire area with black plastic?

If not, then what do you recommend?

(laughs) - Don't give up.

- Don't give up, okay.

(laughs) - No I, well okay let's start with the black plastic.

I don't think that's, you're probably better to use clear plastic if anything.

If you're gonna go to the plastic wrap.

But I don't think you need to do that.

I think mulching as Mary had suggested is a sound way to deal with a lot of the weeds and is gives you a good start and active weeding.

I mean, I guess it depends on, on how much production you want.

I guess, I find many people that have you know, the same people will say, Oh I've got a terrible weed problem but then I asked, that one of the questions I always like to ask is did you eat all the vegetables that you produced?

And usually they say no we had so many vegetables we couldn't eat 'em all.

So I say, well share some of those nutrients with the weeds.

You don't need to (mumbles).

(laughs) - Okay I like that.

Abi here's a question about, she says if I didn't get my potatoes planted on Good Friday is it too late to plant them now?

And if I delayed planting them until mid June would this be too late?

Kind of the early and late on potatoes.

- Yeah, yeah.

I, I think if the, that's a tough call, where are they located?

- [Don] They're located here in the Gallon Valley.

- Okay, so I would say if you didn't get them planted in Good Friday you can still plant them now.

You might have mixed results with what you're able to produce but waiting until mid summer might be a little bit warm to plant your potatoes into the ground.

- Okay so better to get them in mid may perhaps.

Yeah.

- [Abi] Yes.

- Okay.

Laurie what are you predicting for any insect outbreaks in Montana this year?

Anything special look out for?

- Yeah I'm not very good at the predictions.

It's different every year.

I think we, since we had a high grasshopper year I think we're gonna have another high grasshopper year but that depends on a lot of the spring conditions and it's, they need a wet spring and but they also need, need the grass to dry out after that.

So they, so they're not killed by a lot of, a lot of fungi.

But so I think we're gonna have a high grasshopper year and it just depends on what happens in the next few months.

I, yeah I don't know.

(laughs) - I know and all of that's true of all of us trying to make these predictions in Montana.

Abi with just a couple of seconds what's the, your favorite new vegetable that's showing up this year for a gardener to plant.

- So I'm, I'm a big fan of beets in general and there are so many cool varieties of beets out there.

I didn't even realize just all sorts of colors, beautiful yellow beets and things like that.

So if people don't grow beets I would say definitely give it a try.

There are a lot of really cool beet varieties for you to try.

It's like a rainbow of just beets.

- Okay we'll take that up.

Well folks, we're down to the end of our time here tonight.

Many thanks to all of you that called in your questions for tonight.

Thanks to our panelists and to Laurie for being our special panelist tonight.

Next week, we're going to have Rachel Frost who's the program manager for the Dan Scott Ranch Management Program.

That's housed here in the MSU animal science department.

So it's gonna be kind of a different orientation towards animals but I think you'll find it interesting.

And so we'd recommend that you all tune in.

Again, thanks for showing up tonight and stay warm.

Goodnight.

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