- [Announcer] Montana Ag Live is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, (country music) 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.

(upbeat folksy music) - Good evening.

Welcome to Montana Ag Live, originating tonight from the studios of KUSM and a very vibrant campus of Montana State University, and also from our homes and offices located around the beautiful state of Montana.

I'm Jack Riesselman, I'll be your host this evening.

Retired professor of plant pathology, and those of you who have watched the program in the past, you know how it works.

There's a phone number on the screen.

If you have questions concerning any of the expertise of our panel this evening, please call them in.

If you call the questions in, a lot of other people also learn from the answers to those questions.

Tonight taking the questions will be Debra Midland, and Aaron, Deanna Midland and Aaron Pruitt.

I didn't have my glasses on so I better put them on here pretty soon.

We do it a little differently.

They're not in the studio tonight.

They are taking the questions at home, but relay them to me through this modern technology called Slack and they pop up on this little computer that's in front of me.

So don't be afraid to ask questions, and also if you prefer not to do the phone we take questions via Facebook and also email.

Let me introduce tonight's panel.

Over here on the other half of the stage this evening is Mary Burrows.

Mary is an Extension plant pathologist and part-time administrator or vice versa, probably full-time administrator, part-time Extension plant pathologist.

She's been in the studio with me many times.

If you have any questions concerning diseases tonight, hey, it's a great opportunity to get them answered.

Our special guest this evening is Cooper Elwood.

Cooper is president of the Montana Association of Ornamental Pest, professional pest control people.

It's called AMTOP, that's what I knew it by for years, and also joining us this evening will be Abi Saeed.

Abi is our Extension horticulturalist, and of course, Tim Seipel.

Tim is very well versed in weed science.

He likes to be called a plant ecologist, but I think it's better to call him a weed scientist.

So with that, let me introduce and have Cooper tell us a little bit more about the AMTOP association here in Montana.

Cooper, it's all yours.

- All right.

Well, thanks for having me on here, guys.

I appreciate it, for sure.

So basically, yeah, I'm currently serving as the president of AMTOP.

It's the Association of Montana Turf and Ornamental Pest Professionals.

Basically, we're an advocacy group here in the state.

We put on a educational conference once a year typically in the winter time, you know, when most of the greens industry people are a little bit slower and basically we get chemical applicators from, from all over that come down and, you know, learn a little bit about application methods and just safety and, and all that kind of stuff, and, and basically just earn their continuing education credits for their licensure.

We also, the last couple of years have been doing a, some classes with the Irrigation Association for Sprinkler People and Irrigation Professionals, and we also put on some classes for arborists for their credits with the International Society of Arboriculture.

We also do some volunteer days through the state.

We actually just had one here a couple of weeks ago down at the station foundation.

So it was great to, to get out and volunteer for, for some places that that really could use it, and then traditionally, we've also gone to Washington DC and done some volunteering at Arlington National Cemetery as well which you know, is, is, is a great opportunity for us to give back and, and honestly it's just, it's a great opportunity to be able to participate in a program like that as well.

So, yeah, again, thanks for having me on here.

I appreciate it, and yeah, let's get some questions going here.

- All right, Cooper.

Yeah, we've worked with you.

I know Mary has many years ago.

I worked with AMTOP when I was fully employed with the university and you guys do a great job.

You're certified, basically plant advisors.

You do a wonderful job in pest control, and let me ask you a question.

It comes up quite commonly.

When does a homeowner really need to have a commercial applicator take care of their lawn rather than do it themselves?

Any indication of when they should use a commercial person rather than trying to do it yourself?

- Yeah, you know, there's, there's a lot of do it yourself options for, for landscaping, you know, but usually what I tell people is if you start seeing issues that you can't diagnose really easily yourself, you know, there are a lot of resources through the Department of Agriculture with the Extension services and whatnot.

You can go and get some things diagnosed that way but sometimes it's easier just to have somebody come out and take a look around 'cause you might have an issue that you might not, it might not be very obvious what's going on there.

So, you know, especially for me I always tell people and I tell my clients if you have an issue or just have a question, have somebody come out and take a look, and you know, if you have a good relationship with your, with your greens industry contractors, they can tell you whether or not, you know, it's something that you can take care of yourself or if it's something that needs professional help.

Any applicator that I know is more than willing to come to your, to your property and to do a site visit with you and just answer any questions you might have.

So don't be afraid to, to call.

Even if you think it's something minor, it's really, really easy to get a hold of somebody to have them come out and take a look for you, so.

- Appreciate that, and on that note, we have a question that just came in on email and this is for everybody on the panel tonight, so.

This person would like to know how to make their yard look good with very little money, and their fruit trees look awful trying to sprout out this spring.

What can they do?

So let's attack the yard first.

How do you manage a yard to make it look good without a lot of money?

Mary, you want to start?

- I'd say it takes a master gardener training.

(chuckling) - Okay, any other, Abi?

- I would say, you know, one of my first things that I recommend, people who might have a yard that doesn't look that great is to get a soil test.

Start there and then move on from that aspect to see what nutrients might be missing and what plants would do well in that landscape.

- Cooper, do you have anything you want to throw in there?

- Yeah, you know, I think that's a, that's great advice, getting a, getting a soil test and just seeing, you know, where you're at, as far as soils go.

You know, any plant, you know, it seems kind of obvious, but any plant is going to be growing in the soil.

So if you have bad soil or if you have an issue with your soil, everything's going to, it's just not going to be what you want.

It's kinda what it comes down to.

So it really, you got to start with the basics and start from the ground up, start with the soils and move from there.

I think that's great advice.

- Okay, and Tim, you got to jump in.

- Yeah, I think you should, you know, think about what weeds you have in your yard, how, how, what aesthetic you're going for and what you want to take out.

You know, if it's dandelions, you can spend 15, 20 minutes a day plucking out dandelions, relatively clean up the yard.

Field bindweed can be a problem.

Sometimes it's not, makes your yard not look very nice.

That's a harder one to deal with but clean up some of the weeds would be my, my suggestion.

- Okay, one of the ways to clean up weeds, and it's a hard way but it's cheap, is to dig 'em, and I'm not into that anymore, that's a lot of work.

Mary, from Malta, it's been chilly.

This person would like to know if they plant their dry peas, and we can also relate that to garden peas, too early, will that increase the disease problems for the peas?

- No, they should plant their peas as early as possible.

Michael Wunsch from Carrington just released some really nice information on planting date and disease and for dry pea, you know, the later you plant the higher your disease risk.

For early planting in the dry conditions we have very minimal disease risks but still use a seed treatment.

That's a very good insurance policy and plan as early as you can.

- And the same holds true for, you know, the home gardens.

- Oh, it does, yeah.

- But most home garden seeds are not treated, I believe.

- No, no, and there's very little disease risk in most home gardens unless you've experienced a problem before.

- Okay, from Hamilton, this person has an apricot tree that's oozing a resin.

The leaves are wilting, the bark is peeled off at the base, but the tree is still living.

Let's throw that one to Cooper, any thought on that?

- You know, unfortunately, without being on site and taking a look at it, it's kind of hard to tell exactly what's going on, but it sounds like there's maybe some gummosis or something like that going on, which is something that that happens quite a bit.

You know, a lot of times, you know, with fruit trees especially, you know, there's not really a quick fix for a lot of things.

A lot of times it's, it's more management and just trying to reduce the amount of stress on the tree as much as possible.

You know, especially if you have an older tree, an ornamental that's been pruned on really heavy, they just have a really hard life is kind of what it comes down to.

So reducing the amount of stress on those trees will, will definitely make them last as long as possible.

A lot of times I recommend to people, make sure you're putting down enough mulch, you know, around a tree without getting it right up next to the bark.

That can really help a lot when, when it gets really hot in summertime.

A lot of times trees just don't get enough water and don't have enough moisture in the soil, and so putting that mulch down really helps to, to reduce the temperature of the root plate, keeps the moisture in the soil, and as it breaks down, it actually can, can provide the tree with some nutrients as well.

Another thing too that I like to point out to people is that, you know, like I said, a lot of times trees just don't get the amount of water that they need.

So when you do water, you need to make sure that you're doing it kind of out on the drip line of the tree, not necessarily right at the base, which is kind of what you think you would need to do.

A lot of the roots for most plants, especially trees, are right around the, the drip line.

So they're out a little farther than you would think, and so doing those things can, like I said, reduce the amount of stress that you have on your trees because that's, you know, like I said, it's, it's, it's all about management.

There's a lot of problems that get into trees that you just can't get rid of right away, but reducing the amount of stress certainly helps them and helps them kind of live the best life, so.

- I agree with you entirely.

Good answer.

This is a fantasy category question that came in from Emigrant and I gotta pull it back up here.

This person would like to know, will there ever be a fertilizer and a deal, deer repellent combination?

Any thoughts on that, and I'll open it up to whoever wants to answer that.

I guess we don't have any.

Go for it.

- I'll throw my hat in the ring for this one.

You know, there's, there's a lot of deer repellents out there and I'll be perfectly honest with you.

I haven't really had a whole lot of luck with a lot of them.

You know, a fertilizer plus a deer repellent, you know, that would, that would be great.

I don't know that that's something that's, I, I perceive coming any time soon.

You know, like I said, there's a lot of, a lot of homeopathic treatments and even some, some deer repellent stuff that's, you know, you can get for, for a, for a certified applicator like myself that's restricted, but at the end of the day, you know, if deer are hungry, they'll eat, they'll eat anything is kind of what it comes down to, and so, you know, a deer repellent, you know, it'll repel them for a while but at the end of the day, like I said, you know, I really think that cultural practices, you know, fencing stuff off and doing things like that to keep deer away is really the only way to do it.

- Okay, from Emigrant, if you've got deer problems, don't try to grow any tulips up there.

You'll attract them, and actually let me Perry Miller who's been on this panel many, many times has had deer problems in his garden for years, and a few years back he got a pretty good jolt of an electric fence and he put peanut butter on the electric fence for two or three days and let the deer lick it off, and then about the fourth day, he juiced it up and the deer did not come back after that.

So that's another option.

It's a little more expensive but it might work.

Tim, from Townsend, any new chemicals for wild oat control that you've heard of are coming on the market?

- No, there's not a lot of new chemicals for wild oat control that have really come on the market recently.

Most of the herbicides that we use are these grassy herbicides, we call them grassy herbicides.

They're in group one of the classification, and those things are like axial, and some other things like that that we use pretty commonly.

They're, they're out there.

Talk to your local ag retailer and they can help you for this specific recommendation for your crop and, and deal with it.

There is some resistance out there to the grassy herbicides, the group one herbicides, so it can be a little bit difficult to manage wild oat sometimes.

So sometimes you have to come back to a longer perspective and kind of think of how we can switch our crop rotations if we can to give us a good application window in the spring and then plant a subsequent spring crop.

That's one of the things.

Forage crops, we did some recent research using triticale and spring forage barley, and when you incorporate those into your rotations, they actually do a pretty good job of cutting that wild oat off in the spring, and then you can come back and terminate that forage crop however you want with the herbicide or tillage or things like that and that can really drive the number of wild oat seeds in the seed bank down.

- Okay, thank you.

Abi, Facebook question, and this is not easy to answer but what a person or where, they would like you to recommend a good general purpose apple for the Townsend area, and that, that's hard, I know, but you want to take a shot at that?

- Yeah, so I would say that would be probably best answered by the Western Agriculture Research Center.

They grow a variety of different apples and they know the qualities and then preferences will also matter because there are probably a lot of different apples that would fit the bill when it comes to a good general purpose apple for Townsend, but what you'd want to know is what you're looking for in that apple, what, what your preferences are, and then what your maintenance capabilities are for that type of fruit tree.

- Okay.

Cooper, have you got a favorite apple over in your country that you like?

- You know, I got to say, you know, that we've been seeing a lot more of Honeycrisp apples and I, you know, as far as, you know, like longevity of 'em, I'm not 100%, but they're, they're, they're awful good.

That's for sure.

- [Jack] They are tasty.

- So, it's hard it's hard to not recommend those to ya.

- Okay, thank you.

Mary, this is an annual question.

We're going to do it once this year.

Earthworms in their yard, nightcrawlers probably.

The yard is rough, how do they control them or do they need to control them?

- That means you have a healthy soil.

- [Jack] It sure does.

- Some people go to the extreme of rolling it but really if you just encourage your grass to grow, maybe cut a little high, be good, good to go.

- Okay, good enough.

From Big Fork, this caller has a young spruce tree that's eight feet tall, came through winter with needles that are purpling.

Is this winter desiccation, and whoever wants to jump on that, go ahead.

- I mean, you know, we, we did see quite a bit of winter damage here this last year.

You know, unfortunately, without taking a look at it, it's, it's hard to diagnose something without, without actually seeing it, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some winter damage 'cause I know in my area it's, it's just everywhere.

Seems like we've seen it a lot on, on conifers and things like that.

So it really wouldn't surprise me at all.

- Okay, Mary, back to you real quick, and Abi, you might want to jump in too.

This person has white onions that rot at the base at harvest time, whereas the purple and yellow onions do not.

Anybody want to explain what's going on there?

- We get a lot of fusarium rot in the, in our soils and that variety might be much more susceptible to it.

So they probably want to rotate their onions to a different area.

Don't like, save those onions and replant them or, you know.

Get some new seed stock, not that you could, but they're biennial, but anyway, you know, just get a healthy soil.

Don't keep it too moist.

- All right.

There's also, I believe a bacterial disease, that pseudomonas cepacia that causes a rot of white onions, but not red and yellow because there's some chemical which I don't recall what it was in those onions.

This one I'm not sure about, and we'll see if anybody has an answer.

It came in from Shelby.

They would like to know how safe it is to use Tempo insecticide, and I'm not familiar with Tempo.

It is supposed to be safe for indoor use, but caller would like our opinion.

Anybody have an answer to that, or do we need to get somebody next week to answer that, Tempo?

- I would say, that would be better answered by Cecil or the pesticide lab.

That's just my, my thoughts.

- We'll get that on, I'll save that question.

Before I go any further, this weekend was graduation here at Montana State University and it was a full-blown graduation.

I want to congratulate all those new graduates.

Good job, you got a great education here and welcome to the working force.

There are jobs out there for you.

From Polson, for Cooper, what is the advantage of using a licensed chemical applicator, and we, we mentioned that earlier.

So if you can brief answer on that.

- Yeah, for sure.

You know, the, the biggest thing is, you know, it can be hard to diagnose exactly what's going on on a property.

You know, like I said, there's a lot of resources that the state has, the Department of Agriculture has.

They're just indispensable, but sometimes it's a, you know, it's a lot easier to get somebody to come out and visit the site and see what's going on and then recommend a, a treatment plan from there.

So that's, you know, that's, I would say the biggest, the biggest way to go for sure and the biggest reason, but also, you know, chemical applicators in general are, are trained and especially AMTOP members are trained to apply chemicals safely.

You know, anybody can go out and apply insecticides and whatnot to, you know, to trees especially, you know, in my case but you know if, if you don't apply the product correctly, I mean, you're going to end up killing a lot of things that you don't, you don't want to get rid of.

You know, a lot of times people see insects and they just assume that insects are bad for things.

Most insects are great and want to keep them around.

There's just a very few, a very small number of pest insects that you would like to get rid of that cause issues and a licensed chemical applicator should be able to recommend a treatment plan for you that will target those pests and leave all the beneficial insects intact as well.

- Right, and a lot of the trained applicators know to help recognize if it's a pest and when it's not, and about 80% of what we get in the clinic is really environmental damage.

It's not a pest problem.

- Agreed entirely.

Okay, thank you.

Here's one I like, we'll see who wants to take this one on.

I don't think it will be Mary, but from Belgrade.

Other than getting a dog, what is the best way to keep cats out of a yard and-or garden?

Anybody have a suggestion?

- They're all welcome in my yard.

- Mary has a fair number of cats.

Anybody have a answer to that?

I don't.

- So I don't either.

I'm wondering what the cats are doing in their yard that they want them to stay away.

- [Jack] They're using them.

- Killing the soil would be my guess.

- Okay, you know, it's a tough question.

If you've got soil that soft, cats are going to find a way to fertilize that soil.

From Shelby, Tim, how long after they used an ounce of Tordon to treat problem weeds can they go back in with peas or other post crops?

That's a good question.

- Ooh, that's a really good question.

So Tordon is a herbicide that has a really, really long residual in the soil that can stay in there for a long time.

It's typically used more often in range settings than it is used within a row crop setting and peas are particularly sensitive to Tordon and a few of the other things like Curtail that might be used or things like that.

I believe the plant-back interval is well over 18 months.

So I would check the herbicide label for the formulation of Tordon that was used, but it's likely to be at least a year, if not two to three years before you could go back in with peas.

- Mary, yeah, so actually work in the winter ahead of time?

- Probably, but you know, a lot of our soils are a lot drier than they've tested for the label.

I'd err on the side of caution and go longer than the label says.

- Yes.

- Yeah, absolutely.

It does not break down rapidly in our environment.

- No, we really ran into a problem with that a few years ago when we had an extended drought and then people planted pulse crops and we had so much herbicide injury and it wasn't that product, but a number of products that normally would have been safe.

- And lentils are probably more sensitive.

- Oh yeah.

- Than the other one.

Okay, from Monarch and I think this is the first question we've ever had from Monarch, so thank you.

It's for Abi.

Caller has potted plum trees from DNRC last year, which did well.

He looked at them this spring, and when he touched them they fell over.

Something that had eaten the roots.

He thinks it might be pocket gophers.

They left little black mounds.

What can he do to avoid this when replanting this year?

Anybody know what the answer to that is?

- I get pocket gophers in my garden and I drown 'em out and chase them back into the, the prairie, you know, in the park, but they're tough.

They keep coming back.

- Yeah, they're tough little creatures.

Any other suggest?

- No, we had pocket gophers destroy quite a few of our apple trees at our hort farm in Bozeman the year prior, and they're pretty, they're very tough, tough animal to to try and manage.

We, sorry?

- Oh, we could give Stephen, Stephen Vantassel a call at Department of Ag, he's got some pocket gopher experience.

- Yeah, or Jared Beaver.

- Yeah, Jared Beaver.

- Jared Beaver is our Extension vert specialist, so he might be able to offer some guidance to you.

- Okay, thank you.

Cooper, from Missoula, this person is concerned that if they use insecticides in their yards, I'm not sure why they would be using insecticide in a yard in Missoula, but will it hurt the bees?

- That's a kind of a, kind of a tricky question.

You know, it's, insecticides in general are chemicals that are made to kill insects, and so any kind of insecticide that is applied incorrectly is going to kill bees.

Really what it comes down to, and this is another reason, you know, like I said earlier to, to look for a chemical applicator, licensed chemical applicator is to try to prevent killing off those beneficial pollinators in, in targeting the pest itself.

You know, like I said, it, it's kind of a loaded question.

Insecticides in general definitely will kill bees.

I mean, that's just what it comes down to, but there are ways around it and there are ways to apply products to where the danger of killing pollinators and beneficial insects is kind of negated or at least minimized and that's really why you want to get a, a, a licensed chemical applicator on your property to take a look and see what we can do.

- Okay, thank you, and I love when we get responses from the audience because I will throw them up whenever I can.

This is a response to the Tempo insecticide.

The answer is, Tempo SC Ultra is considered a general use insecticide and is labeled for outside and inside use.

It is odorless.

They're very safe to use around children or pets.

About one hour should be dry and perfectly safe to allow kids or pets back in the room.

So whoever sent that in via Facebook, thank you.

On that note, we had another question here and this person has a good question and I'm not sure we can provide a real good answer for it, but they read on 2-4-D labels when they go to spray their yard that they're supposed to use between eight and 12 ounces per acre, but they use a gallon sprayer.

How do they calibrate to use a gallon or two gallon sprayer when you have eight to 12 ounces of 2-4-D per acre?

Any, any answer on how you calibrate those?

- We're quite good at that at the weeds lab because we do a fair number of trials out at the post farm and we spray really small, relatively small areas.

So there is an Extension guide at the MSU Extension store on calibrating sprayers and backpack sprayers.

So the person could check there too, but in general what we do is I fill up with just water.

I did this the other day down at the post farm.

I got out all our sprayers and I fill up a certain amount of water, maybe a half gallon of water, something like that, and I, and I measure that half gallon of water, and then I go spray an area, maybe 20 feet by 20 feet, something like that, and then I come back and I, and I see how much water is left in my, in my spray tank.

So then I know how much water I used on that sort of 20 foot by 20 foot area, and then I multiply that to know how much I would spray in an acre, and then you have to do a little bit more math calculations on that to figure out how much water I, what the area I want to spray is, and then I would say, okay, I'm going to spray this area, and it's this certain proportion of an acre.

So I know about what the percentage of an acre I would be spraying in, and to be honest it's sometimes hard to measure those really small amounts, and so us down at the post farm, sometimes we're out there with the little pipette measuring just, you know, five, 10, 15 milliliters of that herbicide out there, but I would suggest to go to the MSU Extension store and look at calibrating hand sprayers and how to do tank mixes.

There's a couple of mock guides that are out there on that.

- You know, and great answer, Tim, thank you, but people that are really concerned about calibrating, this is a time that you might want to get a commercial applicator to come in and do it because they have these tricks all figured out, right, Cooper?

- [Cooper] Absolutely.

- Okay.

Mary, raspberries, they're getting crowded and you brought some raspberries in.

This question came from Helena.

They're really crowded.

Do they need to be thin and when and how to thin them?

- So generally people recommend thinning raspberries in the fall, but I am a lazy gardener and I'm busy canning then, so I usually get around to it in the spring when I'm really eager to get in my garden, but I probably shouldn't yet.

So it's a good activity for me in the spring.

You should thin your raspberries because it's easier to harvest if they're thinner and, what you know, how you know how to, what to get rid of is you can see these top canes are a lot grayer than the bottom canes and the bark is peeling on them.

So those are dead.

They're last year's berry-bearing canes, and then the bottom ones are the new canes that'll have fruit this year, and when you cut them, the top ones, the ones that the peeling bark are obviously dead, they snap off right away, and then the bottom ones, you know, I, I thinned out quite a bit of the wive canes too, because I want nice big raspberries that are easy to pick.

- [Jack] The robins like 'em bigger too.

- Well, we don't have a robin problem.

We do have a puppy problem now in my yard.

- That's just as bad.

- Yeah, but I, I, you know, when they get overgrown, you get those tiny little raspberries and then you have to pick more of them and I just want the big ones and, you know.

- Okay.

That makes good sense, and that's true for a lot of other fruit.

- [Mary] It is.

- It is.

Okay, Cooper, from Park County, that's over in Livingston.

Caller has blue spruce trees and wondering when they pollinate, more specifically, to collect the cones to grow seedlings from seed, and I'm not aware that you can do that, but you want to expand on what you know about that?

- You know, I can't, I can't say that I've really ever heard of anybody really collecting spruce cones to, to start from seed, so I'm, I'm, I'm afraid I'm going to have to defer to maybe one of these other guys can give you a little bit more information on, on how that works.

Propagation, it typically is something that you would see in a, in a nursery environment and just isn't something I have a whole lot of experience with.

So maybe one these other guys can, can expand on that a little bit.

- Abi, you have any thing to add in there?

- I, I do not have very much to add other than, that sounds like a lot of work.

- We don't want that.

Okay, thank you.

From Winifred for Abi, they have an old apple tree, and I think this is the first question we've had from Winifred, is from an old country orchard, and there are a lot of those that exist around the state of Montana.

He says the apples are still good and they want to graft two or more to new trees.

Is that feasible?

- Yeah, if you get the right roost, root stock, you can graft an apple tree that you have onto that root stock.

That's gonna work.

It, it works pretty well.

A lot of people try and do that to Heritage apples where you can't figure out what exact variety it is and if you purchase the right root stock from nurseries.

I would, I would call ahead and ask them what they would recommend too, and you should be able to graft that and try it out and see how well it does.

- Okay, thank you.

Interesting question from Granite County near Philipsburg, and this person says they have badgers that are getting under buildings.

How do you get rid of them?

First of all, I doubt they're badgers 'cause badgers would prefer to dig in an open pasture area.

I suspect they're marmots, but I don't know if we have a good answer other than maybe a live trap or something that shoots 17 Hornets.

We'll save that question for when we have our rodent specialist, Don.

Another question from Polson.

How long do I need to wait to enter a lawn that's been sprayed, and I suspect that varies with what you spray with, but Cooper, you wanna jump on that, or Tim?

- Yeah, for sure.

So, you know, anytime that said they do a chemical application on a, on a lawn or, you know, a garden or a tree or whatever, if you take a look at the label, there's actually a bit of information in there called the re-entry interval or the REI.

If you take a look at the label, it'll say on there, don't enter the spray area within, you know, four, eight hours, whatever.

Really, it's different for every product.

So you just need to make sure that you read that label if you're doing any kind of chemical application just for the safety information, but especially for that re-entry interval.

If you do have somebody, you know, contracted to come on site and do a chemical application for you, definitely ask the applicator what the reentry interval is, and if they can't answer that, you know, that's, it's not a great sign for sure, but a lot of that stuff you can, you can definitely look up online or call the Extension service as well, but so the reentry interval definitely is in that label along with a lot of other safety information that's, if you're going to be around chemicals at all, you really should be aware of, of what's in, in the label for sure so.

- Okay, thank you.

This person says, a couple of weeks ago you had a program talking about hemp.

You did not mention any diseases of hemp.

He's considering growing hemp in future years.

Are there disease issues to be concerned about?

And the question comes from Malta.

- Yes, we have not seen anything other than maybe some fusarium root rot, very, very occasionally, and that occurs on every crop.

In the Midwest they certainly have had some powdery mildew, downy mildew, other issues, but we're dry enough here that we shouldn't see that.

More commonly, I think we hear about the insect issues.

- Yeah, and I think that acreage is going to increase again.

There's a lot of interest in it.

From Belgrade, caller has pear, apples, cherries, and plum trees.

They say some are not doing so well.

They have a three to four foot weed barrier edging that's six inches thick.

Is that bad for them as the roots cannot go under it or through it?

Anybody want to jump on that?

- I mean.

- So I would say that.

Oh, sorry, go for it.

- Okay, so I was going to say, it depends on the, the root systems of those weeds but if they are placed really close and within the drip line of those trees, they could be competing for moisture for those trees, and that could impact the overall health of those, of those fruit trees.

Anything to add, Cooper?

- No, I would agree with that for sure.

- Okay, from Helena, this person has been saving vegetable leftovers in a bin.

Over a year they have not added any soil to it, so it's basically a mulch.

It has turned black.

Can they use that in the garden, and number two, is it good for the garden?

Abi, it's compost.

- Just vegetables and nothing else?

- Yeah, just vegetables.

- Okay, so if, if it was disease free produce then I would say that they can add some of the brown matter into there could be straw, something else like that that you mix in and let it, let it age a little bit longer before adding it to the garden, but if it was produce that had some disease issues in there, I would be hesitant to apply that into the garden.

- It probably should break down pretty, pretty well over time.

You know, if it's black, I don't think that's an indication that there's anything wrong with it.

No, no, I I'd go ahead and incorporate it in with as most mulches you don't need to incorporate a lot.

Soil test would tell you if you needed to put more through there.

This is an interesting question, I have not heard of this but this person from Billings via Facebook asks, he's heard of emerald ash borers, but what about lantern flies?

What is a lantern fly?

Anybody know a little bit about lantern flies?

- Yeah, so spotted lantern fly, I'm guessing is probably, probably what they're referring to, which is a, it's an insect that I think primarily is on the east coast, and I haven't had a lot of experience with that, so if anybody else has definitely jump in here and let me know if I'm saying something wrong, but spotted lantern flies I believe are related to aphids somehow, and they're kind of a sucking insect from what I've heard, and they just, they, they breed prolifically and they, they just, they just sap all of the, the moisture out of trees and just cause a lot of damage.

I don't think that they really have migrated this far west.

I mean, like I said, I think they're, they're primarily on the east coast.

It's a non-native insect that was introduced over there somehow years ago.

So it's not something that's that we've seen in Montana as far as I know and in fact it's, it's not something that I would be super concerned with right now.

I definitely would be more concerned with emerald ash borer coming through before spotted lantern fly does.

- Okay, thank you.

This is an interesting both question and a comment.

Last week, there was a question, how do you get rid of weeds in asparagus beds, and I mentioned that if you spray it with Roundup prior to the time the asparagus comes through, you will get rid of some of the weeds already yet.

This person says that their caller's sister in New England has a 78 year old asparagus bed and she uses post-snow road salt and keeps the weeds out.

I do think salt works on asparagus.

Tim, do you have any suggestions there as a possible, or Abi or anybody?

- I do not.

I would be nervous about putting very much salt onto my soil though, because that could really affect your soil health and soil chemistry.

That's, I would be very cautious about putting much soil on.

Maybe if it's the east coast and they're getting 50 inches of rain a year or way more moisture, you could get away with some salt, but I think given our low precipitation rates in Montana, I would be really hesitant to do that.

- Abi, you have any suggestions for weed control in asparagus?

- So that I, I agree with the glyphosate use before that asparagus is supposed to pop up, but I, I would echo what Tim just said in terms of adding salt into your, into your garden beds, and then, you know, other things that you might want to do is might have to do some hand pulling depending on how big your asparagus beds are, because they can be very sensitive.

- Yeah, but mulch works really well.

You know, any sort of mulch.

- It does.

Yeah, absolutely, and actually, if you, the first couple of years you have an asparagus bed, if you aggressively do some weed control and that may include a little hand weeding, you'll keep the weeds pretty much under control.

I want to have you up, Mary.

This person from Conrad has not heard about the potential for weed streak this year.

They're always concerned about it and the growing triangle because it's a devastating disease when it does occur.

What do you think the potential is this year?

- Pretty low.

We just didn't see any outbreaks except where there are some people that knew they had a problem last year and we encourage them to break their green bridge, and hopefully we don't get it for another 20 years.

- You know, how is the winter wheat crop looking while I have you out?

- I think pretty good.

I haven't been out too much yet, but you know, it's dry.

But as far as I know, the winter wheat looks pretty good.

I haven't heard about the spring crops quite yet.

- And actually I was just driving around a little bit here in the western, central part of the state.

The spring wheat and barley that's up really looks good, but it is dry and we do need some serious moisture.

- Yeah, I think up north, they're hurting a little more than we are.

- Okay.

Cooper, a question from Hamilton.

It's a good question, 'cause you see it being sold all the time.

After you prune a tree, do you need to treat the pruning wounds?

- The short answer to that is no.

You know, there are a few instances where, you know, you might want to use a pruning sealer, but I mean, they are so far and few between, you know, it's, it's never something that I recommended people.

Most of the time, if you make a proper cut on a tree, you know, the tree should be able to callus over that wound itself.

The, the big thing is to make sure that you do make a proper cut and that's something that's, you know, if, if you're, if you're making big cuts out of a tree you really should consult with an arborist or, or greens professional just to, to answer some of those questions.

A lot of times when you paint over a pruning wound like that, you actually can seal in a lot of things, fungal spores and stuff like that, and cause a lot of issues down the road.

Like I said, there's, there's almost in my opinion anyway, there's almost no time where a pruning sealant is really gonna do anything for you.

The, the very few times that, you know, you do want to use it is, is, you know, like on oak trees for sudden oak death.

I think there's some, if you do some pruning during certain times of the year, you might do that, but that's going to, not going to be in places like Montana.

I think that's more like down in the south where they have a lot of problems with those kinds of diseases.

So in general, pruning sealant really isn't going to do a lot for you.

- Okay.

Cooper, while I have you up here, there's a question that came in.

How do you qualify for membership within - Well, basically, yeah, you just need to get to a chemical applicator's license or be a certified arborist.

You know, basically anybody can come to our educational conference, but you know, to be a member of the association, you do have to hold a license, I believe, but we do, you know, we have it open for everybody and you know, anybody is welcome to come in and attend.

There's a lot of great people that come out.

You know, we've had crane safety workshops for arborists.

You know, we have a electrical hazard training for arborists as well, a lot of people that come in from out of state.

You know, we had an entomologist from Colorado State come in and talk about a lot of things too.

So there's a lot of great information for everybody whether you're, you know, a chemical applicator or not.

Even if you just do a, you know, some gardening at home, yeah, come on out.

We'll be, we'll be happy to have you for sure.

- Where, where is your annual meeting this year, Cooper, if it's being held?

- Yeah, so typically we have it down at Fairmont Hot Springs here in Montana, just outside Butte there, and it's, it's a great spot, you know.

It's, it's just, just a great, a great place to have a conference for sure.

You know, and you know, we get together and have a good time and, and you know, sometimes we accidentally learn some stuff too, so just a good old fashioned good time so.

- That's always a plus.

- [Cooper] Absolutely.

- Okay, Abi, from Billings the apple trees in Billings are starting to flower.

Is this a proper time to spray for worms and what is a good general product to use for this, and then also what's a good fertilizer for strawberries, and that's a touchy question.

So jump on them if you'd like.

- Cooper, do you want to do the apple one?

- Yeah, yeah, for sure.

You know, probably what they're referring to is the coddling moth.

It gets into the apples and it can be kind of a tricky, tricky insect to get rid of.

You know, there's, there's a couple of different ways you can do it.

Typically when I'm spraying trees, I use a product called Spinosad, which is, I believe is an organic insecticide.

Sometimes can be a little bit misleading, it's still an insecticide and still a chemical.

You still need to be very careful with it when you're applying it, but I've had pretty good luck with it.

The, the real trick to it is making sure that the timing is appropriate and usually we, we measure out the timing for that with growing degree days, which is, can be a little bit tricky to, to calculate out but usually the Extension service in your, in your locale can, can give you a little bit of a guidance that way as far as when you need to spray, how and you know, those kinds of things so.

Typically the finding for those, I believe starts in, at least for here, we start those in June, about mid-June or so.

So it's a little later spray than a lot of things are.

- But there's some calculators online.

Oregon State has a codling moth model for Montana.

- For Montana, I did not know that.

Okay, Tim, from Livingston, this person has one of my least favorite weeds, mallow, in their yard.

They want to get rid of it.

Suggestions?

Common mallow.

- Yeah, I know that mallow is a tough one.

You know, I, we, I have trouble getting glyphosate or Roundup to kill mallow actually.

There's a few of the other things that are out there that might work.

Some of the synthetic oxins like Curtail or Stinger, I think do better.

Mallow comes on a little bit later in the season, but don't wait 'til it gets too big to try to spray it.

When you see it small out there is really the time to get after it and, and, and spray it early in the year.

Unfortunately, glyphosate doesn't do a great job on mallow for some reason.

It has a pretty thick leaf coat and it doesn't seem to get into it really well.

Does anybody else have any mallow recommendations?

- You can't even dig it successfully.

It's a tough one.

- Yeah, it is a tough one.

- I passed on the second question to Abi.

Abi, fertilizer for strawberries.

You want to go back to the question before?

- Yeah, sure.

So I, if their strawberries have been doing fairly well, I think a 12-12-12 fertilizer usually works for strawberries and can be a pretty good addition, especially if you haven't fertilized in a while.

Adding compost as well is going to add nutrients back into the soil but oftentimes I always hesitate to recommend a fertilizer without knowing the soil nutrient composition.

So the soil test is going to help you fine tune those needs for the strawberries as well.

- Okay, thank you.

From Yellowstone County, when thunderstorm season hits and branches break on old trees, what's the best way to help heal these trees?

Cooper, that's your ballpark.

- Well, it just kinda, it depends on the situation.

The biggest thing is making sure you get in there and make a proper, proper finishing cut on any branches that did break out of there.

Sometimes what can happen is if you do lose a branch, it actually can tear down the stem and cause a lot of problems because the tree has a hard time callousing over those types of wounds, but if, if you get lucky and it breaks off, you know, a little further out on the stem, making a good finishing cut is really all you need to do.

You know, this kind of goes back to, you know, proper management of trees and in pruning them and keeping them healthy to begin with, 'cause a healthy tree and, you know, when it's pruned properly should be able to withstand some of those, some of those issues a little easier than the tree that's just left to its own devices so.

- Okay.

You know, I, it varies with trees.

I mean, I've got a Lombardi poplar that, you know we got branches break all the time and I don't worry about it, but if I had a maple tree or something like that, then I'd want to make sure the pruning were beneficial to the tree.

So you're right there.

Mary, from Bab, this is not really your bailiwick but you can tell 'em how to get there.

This person had heard that there are ways to control spotted knapweed in large areas using insects.

You want to mention anything where they might go for information on that?

- Yeah, they could probably go to Extension.

Tim, do you know exactly who's working with that right now?

- Melissa Maggio at Montana Biocontrol in Missoula County, and Montana Biocontrol specializes in rearing and collecting insects for to be used in biocontrol, and they will send, they will give you a recommendation and send you some if they are available.

- Okay.

That is getting to be a pretty good size industry in the state of Montana, and it does work.

There's no doubt about it.

It's not going to be an overnight success but insects will help knock down a lot of the noxious weeds around the state.

Tim, I have you up.

This person would like to know what to do about snake grass, and I don't know what snake grass is, and their asparagus, asparagus patch.

- I also do not know what snake grass is, maybe quackgrass.

I can imagine, I see a lot of quackgrass problems in asparagus actually, fairly often, but I'm not sure what they mean exactly by snake grass.

Have to be careful trying to get rid of grasses within asparagus because grasses and asparagus are actually both monocots and so if you use a grassy herbicide that just affects grasses and it could, will also likely affect your asparagus.

So I think like Jack said earlier, one of the best ways to do it is to really, before your asparagus gets growing, do just application of glyphosate and the snake grass is already up and you can get that herbicide on it and it won't then affect the asparagus.

- Yeah, the gluten glyphosate.

- [Abi] So, Tim.

- Oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry, Abi, go ahead.

- Oh, sorry.

I was just going to say, I've heard horse tails referred to as snake grass sometimes.

I wonder if that might be what they're referring to.

- Oh, that could be.

That could be actually, I'm not sure.

I've never heard horsetail referred to that but I do see horsetail show up as a weed fairly often in, in some of the edges of our irrigated pastures and some of the herbicides to deal with those are actually our good old herbicides in the group two's, the chlorsulfuron and things, metsulfuron.

Escort, I think is one of them, and the others but I'm not sure how that will affect your asparagus.

So I would really check the label really carefully on that.

- Okay, thank you.

From Belgrade, for Cooper, this person has been told to top trees to keep them manageable.

In your opinion, is this a good practice or is it kind of not so much healthy for the trees?

- Yeah, no, that's, it's a terrible idea.

That's kind of what it comes down to.

Yeah, typically, you know, people have a tendency to have a fear-based reaction to trees sometimes, especially when they get to a certain height.

They start to worry that they're going to fall on the house or they're gonna fall on, you know, the kids or, you know, a back, basket of kittens or something, you know, and, and, and so a lot of times people will, will go through and take the tops out of them, and really what happens when you do that is you stimulate the growth at that cut and it's not just a single STEM most of the time.

Usually what happens is the tree will sucker out at that point, and then after a few years, after those suckers get to, you know, pretty big, the risk of them falling out and failing is, is just way higher than it was to begin with.

So really, you know, by reacting and topping trees out, you end up causing the problem that you're trying to avoid to begin with.

Also, when you take a big, big topping cut out of a tree or a big heading cut out of a tree, you're basically opening up a vector for a disease and insects and things like that to actually get into the interior of the tree, which causes structural stability down the road as well.

So really taking the, taking the tops out of things is really something that's, you know, is pretty antiquated, you know, and I don't see any, any time that that would be inappropriate action for an arborist to take, and in fact, you know, I think that if people are out there topping trees out and they're calling themselves an arborist, they're probably, they're probably wrong.

- Not good.

(laughing) You know, we're about down, about out of time.

Cooper, thank you for joining us this evening.

It was very much appreciated.

The rest of the panel, thank you for being here this evening.

Next week, Montana Invasive Species Council chair will be here, Bryce Christiansen, and thank you for joining.

It's always fun to do this.

Have a good week and good night.

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