- [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.

(upbeat music) - Good evening, you're tuned to Montana Ag Live originating tonight from the studios of KUSM on the very vibrant campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over the Montana Public Television System.

Many of our panel members tonight are also in their offices or at home and come this fall we hope to all be back in the studio like we were pre-COVID.

Tonight we have a special guest, Stephen Vantassel with the Montana Department of Agriculture.

He is a guru on controlling vertebrate pest, ground squirrels, moles, voles, mice.

If you have questions about those types of pests tonight, hey, it's a great opportunity to find out what you need to do.

Those of you who have watched the program in the past know how it works, you phone in the question and we do our best to provide the answer.

Taking the phone questions tonight will be Nancy Blake and Bruce Lobel.

Bruce used to be our chief water court judge.

He's now taking questions for Montana Ag Live and we appreciate his time.

Also, Abby Wanger will be taking questions via Facebook and email and Sydney Timmermans will also be helping out by taking those questions.

So before we go any further tonight, I wanna introduce tonight's panel.

Here in the studio with me is Jane Mangold.

Jane likes to be called a invasive weed specialist, I like to call her a weed scientist.

But anyway Jane glad to have you back here again.

If you have questions about weeds tonight, boy and we have a lot of them that are very active this spring good chance to get those questions answered.

Joining us from Lewistown this evening, Stephen Vantassel.

Stephen is with Department of Ag as I mentioned, he'll tell you a little bit about what he does in a few moments.

A new guest, not a guest, new panel member tonight is Uta McKelvy.

Uta is kind of taking over from Mary.

She's extension plant pathologist, very knowledgeable.

So if you have questions concerning diseases, plant diseases, hey it's an excellent opportunity to get those answered.

And of course, Laurie Kerzicnik.

Laurie is our very knowledgeable insect diagnostician at Montana State University.

So if you have insect questions, please get them in tonight.

And you know, the sooner you get those questions in the better chance that you'll have at having them answered.

Stephen, tell us what you do for the Department of Ag.

- Well, I help people resolve conflicts with vertebrate animals and so, just to remind everyone vertebrate means animal has a spine, so although I learned about bugs and trying to do more in the area of bugs, I deal with the animals with the spine so, that'd be pocket gophers, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, unprotected birds, something like pigeons, house sparrows, starlings in those types of species and I help people resolve those conflicts in a legal and responsible way.

- And a humane way to correct.

(laughs) - Well, it depends on which definition of humane you're using.

If you're using an animal rights definition, then no.

- Okay.

(chuckles) Well, I have a question that I've saved up for you and it isn't totally a vertebrate pest question but I have some very pesky flickers that like to pound on the side of the house, a hair protected bird.

Is there anything that you can do to kind of discourage them?

- There are.

Yeah, so there's a couple of things.

We have a publication that was updated a few years ago on woodpeckers.

And so we start with some frightening devices.

There are some on the market that are actually getting some really good reviews by wildlife controllers using them.

So, you could try things like Mylar strips of Mylar tape to try to cut them about one inch strips and make them about a foot long and then tack them in the areas where the activity is occurring.

You will be in situations where the woodpecker may move to a new location.

You just simply follow them along.

If you want something more aggressive, you can try netting.

Netting will stop them as well.

The reality is 50% of the time woodpeckers will stop whether you do anything or not.

So, you wanna try to do something before they become attached to your building and before they nest.

So, it's important to act quickly with woodpeckers.

- Okay.

Thank you.

I'll take that into consideration and - Yes.

- Okay.

(chuckles) Why have you, there's a question that came in from Facebook.

This person has pocket gophers that seem to be harvesting their garden onions and peas from below ground.

They tried fretting them out but to no avail.

Any suggestions?

- Traps.

And I would also wanna make sure that you're absolutely certain you're dealing with pocket gophers and not voles.

So with pocket gophers, you gonna have large I call them deter plate tight mounds.

And you also wanna look carefully at your garden to see if you have any quarter inch size holes.

If you have quarter inch size holes and you're looking at something that's a vole, that's with a v. So those are vegetarians and so both pocket gophers and voles can be attacking those particular plants.

So I would suggest traps would be your primary mode.

And again, we have a publication on pocket gopher control as well, and or you can call me and we could talk more about it over the phone.

- Stephen, are there some plants in a garden that pocket gophers prefer over others?

- Nothing's been no research that I'm aware of where that's been demonstrated in terms of a repellent factor.

Typically pocket gophers won't eat plants that have tubular roots, taproot plants is what they really like to eat.

But in terms of a plant that's gonna repel them from a garden, I haven't seen any research that confirms that and I'd be very suspicious cause what makes them just simply bypass it and move beyond it.

- Okay, thank you.

Uta from Conrad.

A question that came in email.

This person has noticed some white bleached looking leaves on their winter wheat and they saw this about a week ago.

They're curious, is this a disease or something else?

- Right.

Given the weather conditions in Montana over the past couple of weeks and the time that was mentioned, my first guess would be that these white leaves might be related to the cold snap that we had before we have the heat snap very recently.

And so, I would guess these white stripes could be damage from the cold.

We actually got some samples like that in the diagnostic lab this last week too.

And I think I also brought a picture to the studio.

And so if it looks anything like this I would say that's most likely cold damage is just when the temperatures go below a certain temperature.

The vulnerable leaf tissue might get damaged and bleached like in this picture here.

Sometimes the symptoms can also just be yellowing of the leaves or the tips might be looking like scorched and burned.

It really depends on the growth stage of your plant and how long and how cold the temperatures were but yeah.

If in doubt, always send a sample to your local extension agent and they can forward it to the diagnostic lab and we can have a closer look at it.

- Okay, thank you.

Might add that you know, if people were growing sweet corn or even field corn in the eastern part of the state, or even the gallon valley, we used to see that type of white banding occur quite commonly when you'd get moisture in the wall after a cold night either condensation or dew.

And then as soon as that sun comes up in the morning it was super heat that plant and you'd get that type of a white tissue also.

So, you know, it doesn't only occur on wheat.

We can also see it on corn and some other plants.

- Jack and Uta.

Is there anything to do about that or do you just have to let the plant recover and grow out of that?

- Uta you go ahead and answer that.

- Yeah.

I'm unaware of things that you can really do.

I mean, you know, when it comes to a crop it's kind of exposed to the weather conditions and I don't know that there's anything that you could really do about it, but Jack if you have any thoughts, please let me know.

- I don't think it hurts the plants very much.

I think they recover on their own pretty rapidly.

And while we're up Jane from Livingston this person would like to know if spotted knapweed and houndstongue can be controlled with the same class of chemistry, the same herbicide.

- Yeah.

Unfortunately.

Well, I'm gonna say unfortunately, no.

So, if you have those two species growing together you would need to use two different types of herbicides or if you wanted to treat them both at the same time you would have to take mix of herbicides.

So, there's a lot of different options for spotted knapweed.

For houndstongue you're probably looking at a product that would contain medsol to get the best control.

I should say that 2,4-D does have activity on both of those species, but 2,4-D would not be your best option for getting the best control.

- Long term control.

- Yeah, yeah - Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Laurie, from Facebook, this person says, "Help!

The grasshoppers are back in the north Helena valley.

Last year they knew that the raspberry patch and not a single leaf was left.

We put up deer fence around the fruit trees.

And last year the grasshoppers used the deer fence as a ladder (chuckles) to strip the leaves and began eating the tender bark of the trees about nine feet tall."

Any suggestions on how to help control these grasshoppers in semi-urban situation?

- Yeah, that's always a tricky situation.

I think just getting ready to send out an alert statewide about grasshoppers.

I think you really have to think about what you wanna protect because you can spray there are a lot of products that are available to spray, but I mean you really don't wanna spray everything in your yard.

And, I think one thing that that does work is it might be a little too late now as you could use screening, that's kind of the window screening type that they won't choose through anything like that.

So, if something's important to you that type of screening will work but even the Nolo Bait, which is it's a fungus that's usually commercially available.

I don't think that's readily available right now.

It's been out of stock for a few weeks and I was getting ready to call the supplier to see what's going on.

So, a Nolo Bait you can spread around the yard and just by the grasshoppers and it can have an impact on the early instars of the early stages of the grasshoppers, but it becomes expensive and it's not a hundred percent control.

So, yeah you really just have to think about what you wanna protect.

And, there's really no great answers for grasshopper control once they hit your yard.

- They are pretty devastating as they were last year.

Are they statewide problem this year?

Are there pockets or grasshoppers where it's worse than other areas?

- I don't know yet.

This is the first time I've gotten a question about grasshoppers this year.

So, I have to do a little bit of investigation to see what problems we've had statewide.

Last year it was very widespread from Billings all the way up to the northwest, a couple of different species of grasshoppers.

- All right.

- So, we'll have to see but they're already in Helena so.

- I've heard they're becoming an issue east of Lewistown.

- Good to know.

- Okay.

We'll delve in a little more next week or the following week.

We'll have some more on the grasshopper situation here in the state of Montana.

Stephen, I love this one cause I had the same problem.

It's from Belgrade.

This person would like to know how to get rid of magpies.

They are very noisy and annoying and I would agree with that person entirely.

(laughs) - Oh, you know, nothing like easy questions.

(laughs) Well first of all, they're protected birds.

So, the lead poisoning solution is not an option without a permit.

Just wanna throw that out there so you can't kill them without a permit.

In terms of the answer for your magpies there you're gonna be looking at some hay you can try hazing which is basically trying to frighten them away with either constant harassment.

That's gonna be done lethal and non-lethal, way you can try like bangers.

Some people can use garden hoses to try to spray areas where they're located but you can terms if they're nesting before they begin nesting in a tree you wanna be sure before they're nesting, cause once they have eggs or a clutch that's protected as well.

So you can't disturb that.

So, you'd wanna make sure you can trim tree branches because they're gonna like going into trees that have good cover.

And if you open that canopy up more then you're gonna have a situation where they're gonna have feel less protected and maybe move to a tree that's farther away from your home where the noise won't be quite so loud.

- Stephen I wanna, delve into that a little bit more and put you on the spot.

I know they're protected here in Montana.

- Yes.

- And I sometimes do not understand why, but if you go north across the border into Canada, they're not protected.

Why do we protect them?

And why does Canada not?

- Well, it's the North American Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

So, there would be issues.

You can probably get a permit, but you'd have to demonstrate that you've tried non quote and quote non-lethal controls first, in that you'd wanna have that demonstrated over time before you're allowed to kill it.

Typically it's gonna be a depredation issue where the birds are causing some sort of physical harm rather than just simply a noise annoyance.

So, you have to kind of build a case for the death penalty for the bird.

- I'm working on it.

(chuckles) - Okay - All right, thanks - Was a hundred dollars fee.

So that's the other thing you've to think about.

- All right.

We change topics a little bit and go to Uta.

An email question from Bozeman.

This person sprayed a fungicide and they say Proline on their winter wheat about three weeks ago.

And now they're noticing brown spots with yellow halos on the leaves of the winter wheat.

They say the variety is Bobcat which is a relatively new variety, good variety here at state of Montana.

What they say is a nearby field of winter wheat that was treated the same way but it's a different variety does not show the spots.

Any concern there or any idea of what's going on?

- Yeah, that's an interesting one.

Just from the description of the spots, the brown spots of the yellow halo it could be a foliar pathogen like tan spot or Stagonospora but the fact that they sprayed fungicide should have taken care of any fungal pathogens.

So, I'm guessing maybe that's not the case.

And then also this other variety doesn't have the spots.

So, it's interesting that Bobcat is mentioned because I heard of a couple of cases of Bobcat winter wheat that just produces these spots where we can't find a disease issue or a nutrient deficiency issue.

So it might just be something that is related to the genetics of that variety.

And so, of course to be sure we would need a sample to really look at and exclude that it is a disease related issue.

But if it is really just what the variety does then there is no need to worry.

I've talked to Doc Colin from the Foundation Seed in Montana and he said that the variety performs just fine even with those spots.

So, maybe it's just a Bobcat thing.

(laughs) - Okay.

Well, a lot of these physiological responses on plants really don't have a negative effect on their yield potential at all.

It may be a little unsightly but it doesn't hurt much and you're right there.

- And Bobcats do have spots.

- That's true.

(laughs) - That's pretty good.

All right.

- We were asking for it.

- All right.

On that note Jane, from Reed Point.

This person says they are noticing an explosion of death camas as on their place.

They say the worst in 36 years.

Any reason why this explosion has occurred and how do they prevent it from spreading and get rid of it while they're at it?

- Yeah.

So death camas, it is a native broad-leafed plant.

It is toxic.

So it does pose some threat to livestock especially when a lot of times we see issues with death camas early in the spring or early summer I should say we are in the summer now I think it's safe to say but because it tends to grow upward.

And it's one of the first things to green up.

And sometimes when we get spring snow it's actually sticking up above the snow.

And that's when we see some issues because livestock are out there trying to find something to eat.

You know, as far as being concerned about it there are ways to manage your grazing to avoid pastures that have a lot of death camas at certain times of the year when it's most toxic.

And you know, a lot of these native plants and even weeds for that matter, they do fluctuate.

Their populations fluctuate from year to year.

You might have a year where you see a lot of a certain species like death camas, and then next year maybe not so much, it just has to do with their biology, the environment, management.

So, I would try to be patient.

Obviously you wanna manage the livestock so they're not, you know, there's not a threat in terms of the toxicity but I would try to be patient and watch to see what happens next year and the year after that and the year after that and just, you know, natural fluctuations in species, it's not an uncommon thing.

- How much would a cow, a full sized cow have to ingest to really be devastating?

- I knew you were gonna ask that.

(laughs) - Well, I like these tough questions.

- That is a tough question and, you know, I get asked that more than once and it's not something I commit to memory, (chuckles) but we do have there is a poisonous plants publication that MSU worked on with NRCS and the University of Wyoming.

You can get a copy of the book through the MSU Extension Store or through your NRCS local office.

And the nice thing about this book is we have tables in the back that answer that very question.

I hate to even throw a number out but we're looking at like tenths of a percent of body weight.

- So it take quite a bit.

- It takes quite a bit, but, you know, if conditions are just right sometimes it happens and you know, there are certain classes of livestock that are more threatened by it than others as well.

- Okay.

Here's a great old book when I went to class on poisonous plants.

And I can't tell you how many moons ago because I can't remember that far back but it's called "Kingsbury."

And "Kingsbury" if people are interested you can still get the book it's poisonous plants in the United States.

Great reference.

- It's, you know, poisonous plants.

It's a really complicated topic and yeah, there aren't easy answers when it comes to plant toxicity.

- Okay.

Thank you, Stephen.

I love this one.

First question we've ever had from Two Dot.

There's not a lot of people in Two Dot so, thank you for calling in.

They have moles in their backyard.

Stephen, the question is help.

(chuckles) - Okay.

Well, the first thing I can tell you is we have no moles in Montana, so that's the first answer.

So I suspect you're referring to pocket gophers.

So, pocket gophers, for small areas, my number one advice would be to use traps.

If that's something you're not wanting to use in terms of traps, then you can certainly get some over-the-counter toxicants and you'd wanna be sure that toxicants gets placed down into the main burrow because pocket gophers have two basic burrows one burrow that brings the soil to the surface, one burrow that they use to move around your yard that's parallel to the surface of the ground.

You got get the toxic down into that main burrow.

And it's hard for me to describe you on the phone, just download my publication.

We'll give you some diagrams but the pulp poison you'd wanna use if you're gonna choose one would be probably strychnine or the other one would probably be one of the anticoagulants like Rozol or Ramik would be the other anticoagulant.

Those are active ingredients, but they can be poisoned.

You'd wanna put it, treat the freshest areas that were there active but for smaller areas, trapping really is a good way to go.

- Stephen, do you have to be licensed to get these products?

- No, those would be over the counter for pocket gophers.

If you're doing things in a more mechanical way like with a burrow builder which can do where you can treat hundreds of acres that you would need a risk that would be restricted use.

So strychnine is still available in small quantities as a general use product.

- Okay.

- But it has to be below ground with no access to the surface because it's extraordinarily toxic.

Half an ounce will kill a 50 pound dog.

- Yeah.

- So it is extraordinarily toxic.

- You have to be very careful with it.

- Be very careful, read that label before you purchase it to make sure you can handle what it's asking you to do.

- Yeah.

On that note are pocket gophers, cyclical like I believe voles are?

Do they come and go large quantities one year, not so many for two years?

- I'm not aware of any indications where it's called population eruptions.

They don't have a reproductive rate as rapid as Voles do.

Voles while can have five litters in a year, pocket gophers just have one.

So, but right now when I was trapping in April, they were just starting to mate so I would suspect that some of the problems that people are having with pocket gophers are some of the young are starting to come out around now and so they're getting out on their own.

That's what I would suspect some of these problems are from.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Folks if you have questions tonight, you got a good opportunity to get them answered.

You've got some experts in a lot of different fields.

So, if you want call us questions or get them in through Facebook and here's one that came in last week that I'm curious about it's for Laurie.

This person wants to know why bees sting some people more than others.

And I think that's true.

I know mosquitoes love my wife and they leave me alone.

So, is there an answer to that?

Laurie you're on mute.

- If there is an answer I don't know the answer.

There's someone who has just asked me about the same thing about mosquitoes and like you're talking about.

And I don't know, but I mean I think if you're swatting at them, I think you're gonna get stung pretty quickly.

But I don't know the answer.

- Okay.

It's an interesting concept.

Jane have you heard that before?

- No I've heard about mosquitoes and also ticks.

- Yeah.

- It seems like some people just attract ticks.

With mosquitoes I heard once that it has to do with the composition of how much CO2 is in when you exhale.

Like, some people exhale more CO2.

(laughs) I don't know, but I've heard that there is some individual chemistry with people that tends to draw ticks and mosquitoes.

So maybe bees, I don't know.

- Okay.

- I would think color of your clothing would matter with bees.

- All right.

- As well.

So I know mosquitoes, definitely your the CO2 is absolutely true.

And I think your sweating chemistry will play a role in that as well.

Cause I get eaten alive (laughs) by mosquitoes.

- Yeah.

They don't bother me.

And actually, you know, for whatever reason I don't see the mosquito populations that we used to see around here.

So I may be wrong there.

Am I right, Laurie?

Do we have less mosquitoes today than we used to have?

- I don't know.

I've been in Bozeman for seven and a half years and I live along a creek, so I do get them but other areas of Bozeman where I used to live I didn't see very many mosquitoes but I don't monitor for them.

So I don't have a good answer to that question.

So, I don't know what the student population was before and what it is now.

- Okay.

Just curious, you know, this person has noticed a lot of gummosis or kind of a hardening, thickening round the bark and cracks of cherries, apricots, plums.

They wanna know is this a fungi or bacteria or is it just a natural process in these trees?

- Well, if it is gummosis, which then it is a disease it's not part of a natural or a tree juice.

There are both fungal as well as bacterial causes to this and we would have a look at this ooze that is coming out of the tree to really know for sure.

Most of the time trees do that when they're stressed.

So, I do have unfortunately a plum tree that does exactly that in my backyard and I suspect it's just because it has been neglected from before I moved into this house.

And so, I'm trying to help it out a little bit more with more water and grim off that branches, et cetera.

Yeah.

But really, so it could be both fungal or bacterial.

We'd have to have a look at it and I think the first thing to do is really just try and reduce the stress on the tree and provide a more healthy environment.

A healthy environment or, okay.

- Alright.

- Perfect.

(chuckles) - That works.

Stephen, the Facebook question they don't say from where, but they say they are struggling with bushy-tailed pack rats getting into the garage.

And I have no clue what a bushy-tailed pack rat is.

So I'm gonna find out.

- Okay.

All right.

- They notice the rodenticides have bushy-tailed pack rats listed.

They do not have it on their label.

Is there a reason?

- Yeah, we didn't.

It was without making it too convoluted.

They just didn't make the cut when the EPA made a change on rodenticides several years ago.

But I do have good news.

We were able to ask the EPA to get a bushy-tail wood rat.

Wood rats are basically pack rats.

Bushy-tail wood rat is the official title for the animal.

But if you have pack rats, this is an animal that we have most throughout the entire state.

So the EPA did grant permission for various rodenticide manufacturers to add pack rat on their rodenticide labels for structural control.

Some of them are beginning to add it so, let me give you a couple of names.

These aren't recommendations.

These are just telling you these are products that denial legal to use on bushy-tail wood rats around structures usually within a hundred feet of a structure.

So, they would need to be used with inside of a bait station if the rats out.

So, Renegade mini blocks from Lithotech, FastDraw-40 from Liphatec and Revolver-40 from Liphatec are three products that have bushy-tail wood rat listed so you can now legally target them with a rodenticide.

Other products will be coming so, that is really great news for Montana.

- Are there a lot of different kinds of pack rats out there?

I'd never heard of bushy-tail.

- Right.

There are.

But the bushy-tail wood rat is the one that we have here in the northwest.

It's in Montana, it goes down to Wyoming, Colorado out into Idaho.

And I think out into Western Oregon and Washington would be out so, our pack rat just didn't make the cut where there were other pack rats that did make the cuts.

- Okay.

That makes good sense to me.

(laughs) And we've had several questions over the past two or three weeks that had been emailed in, Facebook, typed in, called in about cheatgrass.

And, we have no shortage of cheatgrass here in the state of Montana.

So we have a cheatgrass expert with us this evening and she's gonna tell us what to do and when to do it to help manage cheatgrass, Jane.

- Yeah.

- You got a salad in front of you.

- I do yeah.

Unfortunately I am turning into a cheatgrass expert because there's a lot of cheatgrass and every year I get a lot of questions about it.

If you really wanna try to manage cheatgrass when it's in the sibling stage which would have been last fall, or very early this spring.

But if you missed, like if you're using herbicides or if you were using targeted grazing.

But if you miss that opportunity or you wanna mow your cheatgrass, I've had a couple of questions just in the last 10 days.

Can I, is it too late to mow my cheatgrass?

Cause cheatgrass matures early and the seeds become viable and you know, 90% plus of the seeds will germinate.

So, I brought in some samples tonight of cheatgrass at different stages.

Well, we're right on the fringe of being able to mow cheatgrass and stop it from producing viable seed.

So I brought in some cheatgrass that is still in the green stage.

When it's green like this, you can still mow it and those seeds are not viable yet.

And you know, you don't need to worry about bagging it or anything, mow it off.

It's a good time to do that.

And you'll need to do that for a couple of years to stop the seed production for a couple of years and wear down the seed bank.

As the summer goes on, cheatgrass starts turning kind of a reddish purple color.

So, I have another plant that starting to get some of that reddish purple color, and you could still mow this at this stage but you better be doing that with probably within the week.

Okay?

Once cheatgrass grows even a little bit more, it's going to get even redder reddish purple and this plant is just a little further along in its growth.

And I would say mow now, like as soon as the show is over (laughs) get out there and mow this or tomorrow get out there and mow it.

You can see that hopefully you can see it's a little bit more reddish purple than the previous plant and definitely more reddish purple than the plant I showed you first.

So you could still mow this but you're right on the edge, but get out there and get that done.

Now I did pick these plants around Bozeman and I picked these all like within a quarter mile of each other so you can see the difference.

Bozeman's usually a little cooler and a little later in terms of plant growth compared to other parts of the state.

I was over in Billings kind of those Billings area Thursday, Friday and the cheatgrass was all red.

So you've missed your chance over there, but kind of depending on where you're living and what your soils are and you know, cheatgrasses in some different stages of growth, if it's still greenish got just a little bit of reddish purple get out there and mow it as soon as you can.

- It Works.

- Yeah - I really cleaned it up in my pasture.

And thank you for that recommendation.

- Yeah.

- It really did the job.

- It's an annual species so it has to produce seed every year to continue to grow in an area.

So, it's that seed production is critical to its control.

- Okay.

Thank you.

So now you can throw your sample away.

- I will do that.

(chuckles) - A question came in from Laurie and I often wondered this I've never seen the question before but if you grow petunias and peonies you see, especially in peonies, a lot of ants on the heads of peonies.

This person wants to know, are they pollinating it?

Or is there a reason that the ants prefer PNH?

- That's a really good question.

And I was just over at my friend's house last week and she was telling me the story that the ant association with peonies and she said that ants help open up the peonies somehow and I don't know the full story and I forgot to look it up but that's a really good question.

And there is a relation and there's some sort of mutualistic relationship between the two that I can not speak any further.

(chuckles) - Okay.

I've noticed that for years, even when I was a kid and I always liked peonies, you always see ants on them.

And are they different species of ants or are they pretty much the same.

To me they all look black and the same.

(laughs) - Yeah.

I don't know what species of ants are on there either.

So I should go back to my friend's house and see what ants those are.

And, I would suspect that they're field ants because that's what's most common in the yard but it could be a completely different species that I'm not aware of.

- Okay.

Stephen, interesting question.

They have a small burrow animal on the vine that is hairless and jumps out of the ground very quickly, scattering the dirt.

And they add, I shouldn't say soil because I know better but anyway, any clue what that might be?

- You said hairless?

- That's what they say.

- Small burrow animal that is hairless and jumps out of the ground quickly and scattering the soil.

- Nothing hairless rings a bell for me.

Is any information on the size of the hole?

- No, but they can sure get ahold of you or catch one and supply a sample.

(chuckles) - Well, we would probably, yeah.

I think finding the how big the hole is would be the first line of attack.

So, I'm not aware of any animal in Montana that would be hairless that's So that would be a new one for me.

- Okay.

Sounds good.

Uta, there's a question from Sydney way on the eastern part of the state.

Obviously a winter wheat grower has heard there's a lot of wheat streak mosaic in the southern part of the winter wheat producing area of Kansas and Oklahoma.

Should they be worried about that here in Montana this year?

- That's a good question.

I always find that difficult to tell.

I would always say be vigilant about wheat streak mosaic virus.

It's kind of tricky to predict in my opinion for the state because conditions across the state are so variable and so wheat streak can occur in a pocket and can not be an issue elsewhere.

So, here are a couple of pointers to think about.

I think one argument that would be, yes, there is a risk for wheat streak is that we had a pretty mild winter and I would guess that the survival of plants that are infected with wheat streak and a vector of that virus disease which is the wheat bromide was pretty good.

Something that speaks against it is that we had a lot of drought especially in eastern Montana in late last year and also now.

So, these dry conditions probably reduce what is there in terms of volunteer growth and weeds that can host a wheat streak mosaic virus, for example, cheatgrass is a very good host for wheat streak mosaic virus on the grassy side of things.

So, would be vigilant, can tell for sure I can give you a hint that during my PhD I actually developed a prediction tool that is called Aware that can help you kind of learn more about the factors that promote wheat streak risk.

And you could use this tool to assess the situation in the specific area that you're thinking about and learn a little bit more about what risk factors might be present in a promoting disease.

And this tool can be found on the MSU extension plan pathology website under tools.

I am not gonna read out a very lengthy name.

So, just researched a plan to have MSU extension website.

Oh, there it is.

Perfect.

Just go right there.

It's right there.

It's a fun little tool.

Thank you.

- Okay.

Thank you.

With that pop up let me kind of do a little promotion here.

Ag Live has a newsletter and if you're not subscribed to it and you're regular viewer of Montana Ag Live you can subscribe to that newsletter and there's also a little survey associated with it we'd appreciate you taking that.

So if you get a chance you'll find a lot more information on that Ag Live newsletter.

And with that, I wanna switch over to Jane with about a half a dozen questions on how to control purslane in gardens.

- Yeah.

Well, there's some argument about whether you need to control purslane in gardens.

Right?

I remember when Toby Day would be on the show he would say that he liked to let his purslane grow and it was a nice mulch just a nice ground cover in his garden.

You know, you can use mechanical control so just, you know, hoeing, harrowing to root that up collect those plants because they can reroute and start growing again.

I think another thing to think about is maybe just trying to put some mulch on the ground whether it's straw or some sort of synthetic mulch but something to cover the ground because that purslane it's not an overly competitive or aggressive plant.

And I think if you could kind of smother it out it wouldn't be as big of a problem for you and then eat it.

Some people like to eat purslane so (laughs) - Probably better than cheatgrass.

- Yeah.

Unfortunately I think most people have more purslane in their garden than they can actually eat.

(laughs) - It is a problem.

- Yeah, but I would, you know, I would pull it in my garden.

I didn't like letting it just grow anywhere it wanted to grow I have a small garden though, but yeah maybe trying some mulching or just some mechanical control.

- We had a comment from Helena that this person was very successful in by using a mulch so.

- Okay, yeah.

Great.

- Good recommendation.

Stephen, this person and we have a couple of questions about prairie dogs.

But first of all from Missoula, this person would like to know the difference between a pocket gopher and a prairie dog.

And after you answer that, another question's coming in that a neighbor has prairie dogs and he doesn't but the neighbors prairie dogs like his pasture better.

So what does he do about it?

So have at it.

- Well, a difference between a pocket gopher and a prairie dog is pocket gophers is gonna spend the majority of its life below ground while a prairie dog lives you know, it's home is in the ground but a Prairie dog is coming up to the surface of the ground to forage during daylight.

So you'll be able to see prairie dogs out during the day but you won't be seeing a pocket gopher out unless you happen to catch them when he's pushing some soil to the surface, or they do a little bit of foraging on the surface but typically that would be at night when you're not gonna be able to see them.

So, in pocket gophers basically just throw, push dirt up and they create this underground system that they're living where they'll eat plants underneath the soil while prairie dog's coming up to the surface of the ground to eat your grass.

In terms of the control of prairie dogs, in terms of what you're gonna do for your own situation is you can wait for prairie dogs to come onto your property and control them there or you can get permission from your neighbor to go onto his property or her property in, you know, provide doing some shooting.

There's some unregulated methods of controlling prairie dogs, such as carbon monoxide but you can't use any poisons or toxicants on your neighbors ground, unless you get a license cause once you're starting to use pesticides on someone else's property, you have to go into what's called a commercial license where you'd only need a private license to use toxicants on your own ground.

So, one the private applicators you would go through MSU do talk to your local extension educator to get your pesticide there or you would talk to us with Montana Department of Agriculture if you're looking to get your commercial license.

So, but there are some unregulated methods.

Your neighbor could use ignitable gas cartridges to control prairie dogs.

Can be a little bit pricey on large grounds, but you basically light the cartridge and put it down into the burrow and the toxic gas really gets released and it would fill poison the prairie dogs and the burrow.

That is a general use product.

You do not need to have a license to use that.

However, all of your baits would be restricted use.

So, you would need someone would need to have a license to purchase and apply those products on the ground.

And there's another product I did some research on propane oxygen exploders is where you inject propane and oxygen down into the burrow and then detonate it.

Yeah, it's as cool as it sounds but it does rattle you after while, but it does work.

So, if that can be if you wanna do that, that's certainly gonna be legal.

You don't have to have a license to do that.

And there's also carbon monoxide devices where you inject carbon monoxide down into the burrow system.

And again you don't need to have a license to do that either.

So there are some regulated methods and some unregulated methods.

Take your pick.

- Okay - Stephen, I have a follow-up question about prairie dogs.

- Sure - I was in the field last week with a colleague in south eastern Montana.

We saw a lot of prairie dogs and we got to talking driving back to Bozeman that it seems like you see prairie dogs more in the eastern third of the state, but as you get to the central part of the state and into western Montana you start seeing more ground squirrels than you do prairie dogs.

Can you comment at all about the range of Prairie dogs and yeah, thank you.

- Well, I think some of that has to do with the numbers of people and how small the ranches just how much federal land they would be in the area as well cause that would obvious federal land would be a reservoir for prairie dogs to then disperse into the surrounding areas and so federal land you're not allowed to use rodenticides to control prairie dogs.

You can't even use things like propane oxygen exploders or carbon monoxide from an understanding you're allowed to shoot and you're allowed to trap but those are not efficient ways of controlling prairie dogs.

So I think that would be part of the reason.

And as you get closer to the more central parts of the state, you would probably have smaller ranches and just they're more aggressive in terms of their control.

I would suspect because it doesn't require the volume of money to control it cause controlling prairie dogs can be pricey.

So that would be my suspicion.

Plus by having more water.

More water in the central part of the state, more rainfall you don't have some of the negative impacts of prairie dogs cause actually you can have moderate levels and low levels of prairie dogs.

And there's actually some research that says it actually improves the grass.

I know it sounds like Harris sea out there because everyone wants to have zero prairie dogs but actually a few prairie dogs per acre can actually improve the forage.

It's when they start getting the numbers higher where it actually starts degrading the forage.

So when you have more rain, the grass is able to compensate faster and you don't get the sprawl that you would have with prairie dogs and so I think it's a combination of a lot of different things.

- Okay.

Thanks a lot, Stephen.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Interesting.

Uta, this person has had a powdery mildew on their yard every year.

The yard seems to come back.

Do you think it needs to be controlled in long grass?

- I mean, if their lawn grass comes back, maybe not.

Like I do have some powdery mildew too in my flower beds and stuff in certain plans are just prone to it.

I mean, powdery mildew does like moisture.

So maybe it's heavy irrigation that kind of causes that and reducing that a little bit might reduce the powdery mildew, but I will say and admit it out loud here.

I'm not a turf specialist.

So not sure about the backyard reading.

If you have any thoughts on that Jack, go at it.

- Hurts it very much.

It usually shows up in the fall and we don't worry about it.

So to me, it's kind of pretty.

It's kind of like snow on the grass.

I don't worry about it.

- I think only a plant pathologist would say that.

(laughs) - Okay.

Back to you Steve and then I'm gonna run over to Laurie here.

This person from Helen has said there used to be a product called gopher gas.

It was calcium carbide that you add water to and it produces a settling gas in a burrow.

Is there anything like that?

- Not anymore.

Probably the only thing close to it would be aluminum phosphite now but you don't add water to it.

Aluminum phosphite will gas off just with the moisture that's in the air or the soil itself.

So that would be your, you know, first toxin, a few more toxin would be another one and so that's the pellets that people use to fumigate grain, silos to kill the ants.

So that would be the same thing used for controlling burrowing rodents.

So yeah, a lot of those older products are long gone.

My stock comment usually is if it works, it gets banned.

So we have to get less effective products today.

So I'm a little bit more pessimistic on some of this but yeah there was some interesting products back in the day.

- I can recall some of those myself.

Laurie from Bozeman this car has three mounds of ants in the yard and also lots of ant hills in the garden.

Are they causing any problems?

They used orthoboric acid pellets in the garden which did not work at all.

Any solution if necessary?

- Yeah.

It's in the line really ants that they shouldn't be causing too much in the way of more damage.

And I think sometimes they could just be a nuisance.

The tricky part with ants is you have to kill the queen, which sometimes if you're whatever product you might be choosing you might just be killing the workers on the surface.

And if the product doesn't get to the queen and that you're not going to be able to kill the nest.

So one thing you could do too that's doesn't involve any chemicals maybe just get out of the garden hose.

If you want them to relocate, you could if you keep disturbing them a little bit, then you could put that garden hose on them and eventually they'll just go with the queen and the crew will relocate because they'll get annoyed there.

But I wouldn't and if those are field ants they also come without thatching ants or mound ants and they do not have a stinger.

So I think that might make the homeowner feel a little bit better.

So, if they do, they can, they have mandibles.

They could pinch and release a formic acid which can cause some burning on the skin but that will only happen if you have a bunch of them on you and it's pretty rare.

So, maybe try something like that to disturb them and then just know that they're not doing any damage to the lawn.

- You know, Laurie I had for the first time a mound of ants that developed right under a one-year old princess spirea that we had transplanted and that spirea is not doing well.

Now I did exactly what you suggested.

I watered the heck out of it.

We'll see if it comes back but that's the only time I've really ever seen ants damage plants and it's indirect.

It wasn't a direct response.

Okay.

Stephen.

It's a tough question for Monarch.

And I'm curious about it we may not have an answer but he said there has been an increase in brown-headed cowbirds and a decrease in songbirds in their area.

The cowbirds invade the songbirds nest.

How can he get rid of the cowbirds?

Caller says cowbirds congregate with livestock.

So it's difficult to shoot them.

And are they protected or any solutions?

- Yeah, they're all protected.

So, the other brown cowbird issue is certainly one that can be controversial.

I heard a presentation about that a little while back.

It is so brown cowbird is protected.

All of your songbirds are gonna be protected.

The only species of birds that are not protected are gonna be a common pigeon, starling, house Sparrow and Eurasian collared dove.

Those are the four species that are not gonna be protected.

Basically everything else is going to be protected by federal law.

So in terms of other, or it's gonna be a game animal which should be protected by various hunting laws.

So, the challenge you're gonna have with songbirds is the best way is to create an environment friendly for songbirds because songbirds are under tremendous pressure with free ranging cats, also glass windows.

We know we all love those picture windows and the number of bird strikes where birds are hitting those glass windows because they can't see it as they're flying.

It's enormous.

So both the pressure of cats, windows and then habitat fragmentation are really taking a toll on our songbirds.

So I think it's bigger than the brown cowbird issue.

- Good points.

I agree with you entirely.

Jane, from Lolo they would like to know how to keep creeping bellflower from spreading.

- Yes.

If it's in a garden or yard setting which I'm guessing maybe it is because that's where creeping bellflower seems to be the most problematic, you can actually dig.

You can kind of trench metal into the ground like sheets of metal to keep those roots from spreading as the name implies creeping bellflower it does creep and crawl through underground roots.

So, you could do some, you just preventing you're putting a barrier in the ground to prevent those roots from spreading.

So that would be one action you could take.

And then if you're trying to actually get rid of the bellflower that you have growing there are some herbicides that work, 2,4-D and Dicamba will work.

You can also brush or wipe glyphosate onto the leaves.

It is very difficult plant to control, especially once it's well-established, but if you're persistent and diligent and kind of take a multi-pronged approach you probably can have some success.

You may not completely get rid of it.

- Okay.

Back to Stephen, since we have you here.

And this is another interesting question from Bozeman and we don't have a lot of time left so, I'll be quick with it.

They had a big vole infestation around here in 2019 they tried traps didn't work.

So they resorted to Victor rodent killer in PVC vole traps.

Some of the pellets fell into their veggie garden.

So they're afraid to grow veggies now.

Is that a legitimate concern?

- It can be.

It will depend on what the active ingredient was.

If the active ingredient was zinc phosphite cause I'm not familiar with that brand name that you described.

And so if the active ingredient was zinc phosphite then I would suggest that that's not gonna be a problem by this time because the rule of thumb is with zinc phosphate products.

If you have an inch of rain, it's pretty much deactivated.

Now, if you're dealing with one of the anticoagulants like cholecalciferol or difethialone, that could be a problem.

I would probably give me a call and maybe I can do some research to see what the longevity of that product is in the soil because typically it's a month like when we're using products like that for out in range land, typically the exclusion period is 30 days or a little bit longer.

So, I think it might be length.

If it's a year ago, I think your risk is pretty low.

And I think we can talk more about that on an individual basis.

- Okay.

Thanks Stephen.

Quick question for Jane and this one comes in a lot.

Does vinegar work as an organic herbicide?

- Yes, it can work like household vinegar and it will burn leaves, but it will not kill a plant.

There are herbicidal products that are acidic acid based and those are 20 to 30% acidic acid.

They can work.

Vinegar only kills the foliage that it touches.

It's not moved around in a plant, so it works best on seedlings and early in their growth stage.

- Okay.

And it's expensive compared to some other control methods.

- I've never looked the price.

- Okay.

Yeah.

- Okay.

- Folks we're down to the last few minutes or a few seconds of the program.

Join us next week for Cathy Cripps, Montana State University's mushroom guru.

If you like mushrooms we're gonna learn a lot about them next week.

I wanna thank the panelists, especially Steve and Uta.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

Hope to see you all back next week.

It's been a fun program.

Have a good week.

Good night.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] For more information and resources visit montanapbs.org/aglive.

(upbeat music) 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 Galatin Gardeners Club and the Rocky Mountain Certified Crop Advisor Program.

(upbeat music)