- [Presenter] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, (guitar music) MSU Extension, (guitar music) the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, (guitar music) the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, (guitar music) Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, (guitar music) and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(guitar music) - Good evening.

You are tuned to "Montana Ag Live", originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus that we call Montana State University.

And coming to you over your Montana Public Television system.

I'm Jack Rieselman, retired professor of plant pathology.

Happy to be your host this evening.

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

You provide the questions and I'd like to stump the panel once in a while.

We do have a really good panel tonight, so some of the harder questions we might have a few laughs about.

If you wanna ask them, go ahead and get 'em in tonight, because we will get 'em on the air, I promise you.

But without those questions and any questions, this program's pretty dull.

So, get those questions in.

The phone number will be on your screen here shortly.

If you have any curiosity about anything that these panel members can address, go ahead and phone 'em in or email 'em in.

Before we go any farther.

I'm surrounded by women this evening and that's becoming much more prevalent in agriculture and I really appreciate that and it's great.

On my far left, Michelle Flenniken.

She's our university bee guru, is what we like to call her.

She's actually a plant virologist, a bee virologist.

She knows a lot about bees and everybody's interested in bees.

So, if you have questions tonight about we have a panel here that can answer.

Special guest tonight, good friend of mine.

I've known Shelley for a lot of years.

Shelley Mills, she's the Valley County extension agent.

We'll get back to her in a minute.

She can tell you where Valley County is.

I know, I've been there a fair number of times.

A lot of people in this state probably do not know where it's at, but we'll get to that.

Nina Zidack, Nina is a plant pathologist, but she became a traitor and started working (Nina chuckles) for the Montana Potato Improvement Association.

But she'll answer potato questions and it is that time of year where we have a lot of questions concerning potatoes.

But if you have plant disease questions too, she hasn't forgot how to answer those.

(panel chuckles) - One or two.

- Yeah, one or two.

(panel laughing) And of course, Abi Saeed.

Abi is our very renowned extension horticulturalist.

She is very knowledgeable about plants.

So, if you have any questions concerning horticulture, get 'em in this evening and Abi will answer 'em.

Answering the phone tonight, Nancy Blake and John Holly.

And with that, Shelley, tell us where Valley County is and what you do up there.

- Okay, so Valley County is in the northeast portion of the state.

It's got a border with Canada and a border on the Missouri River.

And we are the fourth largest county in the state, but we have one of the smallest populations of only about 7,500 people.

And I am the ag agent up there.

I do cropping, livestock, horticulture, natural resources, and of course, 4-H. - Yeah.

And a lot of it.

And the name of the town that you're based in is Glasgow.

- Glasgow.

- And I tell you what, I've promoted Northeast Montana.

It's a beautiful part of the state and a lot of people don't realize how nice it is up there.

So, if you have questions about what county agents do about that part of the state, about crops, what the ag extension agents do for this state, hey, it's a good time to answer those tonight.

We have a couple leftover questions from last week they didn't get to.

I gonna start off with Abi.

Are lawn weeds good for pollinators?

And everybody can jump in on that one.

- Yeah, I think this is a great panel for answering that question.

We have a lot of pollinator people on here and I'll let everyone chime in.

A lot of lawn weeds can be really important sources of food for pollinators.

Some of them are especially nutritious like white clover.

And a lot of them, especially if you are in more urbanized areas or more suburban areas where there aren't that many flowering plants around, especially right now early in the spring, lawn weeds can bridge those gaps between those sources of food.

- Very well said.

Shelley, from Dear Lodge, this person would like to know why somebody should get ahold of their local county ag agent or home ag agent when they can probably get the answer off of Google.

(panel laughing) Yeah.

- That's a great question.

So, the problem is with Google is you never really know what you're gonna get.

You can type in something and you might get something that's totally off base.

It might be from Georgia, it's not applicable in Montana.

But if you want to get research-based which is what extension provides, type in what you're searching for, and then type the word extension behind it, and you'll only get extension publications which are science-based and research-based.

And then, you have to check and make sure it doesn't like Georgia instead of Montana.

And so, if it's a northern state and nearby, that's one of the best options.

But the other thing is, is that MSU Extension has agents in almost every county in the state, and we live in those communities.

We experience the same weather that you do, the bad soils.

I almost said a naughty word, bad soils that you have, (panel laughing) those kinds of things.

So, we are living the same life you do, so we understand the same problems that you're having, which is a huge advantage.

- Experience speaks a lot for local county agents, there's no doubt about it.

They know what's going on in the county, get ahold of 'em.

You'd be surprised by amount of information that they have and they can help you with a lot of different things.

We'll get into some of those programs as we get into the evening.

Michelle, quick question from Polson.

I don't know the answer to this one.

Do bees pollinate cherries?

- Cherries, yes.

They pollinate cherries, yep.

Bees are... We have a lot of bees in Montana.

Montana's actually the fifth largest state for having honeybee colonies.

And so, I don't know that cherry growers in our state need to contract bees like almond growers do in California.

But definitely bees pollinate cherries.

There also may be some self-pollinating varieties of cherries.

I'm not sure, maybe Abi could speak to that.

But a lot of 'em need bees pollinators.

- Okay.

- Yeah, most do.

Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- Mm-hmm.

- And do we use local bees here?

Do they stock cherry orchards with bees like they do the almond orchard?

- Yeah, they do.

It's just not as much of a pollination service cost.

So, beekeepers don't make as much money in cherries as they make in almonds.

So, it's a higher value crop, the almonds.

- Correct me if I'm wrong, but say 20 years ago, Montana bee producers wintered their bees in California at no charge and now it's about 75 to $125 per hive, or more.

- More, yeah.

(laughs) - More.

Okay.

Why has that occurred?

- So, California is the world's largest almond producing area of the whole world.

And so, that pollination event requires over 1.8 million honeybee colonies to pollinate that single crop.

And when I first started at MSU, I thought, well, let's look at the interaction between native and wild bees and honeybees that are brought in at that time.

Well, there's no native and wild bees in California at that time.

They're mostly ground-nesting bees that are still in the ground at that time in late February.

Early March is when the almonds bloom and it's about a two-week window.

And so, they just need a lot of pollinators ready to go at that specific time.

And honeybees that are managed can provide that pollination service was essential.

No bee pollination there, no almond, there's no self almonds.

- And if you want a good cold beer, you gotta have an almond once in a while.

(panel laughing) No doubt about it.

- Salted almonds.

- Yeah, salted.

The ones I really like are the wasabi almonds.

- Oh, yeah, very good.

- Yeah, they are really good.

They have a nice kick to 'em (panel laughing) and it goes good with a light beer.

(panel laughing) - Okay.

- There you go.

- All right.

(panel laughing) I have you up.

From Livingston, when should they start thinking about planting potatoes?

That's a good question right now.

- So, in Montana in general, in most places, you can start planting around the first week of May.

Really, you're not gonna get your potatoes to start growing very well until the soil is at least 50 degrees.

So, if you plant them now or if you plant them when the soil is 50 degrees, they're gonna come up about the same time.

But the way I look at it in a home garden, after the first in May, you plant 'em when you have time.

(panel laughing) - It used to be Mother's Day.

That was a standard old wive's tale.

- Which is much better than the other one, which is Good Friday.

- Yeah, that's true.

- Because there were a lot of old timers (Jack laughing) that insisted that you should plant your potatoes on Good Friday, which is way, way too early to plant potatoes.

But anytime after the first week of May and then up through the 10th or 15th of June, especially if you just want new potatoes, you're gonna be getting more at the end of the summer, so.

- Okay.

Speaking of potatoes, I know, Shelley, you had a certified Montana seed potato service that exists in Valley County.

Is that still present?

- It is.

And it still happens in a lot of Montana and extension agents do facilitate that.

I have since moved to local businesses, had them take it on, because it just got too huge for me to do.

I was measuring out 2,200 pounds of potatoes in little one pound bags.

But Nina is responsible (Jack laughing) for starting that whole program and it was designed to bring to the forefront how important it is to use only certified seed potatoes from Montana.

Because if we use potatoes out of grocery store, something like that, a lot of times they have a deterrent on them that won't allow them to grow, but also they can have diseases which would destroy our potato industry.

- Yeah, and just a little bit of history on that, why we started that program is the recommendation to everybody in Montana was plant Montana-certified seed potatoes.

And the main reason being, well first of all, it's great quality seed, but also to protect our Montana seed potato growers.

But that recommendation was a little hollow, because people would call in and say, well that's a great recommendation, but where do we get Montana-certified seed potatoes?

So, we actually got a grant from the Montana Specialty Crop Block Grant program and we started collecting the potatoes and sending 'em to the county agents.

And interestingly enough, the first year that we did it, we got in a little bit of hot water, because we were distributing them to the counties and then the counties were, their constituents could come in and pick up some potatoes, but some of the local nurseries and garden centers said, hey, you've got a state agency that's competing against our businesses.

So, then we modified the program and now the county agents actually facilitate the, help getting it to the local businesses.

And we completely turned it over about five years ago to Holbrook Seed Potatoes out of Twin Bridges.

So, we don't do it anymore.

Holbrook Seed Potatoes does it and it works out very well.

- [Shelley] They do a nice job.

- It's a good program, it really is.

And it protects a very critical industry in this state.

And that's the seed potato growers here.

(Jack chuckles) Michelle, this person was out in their yard today and they saw some bees and the bees look like they had nothing to eat.

(panel laughing) What do they eat at this time of year?

- Well, they can forge on dandelions that's in the yards.

Also flowering trees.

So, you do see flowering trees now.

And so, they can forge on that.

As a link to what Nina was just talking about at Montana seed potatoes, there are hobbyist beekeepers that also bring bees into the state.

And we don't have some pests like small hive beetle, which is present in the south and other areas.

And so, we also encourage, if you wanna become a beekeeper, you should get your bees from a Montana source as well.

Again, for that disease reason, disease and pests.

- Okay, thank you.

Interesting question here for Shelley from Great Falls.

This caller is asking, are there any bison or buffalo, if you prefer, in Valley County, and are they compatible with cattle operations?

And we know a little bit about the history of that.

So, it's a tough question.

- It is.

We don't have any bison ranches other than the Fort Peck Tribes that raises bison.

But they don't really compete with our livestock production, our cattle production, because it's a separate herd that's just run by the tribe.

I'm not familiar with anybody raising bison other than tribes - I don't think... - in Montana.

- No.

There are in some areas of state, more and more people growing or raising a few bison, but I don't think they're up there yet that I know of.

I had a call here tonight from Terry LaValley in Anaconda and he wanted me to announce that there was a very good article about agriculture in the most recent issue of "Montana Fish and Wildlife Outdoor" Magazine.

And I'm gonna give credit to the editor, Tom Dixon.

I brought a copy of that along tonight.

And I'm telling you, I got home from a meeting the other day and I sat down and I read this magazine from cover to cover.

It's very nicely done.

It tells you in nice, accurate words what is available in this state.

This one happens to show the various types of cattle that we have.

You can find pictures of the sheep, the hogs, the type of barns, the name of those barns that are historic.

It tells you that agriculture is still a mainstay in the state.

It's still a number one business.

And I appreciate Montana Outdoors doing this magazine.

I'd encourage anyone that wants to pick up a copy of this or if you want to go online to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Montana Outdoors, you can find a copy of this.

It's so nicely done.

You may need to give 'em credit.

And I'll promote it a little bit farther.

This is me speaking.

(panel laughing) Six issues for $15.

It's a heck of a deal.

And it's not an ag magazine, it's an outdoor magazine, but they did feature agriculture in that one.

So, enough said.

How long should a tree be left staked?

- That's a good question.

So, (clears throat) a lot of times, the reason that we're staking trees, especially when we're doing this is when they're younger and they don't really have their root system well-established.

So, they could be blown around by the wind.

But usually, I would say, depending on the location that you're in, and if you can feel the trunk of the tree and push and if it feels like really flexible and easy to push, it may need to be staked for like a year, maybe two.

I wouldn't encourage people to stake for very long though, because you want that tree to be able to establish into that and be used to those environmental conditions, whether it's wind, snow loads, things like that.

So, you wanna encourage that tree to naturally be established and healthy in that landscape.

So, about one year when you're getting established and then play it by ear, but usually don't need to do longer than that.

- Okay, thank you.

What about wrapping a tree.

Thin bark trees like maples and so forth, - Mm-hmm.

- how long do they need to keep a wrap on, so they don't get sunburned?

- That's a good question.

So, I usually encourage people wrapping them every winter for at least the first five or six years.

After that point, that's when the bark starts to become thicker, a little bit rougher, and they're less susceptible to that Southwest or sunscald injury.

So, I would say at least for the first four or five years over winter to do that.

And that brings up a really good point in terms of trees.

We get a lot of questions about trees and all over Montana, it can be challenging to grow some trees.

And so, we have a gardening workshop that's coming up in just under two weeks that's gonna be taking place at Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.

And one of the topics that we're gonna be covering is trees for Montana as well as troubleshooting tree issues.

And so, if you are interested in that, the link is up there.

It's bit.ly/msu2024gardening, or you can give me a call or an email and I can get you that link as well.

- [Jack] Thank you.

This is a good one for Shelley.

I like this one.

- Oh.

- It came from Helena and this person says they took Jack's advice about visiting Eastern Montana.

I promoted that last year or a year before.

They stopped to visit Fort Peck and loved the Glasgow area.

One comment, with your background, can you join the Mosquito Control Board?

They are big and vicious (Shelley laughing) in your county.

- That is true.

(Jack chuckles) Even Lewis and Clark comment and in their journals about how bad the mosquitoes were.

Yes, I am actually on the mosquito board and the weed board and several other boards.

Fair board, beautification board.

That's part of being an extension agent, is that you are very community-minded and engaged with your community.

It's how we find out what local needs are, which is how we do our programming.

- Do you ever have time for a vacation?

- Ooh.

(panel laughing) My brothers would say no.

(panel laughing) - Oh, you guys do a great job.

No doubt about it.

Michelle, I'm gonna throw this one to you, but everybody can jump in.

It's from Laurel.

And this caller says, regarding bees, are herbicides an issue similar to pesticides and are probably talking insecticides?

Are herbicides an issue?

- So, of course insecticides that kill insects like neonicotinoid insecticides and others are worse for bees.

They're designed to kill insects.

And so, you definitely need to take caution to use those.

And I always encourage, especially homeowners to use less of those, because their livelihood doesn't depend on that.

Let's use those insecticides where we need to and IPM strategies for crops.

Herbicides themselves, there's mixed in the literature, but they're not designed to target insects.

They're designed to target plants.

And so, in general, probably they don't have ill effects on bees.

That said, there's been some work, the adjuvants that are used to spread those herbicides on plants have been shown to be toxic to bees.

So, we gotta be careful with those.

And then, also, there's not enough forage out there for bees in general.

And so, getting rid of those weeds and things like that, or other plants that bees forage on, that's not great for bees.

So, indirectly so, but directly so, I would say in general, no.

- No.

Okay.

Shelley, you have a pollinator garden in - I do.

- conjunction with Army Corps of Engineers.

You wanna tell us a little bit about what that is and more about it?

- Sure.

So, we started doing beekeeping workshops up in Valley County several years ago and decided to put in a beekeeping learning lab, which we have five honeybee colonies, actually six honeybee colonies and an observation hive in the interpretive center.

And the natural resource specialist, Patricia Gilbert Ball, said we need to plant some pollinators.

And so, she's done a ton of research and we're planting right now at the end, this is phase three, third year, we have 1,687 different plants planted.

90% of what we've planted is native.

We try to go with natives.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then, we've also researched to make sure that certain host plants are available for specific native bees.

But we have nine grasses, 33 different herbaceous perennials, 20 different shrubs, and 7 trees.

So, a whole list of things like spotted gayfeather, echinacea, rubber rabbitbrush, on and on and on.

- How's the pheasant hunting in that pot?

(panel laughing) - It's just getting started.

So, not quite yet, (Jack laughing) but the deer like it.

- Okay.

I'm just curious.

(panel laughing) - I bet.

- And where is it again?

(panel laughing) - It's on the Missouri River, right next to the Fort Peck Interpretive Center.

Right just below the Fort Peck Dam.

- And here again, promoting Eastern Montana.

If you have not been to the interpretive center, - Oh, yeah.

- it's an absolutely must-see in Eastern Montana.

So, enough said there.

Butte caller wants tips for preventing scab on potatoes.

I need that too.

(panel laughing) - Okay.

- They wanna know, does sulfur powder help?

- No, sulfur powder is not going to help.

In fact, sulfur is gonna make the soil a little bit more acidic.

And we have a particular type of scab called acid scab.

And I've never particularly heard of that situation, but I think it could actually promote scab.

The best thing that you can do for scab, especially in your home garden, is to water your potatoes very regularly.

So, potatoes like even moisture, they don't like to ever dry out.

So, if you can water them probably every other day during the summer when it's really hot, it definitely will help, because when the soil dries out, that's when you, well, that's when the bacteria that cause the scab on the potatoes become more active.

And that's just because the beneficial bacteria when it's dry are less active.

And so, the bad bacteria that cause the scab become more active when it's dry.

- Varieties.

- So, yeah, so most of the reds actually aren't as susceptible as most of the russets in general.

I mean russet burbank isn't too bad in terms of a russett - Right.

- and the reds like dark red norland actually are really popular.

Home garden variety is relatively tolerant to- - Okay.

- None are completely resistant, but some are more tolerant.

- It doesn't really hurt the edibility of potato.

- No, it doesn't.

It doesn't.

You just - Peel it away.

- have to peel it away.

- Okay.

And while we're on the potato subject, a quick one here.

From Paradise Valley, this caller is asking where can they get certified fingerling potatoes?

- Ah, yes.

So, actually, Holbrook Seed Potatoes produce fingerlings and they're the ones that do the garden seed deliveries.

Kimseed in the Manhattan area, they actually produce organic fingerling seed potatoes.

They usually sell theirs at the co-op and usually some of the nurseries around Bozeman definitely will have them.

I've already seen seed potatoes, our Montana seed potatoes in multiple nurseries and garden centers around.

So, I can't tell you what's available in Livingston, but I think you should be able to actually find those in Bozeman.

And if you want a little bit more help on that, you can always give us a call at the lab and we can help chase it down.

Or if you call Lacey Holbrook, if you look up Holbrook Seed Potatoes, they can tell you where they've actually been delivered.

So, holbrookseedpotatoes.com I think is what it is on their website.

And they don't have any in stock probably, but they can tell you where they've delivered 'em.

- Okay, sounds good.

(Jack chuckles) Bozeman caller, Jan Cashman.

Hi, Jan. (panel laughing) They're having trouble with powdery mildew and the greenhouse on roses.

- Hmm.

- Can you remember your plant path enough to figure out what might work there?

And I think we just talked about one of them.

- Well, one of the things is water, (panel laughing) is keeping them a little bit more moist, - Moist.

- misting them.

But that's probably a little bit of a fine line, because you could encourage other fungal diseases if you keep them really wet.

But powdery mildews are another pathogen that actually thrive under dryer conditions, which is the flip side.

Most plant pathogens like wetter conditions, but powdery mildew definitely does, is inhibited by wetter conditions.

- Sulfur used to work on 'em, if I recall.

- Yes.

- And that goes way back when I was a youngster that we talked about sulfur for mildew control.

- Yeah, sulfur for powdery mildew and downy mildew.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And sometimes the old sulfur pots, you remember those things - Mm-hmm.

- that they used to have in greenhouses?

I don't think you can use 'em.

Probably EPA took 'em away by now, but anyway.

All right.

Thanks, Jan, for the question.

From Sydney.

I'll throw this one to Shelley.

Palmer amaranth, are you scouting for it (Shelley laughing) in your county?

- We've actually been doing outreach and education since 2017 on Palmer amaranths when they first identified it in North Dakota, because we are so close to the North Dakota border.

I started getting my fellow agents on board and we created a task force that most of the members are gone now.

I think that Tim Sippel and I and Jane Mangold are the only ones left on the original board.

But yeah, we are looking for it.

We are actively educating the public about it.

Has been found in Montana in two locations, one in Shelby, which was found in bird seed and it's a common contaminant of millet.

And that seems to be the biggest problem that we had is finding it in millet.

The other one is in Daniels County and it actually was some millet seed that was brought in from Colorado.

Went to the state green lab for testing and showed that they did have the contaminant in it, but by then, it had already been seeded.

And so, the agent in Daniels County, Inga Hawbaker, is going out for the next three to four years, rowing this 400 acre field by hand, by foot, looking for this Palmer amaranth.

And they found I think five or six of them, the plants last year.

- And that's Scobey?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Yeah.

- Sorry.

- For people that don't know Eastern Montana, Daniels County (panel laughing) is where Scobey is located, and one of the cutest little communities in the state.

It's very nice.

Okay.

Maybe I'd get a job as a travel for... (panel laughing) - Exactly.

- That'd be awesome.

- No, I think not.

(panel laughing) Michelle, from Helena.

This person has a question regarding masonry bees.

The caller has drilled holes in wood for nest.

Can those holes be cleaned, drilled back out?

Eggs could be there, but how could the caller tell?

I don't know anything about masonry bees.

You want to jump on that?

- Yeah, and I'll probably get some help from Abi on this one too.

But mason bees do nest in wood and you can clean out those, you can clean out those holes that you drilled in before.

They should have overwintered in those holes.

And so, I might wait now and not clean them now, but clean them more like mid-summer time or something like that, 'cause they'll be putting their eggs and provisioning those eggs for the over winter time.

And then, those solitary bees will emerge.

All different kinds of bees actually, not just mason bees, that nest in wood structures.

They could come out this spring, so they should probably wait 'til midsummer to clean.

Abi, do you have anything to add?

- Yeah, (clears throat) cleaning is important and another way that you can do this is you can take pieces of paper and line the inside of those holes.

That'll help you with cleaning them in the future.

So, you can just pull those out after those bees have emerged, and then just replace them with a new piece of paper and it reduces the amount of using a scrubby brush and cleanup that you need to do.

- Okay.

I learned something about bees.

I knew nothing about that.

(panel laughing) Thank you.

I want to throw this out and I noticed it myself.

There are blueberries for sale at a big box store here in Bozeman.

Can they grow in Montana?

- So, blueberries (Shelley chuckles) need a pH of below six.

Between five and six pH is ideal for growing blueberries.

There are some pockets of areas in this state where it is possible, but for most of the state, it's very difficult to grow blueberries.

And if you have that pH above six, you can't really grow them very well.

Some people are growing them in raised beds where you can control that soil and control that soil pH more closely.

I know that Zach Miller at the Western Ag Research Center has been growing blueberries for a couple of years.

So, if you are really very judicious in terms of your soil management, taking care of it, and monitoring the pH, yes, it is possible to grow them.

But start with getting a soil test and see if that amount of effort, if your soil pH is above that six or even above seven range, that amount of effort is usually a lot and yearly effort to maintain that pH.

- What I noticed, and I noticed these blueberries when I was in this particular store this past weekend, most of the raspberries had been picked off and sold.

Very few blueberries had been moved off the shelf.

So, I think people are cognizant of the fact - Good.

- that blueberries are really not meant for most of Montana.

- Exactly.

And I mean, I would encourage people to think about haskaps or honeyberries instead, 'cause they do grow well in the higher pH soils we have in most of the state.

- So, just to comment about haskaps, we planted four plants or four bushes two years ago.

And last year, we actually got a couple quarts and they're already flowering and we got down to 20 degrees and it looks like those flowers actually survived in 20 degree temperatures, because I was out in the garden today and I saw bees visiting those flowers.

So, that's pretty amazing.

- Yes, yes.

(Nina laughing) They grow these in Canada like in Saskatchewan and stuff, so they're some of our heartiest berries and they're delicious.

What did you think of them?

- Oh, they're amazing.

Oh, they're amazing.

Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

So, we learned something.

Good.

From Billings.

(Nina chuckles) For Shelley, this person has heard that the National County Agents Association meeting is going to be held in Billings.

Is that true?

- It is.

Our National Association of County Ag agents.

Yes.

- They would like to know also, is there anything people in Billings can do to help facilitate this particular meeting?

- Oh, wow.

The people- - Yeah, they're just asking.

- Really?

(panel laughing) Wow, that's wonderful.

So, yeah, we are expecting about, well, we're planning for 1,100, but we have been told that we should probably expect 1,400 people to come from all across the nation.

And it's going to be a whole week-long session of professional development for agricultural agents.

It's also wards for achievements in extension.

And then, we also have a whole day full of tours.

So, if you're in Billings and you wanna help, let us know what you've got.

If there's some agricultural products that we can come and see, if we can tour your industry, if you wanna just help out, get ahold of me.

I'm sure they're gonna put my information up on there.

- The phone number's right up there.

- Yeah.

So, just give me a call and we can get you in touch with the right people to get it organized.

It is gonna be a huge event.

- Well, and I'm glad to see Montana get an event like that.

- We last hosted in 1982.

- I knew that.

I remember that.

That's how long I've been around.

- That's what I was gonna say.

(panel laughing) You were around then, Jack.

- Yes, I was, matter of fact.

(panel laughing) - You probably helped with that program.

- I avoided it.

It was a lot of work.

(panel laughing) Okay.

Michelle, this goes back to one of our previous questions, but this individual would like to know which insecticides are really hard on honeybee populations.

- I think the simple answer is probably all of 'em, but the Oregon State University extension agent has, or sorry, extension publication has a phone app actually.

So, that's OSU.

You can do, I think it's called, I think it's something poison, it's pesticide and honeybees, and you can look it up on that app and check it out.

We mentioned neonicotinoids earlier.

Permethrin is bad for bees too.

But I think pretty much any insecticide's gonna be bad for bees.

And I don't know if any others wanna jump in here on this question, but that Oregon State University app I think would be a good one for them to check out.

Even if they say bee-safe, it's not really gonna be that safe for bees any insecticide.

- Okay, thank you.

I agree with you there.

A Facebook message.

I like this one.

It's for Shelley.

It's from Polson.

What's the most interesting question you received as an extension agent (Shelley laughing) and how did you handle it?

I think that's pretty good.

- Oh boy.

Okay.

(Jack laughing) So, yeah, it was a brand new agent my first year on and I had a gentleman come into my office and tell me, "I think I have bugs in my head eating my brain."

(panel laughing) - Oh my gosh.

- And I said, well, how do you know this?

(Jack laughing) What's the deal?

And he said, "Well, I was sneezing the other day and I blew my nose and out came a bug."

(Jack laughing) And I just went, did you save the bug?

(panel laughing) Oh, please, no.

And fortunately, he had not saved the bug, (Jack laughing) but he...

So, I had him sit down with a piece of paper and some colored pencils and had him draw out what the bug looked like and it was suspiciously a lot like a boxelder bug.

And I said, (Jack laughing) well, where have you been that you may have gotten bugs that crawled up your nose?

And he said, "Well, I've been sleeping out behind the hospital in the woods."

And I'm like pretty much certain that that's a boxelder bug.

(panel laughing) Yeah, I was... - That's a pretty good one.

- And I'm still here.

(panel laughing) - And that's what I say, a county agent's position, you get everything.

If you get bored with one thing, you move to something else.

It's a diverse occupation.

And there is a question here, how does a person become a county agent?

And number two is, what level of education is required to be a county agent?

- So, having a degree that is in agriculture or an agricultural-related field is a really great place to start.

Ag education is a good one.

You do not need a master's degree to be hired.

You do need a bachelor's degree.

But you have to get your master's degree within that first six-year period of being an extension agent.

And now, MSU has some fabulous opportunities to do it online.

We have an ag education course online.

We also have the land resources and environmental sciences, which is what I got my degree in.

And it's really nice, because all of the classes that you take are things that you deal with daily in your job and it's very beneficial to get that.

But they give you six years to get that.

- Okay.

That's interesting.

I don't think that program was around when I was still working, so.

But it's good.

And it is such a diverse job and satisfying.

Most of the county agents I've known through the years really thoroughly enjoy their job, because they get number one, to work with people if you like people, you like being a county agent and you never get bored, as you just pointed out.

From Libby.

This person would like to know, are there different types of bees in Northwest Montana versus Southeast Montana?

- So, there's hundreds of different bee species in Montana and actually, Mike Ivie and Casey Delphia here at Montana State have a wild bees of Montana.

That's a project that's supported by the Montana Department of Ag, specialty crop blocks.

And you can look up a, they have a identifications sheet that you can get online.

So, there's many native and wild bees, solitary bees, like different types of bumblebees.

We talked leaf-cutter bees, we talked about mason bees.

So, there are many types.

And then, honeybees are a specific kind of bee called Apis mellifera.

Those are the bees that are managed.

So, I'm not sure if they're talking about, and they're breeds of those, kinda like we have breeds of dogs.

And so, you can have Italian bees or Carniolan bees, but the wild and native bees in Northwest Montana, I don't know if they're gonna be different than Northeast Montana.

Probably some of 'em are and some of 'em aren't.

But a lot of that climate, it's climate-driven and how far those ranges have expanded.

And I say expanded because sometimes as we're having climate change, the range of different be species is shifting and moving.

And so, it's very understudied question, to be honest.

But we have people working on it, but we could have a lot more.

- Whatever happened to the Africanized honeybee that we used to hear so much about?

- Yeah, so that's Apis mellifera scutellata.

So, as I was mentioning, there's bee breeds and it's just one type of breed.

In general, they say that if you have much of those scutellata genetics, so importantly, they're an outbred population.

They have multiple genetic backgrounds in the colony.

So, the queen mates with about 20 different males.

And so, you have half sisters in the box.

And so, they have what's called hybrid vigor.

But if they have too much of that scutellata genetics, they won't survive our winters actually.

And so, those Africanized bees have in general, been reached the latitude of San Francisco, but not overwintered in Montana.

Occasionally, we get someone delivered on a truck here and they'll be here for the summer and they'll be mean, (panel laughing) but then they won't last the winter, so.

- They are mean though, I take it.

- Yeah, yeah.

They're more aggressive and they swarm more often.

But that gives them a benefit of resisting mites better, because they leave their house, and then have this break in the brood.

And so, they're a little bit more tolerant of mites.

But in Mexico, Texas, Florida, you're having those Africanized bees.

You just gotta learn how to work with them.

And beekeepers do, they work with them down there.

- Okay, interesting.

Put your plant path hat on.

- [Nina] Okay.

- This person has a lot of black spots on their aspen.

It's recurring every year.

Number one, is it hurting the aspen?

Number two, if it is, what do they need to do to prevent it?

- So, that's the disease called black spot of aspen.

And it's caused by a fungus called Marssonina.

And it's marginally damaging to the tree.

I would say more than anything, it's cosmetic.

But if you get a season where you have a really wet spring, you can start getting infections after bud break.

And then, if you continue to have wetting of the leaves continually throughout the season, then you can get multiple disease cycles.

So, in wet summers, you'll have pretty bad disease.

You can spray fungicides starting at bud break, anything with the active ingredient, chlorothalonil, actually is effective on it.

But you would need to repeat that every 10 to 14 days throughout the summer.

Most importantly, if you knew you were gonna have a wet period coming, you could spray before that.

If it was gonna be dry, you wouldn't necessarily need to.

And then, also just make sure your irrigation is not hitting your trees.

- That's a big issue.

- Yeah.

- There are no doubt about it.

- And another thing too is in the fall is make sure you rake up all the leaves, because the inoculum of the fungus is going to live in the leaves underneath the trees.

- And on that note, we have not yet had our annual fire blight question, but you mentioned the watering of trees like flowering crab apple, - Mm-hmm.

- you don't wanna let those trees get wet, because you will get fire blight.

- Oh, absolutely.

And most of the time, you get fire blight and mother nature is pretty good at making sure we have some fire blight.

- Abi, this person has, I believe, blossom end rot, but they're using something called Stop-Rot to try to control it.

And they've also added eggshells to improve the calcium, which I don't think breaks down fast enough to help.

You want to touch on that a little bit?

- Yeah, so Stop-Rot is a product that I believe adds a calcium amendment to the soil and blossom end rot is a result of a calcium deficiency in tomato and peppers and yeah, tomatoes and peppers mostly is what I see it in.

But even though it is a calcium deficiency, a lot of times, it is due to the fact that the calcium isn't traveling throughout that fruit evenly.

And so, you could, especially if you've been adding products like Stop-Rot and you're still getting that problem year after year, it's likely not due to the fact that calcium is limiting in your soil.

It's most likely due to the fact that you have some sort of watering inconsistency.

And so, one of the most common issues that we see with blossom end rot is if you water inconsistently or if you have really a hot dry period, and then you add a lot of water or your plants dry out a little bit too much in between that, that can result in the ends of those fruit turning black and looking rotten.

So, making sure that you're watering your tomatoes very consistently is the best way to prevent that.

And then, in general, if you're not sure if you have enough calcium in your soil, getting a soil test would be a good way to determine if that's the case, but if you have been adding some of these calcium amendments, it's likely the watering issue.

- Absolutely.

Thank you.

And from Gallatin County here, we don't have a weed scientist on the panel tonight, but Shelley's pretty good.

She knows a lot about weeds.

This caller is asking if hoary alyssum and hoary cress are the same plant, and they're not.

- No, they're not.

- And they want to know how you control each of them.

And I do know (indistinct) works on hoary alyssum, but I don't know about hoary cress.

- I'm not familiar with hoary cress, I'm sorry.

- Me either, I'm not.

So, we'll save that question for when somebody that knows the answer is here.

Okay.

What organizations fund bee research?

- Yeah, so the USDA, United States Department of Agriculture does, and they have a program that does the Montana Department of Ag Specialty Crop Blocks grant.

So, these pollinate a lot of specialty crops.

So, that's one.

Project Apis m. is a non-profit organization that supports bee research and they really focus on applied research, so which miticides work and they do a practical trial.

It's mostly supported by commercial beekeepers across the US.

The National Science Foundation also is another source of funding.

I'm sure Western Sere as well.

And so, there are a number of different agencies and that is a large part of my job here at Montana State is getting the funds to run the lab to address important that you're not gonna get addressed any other manner than from an academic institution, a land grant institution like MSU.

- Okay.

Where does Montana stand in honey production?

- Yeah, so in 2022, we ranked I think fourth.

We produced 7.5 million pounds of honey.

We typically rank in the top five for the last 15 years in honey production.

And then, as I mentioned earlier, we probably about 200,000 colonies or definitely over 150,000 colonies to the pollination services.

And so, beekeepers have, that's where they get the bulk of their funding for the most part.

- What does it cost an almond grower to get a hive of bees now?

- I would say it's close to $200 a colony, but we'd have to factoid check me here.

But I think that that's pretty close.

- Pretty close.

- Mm-hmm.

- And it takes about two colonies to pollinate each three acres of something.

- I can't remember the stocking rate.

I know Project Apis m. has some best management practices that say that exact number, but I think you're close.

But I wouldn't, I'm not sure actually.

- I was just guessing.

- Yeah, yeah.

I'm not sure.

(Jack laughing) I'd have to double check that as well.

- Okay, good enough.

From Helena, I like this question.

This caller wants to know if you need an eye in a potato to make the potato sprout.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

So, this is something that can happen.

So, if you have like a really big rested potato, so maybe somebody gave you a seed potato that what we call oversize, anything over 12 ounces is oversize.

If you tried to cut that into like six pieces and got some pieces that didn't have any eyes, they will not sprout, so.

- You do need the eye.

- Absolutely.

You do need the eye.

- Okay.

- Preferably two to four eyes per seed piece.

- All right.

- And each seed piece, probably two to four ounces.

So, having that bit of carbohydrate and starch there in the soil as a food source to get the potato started, you'll get a stronger plant if you have a bigger seed piece.

- That's good to know.

Shelley, from Missoula, this person would like to know what are some of these services that a county agricultural agent gives to their county?

- Oh, wow.

So, some of the things that we do are like nitrate testing.

So, forages that are small grain forages or grassy forages like oats, wheat, that kind of thing, oftentimes have high nitrates in them.

We can test those forages right in our office, takes about an hour with a strip test to do that.

But we can give an answer right away whether it's safe to feed or whether we need to send something into the laboratory and get a quantitative number rather than a qualitative number.

We also provide, well, man, I'm having a blank right now.

(Jack laughing) So, there's so many services that extension offers.

We provide soil sampling for gardens, sending them off to the laboratory, helping you identify and read the analysis that comes back and understanding it.

So, many, many things that we do.

- Anything- - You can get your pressure cooker top gauge tested to make sure.

- I remember that.

(Shelley laughing) But now we've moved away from pressure cookers into instant pots, so.

- Instant pots are not that great for canning.

- I didn't know that.

- Yeah.

- So, you need- - I'm not a specialist in that area, but my colleague Robbie says, "Instant pot, don't use 'em - No.

- for canning."

- Okay.

- And another service that you provide too is if somebody brings in a disease or insect or something that you can't identify, you're the gateway to the Schutter Diagnostic Lab.

- [Shelley] Absolutely, yes.

Thank you for bringing that up.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

That's an important part of our job.

It's probably a good 60% - Yeah.

- of our job is identifying pests and bugs and things that come in and truly we have a great relationship with the extension specialists on all levels, not just at the Schutter Lab.

We are actually a link between the MSU research and the people and vice versa.

So, if MSU is doing research, we get that out to the people.

If the people have a research project or a need that they have, we bring that back to MSU and say, hey, you guys need to do some research on this.

Prime example is Clain Jones acidification thing that was brought up by a grower.

My narrowleaf hawksbeard work was also brought up by a grower.

So, we truly are a link and we couldn't do it without all of these people.

- You mentioned the hawkweed narrow leaf.

- [Shelley] Hawksbeard.

- Yeah, hawksbeard.

Yeah.

Ed Davis said two things, when that moved in here and when Palmer amaranth was gonna move in, he was gonna retire.

And he did.

- He did.

- [Jack] How widespread is hawksbeard?

- Hawksbeard, yeah.

So, it was actually introduced into Valley County, we think on some alfalfa seed from Canada.

So, it was widespread in...

It has moved from both sides of the nation and particularly through Canada, down from Alaska.

And it could have just blown across the border too.

We're not a hundred percent sure, but the grower came in and said, "I have this weed that's growing in my fields and I can't manage it with my current management practices.

What is it and how do I get rid of it?"

And so, I didn't know what it was, I hadn't seen it before.

So, we sent it off to the Schutter Lab and Noelle Orloff identified it as narrow leaf hawksbeard, which is a native of Siberia, which is why it does really well in Eastern Montana.

But from that time, it was in 20, probably 2011 or 2012 when he brought it in.

And I did my master's thesis on it, graduating in 2016, and did huge outreach and education all over.

It moved from just a tiny spot in Valley County all the way into North Dakota, and even South down into Prairie County.

- [Jack] How do you control it?

- Oh, early.

It's a winter annual.

- Okay.

- So, it's one of the first ones that comes out.

It germinates in temperature, soil temperatures that are only 38 degrees or 40 degrees.

And early burndown, preplant burndown.

But you have to use a specific amount of Roundup or glyphosate.

You can't just use the regular labeled rate.

It has to be bumped up a little bit.

And then, it depends on what crop you're going to be going into, whether it's gonna be a pulse crop or a wheat crop or something like that, as to what other chemicals you can use.

And clearly, managing it when you're in your wheat rotation is probably one of the key things.

But early strategy is best.

Ed Davis.

- It's a nasty one.

- Ed Davis and Brian Jenks from North Dakota State University, and Jane Mangold, those three did phenomenal amount of work researching it and we got answers for our growers, and you hardly hear about it now.

- That's good.

You guys did a great job.

This is an interesting one and I'm not sure we have a good answer.

From Helena.

This person has a chemical-free lawn and uses corn gluten for pre-emergent weed control.

All of a sudden, the caller has crab grass.

I don't think we have crab grass on Helena.

- It's rare.

- Yeah, it's...

Okay.

What non-chemical solutions that are least dangerous to pollinators could be used aside from physical removal?

- So, I would get that identified.

What we more often get is quack grass, not crab grass.

It's crab grass is not very common here in Montana lawns.

Quack grass can be pretty tough to manage.

It has a rhizomatous root system, so that means it has horizontal stems that grow below the soil level.

And the pieces of those roots will sprout a new plant.

So, it's really easy to spread.

And in terms of management, you can use glyphosate and do spot treatments to try and get rid of that.

There isn't really a good strategy.

So, one of the best things to do though is to make sure that the turf grass species that you have in your lawn is growing very vigorously and healthy, so that it can outcompete these weedy grasses.

So, that would be the best way.

Otherwise, you'd need to continue spot treatments with glyphosate and do a combination of physical removal.

So, for a non-chemical option, physical removal, but making sure that your turf grass is really healthy and can compete those weed issues.

- What about corn gluten though?

That's what I want to know.

- Yeah.

(Jack laughing) So, I'm not that aware of how well it works.

A lot of times it's used as like a barrier to prevent emergence - Okay.

- of some weeds, but I'm not that familiar with it.

- All right.

Well, I know I'm not heard of it, so I was kinda curious.

Potato question.

Great Falls caller is asking if the number of stems coming out of the seed potato impacts the size of the potato.

- Absolutely.

It definitely does.

And so, that's an interesting phenomenon where a potato is just like a plant all in itself and it has apical dominance.

So, if you don't cut the potato, actually a lot of times, that'll be dominant and you'll only get two or three stems coming out.

So, if you cut a potato in half, you're actually probably gonna get more stems, because you release the apical dominance.

But the more stems you have, usually you'll have more smaller potatoes.

And if you have a single stem, you might just get three or four potatoes.

- Okay, good to know.

This...

While I have you up, I'm gonna test your plant path skills.

(Nina laughing) I know the answer to this one.

- Okay, well... (panel laughing) And you did teach me one of my plant pathology classes, so.

(Jack laughing) - Yeah, I did.

I'm not gonna say when that was.

- No, that was a little while ago.

- Yeah, it was.

Great Falls caller is asking how he can treat the blight affecting his hollyhocks.

It starts with brown spots on leaves causing leaf curling and death to the leaves.

(Nina chuckles) Are we done?

(panel laughing) - We just got a message that maybe the timer is wrong, so.

- Okay, well.

- How much time do we have left?

- [Staff] Just keep going.

- Okay.

- Okay, okay.

Could you repeat the question?

(laughs) - Hollyhock rust, - Uh-huh?

- how do you control it?

And it's a rust, it's not a blight per se.

- I don't really remember that much about it, but I think - [Presenter] For more information- - Chlorothalonil or - chlorothalonil.

(indistinct) - It was the old standard.

- Right.

And probably also, I can't remember, does it have an alternate host?

(guitar music) - [Presenter] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, (guitar music) MSU Extension, (guitar music) the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, (guitar music) the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, (guitar music) Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, (guitar music) and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

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