- [Narrator] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by.

(upbeat country music plays) The Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(upbeat country music continues) - You are tuned to "Montana Ag Live", originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very vibrant campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over your Montana Public Television system.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired Professor of Plant Pathology.

Happy to be your host this evening.

You know how this program works.

You provide the questions and we give it our best answer or best guess if we don't have a good answer, or we'll look it up and have it next time.

But anyway, unless you provide the questions, this is a pretty boring operation here.

Well, let me introduce tonight's panel.

I think you'll really enjoy tonight's program.

It's a little different than those we've had in the past.

On my far left, Jane Mangold, you know what?

I thought she disappeared.

Jane has been on this program many, many times.

She's on sabbatical, and I finally convinced her that she needed to come in and be on the program before her sabbatical is over.

So Jane, thank you for coming in.

- You bet.

- [Jack] Our special guest, Rachelle Sartori.

Rachelle is the Director of the Extension Nutrition Education Program, and we're gonna learn a lot about that.

A hot word today is nutrition, and I think we all have to pay a little bit of attention to that.

She's gonna talk about some of the programs at the University Montana State Extension Program can provide the growers and the people, consumers around the state.

So if you have questions about the availability, anything like that, good opportunity to call.

And Rachelle can answer those questions tonight.

Frank Etzler, Frank is kind of an import from Montana Department of Agriculture.

We appreciate him taking time to come in.

He's an entomologist.

And hey, it's bug season, so it's time to get those questions in.

I saw my first wasp this week, so one of the questions will be when do I put out my traps?

You can answer that in a little bit.

And Abi, Abi is our Extension Horticulturalist, and if you have questions concerning horticulture, what plants to grow, what plants not to grow, so forth and so on, get those questions in this evening and we'll answer 'em.

And the phone number will be on the screen here shortly.

Taking the phone calls tonight are Frank and no, pardon me, Nikki and Joe Gravenberg.

We thank them for coming in.

And with that, Rachelle, tell us about your program here at MSU.

- Yeah, sure.

So in the Nutrition Education program, it's also known as Buy, Eat, Live Better, we manage two federal nutrition grants, SNAP-Ed, which stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education.

They're both kind of a mouthful.

And then EFNEP, which is the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.

And each grant covers a little bit of different programming with a slightly different audience.

Both are geared towards healthy eating and active living for youth, families, adults with limited resources.

In SNAP-Ed, we focus on direct nutrition education, and then we also do something called policy systems and environment work.

And then EFNEP focuses on just solely direct nutrition education in communities.

- Rachelle, I haven't been in a university for, active for a lot of years.

EFNEP has been around for a long time.

What triggered the development of that program?

It's a nationwide program, as I'm told.

- Yeah, both of them are nationwide programs.

That's a good question.

I think they were just triggered out of need, noticing that a lot of health outcomes of course in this country are not as good as they can be.

And I think anyone can benefit from basic nutrition education.

So both of these programs are pretty old and have been growing ever since, so.

- Are they expanding or is it pretty much a stable program?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

Well, funding unfortunately is usually pretty flat.

So we do have hopes to expand from what we're serving in Montana right now into, I'll talk about our counties later, but we are hoping to expand into maybe two or three counties from where we're at now.

But funding is, it's a flat funding stream basically, so unfortunately we can only scale up so much.

- Yeah, from my experience it's an excellent program.

We'll get into more of what you actually do.

We do have a question here from Facebook.

We mentioned haskap berries last week.

Where in Bozeman should I be looking for haskap bushes to transplant for my fence line up here in Cottonwood Canyon?

That's bear country, they'll like those.

- [Abi] Mm-hmm.

- I would like them for both a berry as well as the fruits.

Give us a little information about it.

- Yeah, so you can purchase haskaps, which are also known as honey berries, from most nurseries and garden centers here in Bozeman.

So I would call and ask ahead to make sure that they have them in stock.

They do need to be cross-pollinated by so you do need two different varieties of haskaps.

And two of the more popular ones right now are Aurora and Borealis.

And they bloom at the same time, so they work really well for cross-pollinating each other.

But a lot of nurseries are carrying them because they're seeing how hardy and successful they are here in Montana.

So you should be able to get them in most places.

- And they'll grow in higher pH soils?

- They will grow in higher pH soils.

That's what makes them really unique.

They're kind of like the blueberry alternative, I like to call them.

They have a different flavor but they're very delicious.

They have an elongated fruit and they can withstand some of our kind of eight and above pH soils.

- Okay, thank you.

Jane, we have a question here that came in and I saved this one back for you because we wanna welcome you back.

This person would like to know from Bozeman, why are some thistles noxious weeds whereas others are just obnoxious thistles?

- Oh yeah, well that's a very good question.

Probably a more complex answer than we can address here on the show.

But yeah, so in Montana we have actually five exotic thistles.

So exotic meaning they originated in a different continent than North America.

And those thistles, like Canada thistle, musk thistle, they're typically the ones that become noxious.

You know, it depends on the state and kinda where you are and where they're weedier.

I actually have some Canada thistle here with me today.

We also have about I think it's 12 native thistles and all thistles are kind of spiny and a little bit unfriendly, if you will, if you try to handle them.

But actually our native thistles, you know, they're functioning out there in our native plant communities and doing their job.

They're very desirable by pollinators and wildlife like to eat them as well.

And typically, native thistles are not put on any sort of noxious weed list.

So they might be kind of obnoxious if you tried to hug them or pull them, but they're not noxious in terms of you have to control them.

- Okay, so did Canada thistle originate in Canada?

- [Jane] It did not, no.

- Where did it come from?

- It comes from Eastern Europe, Western Asia, kind of that Eurasia term that you often hear when we refer to a lot of our invasive, non-native species.

- So why is it called Canada thistle?

I'm gonna get you tonight.

- Um, I should know that.

Actually, there is a movement to kind of refer to it as creeping thistle.

I should know why it's called that.

The Canadians don't like it when we refer to it as Canada thistle.

Creeping thistle, it is actually a more appropriate name for.

Canada thistle because it has the creeping roots.

- Yeah, okay.

- So yeah.

- Good enough, you passed that one.

- Okay, thank you.

- Okay, Rachelle, from Billings.

This caller would like to know what does MSU'S Nutrition program offer Is it open to all citizens?

- Yeah, great question.

So it's open, like I mentioned, to youth, adults, older adults, families with and without children who have limited resources, so for those who qualify for SNAP or utilize SNAP.

SNAP is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so it's a federal nutrition program that offers food assistance to low-income families.

So anybody who meets a certain income guideline can participate in the program.

And then each of the grants has a slightly different audience.

So SNAP-Ed, we serve youth and we serve families and we serve adults with and without dependents, we serve older adults, versus in EFNEP we focus on just youth and then families with dependents, so an adult without a child in the home would not be eligible.

- Okay, this is always a question that comes up.

Is there a lot of paperwork involved with applying for a program like that assistance?

- Yeah, great question.

So luckily we take care of most of the paperwork by our staff.

For the community member, there's very little paperwork needed.

They just need to get in touch with one of our educators and then find out when that person is hosting a class or a project that they can participate in.

So for the participant, very little paperwork.

They will have to fill out a pre and post survey because that's how we measure whether it was successful, is through a pre and post survey that measures change in knowledge and behavior and skill.

But the paperwork is mostly done by the educators and then the four administrative staff in Bozeman.

- Okay, thank you, Frank, and I know what this is.

It used to drive me crazy in the spring.

This person is seeing a lot of black, small, tiny bugs on his wheat at the edge of his fields.

He thinks it causes some whitening of the leaves.

Is that a black bug?

- [Frank] Yeah.

- Tell us a little bit about black bugs.

- So they are black grass bugs.

They're native to our ecosystem.

They really love crested wheatgrass.

And a lot of times this, they have one generation per year, and right now it's been a perfect spring for them to be very active and explode in population.

So a lot of times, they'll creep into the edge of your wheat field and it'll be a nuisance for about springtime.

And then by summertime, the population will crash.

- It doesn't really do very much damage economically, does it?

- Yeah, unless it's, you have rangeland and you have a lot of crested wheatgrass in your rangeland and they can affect the quality of your rangeland.

- Rangeland.

- Yeah.

- But on cereal grains, it's.

- Yeah, it's more of a nuisance.

You'll probably lose just along the edges there.

- Okay, thank you.

And we have, I can't tell you how many questions because this is a good dandelion year, and.

- You should see my neighbor's yard.

(group laughs) You're right.

- Should see mine.

- So one question is what's the best herbicide in lawns to control dandelions?

And then the second question is is there a herbicide that you can use in alfalfa to control dandelions?

So Abi, I'll let you do the lawn one.

- Yeah, so it can be pretty challenging to control dandelions in lawns because you want to address the overall reason why they're there.

And a lot of times it's because your turf isn't healthy and competitive.

And so you can use broadleaf herbicides like 2,4-D to control dandelions.

You can also spot treat with glyphosate, which I've done before, by just making a cut and spot treating that with you know, a brush.

But in general, you wanna address the issues that are preventing your turf grass from really filling out that area, leaving those gaps for those dandelions to continue to come up.

So a combination of removing those by, you know, treating with herbicide or mechanically removing them, but also addressing any issues, like if you have compacted soils or low nutrient soils or poor turf fertility, that's gonna help with the long-term control of dandelions.

- We have another question we'll follow up after Jane tells us about 2,4-D and alfalfa.

- I was hoping maybe Abi could answer that question too about alfalfa.

Yeah, it's difficult in alfalfa because you're trying to control a broad-leaved species in a broad-leaved crop that are actively growing at the same time.

So the options aren't, there aren't a lot of options.

I'm trying to think of, there's, is it a.

- [Jack] 2,4-DB used.

- 2,4-DB.

- Used to, I believe, I don't know if it's still labeled, but years ago that was one of the few herbicides that you could use.

I don't know of any others.

- Is there a, I probably shouldn't even say this on air because I don't know for sure, but I think there's an Imazamox product that you can use in alfalfa, but it would, please reach out to your Extension agent, weed district coordinator.

Tim Seipel would be another resource to visit with about alfalfa.

- The root of the problem is the alfalfa's too thin, is what Abi was referring to.

- [Jane] Yeah.

- And if you've got a lot of dandelions in your alfalfa, it's time for it to go, yeah.

- To get renovated, yeah.

And another person to visit with would be Hayes Goosey, our forage specialist.

I don't know if he's been on this season but he would be a great resource to, especially if it's a situation where you need to do some renovation.

- Okay, thank you.

The other question is are dandelion flowers edible?

- They are edible and I would say they're an acquired taste.

(Jack laughs) They're not my favorite but I know people that like to eat them in salads.

I know that if I cook them, they taste a little bit better because you can season them a certain way, but they certainly are edible.

All parts of that plant are edible.

- You gotta be hungry.

- Yes, and I've heard a lot about dandelion wine but I haven't tried it myself.

- I've made some dandelion wine.

- Yeah?

- It's pretty good.

- Great.

- Are dandelions nutritious, since we're talking about nutrition tonight?

(group laughs) - Probably not, not particularly.

- I'm not sure.

- They might have some, they're leafy greens.

- Yeah, that's right, yeah.

I couldn't speak to the specific nutrient content of a dandelion.

That's a good question we should follow up on.

- Yeah.

- Well other than Tim Seipel, who will eat anything.

(group laughs) Bottom line is I've tried 'em too and it's not worth eating.

And that's my private opinion.

The dandelion wine, I will agree with that.

- I have had dandelion salad.

- [Jack] And you're alive?

- I'm still alive, yeah, it is very good.

It depends on the dressing, though.

They're, it's very, very bitter.

(group laugh) So if you don't have the right dressing on it, it's very bad.

- Okay, from Bozeman for Rachelle, does the Nutrition Education program calculate nutrition facts for various foods?

And if so, are the educators doing that and how's it done?

That's kind of a tough question, but I assume you have an answer.

- Yes, I have an answer.

So in the Nutrition Education program, we teach research tested evidence-based curricula to both youth and adults.

So in youth, we do school-based programming as well as outside of school.

Some, you know, after school programming, summer programming.

And then for adults we partner with community organizations to teach classes.

And so we have several curricula depending on the age group.

We teach six-week series with youth and the curricula is kind of predetermined, but it's all based on the federal dietary guidelines for Americans as well as the physical activity guidelines for Americans.

So in our classes we're not, you know, necessarily crunching the nutrition science behind each food, but rather sort of translating the dietary guidelines into consumer understandable information.

And our educators come from a wide variety of backgrounds.

So we only have one educator who is a registered dietician and we have a program coordinator on staff But otherwise, they have varying backgrounds.

Some of them have culinary backgrounds, some of them mental health, sometimes education, you know, it just depends.

But really it's just about knowing how to really engage well with community members and facilitate conversations around health and nutrition, which can sometimes be a challenging thing to talk about.

So yes, it's more so about delivery of curricula that we have that is approved and in alignment with nutrition guidelines rather than kind of analyzing the science behind different foods.

- Yeah, I'm gonna show my age a little bit.

In the old days they had a USDA food pyramid.

- The food, yeah.

- Is that still functional?

- That's a great question.

So the food pyramid is outdated at this point.

So the latest version of the food pyramid is called MyPlate.

It's the most recent research on nutrition guidelines for Americans.

You can look it up online.

It talks about, you know, make half your plate fruits and veggies and has recommendations for grains and dairy and protein for depending on your life stage.

You know, it's different for men and women depending on your physical activity levels, your height and weight, et cetera.

So yes, there's, the food pyramid has been updated and replaced by MyPlate, but a lot of folks still know it as the food pyramid.

- [Jane] The pyramid got flattened to a plate.

- Yes, to a plate.

(group laughs) That's right.

- It changes constantly, I think.

- Yeah, yeah, they're, the guidelines are updated on a regular basis, so.

- Okay, thank you.

Now I learned something tonight, for sure.

This is an interesting question.

I was not aware of anything like this.

Townsend, Montana caller states that their beehives keep getting attacked by wasps and yellow jackets, which are killing the bees and eating all of the honey.

What can they do?

I've never heard of that.

Have you heard of that?

- Yeah, so sometimes they can.

Sometimes like other predatory insects like wasps can compete with weaker hives.

It's usually weaker hives because usually a healthy, strong hive is able to protect itself from wasps and things like that.

So it's possible that could be a weaker hive or a hive that needs some sort of help.

So that might be a really good question for our State Entomologist, Alyssa Piccolomini.

Do you have anything to add?

- [Frank] No, I agree with that 100%.

- Yeah, yeah, so.

- That's new to me.

That's interesting.

- Mm-hmm.

- Well thank you for the information.

Facebook message from Helena.

This is interesting also.

I'll throw this one toward Frank.

Last week, I know there were two grasshoppers on my car window.

One was about an inch and a half and the other one was about two and a half inches long.

This seems to be very, very early in the season to have grasshoppers that size.

Is that true?

- Well, there are I'd say about 28 different species of grasshoppers of economic concern in Montana.

And there's more than that elsewhere.

And there are some that do get to be.

- [Jack] Big?

- About that big, yeah, two inches long.

So it depends on the stage.

- [Jack] Okay.

- And which type of grasshopper it was.

But I don't think, it's been such a weird spring with warm period fairly early in the spring and even late winter, so I wouldn't be surprised if development was different this year than normal.

- So we had a question, not this week, previous week, I don't recall where it was from.

The cold and snow we had.

- Yeah.

- Was that a good biological or natural control for the grasshopper population that's been really devastating in the last few years in the state?

- So I have to predict the future and that's a dangerous, dangerous thing to do.

I would say it probably has kept it from becoming extraordinary bad, but I don't feel like the period of cold has been extended enough.

But I feel like I saw the weather report next week is gonna be fairly rainy.

- [Jack] Cold.

- And cold, so that could be a good sign for us and should affect the whole state.

And I would also say with the rain it'll keep the native rangeland pretty healthy and green longer, so it'll prevent that from going into people's crops longer period of time.

- [Jack] Okay.

- So I think it'll be not so bad as I had to feared earlier this year.

- [Jack] Are grasshoppers edible?

- Yes.

(group laughs) - We have to get into that.

Florence Dunkel used to have a very unique entomology program on campus where it was, I think it was called Bug Fest, something on that order.

Who's tried them?

- I had them.

- Oh, man, I haven't.

(group laughs) - Little crunchy things.

- Are they salty?

- Well, the ones I had were a product that was, they were like fried and salted grasshoppers.

- The dried version?

- Yeah.

- They're pretty tasty, even the non-dried version, like if you've had chapulines, it's like a taco, grasshopper taco.

And then you just season them really well with a lot of, you know, delicious, spicy seasoning.

That's been my favorite way of getting them.

- [Jane] Okay.

- I will admit this on air, I have had cicada before.

- Mm-hmm.

- And it has a nutty flavor, so.

And there's gonna be a lot of cicadas out East, so if you wanna go out and have.

(group laughs) Get some cicadas, I'm sure they'll be readily available.

- Yeah, that's an interesting point there too.

Rachelle, this question came in from Missoula.

Are there any real unique nutrition programs provided by your staff?

Well, we had it.

We have a map of where your staff is located.

If we could get that up on the screen while you're answering that question.

- [Rachelle] Yeah.

- That would be great.

But any unique programs?

- [Rachelle] Well, I guess first I can reference the map.

So yeah, this is, these are our service areas.

So the green counties are where we have SNAP-Ed, SNAP Education, and then the EFNEP grant is in the purple counties, so only Yellowstone and Missoula County.

The yellow of course is the rest of the state.

We do offer virtual classes.

So anyone who lives in a place where we don't have an educator physically located can of course join one of our classes online.

And in terms of unique, yes, I like to think all of our programs are unique.

So like I mentioned, we have various curricula that we implement for direct education, both for youth and adults.

We do have one particular curricula It was developed by the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity on campus.

And it's specifically for Native populations and it includes a lot more about like culturally relevant foods as well as just is a little bit more holistic.

Like, it talks about other aspects of health like emotions and mental health and screen time, things like that.

But I also can speak a little bit to our policy systems and environment work.

So direct ed is only one part of what we do.

We also do something called policy systems and environment, which are interventions that we work on to make sure that the conditions in a community are conducive to healthy behavior change.

So if you're teaching someone about, you know, eating more fruits and vegetables, but then they can't afford them or you know, they're not accessible within then they won't be able to implement the change.

And so we have many projects going on across the state in that regard that are very unique, I like to think.

So our educator in Fort Belknap and Blaine and Phillips counties for example, she partnered with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation as well as a community development group there to help implement 30 edible food forests in community members' lawns and taught them about, you know, plant propagation and how to care for an edible food forest and kind of that subsistence approach.

We also have an educator in Lewis and Clark County who worked with the school district wellness committee on a district-wide wellness policy.

So they created some localized policy around you know, making sure the kids had enough time to eat and creating standards for what kind of snacks can be served in the school, what food can be available in vending machines.

So district-wide expectations around nutrition is something she has worked on.

Yeah, I could go on and on, but I'll stop there.

- [Jack] You got a lot of programs.

- Yes.

- Going there, that's good.

And you can go online and search for the nutrition program.

- Yeah.

- And I imagine you'll find out a lot more about what other programs you have.

I have a couple of interesting questions coming up, a couple really good ones that require a panel answer, but before we get there, caller from Livingston is asking how can you control sour tree cherry fruit fly larvae?

And I think that's a tough one.

Do you guys have any thought on that?

If you follow just a standard fruit tree spraying schedule.

- Yeah.

- I think you would minimize them.

- Yeah, definitely I would say that.

And then probably getting rid of fallen fruit so you can, especially at the end of the season so you don't build it up population, and then probably if you can I don't, depends on how much it is, inspect your fruit.

If you see any damage, just get rid of it right away.

- [Jack] Okay.

- Prevent that population.

- All right.

For Jane, this person from Missoula has creeping charlie in her lawn.

What is creeping charlie?

That's a common name, I've heard of it.

- Yeah, it's a little green plant that creeps.

(group laughs) - [Jack] Good name.

- It's got purple flowers, right?

Abi probably is very familiar with creeping charlie.

I'm at a loss for like describing it beyond creeping, kind of dark green leaves with purple flowers.

- [Jack] So they want to get rid of it without using herbicides.

- Well I'm thinking back to Abi's response about the dandelion.

Like, I wonder if a lot of it is cultural, like how can you make your turf more competitive and healthy to kind of fend off the creeping charlie?

But there might be situations where if it's just bad enough, you're looking at maybe renovating that portion of your lawn.

And I feel like where I see it more, it's usually shadier areas, maybe retains water a little bit longer.

So maybe you could do some you know, some cultural control where you're just trying to change the environment so that the plant is not, it's not in an environment that it grows so well in.

Abi, you wanna add anything?

- Yeah, and I like that you mentioned the shady area because that's usually where turf is gonna be thinner.

Turf just doesn't like shade, even if you have a shady mix of turf cultivars.

But is it also true that it likes compacted soil?

So maybe addressing compaction could help?

- I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised, yeah.

- Okay, now for our call in question of the night, and it's for the panel.

It's a disagreement between a husband and wife and they would like to know which is healthier, a hamburger or a cheeseburger?

And the husband says cheeseburger and the wife says hamburger.

So what do you guys think?

I mean, one, I vote for a cheeseburger because you get dairy with it.

- You cover an extra food group, so.

- That's true.

- I think that must be it.

- That might be on the pyramid.

What I have found out is the amount of ketchup you put on a hamburger is the really nasty part.

There's a lot of sugar and calories in ketchup.

- Yeah, I was gonna say the more lettuce and tomato and maybe some pickles and onion that you put on there, like the healthier it gets.

So whatever you do, stack it with all the fresh veggies.

- [Frank] I agree with that.

I was gonna disagree, I kind of lean toward the hamburger.

- You do?

- Yeah just 'cause it's, it'd be less calories.

- Leaner, more lean.

- Mm-hmm.

- Well you know, I'd go with the cheeseburger and mustard because there's no calories in mustard.

I get the.

(group laughs) So I don't think we've answered your question.

(group laughs) - And don't eat the french fries on the side.

That would probably be healthy too.

Like, avoid the french fries, maybe?

- That's another food group, vegetables.

- Swap it with sweet potato fries, there you go.

- There's a lot of compounding factors too.

Where are they coming from?

Is it McDonald's or something else?

- [Jane] I don't know if we helped those two at all.

(group laughs) - All right, enough of that one.

From Missoula, a caller wants know about using Epsom salts on tomato plants, why would you use it and what purpose would it serve?

And I've heard that recommendation before.

- Yeah, so Epsom salts are I believe basically just magnesium and one of, usually you don't need to use them unless your soil is deficient in that magnesium.

And so I would probably recommend getting a soil test to see if you really need that.

In most cases, we don't really need to use that in our Montana soil, so our soils are pretty sufficient in those minerals.

And so I can't see a reason to use them unless you have a specific deficiency in your soil.

- And I would doubt very much we have that deficiency.

- Exactly, and Clain Jones has mentioned that in the past as well.

And so I would get a soil test if you're ever in doubt.

- Okay, while I have you up Abi, quick question here.

Can you grow rhubarb in pots?

- I'm sure you can.

I haven't tried doing it, but I have seen people do it.

I don't know how healthy it will be long term.

You may need to kind of maybe consider putting it in the ground eventually because it's probably long term not gonna thrive very well.

- [Jack] I think they'd freeze in pots, wouldn't they?

- Yeah, it would get too cold so you'd probably need to bury the pot in the winter or bring it into a more protected environment.

But I have seen people grow them.

I'm not sure about long term.

- Okay, that answers that question.

From Chester, Rachelle, has COVID increased the ability of Extension to reach more individuals with nutrition-related programs?

And I think they're probably referring to internet programs.

- Mm-hmm, yeah, that's a great question.

I have only been in my position since May of last year, so I was not here in this role during COVID.

But I do know that all of the programs of SNAP-Ed and EFNAP across the country had to make a huge pivot during COVID to figure out how to still deliver services to communities in the middle of the pandemic.

And we, Montana actually was one of the more successful states looking at data.

We, our reach in terms of number of participants in our classes actually didn't go down by all that much.

And we were able to switch to virtual pretty easily.

And even we're teaching youth virtually, which currently we're only offering adult programming online, but yeah.

- Okay, thank you.

- Mm-hmm.

- Jane, did you bring a salad for dinner tonight?

(group laughs) Do you mind, show us what you have there, I.

- Yeah.

- I recognize some of it but not a lot of it.

- Well this, I brought this just for Rachelle.

- Oh boy.

- Because we were gonna be talking about nutrition and this plant here, this is garlic mustard.

And garlic mustard, you'll notice it has these kind of heart-shaped leaves.

Hopefully you can see that.

And then it has these real, it has white flowers with four petals.

It's a mustard and mustards have four petals that are across from each other, like shaping across.

And garlic mustard is not on the Montana noxious weed list.

It is on the noxious weed list in some other states in the country, especially the Upper Midwest and the Eastern US.

This plant likes to invade understories of deciduous forests.

And as the name implies, garlic mustard, the plants do have a garlic-y smell if you break off a leaf.

And it was actually, we think it was intentionally brought to North America as of for its food and medicinal quality.

So I was trying to think of some nutritional, I don't know if it's nutritional, but you can use it like as a replacement for garlic, but we don't really have this established in Montana.

We tend to find it a few places.

It'll be in urban environments, like in a landscape setting.

So if you have something like this that you think might be garlic mustard, you know, see if it's, get it identified and I really would encourage you to pull it.

You can pull it and get rid of it because if it escapes it can kind of consume that understory in our riparian areas or forested areas, so.

- [Jack] How tasty is it?

- You know, I haven't eaten it but I have smelled it.

It, I don't think this would be very tasty.

And in fact as the plant gets older, it does develop cyanide in it.

So if you're going to eat adult plants, you need to cook it.

But this plant is a biennial, so the first year it's just the rosette of leaves and I think that's probably the stage when it's, it would be more tasty, but it gets bitter because of the cyanide.

- Okay.

- I don't really recommend eating things that contain cyanide.

- No.

- And really, I mean if you're going to wild forage, you really need to know what you're doing, right?

Kinda like eating mushrooms, right?

You need to know what you're doing.

- Very much so, absolutely.

- Yeah.

- This is a good question for Rachelle.

Are there programs, and it comes from Columbia Falls, are there programs for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes so they can be aware of the foods that are best for them?

Is there information online for that?

And tell us a little bit how the Extension Nutrition program might address that.

- Yeah, great question.

So in our program, under our particular federal grants, SNAP-Ed and EFNAP, we actually are not allowed to offer individualized nutrition advice, especially pertaining to any specific diseases.

But in Extension we do have a program, we do have Extension agents who teach "Dining with Diabetes".

So outside of our program, within larger, the larger Extension structure, we do have program offerings for that but not in the Nutrition Education program where I work.

- Where would you get a registered dietician would be probably someone you should go to get that information?

- Totally, yeah, absolutely.

Or your own primary care physician, yeah.

- [Jack] Yeah, food makes a big difference.

- Mm-hmm.

- There's no doubt about that.

Facebook question, are coffee grounds good for tomatoes?

- Well, I mean it depends, I would say, on what, how much you're probably adding.

A lot of people will add coffee grounds to a lot of kind of plantings.

I would say in a kind of small quantity, you know, that adds kind of nutrients into there and so it wouldn't hurt.

In terms of any kind of research behind if it's really going to improve the quality, I don't know if that would be the case, but it wouldn't really hurt them.

- I don't think it would.

It's a little acidic.

- It can be.

- So if you have high pH soils then, yeah.

- It could be like a temporary, yeah, remediation, mm-hmm.

- Okay, here's one that I have not heard from and I think it's from Forsyth.

Caller is asking about what to spray on cemetery spurge.

What is cemetery spurge?

- I have not heard of that species before.

- I haven't either.

- If it's.

- Yeah.

- Leafy spurge is, are common one.

Would you find that out at Forsyth?

- Yes, you would, yeah.

You'd find leafy spurge anywhere in Montana and Forsyth along the Yellowstone, right?

- [Jack] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Jack] And what would be a good product to use on that?

And you can give us a trade name, I'll allow you to do that.

- Yeah, well there's a variety of herbicides you can use.

I mean, Tordon is still, our Tordon plus 2,4-D is still one of the go-tos for leafy spurge.

It's one of the few weeds that I still recommend that combination because it's probably one of the more effective herbicides.

But you can use products that contain quinclorac.

You can use products, just 2,4-D. We're doing some testing with a new product called Venue that we're kind of in the third year of that study and it is a, you have to treat it three years in a row before we're ready to say whether it works or not.

So there's a variety of herbicides out there.

If it is leafy spurge, if it's well established, it's probably a containment approach.

Like you're probably never gonna completely get rid of it, but it's more about reducing it to the point that you can live with it, kind of get it below that threshold.

But with not being for sure what the viewer is working with, I would encourage the viewer to take a sample into their Extension office or weed district office and let's make sure we get the plant identified correctly.

- Okay, it's a term I'd not heard of.

- Yeah, I haven't heard that either.

- Abi, they want to know from Columbia Falls, they would like to know how to plant Jerusalem artichoke, where they can get it and they're curious about is it healthy for you?

- Yeah, so, and I'm not sure if Rachelle knows about it, but we mentioned Jerusalem artichoke a couple of weeks ago.

You can get it from a lot of places.

You can get those tubers and you wanna plant it about six inches into the ground.

It's fairly easy to grow.

It will spread pretty readily, so you want it in some sort of a contained area because it can kind of take over and it gets really tall too, about up to six feet in height.

So keeping that in mind, but you can plant it now, as soon as the soil is workable and it does really well.

It's native to the region, it does really well.

And it has inulin in it, which converts its sugars into fructose instead of glucose.

So that's kind of an interesting kind of health thing and I'm sure you can talk more about that.

- I'm actually not a registered dietician.

My background is in public health and food systems.

So I couldn't speak to the specific nutrient density, but as all vegetables and fruits, I'm sure it's really high in many vitamins and minerals.

- Okay, so I'm gonna ask, you want something Frank?

- Yeah, why is it called Jerusalem artichoke if it's native to our?

- Yeah.

- I'm not sure why it's called.

It's also called sunchoke, so that's the common name.

Some might have heard of it as sunchoke, but it's also called Jerusalem artichoke.

I'm not sure why it's called that.

- Kinda like the Jerusalem cricket, probably.

- Maybe.

- [Jack] Who knows?

- I'm not sure why, yeah.

- How plants get names is beyond me sometimes.

It's kind of intriguing.

Rachelle, this question comes from me.

- Okay.

- So I am kind of set in my ways when it comes to diets and you know, no spring chicken anymore.

So how do you reach people like me who probably need some better nutrition, for lack of a better word?

Do you have programs that address people like myself?

- Sure, yeah, definitely.

I mean, I think that all of our educators across the state have had experiences teaching community members where they come to the class and they say, "I am not changing anything about my dietary habits."

I even remember from our educator up in Lincoln County, she shared a story once of somebody who came in and he put several teaspoons of coffee in his sugar, or I'm sorry, sugar in his coffee every morning.

And on the first day of class he said, "I am not changing this.

I like my sugar in my coffee."

And by the end of the series, he had completely eliminated it.

And our educator ran into him out in the public several years later and he had still maintained the habit and he said, "I've never felt so good in my life and I'm in my 70s."

And yeah, he said that taking the class had changed a lot for him.

So our educators are the ones who have the tricks of the trade on how to reach people who feel, you know, hesitant to make dietary changes.

But I think it just starts in that relationship and helping people not feel intimidated by something that you know, can sometimes be scary and personal to talk about.

- Great answer.

- Yeah.

- And I don't use sugar in my coffee, so.

(Rachelle laughs) This is kind of a leftover from last week.

And we had Bill Kern on and we kind of passed the question along on sedge, but the caller came back again this week and would like to know is it nutsedge?

How do you identify sedges and any suggestions on control in wet pastures?

- Yeah, so sedges are what, they belong to a group of plants we just generally refer to as grass-like species.

So we have grasses and grass-like species and they're notoriously difficult to identify.

I only know about two people that would claim to be good at identifying grasses and that goes the same for the sedges and rushes.

So I know when I took agrostology here at Montana State University, I heard this little, I learned this little saying, sedges have edges.

If you know it, please say it along with me.

Sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have nodes.

- [Abi] Have knees.

- Or knees that bend the ground.

Good job, Abi, yeah, so.

- I didn't know we were into the singing song.

(group laughs) - So sedges, they look like a grass but they're actually triangular, they have edges.

So if you try to roll them between your fingers, they're going to kind of catch, like you're, like they're flipping over.

And if you cut them in cross-section, it looks triangular, where a grass won't and a rush will be round.

So as far as the grass, the sedge ID, that's something helpful to even help you know if you have a sedge versus a rush versus a grass, and then it becomes, you know, how do, okay, I know I have a sedge.

Maybe which one is it and what sort of threat does it pose?

And then if it does pose some sort of threat, then how do I get rid of it?

- Well I used to have, when I lived in the Midwest, Lincoln, Nebraska, I had sedge in my yard because it was some wet areas and back then I used Basagran, which is labeled in pastures and I pastured some cottontails that I occasionally harvested.

So that counted as a pasture to me.

What can you use in lawns today?

Because Basagran is not registered for lawns.

- Yeah, in lawns.

- Yeah, in lawns.

- This is in lawns.

There is a product, and this name kind of cracks me up.

I'm sorry, it's Sedgehammer.

- [Jack] I've heard of it.

- Yeah, that's a great herbicide name.

So Sedgehammer, I think that the active ingredient is halosulfuron.

- [Jack] Yeah.

- And I'm not familiar with the product itself, but that would be an option.

And it is labeled for turf.

So that would be something to look for or something to visit with your local retailer about.

I also think that there's a product called RoundUp For Lawns that is, it's RoundUp that's not glyphosate.

So everybody knows RoundUp as glyphosate, which is non-selective.

It kills anything, right?

But there is a product called RoundUp For Lawns.

It's not glyphosate, it is more selective and it's, it has like four active ingredients in it.

And I think like nutsedge or sedges is on the label, so that might be something to pursue as well.

But always, always, always read the label and make sure that product is really what you want it to be.

- Okay, thank you.

This question came in from Ruby Valley and this person has a problem with voles in the yard and last year we did not have as many voles as most year they did a lot of damage.

They're trapping two to three a night for the last month.

They think there are hundreds of 'em.

Any suggestion on effective deterrent and are voles cyclical?

And I can't answer that other than I know they are cyclical.

Steve Vantassel at the Montana Department of Ag in Lewistown has numerous publications and they're very easy to read.

I'll try to get Steve on the program this fall and talk about this because he is always very popular.

Get ahold of Steve Vantassel, Montana Department of Ag, Lewistown, and he'll help get rid of those voles.

Other than getting a half dozen cats from the Humane Society.

(group laughs) He does have some good programs to get rid of 'em.

This is interesting, comment on Jerusalem artichoke.

It came from the word girasol for sunflower.

Does that make sense?

- They are a sunflower, so that does make sense.

Interesting.

- Thank you, viewer.

- Yeah, thank you.

- Honestly, we always like comments.

If you have comments, dislikes, things you want to hear about, you know, go ahead and call in the phone and they will pass that along to me on this little instrument called a mini computer, which I have trouble reading at times.

(group laughs) Caller from Bozeman, heard that Miracle-Gro planting soil might be too hot chemically for growing vegetables.

What do you think about this?

- I mean, I would say Miracle-Gro is like a trade name that contains a, you know, a variety of different types of products as well.

So knowing exactly what you're dealing with in that Miracle-Gro would help.

Sometimes having too high of a nitrogen content can negatively impact your plants or too high of any nutrients can negatively impact your plants.

But in general, kind of using any sort of nutrient products, I usually recommend getting a soil test before you really add much to your soil because we overdo it a lot.

- [Jack] Yeah, you don't need a ton of nitrogen.

- No, we don't.

- No.

- From Hardin, Rachelle, this person would like you to explain EFNEP a bit more.

They've heard the term forever.

They'd like to know what it really encompasses.

- Yeah, sure, so EFNEP is our federal grant, that's the acronym.

The full name is Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.

And EFNEP is our program that is just direct nutrition education to community members.

So we have EFNEP educators in Missoula County as well as Yellowstone County.

And then those educators provide virtual classes, like I mentioned, so anyone in the state can join those classes.

But basically we facilitate direct nutrition education to youth and adults with limited resources.

And this is the program that focuses mainly on adults with dependents, so traditional parents or grandparents raising grandchildren.

And then we have different curricula depending on that age group.

We have a curricula specific to grades one, three and five that's taught in school.

It's called Youth Understanding MyPlate.

MyPlate, again, that, the consumer nutrition guidelines.

And then we have outside of school curriculum that we offer as well as adult curricula that is six to nine weeks in length.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Interesting question here and I can relate to this.

When I grew up and this person says when they grew up, almost all schools had home ec programs.

Is that still the case today?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

Definitely those classes still exist, but I think they're dwindling due to limited budgets and crunched time during the school day.

We certainly do have some educators who partner with like family and consumer science classes and home ec-type classes.

And those are the classrooms that they're able to get in to teach nutrition once a week.

However, yeah, I think they are becoming less.

- Yeah, I'm curious about that.

I may have to go online and find out because you know, I, believe it or not, I took a home ec class.

It was an easy class and I liked to take easy courses back then to raise your grade point, but they made it tough, actually, so I did not do that well in it.

But that's beside the point.

(group laughs) Jane, this is a good one from Red Lodge.

This person has "bamboo" in his backyard and it has taken over.

He wants to get rid of it.

He used 2,4-D and other special things but nothing seems to work.

What is it and how does he kill it?

- Yeah, well I'd be surprised if it's bamboo, like it's surviving here, but bamboo is invasive.

That's another, this is a situation where the viewer, the caller really needs to take a sample into their Extension office and we'll, if the agent can't get it identified, they'll send it onto the Schutter lab.

But I don't know what that might be.

I mean, one of the things I was thinking of was like horsetail, but it doesn't have any leaves.

And I mean bamboo is kind of, you know, you got your stock but it's leafy.

It could be a knotweed, although that has more of a heart-shaped leaf rather than grassy leaves.

But yeah, take it into your local office and they'll help you get it identified.

- I'm curious myself, yeah.

- Yeah, me too.

- Send some in to the Schutter diagnostic lab via the county agent and I hang out there once in a while and I'll try to find out.

I'm curious what it is myself.

- Yeah.

- Rachelle, person from Missoula has heard the term Buy, Eat, Live Better.

What's that mean?

- Yeah, so that's our overall brand.

So the Nutrition Education program's technical name is Buy, Eat, Live Better.

So if you wanna learn more about us, you can Google "buy, eat, live better Montana" and our website will pop up.

So that's our logo, that's our official name.

It's just synonymous with the Nutrition Education program.

- Okay, that's good to know.

- Rachelle, is that Montana specific or is that a kind of a logo or a phrase that's being used nationwide with this, these programs?

- Yeah, great question.

So that's Montana specific.

- Okay.

- So yeah, SNAP-Ed and EFNAP are federal grants that exist in every state, but each state kind of has its own branding and name, yeah.

- Okay, thank you.

- Okay, quick question from Noxon.

The caller wants to know if cedar bark mulch will prevent seeds from germinating.

- I haven't heard, I don't know the answer to that.

I haven't heard anything about how it might impact seeds from germinating.

But I mean, if you have any kind of mulch that's covering a surface where it's preventing sunlight, that can prevent certain seeds from germinating.

But I'm not sure if cedar specifically has any additional impact.

- I don't think it does, probably.

Any good mulch will.

- Yeah, will suppress seeds.

- Okay, we're getting down time.

We have a couple quick questions here.

Frank, a standard, we haven't touched on it yet this spring, this person has had slugs in his garden all the time.

One, number one, he wants to know does Florence think they're edible?

And number two, how do you get rid of 'em?

- I would not eat a slug.

They often carry some parasites, so I wouldn't.

Don't eat the slug.

(group laughs) Getting rid of it, it's usually moisture, so it's probably retaining a lot of moisture.

Iron phosphate is very good.

You can get Sluggo is a brand name.

You can find that under, they'll go in, that'll get rid of them as well.

It's cost-effective as well.

- Okay, and if you got a lot of wet material in your garden, you'll have more slugs.

- Yeah.

- I will point out I mentioned this before, years ago, Kansas State did a test on drowning them in beer, which is a standard, they like beer.

And they found out that Coors Beer was the best for attracting slugs.

And that's a published paper.

So we're down to about 35 seconds.

Food programs, Farm to School is, are you involved with that?

- Yeah, we are involved with Farm to School.

We recently just applied for a grant with them in partnership with Farm to School Montana to support Farm to School mini grants across the state.

- Sounds good.

- Yeah.

- I appreciate that.

(gentle country music plays) Folks, we're coming down the last few seconds.

I thank everybody for watching this evening.

Rachelle, thank you for coming in.

I learned a lot.

I need to learn a lot about nutrition.

My wife tells me that all the time.

With that, folks, will be back next fall, first Sunday after Labor Day, goodnight.

- [Narrator] Information and resources, visit Montanapbs.org/aglive.

(gentle country music continues) - [Narrator 2] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by (upbeat country music plays) the Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(serene music plays)