- [Announcer] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by: 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, the Gallatin Gardeners Club, and the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(mellow country guitar music) - Guess what?

We're back again.

Yep, "Montana Ag Live" is back again from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic 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.

We're back, I hope you guys are ready for us because we have a really interesting series of guests this fall.

We're gonna start off tonight with a mycologist, and we'll explain what a mycologist is, and I think you will really enjoy what you're gonna learn about mycology this evening.

This show depends on you, you need to phone in the questions.

Without the questions, we're pretty boring.

We may be boring anyway, but we're less boring if you send in some questions.

And those questions don't only apply to you, a lot of other people that watch this program are also interested in what you find curious.

So don't be bashful, phone in those questions.

The phone number will be up on the screen shortly.

Let me introduce tonight's panel.

On my far left, Uta McKelvy, Uta is our Extension Plant Pathologist, she's been here many, many times.

If you have any questions about what's wrong with your plants, phone them in tonight, Uta will tell you what is going on.

Our special guest tonight is a mycologist, and he's been here before answering the phone questions, but his name is Chance Noffsinger, and Chance actually was a graduate student here under Cathy Cripps many years ago.

He doesn't look that old, but it's been a fair number of years.

And a lot of you will remember Cathy Cripps.

I mean, some of you who watched this program years ago, remember we had a mushroom cooking show with some wine that steamed up the studio rather nicely.

(group chuckling) Okay, Tim Seipel.

Tim is our Extension Weed Scientist or Weed Ecologist, depends on what day it is, whatever you wanna call him.

(group chuckling) And of course, Mac Burgess is kind of a Horticulturist, Small Farm Specialist.

He'll be here to answer your horticultural questions.

Answering the phone tonight is Carl Whitmer and Sherry Klaus.

Get that phone number up on the screen and we'll get started.

Chance, tell us what a mycologist does here in Montana.

- Yeah, Jack.

So a mycologist is really a biologist that studies mushrooms and fungi.

So, mycology, "myco" means fungus and "ology" means study of, so one that studies fungi.

- You know, I probably shouldn't share this, but I probably would have never have graduated from college had I not taken three courses in mycology: actinomycetes, phycomycetes, and basidiomycetes, it was just split up that way then.

That stimulated my interest in science.

Prior to that, I was not a very good student, to be quite honest with you.

(group chuckling) So, you have some research projects.

Tell us a little bit about some of the research things that's going on.

- Yeah, so I have quite a bit going on, actually.

Most of my program is focused on understanding how fungi helps support plant growth and really how that occurs either in natural forested systems or in agriculturally-managed systems.

So we're really interested in the fungi that can promote growth of plants and understanding their diversity, how they're specifically functioning, and how those fungi have evolved.

- Okay, we'll get into that a little bit more because that's always been something that fascinated me.

And I noticed that you've been out picking a few mushrooms, and we'll get to that a little bit later on.

But other than that... Yeah, it looks great.

(Uta chuckles) I'm gonna start off by asking Mac a question.

We have a cantaloupe and a watermelon here, and one of the questions that always comes in in the fall is how do you know if a cantaloupe or And if you ripen them in Montana, you're a pretty good gardener.

So, you wanna explain how you can tell if these are ripe?

- Sure, these are both grown in Bozeman, Montana, here at 5,000-feet elevation.

First instinct was these green stripes, and that is not a good clue actually.

This variety, this hybrid, is called Milan, and it's got green stripes, that's it.

But if you look on the very end of the melon- - Hold it up to the camera, Mac.

- You'll see this scar right here.

And if you look really closely there, on a cantaloupe or a musk melon, the stem will slip off and it will leave a concave scar.

And oftentimes, you don't see that in grocery store melons, they're picked before they're ripe.

And this one, I can also smell it.

So that scar there being concave like that, it slipped right off the vine.

So you just give it a gentle tug and it came right off.

We can cut it in half.

- I don't have a napkin.

(group chuckling) - Right, we're gonna look at that.

And that's a ripe melon, and it smells good.

- [Uta] Yum.

- [Jack] Oh boy, this is gonna be- - And then on the watermelon, watermelons don't do that.

Now this is a pretty small watermelon.

This was again grown in Bozeman, and this is another hybrid, or this is an open-pollinated one called Sugar Baby, and the slip of the stem is not a thing on watermelons.

On watermelons, what you wanna do is look for... The last tendril on the stem will dry up, and that's an indicator of its ripeness.

People say something about the ground spot, too, I've definitely seen melons with ground spots that weren't fully ripe, but maybe we'll wait and cut that one open later.

- So how do you know it in the store?

'Cause they usually don't have the tendrils in the store.

- You know, generally speaking, watermelons in the store are grown somewhere where they're gonna ripen and they're pretty good.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I'm more often disappointed by store cantaloupes than I am store watermelons.

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

So I want to be a little bit negative here.

I won't buy a cantaloupe in the summertime in Bozeman because they're all artificially ripened.

Is that correct?

- I'm not familiar with the use of that in cantaloupe- - Ethylenes.

- I don't think- - No?

- That's the thing for cantaloupes.

- Then how come they are about as hard as an apple?

- They're just picked too soon because they want 'em to keep well for storage and shipping.

- They're not very tasty.

- No, they're not.

- Do they treat them with ethylene the way that they do other things, like tomatoes and in fruits?

- I don't think... I'm not certain of this, but I don't think cantaloupe are responsive to ethylene like that, like apples are.

- Oh, okay.

Yep.

- Yeah, they don't continue ripening off the vine, like a lot of things do.

- Oh, okay.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- Were you saying that you can tell it's ripe by the odor before you cut it open?

- I could smell it.

Could you smell it?

- I couldn't tell it from here, but actually you can smell it?

- Too far away.

- I can smell it, yeah.

- On the melon?

- Oh, yeah, I can smell 'em.

- Yep.

- I can smell it right now, and we have to order some napkins here shortly because we're gonna cut that up and taste it.

Maybe not on the show because it looks like it could be a little bit messy.

(group laughing) Okay, I have a question here from Gallatin County, and it's for Chance.

Chance, this person says he's interested in antibiotics and he thinks that most antibiotics are Is that correct?

- That is correct.

Many of the antibiotics that we use are metabolites that have been produced by fungi.

And one of the most widely known ones is penicillin, which comes from a mold fungus called penicillium, and that's what we've credited some of our success in like World War II, for example, and it was the development of that antibiotic that saved a lot of the soldiers that were wounded in battle.

- Are they continually developing antibiotics from different fungi?

Is there a research program nationally on looking at new fungi that produce new antibiotics?

- Definitely.

There are a lot of different labs across the country and the world that are investigating metabolites that are being produced by all sorts of different fungi.

And so, they're, you know, extracting really these metabolites or the goo that's produced around the fungal growth, and then trying to determine if that's effective at controlling certain types of bacteria or other issues that people would be encountering.

- Okay, thank you, and another good things that fungi does.

- That's right.

- Or "do," I should say.

My English was not my favorite subject either.

(group chuckling) Okay, question from Livingston.

Uta, we're only gonna do this once now and maybe once in October.

(Uta chuckles) The pine trees are turning yellow from the inside out over in Livingston.

What's wrong with 'em?

- Well, if this is something that happened recently over the past few weeks, my best guess would be that this is probably seasonal needle drop.

What many people may not know is that evergreens do also their needles senescence and drop off depending on what evergreen species, the age of the needles that are dropping, might vary.

There can be of course also disease causes for needles dropping.

So it's kind of thinking about time of year when it happens.

If it happens now and it happens to all the species in the same environment right now, then it's more likely seasonal needle drop and it would affect the older needles.

So, in many cases, you don't even notice it so much if it's the inner needles, right, 'cause the outer younger needles are still green.

But, yeah, that would be my best guess, but of course, you could have a look at the needles that are falling off into branches from where they're falling if you see any signs or symptoms of a disease involvement or another pest that could cause that needle dropping.

But if it just happened in the last few weeks, probably seasonal needle drop.

- Most likely.

Yep, okay.

- Mm-hmm.

- Tim, typical question this time of year: is it time to control broadleaf weeds in your yard?

- Yeah, it's still a good time to control broadleaf weeds in your yard.

If you're interested in managing dandelions this time of year, you still can do a broadleaf herbicide application for a few more weeks.

It actually works the best on dandelions this time of year.

You know, people use a lot of different products.

There's stuff you can find over the counter at the hardware store, Roundup for lawns, things like that, that will get rid of most of the broadleaf weeds.

It's a good time to go after dandelions, it's a good time to manage Canada thistle in your yard.

You know, a lot of people ask me about managing dandelions with vinegar.

So I did an experiment this year, and I think we have a photo of it.

- Yeah.

- You know, dandelions have a huge giant deep taproot, and people often wanna put vinegar on their dandelions and think that they've managed their dandelions.

So this year, I was cleaning some brass fittings with some vinegar, and when I was done, I poured the vinegar onto a whole bunch of dandelions I had scattered around in the yard, and I think I have the image of it.

I brought the image of it here.

It actually turned the dandelion pretty brown, burned it all off the top.

And then four days later, (group chuckling) you can see the green dandelion is growing out of the middle in the image of this picture.

- [Uta] Yeah.

- [Tim] So vinegar's a burn down herbicide, and put a little olive oil in there, you can make a salad, but it is not a way to manage and get rid of your dandelions in your yard.

- [Jack] Have you ever priced what herbicide vinegar, 30% vinegar is?

- Oh, yeah, it's in the hundreds of dollars per acre almost.

- Exactly.

- Yep.

- And if you buy a gallon, I think, don't quote me, but I think it's about $30 a gallon.

- Yep.

- And as you say, it doesn't do a whole lot of good.

- Nope.

- Now that should be effective on a small annual weed, huh?

- Yeah, on like a little teeny-tiny annual weed, yep, it'll get rid of those, but on the big perennial weeds, it's not gonna phase it.

- And that's true of really any contact herbicide that's not systemic.

- Absolutely, yep.

Yep.

- Okay, shifting over to Chance, and I'm not sure I'm pronouncing this one right, but we'll take a shot at it.

It's from Bigfork, the caller wants to know if we have cephalotheca mushrooms in Montana.

Does that make any sense?

- Oh, I didn't quite get that one.

- [Jack] Cephalo-pharica.

- Oh, it's cephalotheca.

- P-H-E-C-A on the end- - Starts with a "Ce"?

- I've never heard of it.

- Cephalo something.

- Yeah, cephalo-theca.

- Oh, I wonder if we're getting something lost in translation here, 'cause I don't- - Yeah, I think you're probably right.

(group chuckling) - I'm not quite sure what that one is.

- Okay, well, we're gonna pass on that one now.

From Shepherd, boy, and I know this for a fact, the caller had damaging hail on Labor Day, it is second year of tree damage.

Is there anything he can do to help get his conifers and deciduous trees through the winter?

And that's a tough question, and I'm not sure we have it.

What I would suggest, I'll step out and say, get ahold of a local arborist- - Mm-hmm.

- And I think they could help analyze and determine how bad your damage is.

- [Uta] Mm-hmm.

- They had a huge hailstorm over there this year.

- [Uta] Mm-hmm.

- Uta, this is from Toston.

This person had irrigated spring wheat, and the crop looked great, but when they went to harvest it, the yield was really off.

And he looked at some of the heads and he said a lot of the heads were sterile or had very few grains in 'em.

Any thought of what that might be?

- Yeah, it could be a range of things.

I mean, without seeing the crop, it's hard to diagnose.

So my best guess, just thinking about how this year went, we did have those late season or late spring frosts that did quite a number on many crops that were growing at that time, so that would be my first guess.

Something they may look for is looking at the... I guess if the crop is still in the field or the stubble.

What I noticed the frost damage is doing is kind of discolors the notes on the stem, so that could be a sign, shorter heads, more sterile heads, could indicate that too.

But there are other factors that could play into that.

Heat stress, you know, if the temperatures get too high during flowering, that could cause sterility.

It could be, you know, herbicide drift, right, that could also kind of nuke the heads.

And there obviously could be disease causes too, Fusarium head blight comes to mind, and then root rots, crown rots too.

So it's really hard to say from a distance; and this time of year, even a physical sample would be difficult to diagnose.

I'd say generally scout your crop as it is growing, especially for Fusarium head blight, around that flowering post-anthesis time, once it dries down, it gets really hard to diagnose.

- [Jack] It is a tough call.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, it really is.

If you don't catch it early, it's hard to determine what some of the causes actually are.

- Yes.

- Mac, from Billings, this person has a small truck garden and he would like to know whether or not he can use cover crops after the vegetables are harvested.

And would there be a benefit to that?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

So cover crops are something that people grow, you know, for some reason other than to harvest, maybe to make the soil better or for competition with weeds.

And if you're growing vegetables that are, you know, potentially worth tens of thousands of dollars an acre, you might have quite a bit of more leeway to grow something else.

So some of the cover crops that we grow on our student-run organic vegetable farm would include wheat and peas, which of course there's millions of acres of in Montana as people's, you know, primary source of income.

But wheat is a great rotation crop for vegetables because it's a grass.

- Right, - So there's a whole lot of diseases and issues with vegetables that wheat just doesn't have, and also, winter wheat is extraordinarily competitive with all of our problem weeds.

- Mm-hmm.

- And then peas are a great cover crop because they fix nitrogen, and nitrogen is the most difficult to for organic growers.

You know, many truck farms are in that organic realm for marketing reasons or personal reasons, and peas are a great cover crop, alfalfa as well.

So all of those things are a good fit.

And in Billings, you do fine with winter peas, I'm sure.

- Good question.

- Yeah, I was wondering, we plant some Austrian winter peas for just trials, after you harvest off your truck garden, putting in something like Austrian winter do they fix nitrogen over the season?

- Well, not until the next spring when they grow.

- Not until next spring.

- And, you know, depending on where you are, that's gonna be, you know, March, April, May, even into early June.

And so, a lot of vegetable growers will take an entire year off from production and, you know, farm half their land and cover crop half of it.

But if you terminated your cover crop early enough, you know, say early June, you'd still have time to plant something.

And in Billings, there's quite a bit more time for that than there is in Bozeman.

- If I remember, Perry Miller always said if you wanna plant Austrian winter peas, you need to get 'em in the last week of August or first week of September and have them germinate.

So if you have irrigation, could you get 'em in in late September?

- I've never failed to have 'em survive in Bozeman- - Okay.

- In 17 years of trying, and sometimes that's been as late as early November.

So that's my experience, but we have oftentimes, you know, an extended warm-ish fall with some moisture, you know, the moisture is key, and then we have reliable snow cover here in this valley.

Where you don't have reliable snow cover and it gets cold, the winter survival's a lot more iffy.

- Where were you last winter?

(group laughing) - I know, I was about to say the same thing.

- It didn't get cold.

(group laughing) - I'm just pointing out.

- The one time it got cold, we did have snow.

(group laughing) I was paying attention.

- All right, quick question for Tim, and then we're gonna go to what a lot of people really enjoy in this state are the mushrooms.

Cockleburs; how do you control cockleburs?

And I'll be honest with you, I was out in Eastern Montana, I wouldn't let my dogs... We were dove hunting, and I wouldn't let my dogs out of a couple places because there are so many cockleburs.

- Yeah, the cockleburs, they make a big basil rosette this time of year with some really big leaves on 'em, and you'll see 'em.

And you almost just have to literally walk around and spot spray 'em, there's very few broadleaf herbicides that'll do very well on them.

I think you can use things like Grazon and stuff like that, but in all honesty, if you have a nest of cockleburs, I would put a backpack on and just go in and spot spray those rosettes on the ground.

- [Jack] With what product?

- Grazon is one that works that you can graze right away afterwards if you have it around a pasture or something like that.

But it's usually down in the couleer, down in the swale- - It is.

- In there with like the buck brush or the snowberry and stuff like that.

And, you know, if you spray a broadleaf herbicide in there, you cause a lot of collateral damage to habitat that you want to have for pheasants or other things like that.

And so, just go on in there and spot spray 'em, even a heavy dose of glyphosate will do it.

Glyphosate and 2,4-D in the backpack sprayer too, we did that for Canada thistle recently.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Good, appreciate it.

- [Tim] Mm-hmm.

- You know, if you lived in Montana very long, there's three questions that always come up.

Number one, "Have you got your elk yet?"

Number two, "Are the salmon flies hatching?"

And number three, "Have you found any morels?"

That's standard questions that you have in this state.

You were out Saturday picking some mushrooms.

Why don't you show us a few of the edible ones and some of the other ones there too, if you would.

I mean, you got a nice assortment of things there.

And people in this state love mushrooms, so have at it, Chance.

- Yeah- - You've got 30 minutes.

(group laughing) - Thank you, Jack.

And, yes, I just wanna start by saying I have about eight species here, but this is a very small subsect of the number of hundreds of species that we could find in the forest right now in Montana.

And so, I'll start with some of the best edibles that we can collect in the fall.

There's a very nice specimen I found here, this is called the hedgehog mushroom.

The scientific name is Hydnum repandum.

And what is really distinctive about this mushroom is that it has teeth on the underside, which may be slightly hard to see on the- - I can see it.

- On the video, but instead of having gills or pores, the teeth are on the underside of the cap.

In addition to that, it kind of has this peachy or light apricot color.

Oh, this is a delicious edible, it usually fruits late in the fall, and it's usually an indication that we're kind of getting into the later fall season.

So this is a great, great edible, and coming out right now in our area.

The next one, this is actually one of my favorite edible mushrooms, this is called the king bolete.

The scientific name is called Boletus rubriceps.

And unfortunately, this was the only specimen I could find.

This is definitely a little bit smaller than I would usually collect for the table.

Once they get about baseball size, that's about what I would say is perfect, 'cause usually at that size, there's less bugs that have come up inside the stem, and so there's less bugs that you have to deal with when you're eating them.

But I think we've talked about this already, that's just good protein too, right?

- [Mac] Yeah.

- And it's a great edible, it can get really large, the cap can get about as big as a soccer ball or larger, definitely bigger than my head.

And there's a couple important features here for identification.

We usually call it a hamburger brown cap, and so, it has these reddish or brownish colors, a little bit deformed, kind of like you'd imagine from your hamburger bun that comes out of a bag.

It's pretty difficult to see on this collection, but there are pores on the underside, so lots of small holes, and that's where the spores this fungi uses to reproduce are found.

And then the other really important feature, and this will be pretty difficult to see, is there's a maze-like or net-like pattern that occurs right at the top of the stem.

And so, it looks like a little net, and there's always a swollen base.

And so, if you have your hamburger bun cap, the pores on the underside, this net-like or reticulate-like pattern at the top of the stem and a swollen base, it's very likely that you're looking into king bolete.

But you definitely want to ensure proper identification.

- And your lab will identify samples that people send in?

- Definitely.

I work with the Schutter Plant Diagnostic Lab, and you can send us photos or specimens, and we'd be happy to identify those for you.

All of the choice edible species, the one I would really recommend to eat that it can be foraged for in Montana, I can easily identify with a photograph.

- [Jack] What's that big one down there?

That looks like something I'd probably pick and kill myself.

(group laughing) - Thank you for asking, Jack, 'cause this is actually one of my favorite groups of mushrooms.

This is called Russula brevipes.

There isn't a lot of common names for these species, but they refer to the entire group as brittle gills, and that's because they have a brittle-like texture.

Most fungi are made out of mycelium, which is filamentous, and so when you break it in half, it'll break kind of stringy, like string cheese, for example.

This mushroom still has mycelium, but it's developed these large round cells that lead the texture to kind of break cleanly like a piece of chalk.

And so, it breaks open cleanly.

This is one of my favorites 'cause I spent much of my graduate work studying these fungi, really their diversity, where they're located.

We even described a new species that was found here in Montana.

So this is my favorite genus of mushrooms, you could say.

- Yeah.

While we're on mushrooms, you know, we have state birds, we have state flowers, state trees.

What's our state mushroom?

- (chuckles) We do not have a state mushroom yet.

We would have to, you know, get some support and go through the legislative process in Montana to propose a mushroom that could then be passed into law.

And that is something I definitely think - Yeah, you can take the lead.

I mean, people can get ahold of you and say, "What is your favorite state mushroom?"

Mine, there's the one over here that Mac brought in, it's called the oyster mushroom, or I think the genus is Pleurotus.

That is my favorite because you can get both protein and flavor because it really likes bugs.

(group chuckling) But the reason I like that one, it's found almost everywhere in the state on cottonwood stumps.

- That's right.

- And it's a delicious mushroom.

So, I'll start, I want a state mushroom called... No.

(group laughing) I get to go first.

- You get to go first.

- That would be my choice, I'm sure the morel would come in as number one, but... - I would choose the chanterells, I They're everywhere in the northern hemisphere, right, they're all around.

We'd have to think of a specific mushroom for the state.

- Yeah, you definitely- - Yeah- - Have to pick up- - Something unique for the state.

- Particular species.

- Yep.

- It will be hard to find one that's commonly known and endemic to our region, 'cause most of the species we have would be found, you know, broadly across the Northwest.

- Right.

- Mm-hmm.

- But yes, I think the chanterells and the oyster mushrooms are definitely great options.

And if the viewers have recommendations, you could call in and let us know, or you could send me an email and we can start compiling a list of species that could be potentially proposed as a state mushroom.

- We'll get your email up again on... Well, there it is, look at the magic.

(group chuckling) - And, Chance, should we take a minute because you were mentioning the Schutter Diagnostic Lab.

We're happy to assist with identifying species that were collected, but let's say if you just feel like foraging mushrooms, like, please don't forge the forest and then bring it all to us, right?

Like, we kind of limit how many species or like a specimen we identify just for curiosity purpose.

So I think in past years, we've said, bring us like your top four and we'll identify that, but don't bring us every mushroom you found and then expect us to tell us which ones you can eat.

- Definitely.

- You know, you have some other jobs, too, so we don't wanna- - That's right.

- Overburden you.

- And if we wanna be able to help as many of the people in the state as possible, yeah, we need direct questions and specific mushrooms.

So if you find something or you want to learn how to identify one of these, you know, common edible mushrooms, please send us a picture and we'd be happy to help.

If you have issues with mushrooms on your property or in your lawn, or if like a dog or a child has potentially eaten these mushrooms, please let us know.

But it's definitely preferred that you have a question and a clear goal or something that you're trying to learn from this identification.

- Do you have a mantra that you recommend for when you go out mushroom hunting and you're dealing with unfamiliar mushrooms, you know?

- Well, everything is edible once, (group chuckling) so you wanna be careful.

And thank you for that question 'cause it brings up an important point, which is how do you safely forge for wild edible mushrooms?

And the first thing is that you have to be able to identify these mushrooms with 100% confidence.

- [Uta] Mm-hmm.

- And you need to do that identification based on reliable resources.

You know, there has been an expansion of artificial intelligence generated books and resources like that, so you want to ensure that you're not using those types of resources, and that you're consulting an expert, someone like myself, and there's many other people in the state that can also help with identification.

There are also a series of mushroom clubs that can help educate people on how to properly identify, and I hope to get the one started here in Bozeman eventually again sometime soon.

But so, yes, make sure you've identified it, make sure you've used proper resources, and then you need to ensure that the mushroom is in a good condition.

One thing that I often tell people is that we all understand what a rotten apple looks like, it's very clear that it's rotting, you know, there's bacterial infection and things like that, but many people associate mushrooms with being kind of slimy or gooey 'cause they don't understand that like a fresh mushroom should look fresh, it should smell fresh, they often have fragrant odors.

You know, it shouldn't be slimy, it shouldn't have other fungi or molds growing on it, so you wanna ensure that the mushrooms you're gonna eat from the wild are in a proper condition.

- [Uta] Hmm.

- Okay, we learned a lot about mycology right there.

- Hmm.

- Mm-hmm.

- Let's shift a little bit over to Tim.

Caller from Kalispell wants to know if she can still purchase glyphosate If not, what is the alternative product that works just as well?

- Yep, you still can buy... It is glyphosate is the active ingredient of the molecule, and you still can buy it for home use, but it is not the brand that would be Monsanto's Roundup, or it's not the brand that is from Bayer Crop Science.

It will be a generic product, something like Makaze is one of them that's often out there, GlyStar is another common product that's out there, but you still can buy it at the hardware store.

- And I bought some this year because I have an aversion to hard work.

(group chuckling) Glyphosate really is a wonderful product for weed control.

- Yeah.

- It's non-selective.

I had to look very hard to find a glyphosate anymore, and especially in a small container.

I don't want five gallons.

- Yep, that is the problem that it often comes in larger containers, two and a half gallons versus having a smaller product that's out there these days.

- Yep.

You have to look hard, but- - Yep.

- And have some retailers phased it out then altogether for the... - Most retailers still have it in there.

If you go to most farm and ranch stores- - Right.

- It's still there.

It just may be in a bigger jug than you would like it to be.

- Okay, we're gonna switch over to Uta, because she brought something in that I had not seen before in many years I've worked here.

She has some flowers that are a little bit- - Different?

- Unusual.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yes.

So she's gonna explain what's going on there.

I think it's kind of fascinating, but of course I'm a pathologist at heart.

- So, a kindred spirit there, Jack?

- Yeah.

- Yeah so what I brought today is... So this is supposed to be an echinacea flower, and I came across it on my neighborhood walk when my daughter was inspecting rocks.

I think that this plant is infected with a pathogen that's called, or it has aster yellows, it's a disease, it's caused by a phytoplasma, which is like a very small microorganism that infects the plant.

I think it's a cool disease because... So what happens is the pathogen gets into the plant and spreads systemically, and then it starts messing with basically the organ development of the plant.

So one expression of that is, in this case, these abnormal flowers.

I have several examples; so here we see kind of more flowers developing in the center, here we never managed to develop like a fully normal-looking flower.

Other symptoms could be stunted growth, yellowing, kind of off colors.

It depends on when the infection happens and, yeah, what species it infects.

So phytoplasma has a really wide host range, this is just one example.

Something that we also see commonly is phytoplasma in carrots.

The carrots will be very skinny and have lots of hair growth and they might even taste bitter.

It can infect all sorts of other species.

This pathogen is transmitted by the aster leafhopper, and so, that's how it spreads.

And so, it makes sense in my mind that we're seeing aster yellows this year because these leafhoppers typically But we had this really mild winter, this really early spring, and so migration just started a lot earlier, and I would say overall the leafhopper population was a lot higher this year in Montana.

And so, I'm not surprised to see aster yellows.

In terms of management, this is a tricky disease.

There's nothing we can apply to cure it because it infects the whole plant.

So the best thing to do is to remove the entire plant, including the roots, and kind of get rid of the plant material so that leafhoppers that are still active cannot feed on that and acquire the pathogen again.

And then basically start with fresh material next year, clean your utensils really well.

Depending on the species, there might be some varieties with some resistance; I have not looked into that for echinacea, you know, that's a winter project.

- Okay, I'm a weed scientist, what's a phytoplasma?

- It's a small, I know you're testing me, it's like a molecule like something related to bacteria, but not really.

- So bacteria without a cell wall, if I reckon- - Exactly, yes.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

And so, it like moves in the water and in the vascular system, like the water and nutrient conducting tissues within the plant, that's how it spreads.

And that's why it's in the entire plant.

- [Jack] Okay.

- Thank you.

- And do people grow echinacea for just the flowers?

Just it's like a pretty, you know... - That's how I see it a lot, but then maybe I'll turn it over to Mac if he knows of other uses for echinacea.

This certainly like looked ornamental to me.

- It's a common ornamental flower.

- Yeah.

- And there is a market- - Looks very nice.

- For the root, you know, it's sold as a health supplement in storage and somebody's gotta grow it for that market somewhere.

I'm not aware of any commercial- - And if you ever go around- - Production in Montana.

- Central Montana, Garfield County, Petroleum, Wheatland, up through the ponderosa pine, grassy ponderosa pine breaks and coulees, especially in the sandier little island mountain ranges like the Bull Mountains, you see quite a bit of native echinacea growing under ponderosa pines.

- [Mac] Is that a pink- - It is a pink flower- - Petal flower as well?

- It's a pink purple one, yep.

- Yep.

- But they come in all different colors now for garden use, right?

- Right.

- Let's move away from flowers.

(group chuckling) Back to some very important questions about mushrooms.

(chuckles) From Bozeman, "What's the best mushroom to put on a pizza?"

(Uta chuckles) - Best mushroom for a pizza.

- I'm gonna look this one.

- Well, morels go really well on pizza, actually.

- I wouldn't waste a morel on a pizza.

(group chuckling) - I've heard people that have said that before, like, I deep-fried morels once, and they were like, "That's a crime."

And I was like, "I don't know, that was pretty delicious, you know?"

So to each their own, right?

I'd say morels are great, you know, the common agaricus, or the cremini that we buy in the grocery stores, that one obviously goes great on pizza.

I think the king boletes would be good.

I would worry that the Hydnum and the chanterelle might be a little fruity, they have a lot of kind of a fruity flavor, and that that might not vibe with pizza, but I haven't tried it, so I mean- - I would cook them well before I put them on the pizza.

- Oh, yeah, they definitely need- - They take quite a bit- - To be very well cooked.

- To cook.

- All mushrooms that are collected in the wild should be very well cooked prior to consumption, really caramelizing the outside.

And so, yeah, my best recommendations would be morels, the king boletes or the porcini, and then the creminis too- - It sounds like the answer is the mushroom you have.

- So can you have a- - If you have a pizza with mushrooms on it and you would like to have a beer with your pizza, what mushrooms should you avoid putting on your pizza?

- [Mac] Oh.

- Yeah, so that's a great question, Tim, thank you.

If you've not eaten morels before, you should be careful eating morels and drinking alcohol together, either before or after 'cause some people have an intolerance that can be, you know, kind of activated when they consume alcohol.

And so, if you're gonna consume a wild mushroom for the first time, you should do so with a small dose, you should save a little bit just in case you do start feeling sick, and then you should wait for your body to kind of see how your body responds to those fungi.

So that's a great comment.

Don't put morels on your pizza and then drink a bunch of beer and eat a bunch of pizza, it's probably not a good way to go.

- I mean, and then- - The other one you definitely wanna avoid- - Coprinus is a prime edible, right?

- Yeah, it's coprinus.

- Yeah.

- There is one species in particular called the alcohol inky cap, which causes a lot of people to have issues when they ingest it with alcohol.

Sometimes people have no problems with the other species, like coprinus comatus or the shaggy mane is one of the most commonly eaten coprinus species.

And most people don't have an issue with that species specifically in alcohol, but some can.

But the other species, the alcohol inky cap, which is referred to as coprinus atramentarius, that can cause problems in most people, even if they've consumed alcohol a few days before or after consumption of those mushrooms.

- We got a lot more mushroom questions, but before we get there from Red Lodge, just colors, "Onion tops have fallen over, but are still green.

Do they have to wait until they turn brown, or can they harvest them now?"

- You could harvest them now, you could leave 'em there.

The only thing that I would get urgent about harvesting them, you'd like 'em to dry down.

And when the tops go down, that means it's time to harvest them, they need to cure.

They can cure in the field so long as it's not excessively wet or risk of a frost, which in Red Lodge might be- - Definitely stop irrigating water.

- Might be coming, yeah.

So time to stop irrigating, no harm in bringing 'em now, but if there's a risk of a frost or a rainstorm or a snowstorm, I'd get 'em in and hang 'em up under the roof somewhere.

- Put some twine around them and hang 'em in the garage.

- Yep, it's time.

- Yep.

- Okay, is there a mushroom testing kit to determine if a mushroom is poisonous?

And that came from plains.

- That's a great question.

So there are kits that can determine if certain toxins, really the most deadly toxins are present in mushrooms, but these aren't gonna be something that's widely available for the purchase of like a forager who's interested in These are things that hospitals are gonna have on hand to test, you know, stomach, contents of the mushrooms that come in a very severe poisoning case.

So I would say for our viewers, the answer is no.

There's not gonna be any kit that you can use to go and sample mushrooms in the field to ensure that they're safe to eat.

Really the only way to do that is to correctly identify these mushrooms and to identify them with 100% confidence.

- You know, while we have you up on that, and before I forget it, we had a mushroom poisoning recently in Livingston, I believe.

And, as we talked ahead of time, it was due to Amanita or death angel mushroom, whatever they're called anymore.

We have a photo, I think, of both an Amanita species and some of the characteristics with it, and then we have something called a spore print.

So if we could bring up the Amanita picture, Chance, and you can tell us how you identify Amanita.

- Yeah, so if you're interested in eating wild foraged mushrooms, one of the best things you can do or start by doing is learn how to identify those that are, you know, deadly poisonous or dangerous.

And this is really the genus that causes the most issue in the United States.

And so, this is the genus Amanita, and it has a few very distinct characteristics, the main one being the cup at the base of that mushroom.

So that swollen base, and it has a cup-like kind of membranous tissue that comes around the bottom, that's called the universal veil.

And it turns into the volva, which is that cup at the bottom.

And as the mushroom's young, it forms, that protects the whole thing before it's mature, and then it kind of breaks apart into the cup at the base.

Sometimes it leaves a ring or a skirt on the stem, and then it will also leave little fragments on the top of the cap or kind of little, the word I want is warts or scabs that kind of sit on the top of the mushroom.

These also have white gills, a white spore print, which is really important, and the gills are never attached to the stem.

And so, that combination of characters puts you in the genus Amanita, and this is the group that you do not wanna be eating, 'cause it contains some of the deadliest mushrooms in the world.

- Okay.

Mycologists use what's known as spore prints to help identify.

And I think we might have a picture, you brought or sent in a picture of a spore print.

So if we have the control room bring up a picture of the spore print, and you can tell us how you use spore prints, and what a spore print is to identify.

- Yeah, so a spore print is a deposit of the spores that are produced by the fungus.

And these spores are really analogous to the seeds that plants use to reproduce, but they're much, much smaller.

A single spore is usually, you know, about 0.1 of a millimeter in length, so these are tiny.

If you place a mushroom cap after cutting the stem off upside down or right-side up with the gills facing down on a piece of paper, and you cover that with a cup or a glass or sometimes you can use tinfoil and you leave it there for about eight hours, those spores will be deposited onto the paper below.

And the color of that spore print is a very important diagnostic feature for fungal identification.

And this is just one features of many that we use to identify these fungi, but many of the guidebooks and resources are designed around spore print color because there's, you know, hundreds or thousands, really thousands, tens of thousands, of different gilled mushrooms.

And so, separating all those can be very difficult without knowing that spore color.

And so, if you don't know what you're working with, the best thing you can do when you get home is put that mushroom on a piece of paper, cover it up and let the spores be deposited onto the paper, so you can use that for identification.

- Yep, it's pretty amazing.

I used to like to play with those.

Mac, this question came in from Lewistown.

They have a lot of tomatoes, a lot of vegetation, but very few tomatoes on it.

They want to know what they did wrong.

- Quite possibly over fertilized.

With nitrogen, in particular with tomatoes, if you have an excess of nitrogen, they'll be very vigorous in their vegetative growth and just not make any flowers.

That's probably the culprit in a home garden situation, people get, you know, a little over enthusiastic with the miracle grow, so... - Yeah.

And tomatoes are one of the easiest things to over fertilize.

- The very first time I tried to grow tomatoes, the same thing happened.

- Out of curiosity, are determined or indeterminate varieties respond differently to fertilizers?

- I don't know a good answer to that.

I mean, I would think an indeterminate one... I guess I do know a good answer to that.

An indeterminate one with the potential to grow much longer, you know, would need more fertility to keep going for sure.

- Okay.

- But in our climate, there's not as big of a difference as there might be in a place with a longer season.

- This was a little bit... - For tomatoes that weren't under cover this year, this was a little bit of a strange tomato year.

Everyone's tomatoes seem to be quite late in the Gallatin Valley, or it was a late year for tomatoes.

I mean, mine are just now starting to look, I'm like, "Oh, wow, you're just coming around, and we're making a lot of fruit now."

- [Mac] Did you get a late start or get nipped by that June frost?

- I think I got a little bit... A late start and a bit nipped by that cold.

- It has been a little warmer than normal, I mean, not excessively so- - Yeah.

- But... - Yeah, it was kind of a late year for my tomatoes.

- Yeah.

- So looking ahead, right, we have some pretty low temperatures, night temperatures here this week in Bozeman, so that seems like the kind of temperature range where you wouldn't want tomatoes out in your garden anymore- - Yeah, I mean, your days are numbered however you look at it.

- Yeah.

- I suppose you could cover things up Monday night and hope for a little more, but we're also getting shorter day lengths and less heat during the day generally.

So I think the opportunity for ripening further is limited for sure.

But, yeah, it looks like a 35 degree low Monday- - Are there strategies, like if the tomato's still pretty green, like, can you still harvest it?

Like is it still gonna ripen?

- If the tomato's got any amount of red color to it, you can bring it in and it will ripen eventually on your countertop and sun, a little bit ethylene.

Tomatoes do respond to ethylene, and they generate ethylene.

- Put it next to banana.

- Yeah, put it by a cantaloupe.

- [Chance] Is it true that putting it in a... (group laughing) Is it true that putting it- - Or a banana.

- In a cardboard box helps somewhat?

- Yeah, that should help concentrate the ethylene that they're giving off and keeping 'em warm.

And there are varieties of tomatoes that are bred specifically for ripening and storage like that by home gardeners, storage type tomatoes that will ripen, you know, well into November if they've got the slightest hint of red now.

- [Uta] Okay.

- All right, that's answered well, thank you guys.

I'm gonna do a little promotion here.

We have a lot of experts in the state called county extension agents, and a lot of these questions, if you don't get 'em answered here or if you have questions locally, go see your county extension agent.

And while you're there, ask them for some bookmarks because our Communications division put out some nice bookmarks about Montana PBS Extension Service, Ag Experiment Station.

And you can pick these up free of charge, just ask your county agent when you're in the office to pick up some bookmarks.

It's not a big thing, but I lose bookmarks so rapidly, it's ridiculous, so I got a whole handful.

(group chuckling) From Butte, caller has fairy rings in her lawn, and we only answer this once a year.

(group chuckling) He wonder if they should control them, and if so, how they can be controlled?

- Yeah, so there is no need for control of fungi that are growing in your lawn.

You know, more or less, some of these fungi could actually be beneficial.

The fairy ring mushroom in particular, it's called Marasmius oreades, it's a decomposer or a saprotroph that's really breaking down, you know, the dead plant material in your lawn and returning those nutrients back to the soil.

And if you look carefully, sometimes what you'll see is that actually at the edge of that ring, you'll see greener grass and that's where that nutrient, that increase in nutrients, is leading to a more productive plant growth.

Unfortunately, other times what you'll see sometimes is right at the edge of that ring, there are kind of bare spots in the grass.

And my best guess for this is that sometimes the fungal mycelium is hydrophobic.

And so, if you get lots of mycelium in one place, it can kind of prevent water infiltration.

So I would say overall, if you can, just leave them.

For control, there is also not really any effective way to control these fungi.

You know, you can't be broadcasting fungicides across your lawn to effectively control these, that won't do much.

The best thing that I recommend to homeowners is if they want to remove the mushrooms from their lawn is they collect the mushrooms they see, you can bag them up and throw them in the garbage, and then you figure out how to irrigate your lawn just enough so that you're still getting green grass, but you're not getting excessive, you And you can do that, especially in Bozeman.

It might be a little bit harder on the west side of the divide, but in Montana, because we don't get that much, you know, seasonal moisture, you can kind of get this perfect point of irrigation that still leads to a very green lawn and very little mushroom production.

Now that won't work in other states like in the Pacific Northwest or in the Southeast, for example, or the Northeast for that matter, but... - True.

I've been pretty successful with an occasional core aeration, just normal watering and a moderate fertility program.

And over two or three, four years, my fairy rings have pretty much dissipated.

- [Chance] Hmm.

- And I think core aeration helps a little bit too.

- Yeah, like aerating the soil?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Uta, one of my favorite things, because we see it every year, especially in Missoula, but also in Bozeman, is anthracnose.

Show people what this anthracnose looks like and why it might occur.

(crew members chattering over phone) - Yeah.

So anthracnose is a disease that can affect a lot of different species.

This one here is a tertarian maple.

There's different fungi that can cause this, I don't know the species that causes this in this case here.

So it's like any fungal disease, or most anyway, it's promoted by moisture.

So we often see anthracnose developing in the spring on new growth.

And so, we see these lesions; and on new growth in the spring, it will often lead to malformation where the leaves are just kind of twisted and curled.

In severe cases, we may even have shoots and young twigs dieback.

I think also a feature here is that it's kind of limited by the leaf veins to some degree.

And I'd say anthracnose is a pretty common disease that affects our trees in terms of management.

And this is maybe me segmenting into just a general fall cleanup situation here.

Just rake up, you know, your leaf material, plant material that is diseased and remove it from the yard, like, the pathogen is on those leaves, if we left them in the backyard, they would produce spores and reinfect in the spring again.

So fall cleanup, removing that infected material is really the best way to prevent recurrence.

Usually, we don't recommend fungicides for this kind of disease, it's not something that will kill your tree.

If you're very particular about how your trees look, you may consider a fungicide a contact fungicide application in the spring, chlorothalonil or something that contains copper.

You might have to repeat that once or twice in the spring, depending on how wet the spring is.

You know, most people probably wouldn't consider that economic or worth the money to do that.

- Don't use overhead watering.

- Yes, so anything that- - Yeah, that makes a big difference.

- Reduces moisture.

- Yeah, definitely.

Tim, this question came in via email, they're from Bozeman, they've noticed there's a lot of wild oats in almost all the barley in the valley.

Most of the wild oats in the valley resistant to commonly known wild oat herbicides?

- Yes, quite a few.

There's a lot of... So if you're growing barley, people have kind of... We've leaned real hard on a herbicide called the axial for a number of years.

- Yeah.

- And we're seeing more and more resistance to that mode of action within even the Gallatin Valley, wider in the state, the wild oats get even more ferocious when you go up to the Fairfield Bench.

In some other areas, you know, there's some wild oats that are resistant to 13 different herbicides.

Oh.

- Oh boy- - Yeah.

- Healthy wild oats.

- Yep, so healthy wild oats.

So someone work on turning it into a cash crop.

- Okay, we got a fair number of quick questions here while I have you up.

from Lincoln County, the caller has Canada thistle on her property.

How can they control it without herbicides?

- Without herbicides.

Ooh, that's a tough question.

Yep, you're gonna have to go in, it depends on how big your patch is, how dense, what kind of situation it fits.

If it's in forage and range, or in open forest or in rangeland, you're not gonna do it.

You can dig out the rhizomes, leave the grass to be as competitive as possible, otherwise, it's not an easy answer.

- I won't use the word "control," but you could attempt management by, you know, digging, if that's appropriate- - Digging certain times and mowing- - To your scale.

- Will reduce it a little bit.

- Mowing, or having a having a competitive crop- - Yeah.

- You know?

- Having something competitive in there.

- And then bring on the herbicides afterwards.

- Yeah, maybe.

There is a fungal rust pathogen, Puccinia punctiformis that does occur.

We've done research on it as a biocontrol agent around the state, and it does work around the Lincoln area, and it will reduce the growth rate of thistle pretty quick over three years.

And you see declines, but it's not easy to get it, to spread it around.

- I think Dave Sands is still working on a fusarium, another fungal species- - Yep.

- To control Canada thistle in organic production.

And it works a little bit, but it's not 100%- - Yep.

- By any- - [Tim] And then it likes to go to peas and some other crops.

- Exactly.

Chance, this is a good question from Butte, or, no, from Dylan.

He kinda wants to know if shaggy mane mushrooms are also known as inky caps, and he wants to know how to prepare them after picking, if he can eat them right away.

I don't think either one I would recommend, but - Oh, shaggy manes are good edibles.

- Okay, shaggy manes.

- And they are referred to commonly as inky caps.

This is because instead of releasing the spores, or really some of these fungi can actually shoot the spores off of their gills, but what the inky cap does is called auto-deliquesce, which means it turns its cap into a black inky goo and the spores will fall out onto the ground in that mass.

- [Tim] Sounds so appealing.

- Yeah.

And so, if you're interested in eating this, you have to find it before it starts to auto-deliquesce, or turn to ink essentially.

And it'll do that really quick 'cause really the second it hits full maturity, it'll start to release its spores through the ink.

And so, it's about finding it at the right time.

And really the bottom of the cap will start to turn black as it's turning into ink, and it'll move up from the bottom toward And so, you gotta find them at the right time.

But if you do, they are delicious edibles.

And my favorite way to prepare them is to prepare like a little, you know, breaded batter mix.

And so, I'll usually toss them in some egg yolk and then toss that into flour with some salt and pepper, and then I'll deep fry them on a pan.

- [Jack] Everything's good deep fried.

- Yeah, I agree.

I would fry everything, you know, if I could handle it.

(chuckles) - Okay- - Chance did get his PhD in Tennessee.

(group laughing) - This person also wants to know if you recommend a good mushroom ID book.

- Yeah, I think one of the best ones if you're in Montana would be the guide written by my former mentor, Cathy Cripps, which is the "Rocky Mountain Guide to Mushrooms by Habitat."

This is a great book, it breaks down what you're gonna find in the forest based on the type of forest type you're in.

So if you're going to spruce-fir forest, you can go to that section, and it's gonna have the most common fungi that you would find throughout the year in our state or really the region, the Rocky Mountain region more broadly.

So that's a great book.

There's also two books that just came out of the Pacific Northwest, both with the same names called "Mushrooms of Cascadia."

And both those books are awesome and kind of encompass the larger region if you're interested in books with a little bit more species in them.

- All right, we're getting down on time.

So quickly from Bozeman, this caller wants to know if mycorrhiza that you can buy off the shelf are beneficial for our plants.

Quickly, what is mycorrhiza, and are they beneficial?

- Yeah, so mycorrhizal fungi are fungi that really form mutualistic or symbiotic partnerships with plant roots.

And so, under the soil, we're having the fungomycelium or the hyphae, which is the filamentous structure that really is the body of a fungus, joining up with plant roots and exchanging nutrients.

So usually the fungi are bringing in nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus in return for sugars that are produced through photosynthesis.

And we got that nice figure up here on the screen now.

And so, there's this exchange of nutrients, and this occurs because these fungi are not capable of getting the carbon-based sugars on their own, so they have to form this partnership.

And, yes, they are very beneficial for plants.

There are a couple different types of mycorrhizal fungi, a distinct type that associates with trees in the forest, and distinct type that associate with most of the other plants that we would grow for agricultural purposes.

So yes, they're definitely beneficial.

However, these relationships are specific.

And so, if you're gonna apply an inoculum, you need to ensure that the fungus that you're applying in your, you know, garden or on your crop is actually the right type of fungus for that.

- Okay.

- All right.

- Folks, we're down to the last 30 seconds.

Before we leave, I want to say the new watermelons don't have the black seeds in it that as a kid you can shoot at your neighbor.

(group chuckles) Nobody here will remember, but they used to have watermelon spitting contests, see how far you can spit 'em, the seeds that is.

So, anyway, folks, thanks for watching.

Next week, Dave Kelce, Extension Advisory Committee.

Everybody, I appreciate you being here.

See you next week, good night.

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