- [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 and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(upbeat music) - You are tuned to Montana Ag Live originating this evening from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired professor of plant pathology, more than happy to be your host this evening.

It's gonna be kind of an interesting program.

We're kind of focusing on gardening.

You know, we've had a couple really nice days here recently and I think people are getting anxious to get out and do some gardening.

That's not the case here in Bozeman.

We still have lots of snow on the ground, but out in Eastern Montana, I drove through there this past week, hey, we don't have much snow left.

We're not that far from gardening season.

So with that, we're gonna have a lot of fun tonight.

But let me introduce the evenings panel.

Way to my left is Uta McKelvy.

Uta is our plant pathologist.

If you have questions about diseases of gardens, trees, whatever, good chance to ask to her tonight.

I've asked David Baumbauer to be our special guest this evening.

Dave is the plant growth center manager here at Montana State University.

He is well versed in everything you wanna know about plants, if you can dig it out of him, and I think we'll be able to do that this evening.

Tim Seipel.

Tim is our weed scientist this evening.

He likes to be called a weed ecologist, but I will not do that.

He's a weed scientist.

And of course Abi Saeed.

Abi is our extension horticultural specialist and she has all the answers to a lot of questions that you'll have out there this evening.

Answering the phones this evening, Bruce Loble, I should say Judge Bruce Loble and Nancy Blake.

So with that folks, we're gonna go ahead and get started and the way we're gonna start this this evening is with a Facebook question that came in this past week and I passed that along to Dave.

This person wanted to know what is all the writing on the packet of seeds that they purchased at one of the nursery stores here in town.

There's a lot of information there and I've asked you to explain some of it, so have at it.

- Alright, I think we have a seed pack demo coming up.

- It'll be up shortly, I'm sure.

- So when you look at seed packs, there's a couple of things to think about.

One is the number of days to maturity.

That's a really important one.

And so that obviously varies across the state depending on what your growing season is.

When I first moved here almost 40 years ago, I was very cautious and I wouldn't buy a seed pack that had much more than 90 days.

Now, given the change in climate, I'll actually push it as much as a hundred, maybe even 105 days.

Now if you get further west in the valley at Three Forks, they probably have 10 more days of that.

So depending on your location, it's really important to know what your growing season is and we kind of define that as the period between the last night that it's 28 degrees Fahrenheit and then the first night in the fall.

And so for those plants that have a little bit of frost tolerance can handle usually down to 28 degrees.

Oh, so anyhow, so days of maturity are one.

The other thing is that typically see a germination rate and that might be important.

Certain species have really low germination rates, so you might want to sow them more dense than others.

What you're looking at now is the back.

There's a ton of information on the back as far as when to plant it.

This particular seed pack is for a basil called prospera and it's a a basil that was developed for greenhouse growing so it's a fairly compact basil and I happened to bring one along.

The interesting thing about basil is that they're very tender and so they don't really like to be much below 50 degrees Fahrenheit and so there's really no rush to put your basil plants out.

Typically, we grow basil from transplant so you could start seeds indoor and Abi's gonna talk about seed starting here in a little bit.

But this is a really nice compact one.

And one of the things that makes it special that you'll see on some seed packs, there's all these acronyms associated with what things it might be disease resistant to.

So this one has DMR on the front of the label and that stands for Downy Mildew Resistance.

And there are lots of different varieties out there of plants.

And you see these letters and you typically can either find a key on the seed company's catalog.

So things like, what?

With tomatoes, we might be interested in Verticillium wilt or- - Yeah, fusarium wilt.

That would be an FR or a VR for those resistances.

Let's see, I was looking up squash.

You know, that would be very prone to powdery mildew so PM would be the code for, or PMR for powdery mildew resistance.

Lettuce would also be quite prone to downy mildew, right?

So that's something to look out for.

- So if you've had these problems in the past, then you might wanna search out varieties that have the resistance.

And so this resistance is not done through any kind of like transgene work.

This is through breeding efforts and then putting a bunch of pressure on as far as disease pressure, subjecting them to the disease and see which ones tolerate it.

And so I guess, there's resistance - Right.

- And so tolerance might actually get the disease, but it doesn't necessarily kill the plant or make it unusable.

Resistance typically does not actually come down to the disease.

- [Jack] All right.

- So those are things to kind of think about, days to maturity, if you've had disease issues in the past, finding varieties that are resistant and then storing your seeds properly, which is cool and dry.

And there's a lot of interest and you'll see pelletized seeds on the market, even for the home gardener.

Theses are seeds that have a very thin coating of typically like a bentonite clay or something.

It's almost like an M&M.

It's got a little clay coating on it and what it does is it makes a small seed larger so it's easier to handle.

It's like pelletized carrots are a godsend.

It just makes it so much easier to get the proper spacing on your carrot sowing.

But one of the liabilities or the downsides of pelletize is that they don't tend to last as long.

So don't buy a bunch of pelletized seeds and think you're gonna hang onto 'em for two or three years.

Typically you want to use 'em up in that season.

- You know, let me ask, I've tried to grow basil and it is very prone to downy mildew.

Uta, any suggestions quickly on how you might avoid downy mildew other than resistance?

- Yeah, so I guess downy mildew thrives in humid and warm conditions, so it tends to be more of a later summer disease.

So things that manage the moisture in the environment can help.

So like being mindful of when you water so that you don't have that long humidity around the leaves.

Consider plant density, so maybe you wanna plant those plants a little more spaced out, or you wanna do some mowing after your initial seeding.

And then talking of mowing, remove any kind of plant material or plants that show symptoms of that disease to kind of remove- - Which are black.

- Yes.

So it will start as like yellowing of the leaves.

It will start at the lower leaves and it's pretty easy.

it will show up between the leaf lanes and won't spread beyond that.

And on the other side of the leaves you might observe those black speckles.

And so remove plants and plant material that have those symptoms and dispose of them.

- Sounds good.

We have a question here.

This person starts their plants every year, but they get long and tall.

I think we call that leggy.

Abi, quickly how do you avoid that?

- Yeah, so leggy plants are really common and basically those plants are growing really fast, often searching for a light source.

So a way to reduce leggy plants is making sure that they have really good access to those, you know, good lighting conditions.

So oftentimes our windows may not be enough lighting for growing a lot of our seedlings so you can use LED lights.

And if you're noticing your plants growing really, really tall, really, really fast, you can position LED lights close to the plants just about three inches above those plants.

You'd move them up as the plants grow taller, but that prevents them from getting really leggy.

- Okay, thank you.

We have some questions here about pocket gophers and ground squirrels and so forth and so on.

We're not gonna get to those this evening.

We have the Critter Ridder's Steven Vantassel on later in Sep or in April, I believe, or maybe even the latter part of March.

He'll be a guest on the program so we get all those questions at that time.

Tim, this person definitely has a lot of purslane.

They don't like it, they want to get rid of it.

Tell me how you get rid of it quickly.

- Quickly.

That is not too easy.

The problem with purslane is the seeds can live for 30 to 40 years in the soil.

So you can do a great job of getting it off the top.

You can do a great job of cleaning it up for years and years and years, as soon as you open that soil back up, as soon as you put more rototilling you'll bring those seeds back up and they'll be back up there again and they'll be growing.

So you have to think of the seed bank and the seed bank is the bank account we're looking to drain, right?

That's what we want to take to zero.

So you really have to work on it overtime.

Get 'em to germinate.

You may take 'em out with the scuffle hoes, stirrup hoe, you may spray 'em with glyphosate a couple times over the spring maybe especially if you don't have anything growing in that garden.

You have to also remember that purslane it's a warm season weed.

So save your motivation for weeding till later in the year.

I'm really good at getting the early season weeds out, the cool season weeds, but then I get busy in the summer and I lose control of my purslane.

So I also have a purslane problem, but I've given up.

If you can't beat it, eat it.

- [Jack] Yeah, I've heard that you eat it and I've heard that it's not that tasty.

You have something there in front of you.

You want to explain what that is quickly?

- Yeah, I'll try to be very quick.

This is something that probably almost every one of our watchers has seen before.

It's a plant disease, we call it black knot.

It affects plants in the prunus species, so your choke cherries and even your plum trees, et cetera.

And so this gall like mass that is growing on those branches is actually the fungus.

So right now we see, 'cause we don't have leaves on our trees right now, it's also a good time to try and prune out those galls if you don't like how they look.

If the galls basically wrap around the entire branch, it can actually girdle what's upstream of that branch and that's how it might die.

So if you wanted to prune out these galls, you wanna do that at least four inches below the gall, do it right now.

Take care sterilizing or sanitizing your cutting tools in between with alcohol or your regular household disinfectant.

And then in the spring, when it gets a little bit warmer and we have moisture, that's when younger galls will start producing these spores.

They will seem kind of greenish, olive greenish.

That's how you know they're producing spores and those spores are dispersed in the wind and will infect other branches through wounds, et cetera.

So if you have some very precious prunus kind of trees or plants growing in your yard, you could consider applying a fungicide, a protective one.

But you know, you wanna have to weigh the cost of that and yeah.

- You know, if you have choke cherries around here, you're gonna have black knot.

And you know it is advisable to put it out.

Otherwise you get the right year.

It's not every year but the right year and you can really have some problems.

Yeah, we have some soil samples here.

We're gonna wait till after we take a break and get to those.

But I do have a question here about asparagus and, you know, how many people on the panel have an asparagus bed?

- No, I do not.

I have had an asparagus bed in the past.

- And the weeds took over?

- And the weeds kind of took over and my yields went down and it was tough to keep going.

- So how do you get rid of the weeds?

- Yeah, that's a pretty tough question.

And you know, weed questions are always tough question.

- Oh yeah.

- So I think one thing is you gotta make sure you plant into a clean bed.

You don't want to have any field bindweed, any Canada thistle, any quackgrass in there.

Hopefully you can maybe get that soil seed bank to germinate a time or two and then rototill it or get it down.

So start clean, stay clean is number one.

And then after that your asparagus is a perennial plant that's below the surface.

So if nothing's growing on top of the surface, in the early springtime, you could apply Roundup or glyphosate.

I'm gonna say glyphosate because Roundup is really just a trademark these days, right?

And so you could apply glyphosate over the top, making sure you don't hit any of the spears or any of the rest of the plant and that can be pretty helpful.

You can cultivate or harrow over the top to get those little weeds.

But then once the perennial weeds come back in, there's not a lot of easy answers so you might come- - It's a big problem.

Folks, as you probably know, Montana PBS is doing their annual spring pledge week this week so we're gonna take a little break here.

But in that break, we're gonna talk a little bit about the history of Montana Ag Live.

There's a lot of rich history, a lot of people have been involved with it.

I think you'll get a kick out of it.

We'll also be asking you to help support Montana Ag Live because it's your contributions along with our sponsors that help make this program possible.

So we're gonna take a little break, we'll be back shortly and with that, we'll see you in a bit.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer 2] So when you give an ongoing donation of $7 a month or a one-time contribution of $84, you'll receive a set of Montana Ag Live stickers and a hefty 20 ounce Montana Ag Live branded mug.

When you give an ongoing donation of $10 a month or a one-time contribution of $120, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, a "Wildflowers of the Northern Rocky Mountains Guidebook" and Jeff Hart's book, "Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples."

When you give an ongoing donation of $15 a month or a one-time contribution of $180, you'll receive the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower Guidebook, and a rugged Montana Ag Live branded baseball cap.

When you give an ongoing donation of $20 a month or a one-time contribution of $240, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower guidebook, the Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples book, the cap and a Montana Ag Live branded hitch cover.

Please call or text "DONATE" to +1 800-426-8243 or go online to montanapbs.org to make your donation now and support Montana PBS.

- [Announcer 3] This is Passport, your ticket to stream every single moment.

Stream complete seasons.

- This was perfect.

- [Announcer 3] Iconic series, early releases and so much more.

- So much more than I thought.

- [Announcer 3] Stream all the shows you love by donating to your local PBS station and get the full PBS experience.

(people chattering) - Welcome to Montana Ag Live's Pledge Break.

It's my pleasure to be here with all of you.

My name is Aaron Pruitt.

I'm the director and general manager Montana PBS.

- My name is Kristina Martin.

I serve as the director of development at Montana PBS.

- And we're just pleased to be on the other half of the studio tonight with Jack.

So we're looking at the Ag Live panel.

They've been doing a great show.

A pleasure to be here with you tonight, Jack, and reflecting back on how many years of Montana Ag Live?

- Honestly, this is our 31st year.

- Wow.

- And when we started, we were told it wouldn't last a year, but I go back to that first program where administration said, "Nobody's gonna be interested in that."

We had over 35 phone calls the first evening and from that, we've kept right on going.

Things have changed a little bit, we have better technology.

Talked about it ahead of time.

The old lighting that we had roasted the panel.

By the time the hour was up, everybody was sweating.

We've upgraded quite a bit.

- [Aaron] It's a little cooler in here tonight.

- [Jack] It's very nice.

- We have a bank of phone operators there this evening that are not only ready to take your questions about agriculture and backyard gardening, which has been the legacy of Montana Ag Live for all these years, but also take your pledge tonight in and supporting this show.

So we thank you for that.

And I wanted to visit just a little bit about the very beginning.

So you say 33 years ago, well how did it get started?

- As a graduate student, I was involved with the program at the University of Nebraska called Backyard Farmer.

I once told my major professor, he didn't know what he was talking about on that program.

And he said, "If you're so, you know what, smart, you go do the program."

And I did.

I did it as a graduate student for five years.

And I always wanted to do that here.

I wanted to change it a little bit.

I wanted to have a special guest.

Special guest is really important to this program because you get so many different views by having a special guest on this program.

- And I think I was just observing that.

We have expertise in specific areas, but then we have the expertise of one of them that knows something else a little bit about seeds and from a different angle from maybe from a... And then weeds side of it or the soils.

And then the beauty of this program has been, it's everything from production ag to backyard gardening and it's a mix of, I mean, if you stay and watch the whole show, you're gonna see a broad range of products.

- That's what people like about it.

You never know what's coming next.

And we have some really ringer questions that come in that really challenge the panel and those are the fun ones that we really have a laugh about.

- [Aaron] And I think what's neat about the show is that if they're a real ringer and maybe they don't have the answer, there is a follow up process typically, right?

- That's correct.

We have people that follow up, call the individual back, that submit the question either for Facebook or live.

And we have Ag Live newsletter, which we answer some of these questions on that.

So yeah, we do a big follow up.

- So Montana Ag Live, we hope you're enjoying the program tonight.

This is a kickoff of our spring season.

So we have many more shows going clear into June for the spring season.

- Well, June.

Yep.

- So we always have a spring season, we have a fall season.

We repeat all of the Montana Live programs on Sunday mornings as well and of course they're online for years into the...

Many of our past programs over the years, you can probably, we can all watch ourselves age on Ag Live over the many shows we've had.

- It's embarrassing to look at myself 30 years ago.

A lot of things have changed including my hairline and my waistline, so yeah, definitely different.

- [Aaron] And I think the thing, you know, I just think the generosity of both our phone operators, but some of these panel members that have been coming to this show on Sunday nights and you know, freely giving their time and expertise along with you and helping share their wisdom and their experience and their successes and failures in trying to grow things in Montana.

- And I'd like to thank PBS and also the donors for helping to support the program.

I'll be honest with you, we have a lot of fun doing it.

- Yeah.

- And I think people can tell that we have a lot of laughs.

We wouldn't be able to do that without your support and without the support of the people out there that provide money for PBS.

- Well we know it's a very tried and true audience.

They come back all the time and to watch this show and well, it's become something of a household name, Montana Ag Live in the state of Montana so we're proud of that.

We hope tonight that you will call and pledge your support for this show.

And when you do, we have special thank you gifts for you.

So give us a call right now.

The phone operators are right over there.

The number to call is +1 800-426-8243.

- From Yellowstone to Glacier, Flathead to Makoshika, Montana is home to a rich tapestry of But no matter where you go, you're bound to find kindhearted, neighborly people with incredible expertise and amazing stories to tell.

That's why Montana PBS and programs like Montana Ag Live are so valuable.

When we get to know our neighbors throughout the state, it bonds us together and makes us feel proud to be from Montana.

When you give to Montana PBS, you are helping to fill our treasure state with more treasured stories in the form of locally produced programs like Montana Ag Live and Backroads of Montana.

Show your commitment to our statewide community by calling or texting "DONATE" to +1 800-426-8243 or donate online at montanapbs.org/donate.

And if you're already a member, now is a great time to upgrade your sustainer level or donate an additional gift.

Every dollar we receive helps keep Montana connected.

As we like to say, Montana's not a state, it's a great big town and we're happy to be your neighbor.

- Well said.

- You know, public television and Montana PBS and this AG, it's kind of a neat mixture of a meeting of ag and all things growing Montana and technology, which is our television studio.

And for me, that's very personal because I'm still an ag grower raisin hay and doing all that and I enjoy doing that but I came in here as a student in the eighties and learned how to do television in this very studio.

And what people don't see tonight with our panel is all the students and staff that are behind the scenes, running cameras, running the camera crane, doing timing, technical directing tonight.

And students that were students that have now transformed and become actually professionals working and that certainly is my story.

And I think, you know, that the show wouldn't be the show without all of the folks behind the scenes making it happen.

- Technology has changed too.

We joked ahead of the program about during COVID, we actually did this program out of my kitchen and I'm not technology savvy, but we made it work.

You guys were very good about it and we kept it going.

That was great.

- I remember it actually tested us a bit, how do we do television but we're not gonna be in the studio?

And Zoom was new to us as well.

And so there was a lot of learning and yet Ag Live continued on through those COVID years.

So thank you for staying with us and watching Montana Ag Live, calling in with your great questions and coming back every season.

Well, we can't do it without you.

And in fact, tonight we really do need your help.

So make those phones ring tonight.

The number to call is there on your screen.

We're gonna send Jack back to the panel in just a few minutes.

And we hope then you have great questions for the panel as well.

The number to call is there on your screen.

+1 800-426-8243.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer 2] When you give an ongoing donation of $7 a month or a one-time contribution of $84, you'll receive a set of Montana Ag Live stickers and a hefty 20 ounce Montana Ag Live branded mug.

When you give an ongoing donation of $10 a month or a one-time contribution of $120, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, a "Wildflowers of the Northern Rocky Mountains Guidebook" and Jeff Hart's book, "Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples."

When you give an ongoing donation of $15 a month or a one-time contribution of $180, you'll receive the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower guidebook, and a rugged Montana Ag Live branded baseball cap.

When you give an ongoing donation of $20 a month or a one-time contribution of $240, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower guidebook, the Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples book, the cap and a Montana Ag Live branded hitch cover.

Please call or text "DONATE" to +1 800-426-8243 or go online to montanapbs.org to make your donation now and support Montana PBS.

- [Announcer 4] PBS is a vital part of our community, providing you with insights into the natural world but humans aren't the only supporters of public television.

Let's take a look at this majestic bull elk and see what he has to say.

(elk groans) Is he telling us to go somewhere?

(elk groans) I believe he's reminding us about the importance of supporting nature.

The voice of the natural world brought right into your living room and the best way to do that is to go online and give to this PBS station.

He's on the move now, headed to your city because you haven't gone online to show your support for nature yet.

(elk groans) You heard the elk.

Go online right now to invest in engaging and informative programs like Nature for all the humans and elk in your community.

- Okay folks, we're back.

Again, thank you so much for supporting Montana PBS and the Backroads of Montana, another program that is provided by Montana PBS.

Abi, that looks like chocolate cake to me, but I know better, it's not.

Tell us what that is and why you're doing that.

- Yeah, so I was teaching workshops in Northeastern Montana last week and part of one of the workshops, for Daniels County extension agent, Inga Hawbaker was showing everyone how to do soil blocking and that's basically what this is.

This is a block of compressed seedling mix and you use this cool contraption here, you wet your seedling mix about like, you know, three parts of the mix and one part water, make sure it's like really nice and wet and then you use this little spring loaded tool to press your soil blocks right onto whatever container you want.

And you have these really nice condensed blocks where you can put your seeds right in there.

And this is especially nice for growing plants that might have really sensitive root systems so things like our melons, cucumbers, squash that don't transplant as well if you're pulling them out, things that you might be worried about getting root bound, this air prune so the roots don't circle around the substrate.

And I'm gonna try this out this year and try growing plants but in Europe, they've been growing plants in the this way for hundreds of years and it looks like a really fun, cool tool and a cool contraption and you take care of them the same way.

- Quick question, when do you start your plants?

- So it depends on what plant, but one piece of advice in terms of seeds starting I'd say is resist the urge to start too early.

So for some of our long season seeds, we can start around now, but for a lot of our warm season plants, especially ones that don't have a really long growing season, wait until April to start those.

- Do you get damping off with this system as much, which is a fungus that breaks the stem?

- Yeah, so I'll have Uta explain damping off, but for this issue, I would say it depends on what you use as a material for your seedling mix.

So I'm using all just sterilized materials.

This is just basically a mix of peat moss and some vermiculite mixed in.

And so with with this, if you have sterilized materials and if you make sure that you have enough circulation, once your seedlings emerge, it shouldn't be an issue because you're not using soil which can introduce those, you know, microbes.

- Uta, do they use seed treatments on some of these vegetables that would help with that?

- I imagine you could probably get that.

It wouldn't be your organic seeds but, yeah, so usually I think when you have seed treatment on your seed, it would have a color that doesn't look natural like a red or a blue or something like that.

And it probably should be labeled on the packet so I would look for that.

- [Jack] It's on the seed packet if it is.

- General remark on the damping off is it likes cold temperatures so you wanna start your seedlings in an environment that encourages rapid growth.

So avoid cool wet soils.

I mean, you need to have your soils wet but not saturated, right?

And you wanna have ample warmth.

And then like Abi said, you wanna use like fresh soil and if you're not using this method, but if you're starting something in containers and they might have been used the year before, you wanna take good care sanitizing them from last year so that we don't have any pathogens.

- Thank you.

I have a question for everybody.

I love questions like this because we can bait the people.

Everybody give me your favorite tomato variety for flavor and this caller is, I believe from Helena would like to know your favorite tomato.

- I don't know, beefsteak.

Is that a variety?

Sounds good, right?

- Sun Golds.

- Sun Gold.

Oh the little tiny ones?

They are pretty good.

- The orange ones, yeah.

Those are my favorites.

- I'm either an Early Girl or Oregon Spring.

- No Brandywine yet?

- No.

- Okay and?

- Sun Golds are my favorite too.

- And you might say what Sun Golds are.

They're just little tiny cherry tomatoes.

- Yes, little, orangeish yellow colored cherry tomatoes with a really yummy flavor.

- But I'm really good at splitting them.

- In any kind of moisture, you're gonna split 'em.

- Yep, Sun Gold split all the time.

- And last year my Sun Gold did not do well.

I have no clue why.

But you're right, they are prone to splitting.

If you let 'em ripen just a little bit too much or if you get a rain, they're gonna split.

Okay, that's settled.

There's your answer, Helena.

Here's a good one.

Great Falls caller asked to know if they can successfully grow lavender.

He's unsure if it's hardy enough for Great Falls.

- So that is a good question.

So lavender is usually, if you even get the really nice hardy varieties, it's usually really hardy to zone five ideally.

If you can get variety- - [Jack] What's zone five?

- Zone five would be like... - Spokane.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, like Western Montana in the Bitterroot area, would be zone five, you know, Corvallis, stuff like that.

We here in Central Montana, Southwestern Montana and Eastern Montana, It varies here in Bozeman.

We're about zone four three depending on where you're located.

But zone five, even in our warmer parts of the state, we're cutting it too close.

So growing lavender can be pretty challenging beyond that where it's colder.

Even if you get hardy varieties or you have a microclimate where it can be warm enough, you'd wanna make sure to insulate those plants really well in the winter but even then I would worry about survival.

So I would say lavender is one of those plants that may not be ideal for Great Falls.

- Okay, so the key, if you have snow, just shovel the snow on it.

- Yeah, pile it on your snow.

- Lavender is right at the edge of the sidewalk and so it has feet of snow on it and it does great.

It's been there for 20 years but it always is well insulated.

- I know my wife loves lavender.

What do you use it for?

- [Tim] Bees.

- That reminds me, I need a beehive.

- We put it in a little like mesh package and put it in the dryer instead of dryer sheets.

- [Uta] That's a good idea, yeah.

- One of my favorite smells.

- That's why you smell good.

(all laugh) I was wondering.

- Okay, you guys ready for a cherry question?

How do you keep the robins off the cherries?

- Netting.

Netting.

- Yeah, nets.

- And these tall cherry trees.

- More netting with a ladder.

- With a ladder.

Okay, well in addition, a Dillon caller has seven to eight pie cherry trees.

During the last couple years, the fruit and blossoms have been doing poorly.

First of all, what is the lifespan of the trees and any recommendation as to why these trees are not doing as well as they used to?.

- So I've heard this a lot over the past few years, but as you guys know, anyone who has trees, you've seen in your landscape, we've had really tough winter and spring periods, we've also had really dry and warm fall periods and all of these stressful conditions can impact how much trees will flower.

With our warm early springs and then cold snaps, you could lose the blossoms.

Flower buds are much more tender than the leaf and stem buds so even though the rest of your tree may look perfect, it could have killed those flower buds so you wouldn't have as much flowering and therefore not as much fruiting.

If you're worried about the lifespan, I check in terms of variety.

But you know, for multiple decades at least, I wouldn't worry too much about the the lifespan.

It would be more about the environmental conditions.

So make sure they're getting enough water in the fall period.

Make sure that they're healthy in the spring and then see if you can spot those blooms.

- I'm going to throw it out.

I don't like to fertilize trees like that.

I think that is detrimental to trees.

- Fertilizing can be tough on trees.

So when your trees are stressed out, fertilizing is encouraging them to produce new growth and you want to avoid fertilizing when trees are in stress conditions.

- Okay, it's the time for snow mold, Uta.

We gonna have any this year?

This person from Bozeman is asking how much snow molds to expect and should they do anything about it?

- Well, there's plenty of snow mold all there out there.

I've been busy all week keeping my daughter from eating it.

So yes, it's out there.

Wherever the snow is receding, that's where we see snow mold.

It's just that grayish whitish fuzzy grove on our lawns.

It looks ugly for a couple days, maybe a few weeks and then it's gonna be gone so it's nothing to worry about.

If you wanna accelerate the process, you just rake up those patches where you have a lot of snow mold and that should do the trick.

And really where snow mold likes to grow is when we don't have a proper ground freeze before the snow accumulates so then we have this like fairly warmish, you know, for winter conditions, climate under the snow where that fungus that causes this likes to grow.

So things you can do to prevent snow mold is just, you know, keep mowing your lawn until it stops growing.

If you have like ample lawn growth that's dying under the snow, that's where it likes to grow, so.

- On that note, I have a question from Helena, and this was posed from the other day when I was at the YMCA.

The caller would like to know how short to mow their turf in the fall.

I have my own opinion, what do you guys think?

And I'll open that up to everybody.

- Six inches.

- I have a very strong opinion about this too.

So for like optimal health of turf, there've been kind of a lot of studies that show it usually about that three and a half to four inch mark for most of our cool season turf.

I keep my turf, I never, you know, mow it below the three inch mark.

So three and a half to four for is what I would say.

- So would you lower the deck going into winter?

- If I'm concerned about things like snow mold where I've never had that issue.

- Okay folks, we're gonna take another short break here.

We're gonna talk a little bit about some of the partners that we have with Montana Ag Live and Tim's gonna go up there and give us a little bit more information.

And I think you'll also find out how you can get some Montana Ag Live swag or mementos.

So we'll take a little break now and Tim will be there in a moment.

- [Announcer 2] When you give an ongoing donation of $7 a month or a one-time contribution of $84, you'll receive a set of Montana Ag Live stickers and a hefty 20 ounce Montana Ag Live branded mug.

When you give an ongoing donation of $10 a month or a one-time contribution of $120, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, a "Wildflowers of the Northern Rocky Mountains Guidebook" and Jeff Hart's book, "Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples."

When you give an ongoing donation of $15 a month or a one-time contribution of $180, you'll receive the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower guidebook, and a rugged Montana Ag Live branded baseball cap.

When you give an ongoing donation of $20 a month or a one-time contribution of $240, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower guidebook, the Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples book, the cap and a Montana Ag Live branded hitch cover.

Please call or text "DONATE" to +1 800-426-8243 or go online to montanapbs.org to make your donation now and support Montana PBS.

- [Announcer 3] This is Passport, your ticket to stream every single moment.

Stream complete seasons.

- This was perfect.

- [Announcer 3] Iconic series, early releases and so much more.

- So much more than I thought.

- [Announcer 3] Stream all the shows you love by donating to your local PBS station and get the full PBS experience.

- [Crew Member] Smile.

- We're glad you're with us tonight for this special pledge edition of Montana Ag Live.

If you're just joining us, my name is Kristina Martin.

I serve as the director of development here at Montana PBS.

- And I'm Aaron Pruitt, director and general manager of Montana PBS.

And we have with us?

- I'm Tim Seipel.

I'm the Crop and Weed extension specialist and an assistant professor at Montana State University.

- For Ag Live, they probably know this 'cause you've been on so much, right?

- Yep, exactly.

- Yeah, so we know you're the weed guy.

Do people recognize you in public as the weed guy and ask you questions?

- Yes, my children actually told me I was famous once when someone stopped me in a coffee shop and said, "Hey, you do a great job on that Montana Ag Live."

And so we always like hearing people's comments.

We travel all across the state of Montana.

Abi and I, in January, we went around not too far from Makoshika, we gave presentations in Baker, Wibaux and Glendive and we always hear great feedback from our viewers all across the state and they really like the program, like the vet, like the avenue to be able to ask these questions and support PBS and talk about it.

My first time on Montana Ag Live was I answered the phones in a uncomfortable folding chair back in the corner once as a graduate student somewhere in 2003 or four and all I remember was Hayden Ferguson was the host and he was up there talking.

- He was a little larger than life, Hayden was.

- He was but it was a great experience.

And you know, actually I've been a Montana Ag Live viewer for 20 years at least.

And even when I was a graduate student here, I used to love to watch the show.

- Yeah, well we miss Hayden but we've got six or seven phone operators over there ready to take your pledges and your questions from Montana Ag Line.

- Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

- So we've got some great partners that have helped this show.

You saw the credits at the beginning of the program, but many of these donors and underwriters of this show have been with the program for decades and we just want to call a special call out to the Montana Department of Ag, thank you for your support, MSU extension for their support, the MSU AG Experiment Stations from the College of Ag, the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, you guys have been on this for a long time, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, Jerry and Jan, thank you for your ongoing support of the show.

Gallatin Gardeners Club.

We thank you for your support ongoing for many years.

And we're pleased to announce tonight that we've just learned for our spring season, I think a brand new underwriter is gonna join the program, the Montana State Federation of Garden Clubs here in Montana.

So those are the folks that are ongoing support, corporate support of Ag Live, but it really counts on the support from our viewers like you.

- Yeah, tonight is an important night.

Your viewer support makes Montana Ag Live and all of our wonderful programming possible.

So if you haven't called in yet to pledge your support, please do so.

The numbers on your screen, +1 800-426-8243.

Feel free to make an additional gift.

If you're a regular watcher of Montana Ag Live, we know you're used to calling in with questions, so maybe shake it up this time and make a pledge when you ask a question as well.

- Well, I have a weed question.

So yeah, 30 to 40 years on a seed bank, like that's scared the heck outta me.

A weed that can have that long of life.

I mean you can't win that battle.

- That's a hard one.

- So hoary alyssum, how long is the seed?

I'm fighting a patch of hoary alyssum.

- Yep, Hoary alyssum will be there for quite a long time in the soil seed bank.

Maybe 10 years.

- Okay, that's not what I wanted to hear.

- Five to 10 years, I would guess.

But you know, it's great to hear the Montana, we talked about in Jack's break, the Montana family and to listen to the sponsors, Montana Department of Ag, MSU Extension, Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, MAES.

You know, this is a place where we bring all that kind of stuff together.

I do research with Montana Wheat and Barley Committee on the College of Ag Research stations.

I present that to all the extension agents and all our stakeholders in Montana that we organize.

And one of the best parts about my job is I get to drive around Montana and see all the awesome little towns and the people that's associated with this place.

- [Aaron] And then you get to share your knowledge and get a different way directly to Montanans.

- [Tim] Absolutely, but, you know, we learn a lot from Montana producers when we're out there in these towns too.

And it's a great venue to be able to, yeah, it's a great venue to be able to talk on Montana Ag Live about all this and PBS.

- Yeah, it's amazing.

So in your long history with the show as a volunteer and being on the show, is there a common question that is still being asked?

- Purslane, purslane.

You know, know purslane comes up.

And it's one, we have a lot of tough garden weeds out there and it can be difficult to manage, but there's some other things that come up too.

Field bindweed.

- Oh yeah.

- You know, Montana producers, I know Kochia out there too.

Kochia is always a big question for Montana producers in the weed world, you know?

- Well, thank you for your years of service to Montana Ag Live and we hope there's many years more as well and for your expertise on the panel.

I know we'll be going back to them very shortly.

But first please keep our phone operators busy.

We're ready to take your pledges and your questions at the same time tonight, same operator.

The number to call is right there on your screen.

It's +1 800-426-8243.

- Montana Ag Live is such a fun show that it can be easy to forget that its main focus is education.

That's what we do at Montana PBS.

We create media that makes learning fun and one of the ways we do this is by supporting educators.

It's a challenging world for school teachers these days with the rapid pace of technological advancement and the oversaturation of media online.

But incorporating media and tech in lessons can have a big impact.

It can transport to environments where they would never otherwise go and enable interactive self-paced learning that was never possible in previous eras.

We at Montana PBS can be a helpful guide through this brave new world.

Our education staff have been teachers themselves and understand the concerns of educators.

They speak the language and can point teachers toward helpful resources that explain how to integrate tech in the classroom.

So give now and support a service that is committed to improving education on as many fronts as possible.

Call or text "DONATE" to +1 800-426-8243 or donate online at montanapbs.org/donate.

Thank you so much for your support.

- We're so glad you're watching with us tonight.

Here again, our kickoff show for the spring season of Montana Live.

Thanks for those calls that are coming, calls and pledges.

This group here tonight is volunteering every Sunday night, spring and fall.

All of the panelists that are sitting there looking at us right now from the panel at Ag Live, and all of our student crew, our staff, that's what makes this program possible.

It's also a partnership of the federal funding we received, so the Corporation for Public broadcasting, the university support here at Montana State University, and from the University of Montana as well.

And of course the final leg of that three legged stool is the viewers like you.

So thanks for watching and thanks for supporting this program.

In fact, some of the folks have called in tonight.

- We have a couple.

Thank you, Steven from Judith Gap.

Thank you, Steven.

And Kelly from Bozeman.

Thank you so much for supporting Montana PBS and Montana Ag Live tonight.

- I just wanna send a special thanks to Jack Riesselman for the genesis of this program and this idea many, many years ago.

Who would've thunk 33 years on that we'd still be doing this with some new panel members?

I say new 'cause there was a generation before you as well.

But you know, it's just been a treat and we know we've actually had generations of viewers watching the program.

So thank you for all you do for the program and we will be going back to the panel here very shortly.

We're ready to take your calls.

The number to call is +1 800-426-8243.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer 2] When you give an ongoing donation of $7 a month or a one-time contribution of $84, you'll receive a set of Montana Ag Live stickers and a hefty 20 ounce Montana Ag Live branded mug.

When you give an ongoing donation of $10 a month or a one-time contribution of $120, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, a "Wildflowers of the Northern Rocky Mountains Guidebook" and Jeff Hart's book, "Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples."

When you give an ongoing donation of $15 a month or a one time contribution of $180, you'll receive the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower Guidebook, and a rugged Montana Ag Live branded baseball cap.

when you give an ongoing donation of $20 a month or a one-time contribution of $240, we'll thank you with the stickers, the mug, the Wildflower guidebook, the Montana Native Plants and Early Peoples Book, the cap and a Montana Ag Live branded hitch cover.

Please call or text "DONATE" to +1 800-426-8243 or go online to montanapbs.org to make your donation now and support Montana PBS.

- [Announcer 5] The flared nostril, the raised eyebrow, the gaping mouth.

These are all features of that most cherished exclamation, the indignant gasp.

Most often encountered when a lady of status witnesses a subtle but scandalous breach of decorum.

- What is she doing?

- Oh my God.

- [Announcer 5] You may be surprised to learn these duteous outbursts have been on the decline in modern times.

- What?

- [Announcer 5] Indeed, without continuing support, these snobby affectations could all but disappear.

(crowd gasps) Fortunately, you need only donate to Montana PBS and stream any of the countless dramatic offerings on PBS Passport, such as "Marie Antoinette," "Sanditon" or "Howards End," and you will be directly helping a noble woman feel assured in her sense of superiority.

- Quite right.

- [Announcer 5] It's viewers like you that make programming like this possible.

Support gasps of indignation.

Donate to Montana PBS.

- That's really good.

- Again, the panel would like to thank you so much for supporting this program.

It is truly appreciated.

As with the first program, every year, we do have a few technical difficulties.

I didn't muzzle Dave on purpose, I thought about it, but we're gonna go back and revisit a little bit about the seed pack because the audio was not good.

So give us a quick synopsis.

If we could pull that picture of the seed pack back up, we'll do that.

- [Dave] All right, so this is better.

So you can see this is actually organic seed, so if you're interested in that, you wanna look for this kind of language that's certified organic by MOFGA, that happens to be the Main Organic Farming and Gardening Association.

And so this particular seed company's outta Maine, so it makes sense.

Each state has a different certification agency for their organic program.

So prospera, that's the name of that particular variety and it's a compact dark basil and you see F1.

And so F1 means it's a hybrid.

And so if you're a seed saver, saving seed for this particular basil will not result in getting the same one back.

So you have to get a fresh pack of seed each year because it's a cross between two different basils to make this particular variety.

And the OG stands for organic.

And then below that you get, here's a hybrid downy mildew resistant basal.

So we talked earlier about the importance on getting resistant varieties, if you've been impacted by these diseases in the past.

There's some information on my left that talks about days, 74.

So the particular basal plant that I showed you actually is 56 days old and so that 74 is an ideal condition, that's when you can start harvesting.

It gives you some idea of its final height at 16 to 18 inches.

And then there's a germination rate.

This was a pretty decent one, it was 97% and I've held onto this pack for a year or two 'cause the last germ test was done in August of '23.

And it tells you how many seeds you can expect in each pack, that it's an annual, it's not a perennial crop.

And then there's some information on there, that lot number's important.

If you have a particular problem where you have a crop failure, you can contact the seed company and say, I had this lot number and I had really poor germination, or maybe I had some kind of seed borne virus issues, that might give them some clue on what's going on.

- Okay, now we did that.

- Thank you.

Here we go.

- Okay, now I can muzzle you again.

Okay.

This is an interesting question and we'll get to it.

This is a long question which goes along with gardening.

The panel has said in the past that we should not dethatch your lawn.

Why is thatching a bad ideal?

- So I think dethatching your turf can be really tough and it can be hard on the crowns.

You're basically cutting into the turf, whereas core aerating, you're pulling out plugs.

It's less invasive of a process and it's easier for the grass to bounce back and it has very similar results in terms of thatch reduction.

So the amount of negative impacts of dethatching doesn't, you know, warrant using that as a method when core aerating is much better for your grass.

- Well, I agree 100%.

I just despise dethatching.

And aeration, once a year or twice a year?

- It depends.

If your turf is healthy with low amount of thatch, you only need to do it every couple of years.

Whereas if you have thatch problem, you can dethatch, or you can core aerate in the spring or the fall once a year until you reach that as desired.

- You know, I've aerated a number of lawns and when the ground starts to get hard, you kind of put all your weight on the back and you bounce all over the place and you're hoping you're actually getting those plugs into the ground.

Tell me about timing.

When should we do?

When should we be timing?

- So spring and fall is the best time.

That's when the turf is actively growing.

You know, I'd wait, you know, until the soil dries a little bit.

Not too early in the spring, but probably around May is a really nice time to aerate.

- And before the soil gets too hard that it doesn't penetrate.

- Yes, exactly.

- Okay, the person from Helena that asked about the tomatoes earlier must negate the Sun Gold because they're not slicing tomatoes.

So the voters for Sun Gold, would you give us the variety that you prefer best.

- Early Girl, Oregon Spring are mine.

I haven't tried the Brandywines yet, but those are nice slicing tomatoes that I can slice really well.

And they're about, you know, that size, which I think it's a nice size.

I'm not a fan of the beefsteak, sorry.

- [Uta] It's all right.

- Prudence Purple.

- Prudence.

- I've heard of that.

Where do you get it?

- It's beautiful.

Oh, the seed's relatively available.

I don't know that you'll find it that common in a garden center.

Maybe some of the independent garden centers would have it, but it's just this really beautiful fruit.

- Okay.

I don't like to start my tomatoes from seeds.

I like to buy 'em from a local nursery.

They're not leggy, they're in better condition.

And any particular variety that we should be avoiding around here, anything over 110 days?

- Yeah, really long ones.

I mean, the heirlooms are really beautiful, but some of them seem to be more prone to blossom end rot.

And so what some of the producers that are selling heirlooms commercially are doing are grafting them.

So they're grafting the heirloom scion onto a hybrid root stock that helps avoid that blossom end rot, which is a challenge.

- [Jack] Sounds good.

- I've grown a few of the bigger beefsteak, like black krims.

I had those for a while.

And I thought the flavor was not it.

I thought the texture was a little bit more mealy or it came apart more as not such a nice slice.

- Alright folks, we gotta run here shortly.

Next week, not next week.

We're not gonna be on next week.

Two weeks from now, we're gonna have a graduate student, first graduate student on Montana Ag.

I gonna feature a few other graduate students this spring because they're our next generation of people that are gonna sit on these panels.

So Tim, you're gonna host on the 23rd.

Folks, thank you for watching and thank you for supporting Montana PBS.

It's been a pleasure of a night.

Have a good week and good night.

- [Announcer 6] For more information and resources, visit montanapbs.org/aglive.

(bright music) - [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 and Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery and Landscaping, and the Gallatin Gardeners Club.