- [Narrator] "Montana Ag Live" is made possible by (upbeat music) 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, the Gallatin Gardeners Club, and the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

- Good evening.

Welcome to another edition of "Montana Ag Live," originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over your Montana public television system.

Hello, I'm Jack Riesselman, retired professor of plant pathology.

Happy to be your host this evening.

Got a real interesting program tonight, and I tell you the phones are going to be ringing, so start early.

We have the Critter Ritter with us tonight, and that is Stephen Vantassel.

He's joining us from Lewistown.

He's a vertebrate pest specialist for the Montana Department of Agriculture.

And every time we have Stephen on the program as a guest, that phone lights up.

So if you have questions tonight about all those little critters that may be causing you some problems, here's a good chance to get them asked.

But before we go there, let me introduce tonight's panel.

Smiley down there, Uta McKelvy.

She's always got a great smile.

So she's our plant pathologist this evening.

If you have questions about diseases on gardens, crops, anything, good chance to get them answered tonight.

Of course, everybody knows Jane Mangold.

She is our invasive pest specialist, also known as a weed scientist.

- Yep.

- Okay.

Stephen Vantassel joins us via Zoom from Lewistown.

I mentioned that.

We'll come back to Stephen in a little bit.

Abi Saeed, Abi is our horticulturalist.

She's full of all the information you need about garden plants, household plants, plants in general.

So get those calls in early tonight because I guarantee you that phone's going to start ringing once we get into some of the pest problem.

Cheryl Bennett and Nancy Blake will be answering the phones tonight.

So one of them is not busy.

Get on the phone and get started.

Stephen, tell us about yourself.

- Well, as you said, I'm the vertebrate pest specialist.

So what that means is I help people resolve conflicts with the animals with a spine.

So ground squirrels, pocket gophers, prairie dogs, unprotected birds, and the like.

So happy to hear from you.

And so definitely reach out to me, to teach, to give presentations, I do on-phone consultations and publications as well.

So reach out.

- Stephen, I'm going to reach out with the first question, this is my own question.

How come we have so many voles in Montana?

- Well, voles are an animal that feeds all the other carnivores, so it's tough being a vole.

So they have rapid reproductive rates.

So we have about eight species in the state, but only four have any real economic impact.

So that's just the way voles run.

And so they're like rabbits, except a lot smaller.

- And boy, and they can be hungry with a lot of snow on the ground.

- [Stephen] They sure can.

- We had a question come in last week that I'll throw by you now.

A lady from the Paradise Valley area, Livingstone to be exact, wanted to know whether or not coyotes are more beneficial, and we're not talking about sheep ranchers now, but they're more beneficial in controlling rodents in the state than they have a reputation of.

So what do you set on coyotes?

- Yeah, well, basically speaking, predators only really moderate the spikes in population.

They're not really going to manage the population to places where individuals want, for example.

So if you're dealing with a un-human-impacted environment, then the coyote will do its thing.

But when we have to produce crops for human consumption, of course, and the feeding of things that we're interested in, then coyote is not going to resolve that problem.

Same way with things like barn owls.

They can help.

They only help in the margins, not in the main park.

- Okay, is it true that if you have a lot of coyotes, they keep the fox and raccoon population down?

- They can, because the foxes are going to be moved toward denser cover to have a place to run away from the coyotes.

So coyotes will predate on other carnivores.

As far as their impact on raccoons, we don't have a lot of raccoons in Montreal.

I would think as our population grows, that number will increase, but I would think that coyotes will impact raccoons as well.

But again, probably more in the marginal areas.

- Okay, we'll come back to you because the questions already started coming in.

I'm going to run over to Abi here.

And this was sent in by Karen Wandell and she sent some really nice photos.

And if we could bring up photo number 711, which is a quaking aspen, they want to know what's going on with it.

And Abi, you might be able to start talking about what is going on with that.

- Yeah.

So from the picture we just looked at, it looks like it could be either poplar borer or it could be cytospora canker.

And I'll have Uta kind of talk about what to look for to differentiate the two.

But usually for poplar borer and cytospora canker when trees are really stressed out, that's when they're more susceptible to these issues.

And when it's on the main trunk like you see on the picture, there isn't too much you can do if it is something like cytospora canker.

So that could be an issue.

And I would.

Yeah, uta, what would they want to look for to differentiate?

- Yeah, so for cytospora canker, which is a disease, you would want to be looking for these coral colored pimples that would emerge around that oozing cankerous area.

So if you saw that, I would say that's probably cytospora canker.

If you don't see that, I guess I would start looking for these kind of frass like that.

How would you describe it?

- [Abi] Sawdust kind of.

- Yeah, sawdust kind of material.

Thanks, Abi, that aspen borer kind of produces as they're chewing on the tree.

So that would be a starting point for me too.

- Yeah, and if you're unsure, take good high-resolution pictures of the staining and you can send that to Schutter Lab, and they can see if you have that issue.

If it is in fact cytospora canker and it's on the main trunk like that, I would probably recommend cutting down that tree.

- The sooner the better, so you reduce the chances that it will move into some trees that aren't affected yet.

- Exactly.

- Okay, thank you.

- I have a follow-up question.

Will something like that stimulate suckering then or like sprouts coming from the aspen itself?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

Yeah, anything that will, although aspens will naturally produce these sprouts from their root systems, anything that further stresses it out might encourage more of those.

And so, yeah, you potentially could spread this beyond your currently affected tree.

- Like Abi pointed out, whether it's canker or it's the borer, both of those are favored by stressed plants.

So making sure these plants get adequate water and nutrition will be really helpful to prevent this in the future.

- Okay.

I have a question about potential invasive weeds and I know there was a big meeting in Helena this past week talking about invasive species.

Jane, this person from Corvallis would like to know, are there any new serious potential weed problems that you're aware of that may be moving into Montana?

- Yeah, well, that's a great question.

It kind of depends where you are in the state, because we have some high-priority species for the state that are on the state noxious weed list.

We call them early detection, rapid response.

I think there's like four or five of them that the state has identified.

One that I think of, if the person's calling from Corvallis, is rush skeletonweed.

It is a rangeland species, but it does have the potential to impact cropping systems.

If it gets into cropping systems.

There is rush skeletonweed, like in the southern end of the Bitterroot Valley.

And also kind of it's showing up more and more in the Missoula area and up into Lake County.

So, I mean, that's one that comes to mind.

We've always, for many years been on the lookout for yellow star-thistle.

Yeah.

There's always at least 10 species or so that we're keeping our eyes on.

Some of those species are on the state noxious weed list and we're trying to keep them contained to small parts of the state.

Others are not yet in the state and we're just on the lookout for them.

Palmer amaranth is a great example.

So, yeah, there's always species on the horizon that we are doing work on and trying to let people know how to identify those.

So if they show up, we can get on them early.

- We'll do that in a minute.

I've got a quick question here for Stephen.

Stephen, this person has a juniper bed and a lot of the junipers they believe have been girdled by rabbits.

How would you prevent that?

And how do you know it's rabbits and not voles?

- Sure.

Well, with rabbits, a couple of ways you can tell is the height of the damage that's occurring.

Typically, of course, voles, being very small, are only going to be able to get up as high as the snow would allow them, unless they're climbing on the branches where a rabbit can get up on its hind legs.

But typically with rabbit damage, you're going to notice those small, round droppings that would be placed where the rabbit is gnawing.

So that's how you'd be able to tell the difference.

They look like, I used to eat Kix as a cereal, Kix cereal, when I was a child.

And so it looks about that size, except they're usually black.

How would you prevent it?

I'm a big fan if it's rabbit damage.

I'm a big fan of fencing.

All you really need is some chicken wire.

And of course, people don't like the way that looks.

Then use a prettier fence or paint the fence black, flat black.

And it often will blend in from a distance where you don't see it.

And just be sure it's two to three feet above the snow line that you would have and protect your plants from that.

- Okay, I'm going to disagree with you.

I'm a big fan of fried rabbit, especially cottontail, which I think is another good way to take care of them.

Am I correct?

- Lethal control can certainly help to be sure.

- Okay.

- But it's like Stephen said earlier, you're ever gonna just operate on the margins of a population, Jack.

- Yeah, you're right.

So while we're getting to some other questions, I have a picture.

I think it's photo 718 of a tree that's been girdled.

I want to see what Stephen thinks caused it.

If we can bring that up in a minute.

Meanwhile, horsetail fern, it lights up.

- That could certainly be some vole activity.

I would also want to rule out rabbit as well.

Believe it or not, I've heard of deer actually doing some work like that, but it's a little low, so I would think that that would be rabbit or vole.

I'd like to get a closer shot to look at any of the teeth marks.

So with voles you're going to have very, very tiny teeth marks, probably up to 2 millimeters wide, and they're going to be at various angles where a rabbit, of course is going to have significantly wider incisors than 2 millimeters.

And so that would be another way.

And of course looking for the droppings would be the other clue.

- Stephen, that picture was taken at the Bozeman YMCA just this afternoon, and I saw no signs of rabbits.

But I've never seen voles girdle that big a tree before.

It just goes to show that if they're hungry.

- Yeah, I have a photo of them going after some where they had some damage of Russian thistle that occurred.

So that which I think the bark would almost be too thick for that.

But you know, if push comes to shove anything you can do to eat, do it.

Yeah, there you have some, probably some good rabbit damage there.

It depends again on how high the snow line.

Typically, vole damage only goes as high as the snow line.

It can occur higher than that, but that's typically, as a rule of thumb would only go as high as the snow line.

Of course, rabbits are going to be able to stand on their hind legs and girdle up even higher.

- Stephen, I have a follow-up question.

Are there some habitat considerations that you can do in your home gardens, like ways to reduce these issues?

- Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

For voles, the key for voles is to get rid of ground cover.

Ground voles need cover to keep them from being exposed to predators, so it's a psychological barrier.

It also removes their habitat.

So you can use stones.

You want to get rid of the vegetation.

You never want to have grass growing taller than it can stand vertical.

Once it starts to lean over, the grass is getting too long.

So that can be a huge, huge thing right there.

But when you're around trees, you want to be sure you create a weed-free zone around that tree, ideally out to the drip line.

And so I'll leave that in terms of your recommendation.

I'm a big fan of rocks, but that may not always be the best thing for the tree.

It may create too much heat for them perhaps, but you want to make sure there's low, no food availability for them.

You want them exposed as they're going to that.

So those are two key things.

Oh, and lastly, bird feeders.

You want to modify your bird feeders so you don't have seed coming to the ground.

Just Google name and there's with bird feeders and you'll have a publication that will give you really easy tips to use to make sure that food's not reaching the ground.

- [Jack] Excellent, yeah.

- Sorry.

While we're on it, you know we've seen two pictures of a tree and a hedge type growth with feeding damage.

So like what are the odds of either of those surviving or recovering?

So for the tree, do you know if it's all the way around or is it just partially chewed on?

- The one at the YMC is completely girdled.

So that tree needs to be removed and replaced.

- So the rule of thumb is if it's like eaten all around, then the tree's probably gonna be done for sooner or later.

- And if it's an apple, it's great for smoking.

- Okay, good.

- Cottontails.

- Does that go well with the rabbit?

Yeah, okay.

- All right.

I started asking Jane a question earlier.

Horsetail fern and gardens.

You know what it is?

- [Jane] I don't know what that is.

- I'm not familiar with it either.

You know this would be a good chance to send a picture in.

- Yeah, it makes me think.

I mean we often get questions about horsetail, equisetum, - [Abi] I think that might be what they're talking about.

- Which kind of has ferny leaves when it does leaf out.

I am not, I've never had anybody ask me about that in a garden setting.

- And don't they like a lot of moisture?

- They do.

- They like those riparian areas.

So I would say if you have that, first of all, have it confirmed, and you know, send a picture to the Schutter Lab.

But if it is that, that could be a moisture management issue maybe if there's too much moisture, that's allowing that to grow.

But I don't see horsetail in a home garden setting much either.

- Okay, yeah, and I would agree with you, Abi, that it's probably excess moisture, and I would try managing it through the moisture management, because if it is the equisetum, it's not easy to control mechanically or chemically.

- All right, thank you.

Quick one for Abi.

When should they put out wasp traps?

- I would put out your wasp traps, well, depending on where you are in the state right now, if you're expecting the snow or not, but usually early May, you want to catch the queen western yellow jacket wasps.

And the active ingredient you're looking for is heptyl butyrate.

So you want those baited wasp traps that have that chemical in them.

Put them up in early May so you're not missing, as soon as we have a few really warm weeks, they're going to be active.

- So I was looking at my asparagus this afternoon, and believe it or not, I saw a wasp on the ground out there.

So they're active already.

- Yeah, so I would get them out there as soon as possible.

Catching the workers is not as effective as catching the queens.

- Abi, what do they do when it's supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow?

What do they do to escape the cold temps?

- Yeah, so often insects will maybe burrow under leaf litter or under kind of the top couple layers of soil, if they're softened, they might hide underneath branches and, like, around weedy vegetation.

So they usually find places to hunker down.

But when we're talking about yellow jackets, if they're already active, they're in those ground nests, so they go underground to escape from those temperatures.

- Okay, you'd have a question for you in a minute, but I got a quick one from Roscoe for Stephen.

They have woodpeckers that are attacking his house.

How do you discourage them?

- Yeah, so woodpeckers are a federally protected bird under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

So the way you want to deal with woodpeckers is, first of all, harass them.

You can use Mylar tape placed around where they're pecking.

If you're able to prevent them from getting inside of the house, inside the structure, you want to make sure they're not creating a nest.

If they haven't created the nest and laying eggs there, you can just simply block off those openings.

And you want to block them off as soon as possible, because the theory is, as your house becomes more riddled with holes, it actually becomes more attractive to other woodpeckers because they're wondering, it's like a signpost saying, "Hey, come over here and check this out."

So you want to make sure you fill those holes before they're being occupied and before they lay eggs.

- Flickers do the same thing, don't they, Stephen?

- Flickers is the same thing.

Yeah, the same principle.

You want to use those, that Mylar tape, and just basically get a foot long, because the motion of it and also the reflection of sunlight off of it is really good.

Don't bother really with owls unless you're dangling the owl so it will blow in the wind and then it becomes a motion frightening method.

And you say, if he moves, just keep adding more Mylar tape.

It can be quite a struggle.

And if it gets too bad, then you get a permit to use lethal force.

- So my sister in Omaha had called in, and she wants to know they have a wild turkey that is camping on their front doorstep and on their back doorstep and leaving somewhat of a mess.

It seems to be fascinated by itself there.

How do you get rid of that creature?

- Does she have a dog?

- No, she's not a good dog owner.

- Can she borrow a dog?

- Probably.

(laughs) - That would be my first suggestion.

And I would hope that there's no food there for the, because we had a situation in one of our major cities in the state where they had a similar problem, except they were flocking on this poor person's house and one of the neighbors was feeding them was what was report that I heard.

So I would say if she can get like a big dog, something 30, 40 pounds, and just leash it, you don't want the dog chasing.

You don't want the dog chasing the bird, because again, that's a game species in Nebraska.

So you don't want it to catch the bird, you just want it to frighten the bird.

Maybe we can recondition that bird to move on.

- You know, it's funny, I think they kind of, either they like the heat or they like to see themselves.

Kind of a mirror situation.

- Yeah.

So if there's pecking on a window, an easy way to stop that is sometimes just put some paper over the window or shine a light through the window so they can't see the reflection.

Or you could even take some soap and just put some soap over the window.

And then that prevents them from seeing the reflection because it gets a territorial thing.

Then just take a garden hose and just wash it off.

- Okay, now she knows.

Thanks, Stephen.

Uta.

A question from Gallatin Gateway came in via email.

They've noticed that pine trees on the mountain slopes in the Gallatin River Valley appear reddish brown.

And I've seen that also, especially this spring.

All affected trees seem to be at a specific elevation.

You have any idea what's going on?

- Yeah, so that sounds like it could be red belt, which is an abiotic disorder.

It's happened at quite different places across the state.

So what happens, the theory, anyway is it's like when we have a weather situation that creates inversion where we have, like, a warmer air layer on top that traps the colder air below.

And so at that layer on the slope where it's warm, the trees are basically transpiring, using up water, but they can't refill from the bottom where it's cold.

So it's your classic, basically, winter burn.

It just looks a little bit funny because you have it specifically at an elevation where those layers meet.

So that shouldn't be anything lethal.

The plants should recover, because normally the buds are more protected, but so it's something to keep an eye on.

A closer look at a tree, as a rule of thumb, you could say if you have that discoloration starting at the bottom of a tree, moving up, it's more likely a disease.

But in this case, it seems to be more in a crown.

So that suggests more of an abiotic issue.

- [Jane] So it's desiccation.

- Basically, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, I've been noticing it's on the Bridgers, just west and north from where the fire was a couple years ago.

Yeah, there's this band of bread.

- Okay, we learned something.

- Now I know.

- All right, thank you.

Back to Stephen.

And this one I can also relate to.

This came from Florence.

The caller asked how she can get rid of skunks that are digging under her shed.

She also has an unknown critter digging a large hole under her electric box.

Probably a skunk, too.

- Could be.

We are getting into some ground squirrel season, so she might have three.

When she says large, it doesn't give me an idea of scale in terms of how large that would be.

But in terms of the skunk, she has a couple of options.

I have a publication on skunk control that I would encourage her to download.

But let me kind of from our website, the Montana Department of Ag.

It's on my page.

So just look up Stephen Vantassel, it'll show up.

Then what she'd want to do is to either she can trap it or she can try to harass it to get to have it leave.

If she's going to harass it, then basically just keep back filling the hole with loose soil each day until it moves along.

Trapping is a whole lot faster, but it would take a little bit of time for me to explain the process.

I would encourage you to download that publication and follow the steps, because there is a process with skunk trapping, and if you kind of cut a corner, there may be an incident (panelists laughing) that you're not going to be prepared for.

- So, Stephen, I ran into this issue under a duck blind where it's kind of annoying to hear the skunk on it or the blind while you're there with your dogs.

I've been told that you can use a live trap, and you can pick up that live trap and find a water hole and feed the fish and not get sprayed.

Is that true?

- Yes.

I would want to be sure that you would cover the trap.

So I never encourage people to set cage traps without covering the trap.

So typically you want to cover it 50% of the length.

The reason for that is because a lot of people are shocked when they set a trap, let's say, for a squirrel and a skunk comes inside, you want to be prepared that way, when the skunk is inside, you have a blind spot to approach the trap, and then you use another cloth to cover over the rest of it.

Then if you're gentle with it, you can pick it up and it won't spray, as a general rule.

And then you'd want to put it in the back of your truck.

But understand, just because he can't see doesn't mean he can't spray.

It's just skunks don't like the odor any more than humans do.

And so as long as you're gentle and kind of typically speaking, skunks won't spray unless they feel very threatened.

But so there's that process.

There's no guarantee it won't spray.

It's just highly unlikely that it will spray.

- I'm not going to chance it.

- Well, that would be fine.

There are people who do it professionally as well.

- I understand that.

Okay, thanks, Stephen.

From Lakeside, caller asks how to get rid of mullein weed on her property.

- Yeah, Mullen.

Well, Mullen's one of those species that actually really responds well to mechanical control.

You can dig that out.

It has a pretty hefty tap that you can pop out of the ground.

Even if you can't get out of the ground, if you can spade the root an inch or two below the surface of the soil, that will kill the plant.

So I would encourage the viewer to do that, like now when you have rosettes or it's gonna start growing, bolting upright, doing that sooner than later while the ground's still kind of soft as well.

So if it's reasonable, it's not mullen over acres and acres, and you can do it mechanically, that would be my first recommendation.

If there's just too many plants over too big of an area to do that, there are herbicides that are very effective on it.

You can even use 2,4-D early in the season.

Products that contain metsulfuron also work.

It's a very hairy plant, so you want to make sure you're using a good surfactant to help that herbicide make good contact with the leaves.

- Okay, I want to do something.

Last fall, the last program, we had a question about lichens.

And really, none of us on the panel knew a lot about lichens.

So this spring, on a recent issue of "Montana Outdoors," there's an article in there by Tim Wheeler from the University of Montana Ecology and Evolution Department that shows what lichens are.

They're actually a combination of algae, and in many cases, a fungus or bacteria, cyanobacterium.

I come to find out that there's over 1,200 species of lichens in the state of Montana.

So if you don't take "Montana Outdoors" and you're interested in a lot of scientific stuff, they really cover a lot of nice stuff.

Their editor, Tom Dixon, who I know quite well, just retired, but the May issue, last May issue, has a lot to do about lichens.

And also, I did not know, but there's 15 species of owls in the state of Montana, and they're all covered in there, and I can't recognize most of them.

Stephen, back to you.

- Okay.

- This caller would like to know, from Corvallis again, how to get rid of voles without using poison.

- Well, at the risk of sounding a little sarcastic, the way to do that would be to pave your lawn.

(show members laughing) So if your lawn is asphalt and concrete, you won't have any voles.

And so the reason I have to phrase it that way is because the prolific nature of voles, their reproductive capacity, you're never going to get rid of voles.

Our goal should be to look at managing them so they're not suffering the damage.

We're not going to get rid of them.

And I hope you don't pave your lawn, and I hope you don't do that.

But the reality is that most people don't understand the time to really control voles is when they're doing the damage in the wintertime.

So you want to control your voles in the fall before the winter hits.

So sometime around October, and then when you knock that population down as they move into the winter time, you have fewer voles doing damage to your plants.

But also the weather in and of itself is knocking that population down even more.

So the time to, I know people see the damage in the spring, but the damage actually occurred over the wintertime.

Once you start getting green up, you're not going to really see new damage unless the numbers of voles are quite high.

So traps would be one way to go about it.

And also doing the habitat modification, and there are some mouse traps you want to use expanded trigger traps for those.

And you can just simply use them without bait, place them perpendicular to the trails that you see and have the vole simply walk onto the trigger.

And yes, they'll do that and just line them up and you'll just catch them as they're running along.

And there are other larger traps to deal with them as well.

- Okay, thank you.

We have many more calls for you, Stephen, but I'm going to throw one over here to Abi.

And this came in via email this past week.

It's a great question.

It's from Fort Benton.

Their question is, why do seeds germinate faster and more successfully in some planter mixes than others?

They go on to say a bunch of things, but they in the end say, "Last year I had good luck starting seeds and less expensive planter mix made in Polson, Montana."

You have any thoughts on that?

- Yeah.

So I'm thinking when we're having issues with seed germination, that planter mix is not necessarily the main factor that could be going on.

A lot of times, depending on the plants that we're trying to seed, that heat of the soil, you need a very specific temperature of the mix or the soil that you're trying to seed them in.

And if they don't reach that temperature threshold, you may not have germination.

And so it could potentially be that.

So looking at what temperatures the specific plants you're trying to seed require for germination, those heating mats that you can get that plug in to the wall, they can help heat those planters on too.

And then if you have any sort of mix that you're not sure about and you might have issues with, it's also helpful to do a bioassay if there's any kind of concern with any sort of herbicide residual or anything like that.

So growing something like peas in there, seeing if there are any issues with that germination can help.

But I think that this could be more of an issue with the seedling germination.

So either the seed quality or the seeds weren't didn't survive, or they were older, or it could be the temperature.

- Okay, thank you, Jane.

I'm not ignoring you tonight.

What's that beautiful ornamental plant that you have?

- Yeah, well, I brought a weed with me tonight that is one of the first weeds to show up in the spring.

It's really teeny, tiny.

Oh, good.

It's showing up pretty good.

This is bur buttercup.

It's a non-native annual.

You can probably see how small that is, how shallow the roots are.

Has little teeny-tiny yellow flowers.

Shows up very early in the spring, usually in disturbed areas.

And you know, it's actually really a cute little plant right now, but as it matures, it's going to get a hard burr on the tip of it.

And that is not a friendly burr, when you're walking through lawns or walking across kind of open spaces where there's some of this growing previously.

It'll flower for about three or four weeks before it forms that burr.

And it's not friendly at all.

I have encountered this in the field when I'm crawling around in the sampling, and it really hurts.

So unfortunately when it gets to that point is when people notice it, but they really, if they want to do something about it, they need to be doing something about it right now.

- [Jack] Roundup, glyphosate?

- [Jane] Probably, I can't actually remember.

I probably should have looked that up before.

(panelists laughing) - [Jack] I'll hold you to that.

- But if you don't have very much of it, I mean, this pulls out of the ground really easy.

You could do some mechanical control.

But yes, if you are going to spray it, I think it's Roundup or a 2,4-D product.

And getting it now.

Once it starts maturing, the herbicide's not gonna touch it in time.

- Do you think you can rake it right out of the ground with just a rake or do you need to dig into it a little bit?

- You might need to dig into it a little more than just a rake.

Yeah.

- Back to Stephen, I like this one, from Missoula.

You ready?

Caller lives next door to a 20-acre pasture.

Last year there was an invasion of ground squirrels.

The grizzlies came in, I think they mean the four-legged kind, to feed on them.

Is there anything due to get rid of the ground squirrels?

- Yeah.

So here's where it becomes tough for you as a homeowner is that is we don't have any rodenticides that are permitted on residential lawns.

We do have an ignitable gas cartridge that's allowed on residential lawns, but you'd have to use that on each individual burrow.

So the real, the easier answer would be to try to talk with the landowner on and try to see if they're willing to use rodenticides or to allow trapping to occur on that field.

You know, there, now you're starting to attack the problem before it gets to your residential area.

You also can trap on your property.

I'm a big fan of the GT2006 trap.

It's built out of Canada, and I have a whole publication on Colombian ground squirrels.

I also have one on Richardson ground squirrels.

So that is where your answer really lies is trying to either just take care of them once they cross the border into your particular property with trapping or with ignitable gas cartridges or try to work with your neighbor to see if we can reduce the population there.

You want to do it soon, because we're going to get into the birth pulse in June and then the population is going to jump up about another 300%.

- Okay, Stephen, thank you.

While I have you up, this person has pigeon problems.

They keep nesting on the second floor window every year.

Solutions?

- I'm a big fan of spikes are very convenient for people to install.

That's certainly one.

There's also a product called BirdSlide that's from Bird Barrier.

There are other products out there that are similar.

Basically it's a 45-degree angle attachment that you would place on the ledge and it becomes too smooth for the pigeons to get perches, and they slide off from it.

And so that's something that's very easy to install.

You probably could do it right outside of your window.

So either bird spikes or using BirdSlide.

And then of course there's always trapping and the lethal control.

But that's going to take a little bit more time and involvement than probably what you want to do.

But the easiest solution would be to put in the BirdSlide or bird spikes.

- Have you ever tried squab?

- I have not.

- It's pretty good.

- Is it really?

Yeah, well, pigeons have a long history of working with humans.

And there you go.

Dove coats were a huge source of protein for humans for hundreds of years.

- Jack, I'm surprised, on the turkey question from your sister, you didn't say anything about wild turkey.

We've had cottontail, squab, turkey.

- Turkey eats good.

- It does.

(show members laughing) - There's no doubt about that.

But that's a long ways to go.

- For a turkey.

- For a turkey dinner.

Okay, Jane, question about, this individual has thistles in their pasture, and they know there's some native thistles.

They know there's some bad thistles.

They want to know how to identify certain thistles and which ones need to be controlled other than Canada thistle weed.

- Yeah.

So in Montana, we actually have five exotic thistles, including Canada thistle, and there's actually 10 native thistles, which are really beautiful plants that provide really important ecosystem services, like for pollinators and wildlife use On the screen right now there's a publication that Montana Extension has.

It's a guide to identifying the exotic thistles in Montana and how to differentiate them from the natives.

So I would encourage the person to get a copy of that publication.

It is available digitally online, but you can also get copies.

Check out your local extension office, and they'll get you in touch with that.

I mean, it's fairly easy to differentiate the five exotics from the natives.

If you want to get into native thistle identification, it's a little more difficult, but that's probably, the person's probably less concerned about what the native might be.

More so just is it one of the weedy exotics?

- Are there a lot of, I see thistles around.

I call most of the big ones musk thistles.

I'm probably wrong there, but they don't do a lot of harm, do they?

- The exotics?

- Yeah.

- It's probably open for debate.

So for the big, like the huge biennial taprooted thistles, we have musk thistle, bull thistle, scotch thistle, and then plumeless thistle is less common.

They all kind of grow similarly.

They like disturbed areas.

So you'll often see them in, there's a picture of musk thistle there.

You'll often see them in overgrazed pasture or maybe pasture that has a lot of rodent activity where you have loose soil.

They'll be along roads.

I mean, I see a lot of thistles along the roads into the public lands.

They like to disturbance, but they're less inclined to move into non-disturbed areas.

And if you see a thistle in an area that looks like pristine vegetation, high elevation, it's probably a native.

You know, the exotics don't really get into non-disturbed areas, and they actually, I mean I've seen a lot of pollinators on musk thistle in particular.

- Bumblebees really like the thistle.

- They do, yeah.

And they like the native thistles too.

So if you're going to manage a thistle, make sure you're managing the exotic and not taking out those natives.

- Okay, sounds good.

Thank you.

Uta, this is an interesting question.

Caller is asking how to learn about mushroom foraging and where to go and what to look for.

So any suggestions?

- [Uta] Where to go to find the mushrooms or to learn about them?

- [Jack] Yeah, nobody's going to tell them where to find them.

(panelists laughing) We know that.

But there is a mushroom club here in Bozeman I believe.

- Okay, yeah.

I mean, in past years I would have said, "Get in touch with Cathy Cripps," but she is retired and the new mycologist is still inbound, so give him another year, and he'll probably lead that.

So honestly I actually don't know about courses or classes that are going on right now, but I do know that retired, now retired mycologist Cathy Cripps, she wrote a book about, I actually don't recall the title properly.

It's like "Mushrooms of the Rocky Mountains," something like that.

And you can get that at, well, I know in Bozeman you can get it at the Country Bookshelf, for example.

So I have that at home and that's what I take foraging.

So I would really recommend that, because it's written by a local person.

So I understand there's a lot of false friends.

Like when you have like a general mushroom in the US book.

The Rocky Mountains or Montana are a very specific geographic region and there is a lot of look-alikes.

And so then once you go foraging and you find specimen and you're not quite sure what they are, know that the Schutter Diagnostic Lab does offer identifying species, but don't bring us your entire forage of 30 plus specimen, maybe limited to the top three, five at most that you really want to know about.

And we can help you identify them and let you know whether they're safe to eat if that's your question.

- And we're rapidly approaching yellow morel season.

In fact I have picked them in late April after a nice rain.

It's been a little cool yet, and Abi tells me we're due in Bozeman Pass to get nine inches of snow tonight.

So probably not be finding morels for a few days.

But we're approaching that time, and that's a pretty easy one to identify.

Although there is a false morel that is not deadly but can cause some gastrointestinal issues.

So be a little bit cautious.

Stephen, this person is interested in the ground squirrel question.

They're concerned that the ground squirrels on their property will be doing damage to the wires in their vehicles.

Is that common?

I think it's mainly rabbits, isn't it?

- Yeah, rabbits and mice.

I wouldn't rule it out.

I'm not sure it is a, I haven't heard that it's a major issue.

But rodents gnaw.

That's just what they do.

And so I wouldn't rule it out.

Animals have a tendency to make liars of us.

So the way to of course reduce that is try to control.

If you're concerned about that, control your ground squirrels at least 400 feet from where your vehicle is parked.

That would go a long way.

Could they travel farther than 400 feet?

Yes, but as a general rule it's a good cut off place.

But don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

If you can only do 100 feet, then do 100 feet to help reduce that and try to park your vehicle an area where that's highly exposed, and monitor, put it in the garage if at all possible or some sort of an exclusion area.

- Yeah, mentioned ground squirrels which are Colombian ground squirrels or Richardson's.

I think we have two species in the state, is that correct?

- Two primary species.

There's a third.

There's a third one we don't hear much about though.

Those are the two big ones that I deal with, Colombians and Richardson's.

- Do coyotes have a positive benefit on ground squirrels?

- Sure, they will predate on them, but again it's not going to manage the numbers to where people want them reduced to that level.

The coyote is going to be somewhat opportunistic and grab whatever it can get.

And if ground squirrel is available, absolutely, it will grab it.

What actually will do more damage on ground squirrels would be some of the falcons.

There's some birds of prey that can do a lot of work on that.

And so this is where raptor perches can do, some can be helpful there if people are looking for more natural ways of managing the population.

But believe it or not, letting the grass grow.

So this is one of those challenges.

If you don't like voles, you cut the grass.

If you don't like ground squirrels, you So pick your poison, so to speak.

So actually one of the reasons why ground squirrels could thrive is we sometimes some overgrazing, hard mowing can also give them.

They want to have those clean sight lines so they can see the predators that are coming for them.

- Stephen, let me ask you a question.

And this is an experience I had probably 25, 30 years ago.

A friend of mine and I were shooting gophers or ground squirrels over in the Wilsall area.

And we started about 9:00, 9:30 the morning, and we managed to hit a few of them.

But by noon we had probably 25 bald eagles in that field that we were shooting the gophers in or the ground squirrels.

How did they know?

How do they sense that there is a free dinner there?

- I don't know other than their incredible vision.

And maybe some animals are starting to learn that shooting, heavy shooting is a dinner bell.

You hear of hunters talking about when they're shooting in the woods, certain woods, they'll know that the bears and some of the predators know to come.

They know it's a dinner bell for them.

So maybe the eagles are learning the same thing, but with an animal that has such a large area and the vision that they would have, they could see the carcasses on the ground.

The concern there of course would be toxic shot would be obviously concern.

So when I talk to landowners about having shooting done on their property, perhaps having non-toxic shot as a way of reducing, because there can be a lot of lead on the landscape when you're doing a lot of shooting of ground squirrels.

- I agree.

And you know, back then we didn't think about that as much.

- Oh absolutely.

No, it's definitely something more new.

But it's a way to help, because lead can be really toxic to some of our avian species.

- Okay, good point.

From Carter, this person has two questions.

Abi, quickly.

Control apple maggot.

I assume they're talking about coddling moth.

- Well, there is also apple maggot which is a fly pest.

So kind of confirming that.

I would go to the Western Agriculture Research Center website and they have a really great apple maggot control and codling moth control information And feel free to reach out to me if you have more questions.

But confirming which it is would be great.

- [Jack] The other question they have is they'd like to germinate bur oak acorns how would you do that?

I've been curious about that myself.

- Yeah.

So I've seen kind of people have some success with trying to germinate it intentionally, but I'm not an expert on this, so I'm going to have to look into that.

So follow up with me and maybe we can dig into the acorn question.

- [Jack] So next week.

- I will be here, I will know about.

- [Jack] And she'll have the answer.

- Yes.

- Okay.

Stripe rust, the wet weather that they've had in Washington, does that increase our potential?

- Yeah, that's what the latest report said, that the stripe rust risk now is higher than it was last year for the Washington area.

And I mean, anyway, in a Gallatin Canyon, we're always the last to plant stuff.

So it persists to be cold and wet.

So we're still kind of a little bit out from the crop season.

But you know, the stripe rust that's in Washington could easily move over into our state.

So it's worthwhile watching what's happening in Washington, Idaho, because that could tell us what's going to happen here in Montana.

So really, for those that have not planted yet, planting a moderately resistant or resistant spring weed variety would be a good choice.

Resistant to striped rust, that is, of course.

And then scouting your fields to look for active infections.

- Okay.

- [Jane] Does that travel on the wind?

- Yeah, thanks for that question.

Those spores are wind dispersed and they can travel quite long distances.

Yeah, so there are two pathways, so to speak, in the US how the rust spreads.

So one is from the Pacific Northwest and then eastward into Montana.

And then the other one is the rust surviving in the Southern US and Texas, et cetera, and then it travels up through the central Great Plains and can end up in Montana as well, yeah.

- Okay, thank you.

Question for Stephen.

It's more of a comment.

This person says that they use aluminum foil around the base of young trees to repel rodents.

Does that work or is there something better?

- Certainly, no, I think that certainly could work.

There are people that use often plastic shields around the base of trees.

Typically your smooth trees, your younger trees are going to be more vulnerable.

And some people just use the plastic rings around them.

But there's no reason why foil couldn't work.

Just it may not be as durable as some other products you make, but if it's working for you, I won't argue with it.

- Okay.

Another question.

Would it be better to mulch the base of trees with rocks instead of wood chips to keep voles away?

- I think so.

If the rocks are smaller, you don't want large rocks because that's going to create gaps between the rocks.

I would go out no more than a 2-inch rock, but yes, it would go a long way.

Pea gravel would be another one.

That would certainly work.

But I would be concerned to talk to someone who's a plant specialist, like some of our guests, some of our panelists here, to talk about whether that would create a heat problem for the tree and whether it'd be for that particular plant species that - Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up, Stephen.

But yeah, having pea gravel or rock mulches around trees that are sensitive to heat and especially heat stress and moisture stress, that can be an issue.

And those trees can really be impacted by the heat reflecting onto them from this rock gravel.

So I'd be careful of using that, especially around younger trees, newly transplanted trees.

Those are often ones that are more susceptible to those issues and that could be a problem for them.

- Okay, here's a question I kind of like.

It's for Stephen.

I always like to put somebody on the spot when they're a guest.

(panelists laughing) Is there a plant that you can buy to plant in gopher holes whose roots would repel gophers?

- Yeah.

I don't know what the person means by a gopher, whether it means a pocket gopher or a ground squirrel, but the answer is no.

(panelists laughing) - I kind of thought that might be the answer.

Question for Jane from Bozeman.

They've heard me refer to Canada thistle as the Bozeman city flower.

They want to know a good way to reduce the population in Bozeman.

- Oh, well, Canada thistle or creeping thistle, you have to come at it with everything.

Mowing, herbicides, taking care of the, like having competitive vegetation around it.

There is no easy answer for Canada thistle.

We did, we reviewed all the literature on Canada thistle.

This is a paper we published several years ago now.

And the only way to effectively manage it or even reduce the populations was to integrate methods.

If you use a single method on its own, we have some bio control.

Now we have tilling.

Yeah, you gotta do it all.

- So I've never asked you this question, and now it's my turn to put you on the spot.

But you see all this flurry of seeds blowing around the valley here and many other areas of in the state.

What percentage of those seeds are viable and would actually produce a new Canada thistle plant?

- I don't have an answer to that, Jack.

It's not as high as we think it is.

Canada thistle is spreading more through its roots, like expansion of current populations.

Yeah, that's one I'll have to come back with the answer.

- [Jack] Next time you're on.

(chuckles) - [Stephen] Could I ask a question?

- [Jack] Sure.

- I have Canada thistle in my yard.

I actually think wonder, is it the perfect invasive plant?

Is it just like the alien of the plant world?

The alien.

Is it just the perfect plant?

- Yeah, it does everything right in order to grow.

I mean, you can go back in the records.

I think it was like 1860 is the first publication on like how to control Cirsium arvense.

- Wow.

- I agree with you, Stephen.

It's like the perfect, the perfect weed.

Got it all going on.

- Okay.

Stephen, I have a real quick one.

We're about out of time.

Person has a cabin and the pit layers.

There's a problem with small critters inside the cabin.

They want to know what they can use as safe or for other animals and get rid of these small creatures.

They probably got to figure out what they are first.

- Yeah, I would assume they're probably going to be a peromyscus or a deer mouse.

Could be white-footed mouse.

Same group of rodents.

The reality is, believe it or not, you can make your structure mouse proof.

It's tedious.

It takes a little bit of work.

My publication on mouse control.

The first thing you want to do is try to knock that population down with some traps.

More is better.

Traps are like money.

More is better.

Come in with a couple of dozens, and then try to work on hardening your structure and you give me a call.

We could talk about the process to do that to keep rodents from getting into the structure.

You want to be careful of hantavirus.

We do have that virus in the state, and we do have rodents that carry that.

- [Jack] Is hantavirus still a big problem?

- I don't think it's ever really a big problem numerically in Montana.

But understand, for a population of we only have, what, 1.2, 1.1 million people, we are like sixth in the country for the number of infections.

Comparing that with Arizona, which has a significantly higher population than us, so we are vulnerable to that.

- All right, thank you.

Folks, we've come down to another end of a very entertaining session.

Stephen, thank you very much for joining us this evening.

(upbeat music) I always learn something.

I don't disagree with you on most of them, but I still like fried cottontail better (panelists laughing) So next week, folks, we have Chloe Hinson, a grad student in the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant Sciences.

She'll join us and talk about spring wheat.

So join us again.

Have a good week.

Good night.

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

- [Narrator] "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, the Gallatin Gardeners Club, and the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(upbeat music)