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Ag Live is made possible

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of the College of Agriculture.

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& Barley Committee.

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And the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

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and fungicides

♪ And pesticides are old

♪ The veggies you are growing

♪ In your garden start to mold

♪ If the ants are attacking

♪ And you're having a hard time

♪ Call Montana Ag Live

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♪ and the old

bull's got an itch.

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♪ Montana Ag Live where are you?

- Good evening.

Welcome to Montana Ag

Live originating tonight

from the studios of KUSM

on the beautiful campus of

Montana State University.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired

professor of plant pathology.

I'll be your host this evening.

We'll have an interesting

show this evening

because we always have

a lot of questions

about vertebrate pests

and we've got a specialist

here tonight to answer them.

But before we start,

let me introduce

the panel this evening.

To my immediate left, you

all recognize Dave Baumbauer.

Dave is our horticultural

specialist tonight

and if you have questions

about bees also,

Dave knows an awful

lot about honey bees.

Next to Dave is

Laurie Kerzicnik.

Laurie is an insect pest

diagnostician here at MSU.

She does a wonderful job.

Questions about insects,

get them in tonight.

We'll go through them and

cover as many as we can.

Clain Jones next to Laurie.

Clain is a soil specialist,

extension soil scientist.

Clain's been here several times.

If you have

fertilizer questions,

anything like that this evening,

he'll be here to answer them.

And our special guest

tonight, Steve Vantassel.

Steve is with the Montana

department of Agriculture.

His specialty and

job description

involves vertebrate

pest specialties

and how to control

some of these pests.

And the people answering

the phone this evening.

From the left, Barb

Schaaf, Nancy Blake

and y'all recognize Don Mathre.

The phone hasn't

started ringing yet.

There's the number.

If you have questions,

get them in tonight.

We're gonna cover

a lot of questions

during the course

of the evening.

Before we start,

Steve tell us about

what you do for the

Department of Agriculture.

- Well I work with

producers and homeowners

and anyone who wants to

call and ask questions

about how to deal with

various vertebrate pests.

A lot of people don't know

what vertebrate pest means.

It's an animal with a spine.

So I don't do bugs

but I will help you

with raccoons, skunks,

squirrels, ground squirrels,

prairie dogs and

that sort of thing.

- Well we've always

had a lot of questions

and before we go any farther,

let's clarify something.

Everybody goes out with

their .22s this time of year

and plinks at gophers.

Tell us what gophers really are.

- Well gophers are

ground squirrels

so I like to try to get people.

So this would be an example of

a Richardson ground squirrel

and this is a Columbian

ground squirrel.

These are the two most

common ground squirrels

that we have in the state.

So these are the

ones that are really

bothering people so shoot away.

This is a terminal lead velocity

is a very good way of

controlling these things.

But the reality is that

it's gonna take some work

but if you're a good

shot, you can do a lot.

- [Jack] Which one of

the two is most common?

- Oh the Richardson

without a doubt.

It's about 2/3 of the state.

This guy is basically a Rocky

Mountain ground squirrel

so you have to be around

the Rocky Mountains

in order to have this one.

- Sounds good.

Alright we'll come back

to you cause I know

we're gonna have a

lot of questions.

We'll start with Laurie.

This question came in

from Missoula last week.

This person has a solitary

orchard with Mason bees

that rest in blocks with straws.

Does that make any sense?

- Yeah I think the

Mason's, maybe Dave knows,

I forget the exact

diameter that Mason bees

use but that would

make sense, yes.

- Well they seem

to have an influx

of parasitic insects

using these blocks

he's never seen before.

They wanna know

is that a function

of a warmer spring or of

warmer temperatures over time,

all these parasites showing up?

- I think they've

been there for awhile.

I don't know if Dave knows

a little bit more about that

but I think the

parasites are common

with native bees and honey bees

and I don't know exactly

what parasites those are

and how many the

native bees have

but I can definitely

get back with them too

on what those are.

- Her phone number

is on the screen

and she loves to take

calls from everybody.

So call her directly and she

can give you a better answer.

Steve, this came in from

Great Falls this evening.

They have a gopher

digging up a young tree,

what do they do with the

gopher to save the tree?

I think that's an

obvious answer.

- Well yeah, it would depend

if they were meaning gopher

as in a ground squirrel

or they mean gopher

as in pocket gopher.

So if it's a pocket

gopher, trapping,

if you're dealing with

just your own yard,

trapping is gonna

be a great solution.

You wanna try and find

the fresh mound activity

and get yourself a good pocket

gopher trap and trap it.

There's additional

information on how to do

all that in our bulletin

available online.

Go to the Montana

Department of Ag website.

But you'd wanna dig it

out, go to the main burrow,

set your trap, flag

it, use a metal wire,

anchor it with a surveyor's

flag and just check it.

You should be able to catch

it within a day or two.

- Sounds good.

Clain, from Wolf Creek.

Again this came in last week.

I'm not sure you're the

person that can answer this

but we're gonna give it a shot.

Is it possible that

there is mineral

in this person's well water

that is killing her trees?

They've lost two

young apple trees,

one fir and two blue spruce.

The water leaves a grayish

residue on the trees

and they water every evening.

That may give you a clue too.

- Certainly things in

irrigation water can kill trees.

The main thing would

be salts in general.

If you have too many salts,

the tree has to work

extra hard to pull up

the water out of the

salts essentially.

Gray, I'm more used to

white if it's salts.

- [Jack] It's probably

grayish white.

- Yeah so it might be salty.

I would have your water tested

and there's a number

of labs in Montana

that can test for salt in water.

- Irrigating every

day seems to me

maybe to be a little excessive,

what do you guys think?

Especially if it is salty water.

- Could be that they're

rotting off the roots

if it's over watered.

A lot of it depends

on the soil type

and newly established trees,

you wanna keep it moist

but it probably doesn't

require water every day.

- Maybe every third day

would be a recommendation.

- It just depends if

it's sandy or good soil.

Dave, this is

really not your line

but I think you can answer this.

What is the best product to

get rid of quack grass in lots?

- So that is a challenging task

because any herbicide that's

gonna kill quack grass

is also gonna kill your

Kentucky blue grass

or your grass lawn so you

can do some spot treatments

with glyphosate and then

be prepared to reseed.

Probably two weeks afterwards.

- I did it twice with Roundup.

Hit it once, watered it, waited

and then hit it again

and then reseeded.

- Cause it does have rhizome?

- It does have rhizomes and

you might not get them all

plus you're gonna

get other wheat seeds

that come up after that.

The other thing is you can

just take cotton gloves

and a plastic glove

under it and you know.

- You could rub it

on and that would

make the spot

smaller but basically

anywhere the glyphosate touches

is gonna have some impact.

- Jack, I've also

heard from Toby

at a talk recently

that annual crabgrass

is starting to

sneak into Montana

and there's some similarities.

How can people

tell the difference

between quack grass

and crabgrass?

- Well one of the

easiest ways for me

is crabgrass is not

as vigorous or as big

and does not have as wide a

leaves as the quack grass.

Crabgrass will succumb to

several crabgrass herbicides.

- [Clain] So get

it diagnosed first

what you have before you spray.

- Yeah, exactly, good idea.

Steve, from Corvallis, on the

western part of the state.

What can they do about

Columbian ground squirrels

in a pasture and we all

know that they are an issue.

- Well you have a variety

of things you can do,

everything from toxicants

down to trapping

to shooting so you want to,

if you're gonna use toxicants,

you wanna be sure that

they're actively feeding.

There are some anticoagulant

baits you can use.

Something like Rozol, if you

have a pesticide license.

If you don't, you

can try Ramik Green,

which is a general

use pesticide.

We have a 24C in it.

A 24C label allows

you to use the product

in ways the federal label

doesn't allow you to use

and I would also encourage

you to grab our bulletin

on Columbia ground

squirrels from our website.

But those are our

three main options.

You want to try, the females

should be coming out soon.

I was doing some trapping

of ground squirrels

about a week or so ago

and I thought I saw

some territorial chasing or

maybe some mating chasing

so now is going to be

a good time to hit them

before you have the young.

- Steve, why don't

raptors do a better job,

I guess, in controlling

ground squirrels?

- Yeah the issue

of raptors is that

if you have a really

efficient predator,

he's gonna eat

himself out of a job

and so they help

maybe reduce the rate

of increase of reproduction

but they're never

going to eliminate

your problem to a level

that you want it to be at.

So that's the challenge cause

if they're that effective,

they're gonna basically

starve to death.

- So on these anticoagulants,

how much do they have

to eat or how often

and what's kind of the,

how soon do they work?

- Well if an anticoagulant,

these are first generations

that require multiple feedings.

Generally they're gonna

take two to three days

of feedings before

they get a toxic dose

and so the fastest they

would die is day four.

But you can wait sometimes

out to a week or more

for them to get enough.

So that's how long

it's gonna take

if you're gonna be

using an anticoagulant,

at least four days

before they start dying.

- So you use a feeding station.

You have to have

this bait protected.

- Right, this would be

one that can be used.

The same one you use for a rat.

Put the bait inside, anchor

it down, put that bait in.

Remember it gonna

take a couple of days

for them to feel

comfortable enough

to get inside to start actively.

Then the dominant

squirrels are gonna prevent

the non dominants from feeding.

So then you got to

wait for them to die

and then the

subordinates come in.

- [Dave] So the

bullies go first?

- The bullies go first, yeah.

So you have to be patient.

So generally you should

start seeing results

in a couple of weeks.

- [Dave] Okay so keep

this up for a month?

- Yeah.

- It works better

when there's not as much

green vegetation out too.

- Absolutely, you

don't wanna have

any food competition

at all, if possible.

- So the earlier in

the year, the better?

- Yes or when things

start to brown.

But with Columbians,

they go to hibernation

pretty early so

Columbians are tougher

than Richardsons in that regard.

- Sounds good.

A comment came in from Bozeman.

Let's see what you

guys think about this.

Ground squirrels serve as a

major food source for raptors.

You were talking about.

If you shoot them, you

should not use lead shot.

Is that true?

- It would be helpful, maybe

more expensive for people.

You gotta make sure

your gun can handle

that kind of non toxic shot.

But if you are gonna use lead,

it's always better to

use non frangible bullets

and you'll reduce the

amount of lead poisoning

that would occur from

scavengers eating the carcasses.

- What does that

mean, non frangible?

Doesn't break up?

- Doesn't break up as much.

It's a more solid shot.

- So the anticoagulant,

is there a risk of

secondary exposure?

If a raptor eats-

- Yes there is.

So if that's a concern,

then you'd wanna start using

a zinc phosphide type bait.

Zinc phosphide has a

significantly lower risk

of secondary poisoning

with zinc phosphide

than the anticoagulant does.

But you're gonna need

to have, generally,

a pesticide license

to use your zinc

and it doesn't have

as much flexibility

for people who are home

owners or small acreages

cause zinc phosphide's

very toxic as an initial.

Whatever eats it initially

is gonna get hit.

- What about cats and dogs

that decide to have

a secondary lunch?

- Well the zinc phosphide

would be the choice

if that's a concern.

Otherwise, remember

that the anticoagulants

are weight based.

So the bigger the animal is,

the more it has to consume

and I would think

it's gonna take a lot

for a cat or dog to eat for

that to become a problem.

- Sounds good, thank you.

Clain, from Scobey.

Now I hear this a lot,

it's a good question.

Is there any reasons to

add nitrogen fertilizer

to pulse crops which

fix their own nitrogen?

- Alright so the pulse crops,

if you haven't heard that term,

are things like lentils,

peas, chickpeas.

We now grow about a

million acres of those

in Montana and generally

they're inoculated

with a bacteria that

resides on the roots,

forms nodules and takes

nitrogen out of the air

and puts it into the plant.

So generally you do not have

to fertilize with nitrogen.

There are a few exceptions

where, for example,

there's insects that eat

the nodules of the plant

and then you can end up

with nitrogen deficiency.

Sometimes early in the spring,

right as the plant's

getting going,

there's not a lot

of nitrogen there.

So a small amount applied

near the time of seeding,

five to 10 pounds, can really

give that plant a jump start.

- Okay sounds good, thank you.

We talked ahead of

time about pea weevils.

We're seeing more pea

weevils, as I understand,

in peas in this state

and I think most people

are now encouraging everybody

to use fungicide and

insecticide seed treatment

to give added protection

against the pea weevil.

Is that true?

- Yeah and the

bigger pest right now

is the pea leaf weevil

and then there's also pea weevil

but an insecticide

coat on the seed

can help really

reduce the numbers.

- Sounds good.

Laurie, from Helena.

This person has quote,

thousands of ants

in the area between the

foundation and her house.

Does she need to get rid

of them and if so, how?

- That could be, if

they're carpenter ants,

yeah she definitely would

need to get rid of those.

If they stay outside,

that's a good thing

but if they're carpenter ants,

they typically will start

outside and move in.

So I would really keep an

eye on the indoor movement

but there might just be

a food source right there

that they're concentrating on.

We got a lot of

field ants that end

kind of in that area there

but carpenter ants

are another story.

- Send some to you and

you'll figure it out.

- Yeah, it depends on

what ant species it is.

Sometimes it's a concern.

- Okay sounds good.

Steve, this came in from Bozeman

and I've lived around

Bozeman a long time to know

that we do have a lot

of voles in Bozeman.

This person says that traps

are too labor intensive,

rat poison did not work.

Is there a pesticide

or another method

that can be used to

prevent vole damage.

- Well with a lot

of vertebrate work,

it's not about using

the silver bullet tool.

It's about using

multiple tools together

at the right time

to get the effects

that you're looking for.

So I would be asking

questions about

have you done a proper

habitat modification?

One of my favorite phrases;

if you build it, they will come.

If you remove it, they will go.

So have you cut

the grass properly,

do you have a bird

feeder on your property?

Bird feeders are

just vole magnets.

So you're actually

creating a problem.

I have a publication

out there on the web

on how to modify

your bird feeder

so that food's not

reaching the ground.

Just google my name

with bird feeder

and it'll come up for you.

But otherwise you'd wanna think

about multiple lines of attack,

not just toxicants only,

not just habitat

modification only

but multiple lines of attack

and then you'll find.

Also you're dealing

with eruption.

We've had several

eruptions here in Montana

so this too shall pass

when the environmental

conditions start to change

but for long term control,

you need to start thinking about

the habitat modification

along with toxicants.

- I agree with that entirely

and a good dog that doesn't

like voles never hurt either.

Dave, from Bozeman,

when is a good time

to plant trees in a new yard

and do they need to amend the

soil and/or stake the trees?

- Well now's a really

good time to plant trees.

Probably for the next month

and you can probably get

more tree for your dollar

if you go to the garden center

and look for bare root trees

as opposed to those

that are potted up.

So trees typically

come one of three ways.

Bare root, just like it

sounds, the roots are exposed.

It was dug out of the

field when it was dormant

and its been stored

in the cooler.

Then there's containerized

trees in a nursery pot.

And then there's also

ball and burlap trees,

also dug to get a root

ball attached to it.

But you can probably

get your best value,

as far as you have

a certain amount

of money you want

to spend on trees,

by buying bare root trees.

Typically we say not

to amend the soil

unless it's extremely poor.

You don't want to create

that different kind

of physical boundary

between this amended soil

and your native soil.

And staking the

trees is a good idea

at least for the

first two years or so.

Until that tree gets establish

and protected from being

damaged from the wind.

- What diameter do you start

off with with bare root?

Or does it not-

- Well once again, the

larger the diameter

typically it costs more

but you get a larger tree.

So I would think

you'd wanna look

for that inch, inch and

a half at the smallest.

That's kind of a nice

size to work with.

- Okay question came

in from Big Timber.

We don't have a wheat

scientist on panel tonight

but we're gonna have some

in the next couple weeks.

They wanna know how to get rid

of cheat grass in

pastures, tune in.

I do know that there

are some herbicides

you can apply in the fall

that do a pretty good job

and we'll address those

in a couple weeks.

Steve, this is a

good one from Helena.

They want to know how

to get rid of foxes.

They have a family in a

culvert near the house

and it's getting

very aggressive,

becoming concerned about the

fox itself and their dog.

- Well without knowing

how big your dog is.

If your dog is over 20 pounds,

I doubt the fox is gonna be

much of a threat to your dog.

If you're looking to

get rid of the fox,

one of the things

you can do is try to,

you can harass it at

the location of its den.

So maybe taking some, if you

feel comfortable doing this.

I can't always predict

what an animal's gonna do

but foxes are pretty small

so you can take some water,

try to put some

water down the burrow

to get them to move and

if they feel spooked,

they're gonna move to

a different location

and that may be the simplest way

for you to resolve that

particular problem.

Otherwise you're looking

at trapping to remove that

so I would probably

suggest a box trap,

commonly known as a cage trap,

then you would bait

that with something

you think the fox would

like, like chicken,

and then just make sure

you're ready to catch a skunk

because people when

they use cage traps

always think that

the skunk doesn't,

the skunk can't read the sign.

So make sure you're

prepared to deal with that

and there's publications I

have for that as well for you.

- I'm told that

if you get a skunk

in one of these cage traps,

you can walk up to

it and pick it up

and put it inside of a

gunny sack and carry it off.

- You can depending on how

urbanized your skunk is

but I would recommend

people to be covering

their cage traps prior to

that particular problem.

So I always tell people to cover

your cage traps at least 50%.

That allows you a blind

side to come to the trap

so if you do catch a skunk

you can then cover

the rest of it

without being worried

about being sprayed.

- I think I would

probably look at

another solution for myself.

From Manhattan,

Clain, this person

has attended MSU

Field Days in the past

and they have a busy schedule.

They'd like to know

where they can find out

the schedule for the research

Field Days are this year.

- The College of Agriculture,

Montana Ag Experiment

Station site.

I think it's

agresearch.montana.edu

has the list of the six

field days for Manhattan,

the closest to the

Manhattan location

would be the Post Farm field day

which is Friday, July 7th

and it starts at eight am

at the Post Farm, four

miles west of Bozeman.

- Okay thank you.

From Helena, good question.

Please address

hantavirus and deer mice.

Do we have it in

the Helena area?

I know they have deer mice.

And should they be concerned?

- Yes whenever

you have deer mice

you should be concerned

about hantavirus.

The CDC is gonna be your

go to place for that.

But when I talk to

people about hantavirus

or any type of deer

mice, you wanna be sure

that you're never

sweeping up droppings.

You wanna make sure you're

treating the droppings

as potential vectors

of hantavirus

so you could use Lysol,

you could use 10% bleach.

You wanna mop up things,

you wanna air out the room.

But the CDC has some

very basic steps

of how you'd clean something up.

So never just simply

sweep up droppings

that look like mice droppings

because you don't know

if they're house mouse

or whether they're deer mouse

and we have deer mice

across the entire state.

So that's very important to

protect yourself from that.

- And they're pretty common

in forest service cabins?

That's where I always

worry about them.

- Oh yeah, we have

a very high rate

of hantavirus exposure

given our population size

in the state so

absolutely if you're,

I think that's why

we have such a high.

People have this cabin,

they go in the spring

to sort of clean it out

and I think that's where

they're exposing themselves.

So follow those

instructions from the CDC

and they're not

very complicated.

- Sounds good, good question.

From Billings, Dave and I

don't know this one myself.

What is vermicompost and how

and why do gardeners use it?

First of all, what is it?

- So vermicompost is

compost produced by worms

and you would use it,

it's fairly expensive

if you think about,

and it's worm droppings so

how much droppings is a worm,

it's a fairly labor

intensive process

so it's fairly expensive

and so it's commonly used

in seed starting mixes.

The interest in it is so many

of our seed starting

mixes are sold as sterile

or essentially sterile

and there's some research

to suggest that adding

a microbial component

so vermicompost is a pretty

clean way to do that.

That you're reintroducing

some microbial activity

to your potting mix

without the risk

of weed seeds or pathogens

or things like that.

- Now I know, I won't

have to ask again.

- When's your birthday, Jack?

I'll get you a bag.

- I can't remember any more.

From Bozeman, actually Madison

County questions, Steve.

This person wants to get rid

of badgers, any suggestions?

- Get rid of their prey.

No prey, no badger.

So if they're feeding

on ground squirrels,

control the ground squirrels.

If they're feeding

on pocket gophers,

remove the pocket gophers

and that'll get

rid of your badger.

That's gonna be the

easiest way to go.

- Sounds good.

Laurie, from Billings.

This person would

like a recommendation

on an insect field

guide suitable

for someone who is

a master gardener.

- I would recommend

Whitney Cranshaw,

there are a lot of

different field guides

but Whitney Crashaw has The

Garden Insects of North America

which it's a pretty thick book

but I think you can get

it for $25, $30 on Amazon

or wherever and he

actually is coming out

with a new edition so

if you could hold off

for just a little

bit, I would wait.

But you can go back to the host

and it'll describe the problems

and list all the insects

that are in there

and beautiful pictures.

I know he works

really hard on that.

That's my standard.

- I always like pictures

to identify things

and keys were always a

little foreign to me.

- Yeah that's very

user friendly.

That's the one I'd recommend.

- Okay sounds good.

From Laurel, Clain.

This person says it's

warmed up considerably

and I have seen in that area,

the spring wheat and

barley's up already.

But they have grass that

is really greening up.

I assume it's in a yard.

Should they fertilize

now or wait?

- I would wait.

This is Montana and

it could be cold

for the rest of April.

And generally turf grass

has a decent amount

of nitrogen to get that

turf through a few weeks

to maybe a month before

it needs fertilizer.

So I would probably

way until May.

I think now is a

little too eager.

- I agree, I don't like

to mow that much myself.

- Right, it does

create more mowing.

- Interesting question, Steve.

A visitor here from Boulder.

Welcome to Montana.

As I say visit but don't stay

but I don't really mean that.

No seriously we

welcome visitors here.

This person lives adjacent

to a lot of prairie dogs.

They're concerned about plague.

Is that a legitimate concern?

- Yeah it is.

Plague does affect prairie dogs

and also kills humans as well.

There was a recent death

in Colorado in 2015

where a 16 year old died.

The key there is

you can always treat

the prairie dogs for fleas,

is one thing that's

actually done

in some parts of the country

to protect black footed

ferrets for instance.

But the key is avoidance.

So fleas jump four inches,

I think that's correct.

So you wanna stay away,

don't be roaming around.

Also make sure your

pets aren't gonna be

roaming around in that

area because they could

bring the fleas

back to you as well.

And then monitor your health.

So if you're starting

to feel sick,

don't just assume it's the flu,

especially if you've seen

the prairie dogs disappear.

The prairie dogs could

disappear pretty quickly

when plague hits them,

in a couple of weeks.

So if you're

starting to see that

and you're feeling

sick, you need to

get to the doctor and tell

them plague is a possibility.

- While I have you up, we

have another question here

from Billings

concerning prairie dogs.

This person obviously

owns some ground

that they want to sell and

they would like to know

do they have to

move prairie dogs

and relocate them

before development?

He was told that

this is required

in many parts of

Colorado and Utah.

- Yeah, not in Montana, no.

You'd have to get

some permissions

to be moving

prairie dogs around.

So don't move

prairie dogs around

but you're allowed to certainly

remove them permanently

as we would say, if

you desire to do that.

- Okay sounds good.

Laurie, from Kalispell.

How do you get rid of stink bugs

in their house and porch?

No problems 20 years ago

and now they've

become a huge problem.

- So those probably

aren't stink bugs.

Those are probably

western conifer seed bugs

and they look a lot

like a stink bug

but they're really

bad home invaders.

We had a lot of seed

production on our conifers

so we had a huge western

conifer seed bug population

this year especially

up in Kalispell.

So I would just

try to wait it out

and they don't reproduce

inside the home

even though it seems like it.

So just vacuum them up.

They look kind of awkward

when they're in the house

and everything but they have

piercing, sucking mouth parts

but they not assassin bugs.

A lot of people think they are

so they really

don't bite humans.

So just try to

hold out this year

and I don't think we'll have

as high a population

this next coming year.

- You mentioned another bug

and we have a question

here from Winnett.

They have an infestation of

assassin bugs every spring.

Why and what do

they do about it?

- You might need to send

something in to Schutter Lab

to make sure that's

not an assassin bug.

Assassin bugs really do bite

and a lot of people

are really concerned

about assassin bugs and

they're also concerned

with the disease that they

vector called Chagas disease

and we don't have

the three species

that vector Chagas disease

but it'd be important

to try to figure

out what that is

but that might also be the

western conifer seed bug

because if you go

online, it looks almost

exactly like the assassin bug.

- Send them to the

Schutter Diagnostic Lab,

MSU, Bozeman, 59717.

- That's right.

You know that address.

- Dave, from Laurel.

This person would like

to know if it's too early

to plant irises that

she dug up last fall.

- I would think so.

I would probably wanna wait

for another month or so.

You get some 20 degree nights,

I would think that would be,

injury would be susceptible.

It'd be susceptible to injury.

- Steve, this question

came in from Alberton.

I think it's the first time

we've had a question

from Alberton.

They have seven acres

with a huge problem

of pocket gophers, wants

to put in an orchard.

How do they control

the pocket gophers?

- With seven acres,

you could do trapping.

Otherwise you're looking

at some toxicants.

So hand baiting with toxicants

might be the most

efficient method

then follow up maybe

with some trapping.

I would suggest,

you have a variety.

You have zinc phosphide,

you have strychnine

and you have anticoagulants.

So I would say yes

to all of that.

Especially if you're

dealing with alfalfa.

You're gonna have

to really work hard

to get rid of them if you

try to plow that under.

If you wanna reduce

your workload,

get rid of the grass or

whatever you have growing there

and then no food,

no pocket gopher.

Make sure you have

everything cleaned out

before you put in the orchard

and I would do something

to protect the roots

because you'll probably have

reinvasion in the future

so you might want

to put some sort

of a screening base

underneath your root system.

Have it come up above the

ground at least 12 inches

to prevent pocket gophers

from attacking those roots

cause they can really

devastate your trees.

- I head you mention a

name I've heard a lot

in the past and this

question in from Livingston

so we'll address it right now.

Strychnine, what's

the use of strychnine?

What's the restrictions now

and does it work to

control pocket gophers

and ground squirrels?

- Yes it does work

for pocket gophers.

It is only legal for pocket

gophers in below ground use.

So if you're using strychnine

for ground squirrels or

voles or prairie dogs,

those are illegal

uses of strychnine.

It is only allowed

for below ground use

for pocket gophers only.

- Okay good to know.

Clain, from Missoula.

This person has a

large vegetable garden

and they hear a lot of

conflicting recommendations

relative to fertilizing

their vegetable garden.

Do you want to give

them some advice?

- I have a couple

documents out there.

Mont Guide on Soil

Test Interpretation

for the Home Gardener

and I also have

what's called a soil scoop

which is a scaled down version,

just a front and a back,

it gets right to the point.

Both of those can be found

on my soil fertility website

that you can find by

googling Clain, C L A I N

and soil and it's usually

the top hit there.

So soil scoop called

Feeding the Vegetable Garden

or a mock guide

on the same topic.

- Okay sounds good.

Dave, from Lewistown.

Obviously they have

a lot of horses

in the Lewistown area as they do

in a lot of parts of Montana

and they save the horse

manure for their garden.

Is it better to apply

this in the fall

and the spring and how

much should they put on?

- Wow that's a good question.

If it's your horse manure,

so you know what

the feed stocks were

then there's a

couple concerns here.

One, you can overdo it.

Too much salt and this is your

turf so jump in at any time.

Then the other concern,

if you don't know

the source of the manure and

what the animals were fed,

we're always concerned

about residual herbicides

and some of them hang

around for a long time.

For years and some

of them actually even

survive the composting process.

So you really should, if you

think you're gonna put manure

or any kind of an amendment

that has a potential

for herbicide residues, you

should take a little bit

of your soil, add

some of the manure,

mix it up, put some susceptible

plant seeds in there

like tomato and green

beans and grow them up

and see what happens before you.

Because once you put it on,

it's really hard to get it out.

I prefer a fall

application just so that

if it hasn't fully composted,

it has a chance to do that

and there's some guidelines

if you're a commercial grower,

like an organic grower,

you have to have a

certain number of days

between manure

application and harvest.

I wanna say it's like 120 days.

So fall applications

make a lot of sense.

How do you figure how

much nitrogen's in there?

- The best way would

be send in a sample

or use the internet

to get a rough range,

an average for

how much nitrogen,

phosphorus and potassium

are in horse manure.

- [Jack] It's not

very high as I recall.

- No because they're

not ruminants,

they basically are

pooping out grass.

It's not heavily

digested like in a cow

and so it probably

isn't very high.

- [Jack] Chicken

seems to be the best

if you have a bunch of chickens.

- Right but chicken

manure can be hot

meaning it has a lot of ammonia

so it's best to

compost chicken manure

before you apply it.

Ammonia can kill seedlings.

- Okay sounds good.

We got that out of the way.

Steve, from Missoula.

I've heard of this before.

This person found a bat in

their bedroom when they woke up.

Number one, should they panic?

I would, not really.

Is that a problem and what

would they do about it?

- It is a concern.

One thing we tell people to do

is to make sure you

capture that bat.

Because if you wake up

in a room with a bat,

you don't know whether

the bat bit you or not.

Well wouldn't I know?

Well not necessarily.

If you were awake,

you would know

but if you're sleeping

and you wake up

and you see a bat it

could be you woke up

because the bat bit you.

So don't assume you're

gonna know that.

So you wanna capture

that bat in a way

that doesn't damage the brain.

So no tennis rackets folks.

Don't hit it with

a tennis racket.

So take a piece of

Tupperware, take some gloves,

Tupperware, wait for it to land,

put it over the bat

and scoop it up inside

then contact our local

health department.

They will interview

you to determine

whether that bat needs

to be tested for rabies

and they'll take it from there.

- Okay bats a common problem

in houses in this state?

- Yes.

- Yeah alright I kind

of recognize that.

- So part of my goal

is to get the word out

to people to treat it seriously.

It's not the end of the world

but when you're dealing

with a human exposure,

it's a lottery.

Most bats are not rabid.

But it's a lottery you

don't wanna win if it is.

So that's why

there's this concern.

So ultimately you can find out

if the bat tested positive

then they can do the shots.

If it's negative, that

saves you the money

of having to get the shots.

- [Jack] And the discomfort.

- The discomfort isn't

as bad as it used to be

so all the horror

stories you heard.

The first shot is the

one that hurts the most

it's called the gammaglobulin.

That one's based on weight.

So the more you weigh,

the more you get.

But otherwise it's nowhere

near what it used to be.

- Okay, sounds good.

Laurie, from Helena.

Earwigs in the

spring in the garden.

They don't want them anymore

so how would you

get rid of them.

- That's a tough one.

Definitely they come

back every year.

They really don't like moisture.

You have to do something

to keep that area

free of moisture

or give them somewhere

else to hide.

So give them some

corrugated cardboard

or roll up a newspaper

and wet it down

and try to give them

somewhere like that.

Cause they're just looking

for a place to hide

and that would be a good

way to get rid of them.

But we had a bad earwig

year last year too

so they'll be back.

They also eat aphids too

so they're not terrible.

But could go either

way on that one.

But nobody likes them.

I don't like them myself.

- They're not particularly

attractive bugs.

- No they're not.

- Anyway to keep them

out of your corn patch

or out of your cob?

- That's the worst report.

They love corn.

- [Clain] Anything to do?

- Well not really,

just live with it.

- Okay from earwigs

to blue spruce.

This person has a windbreak

of about 50 trees.

They're about 25 years old

so they're well established.

One tree started to

have needles turn brown

from the trunk out.

Now there's another one

starting to have needles

turn brown from the trunk out.

Any idea why or

what can they do?

Natural needle cast?

- I think they would've

seen it before.

- Yeah you would think so.

- So conifers do shed

needles and so I think

it varies on genus

as far as how long

a needle lives

before they're shed.

That's a good question.

- We have a tough

time with spruces.

They come into the

Schutter lab all the time

with similar symptoms

of browning in some way.

When you have a

windbreak like that

when you have 50 trees, they're

probably extremely stressed.

They need a lot of

supplemental water

and they're great

for a windbreak

but they also suffer that way

that they don't get

any extra water.

- If they're close together,

you can root girdling too

which will cause some inner

needles to start to drop off.

So if they planted them too

close, that's a possibility.

From Choteau, Steve.

This person wants to know

if there's a biological

control for prairie dogs

such as a virus

or anything else.

- Well plague is the big

one but don't move it.

People have asked me

where they can find plague

so they can go move

it to their location.

That's a violation of

federal law because it's a,

that's like a domestic

terrorism type thing.

But no there is nothing

that's gonna be available

to the public to use that's

a biological control.

- Okay sounds good.

Clain, this person from Townsend

has heard conflicting

reports on how much nitrogen

is needed to produce

a bushel of wheat.

You want to clarify

roughly the amount

of nitrogen per bushel of wheat?

Spring wheat by the way.

- Sure so when we talk nitrogen

we're talking available nitrogen

so that means the amount

of nitrogen in the soil

plus the amount

that you fertilize

should be about 2.5

pounds of nitrogen

per bushel of winter wheat

and about 3.3 pounds of N

per bushel of spring wheat.

The reason I moved away

from that a little bit

is, of course, depends

on the price of wheat

which is low right now and

also the cost of fertilizer.

So I recommend using

an economic model

which I have on my website,

An Economic Nitrogen

Rate calculator.

When protein discounts are high,

I might recommend four pounds

of nitrogen per bushel.

When protein discounts are

low and wheat prices are low,

I might recommend two pounds.

So your bottom line

is more important

than your yield and

that's why I recommend

moving a little bit

away from those pounds

of N per bushel

which maximize yield

but don't necessarily

maximize profit.

- Okay sounds good, thank you.

This is one of my all

time favorite questions.

Ever since I've

sat in that chair.

It came in from Libby and

it's for Clain or David.

They want to know is mink

manure as hot as chicken manure?

- [David] This is

definitely Clain's.

Clain has this one down.

- This is definitely the

animal specialist's question.

- Well they have access

to a large quantity,

obviously a mink farmer and

they would like an answer.

Anybody have a guess.

- I would get it tested.

- I don't think we know cause

that's not a common question.

Okay Clain, it's not

your area specifically

but you can provide

some guidance.

From Missoula, the landlord

used a very harsh herbicide,

does not say what, to

control weeds in the yard.

How can a renter get soil tested

for pesticide residue

before he plants a garden.

- That's a tough one.

The main lab that

I know that does it

is the Montana Department

of Agriculture Lab

on campus but it's not cheap.

Analyzing herbicides in soil

can be a few hundred dollars.

I'd be a little more inclined

to try David's bioassay.

See if plants can

grow in the soil

before resorting to a

few hundred dollar cost.

- Sounds good.

Laurie, you brought a

bunch of dead stuff in.

You wanna tell us what it is?

- I brought some live stuff too.

I think I'm gonna go to that

because it's a little

bit more exciting.

So this is one of my pets

and I see David is

moving away from me,

which this one's

actually pretty friendly.

- [David] I've

heard that before.

- So this is a

giant African, gosh,

now I can't remember.

- [Jack] Why don't

you hold it Dave?

- [Dave] No way.

- This is a vinegaroon.

I forgot what it was

for a second there.

I don't know if you can see it

crawling up my hand here.

It's usually not

held up high enough.

There we go.

So this would actually be,

we don't have these

here in Montana.

But it's call a vinegaroon

because it will

shoot out acetic acid

which is basically

vinegar, out of its tail

and use that as a defense.

It eats insects and

other arachnids.

So this is an arachnid and

it'll grow pretty large

but it's a very docile creature.

I could let it hang

out on my arm all day.

It's not gonna do anything.

So this is my new favorite pet

and again we don't

have these in Montana.

- [Clain] Too bad.

- Yeah too bad

for all the people

that wanna go get a pet.

- [David] You know

there were puppies

at the sports shop,

I have to say it.

- These are much easier.

- Is that scales on that?

- Yeah I was gonna talk

about this as well.

I was pruning my catoni asters

and catoni asters

have smooth bark.

This is actually

covered with a scale

called oyster shell scale

and it's pretty

much every branch

on my catoni aster was dead

and if you look up closely,

you probably need a

hand lens to see it,

you scrape them off

and there are thousands

and thousands of these scales.

So these kind of numbers,

they're definitely

gonna kill your branches

and you're gonna

have major die back.

You can use a

horticulture oil right now

to take care of them

because the eggs

will actually over winter

under the shell of the mother,

they're kind of a strange

insect but they will,

right now is a good

time to treat them.

If they're left untreated,

they could pretty much

take over your whole.

- You wanna do it pretty quick

because you want it while

the tree is totally dormant.

- Yes you do.

- So if it's already

starting to break bud,

it's too late for

the dormant oil,

is there a more ultra

refined horticulture oil

is that also effective?

- You can use that

but the problem

with the oyster shell scale

is they have a crawler stage.

That's the only

time they're active.

So if you miss the dormant

stage of the plant,

then you're actually

going to have to wait

for the crawlers

to become active

which would be late May or so

and you have to take

a piece of paper

and shake the

branch a little bit

to test for the crawlers

that are about pin sized.

And you could use

another oil then

but you have to make sure you

contact the scales themselves.

- Okay Steve, and I'm not

sure we can answer this

but we'll give it a shot.

It's from Billings.

For the past two

falls, we've found two

to two and a half inch holes

near the house foundations,

near the concrete

base of the house.

They live in a town.

Do you have any idea what

might be making these holes

about two to two and a

half inches in diameter

and if so, what can they do

to prevent whatever's doing it?

- Well I would assume if

you had ground squirrels,

you would've seen them

because they're coming

out during the day.

The fact that you're

not seeing them

suggests to me that you

might be dealing with a rat.

Norway rat, so that would

be my initial guess.

In terms of what

you can do with it,

certainly you can use traps.

You can also use

various toxicants,

there's a whole host of

toxicants for Norway rat.

You know sometimes

a trail camera

can be quite helpful

when you have a situation

where you're not exactly sure,

just stick a trail

camera out there

and you can know pretty quickly.

If you can't afford

that you can also

put in talcum powder

around that hole

and look for tracks and

then take a picture of it,

send it to me and

I'll do my best

to try to evaluate

what that is for you.

But also you

sometimes have holes

that just simply

collapse in the soil

because maybe

things are settling.

Sometimes builders try to

backfill with old things

and those are rotting over time.

Sometimes just backfill the

hole just with loose soil

and see if that

hole gets reopened

and that'll be another clue

that it's actually active.

- Sounds good, good answer.

Laurie, from Bozeman.

This person wants to know

how she can control

ants in her lawn

without poisoning her dog.

- Well there's a lot

of things you could do

but like I just said before,

the two most common ants

that we have in our yard

are field ants and

carpenter ants.

You could start

off with some baits

that you get at

the hardware store

just to see where

they're coming from.

And actually the

baits themselves

usually the ants

will take to the bait

and then there's a

poison inside the bait

and it takes it probably

several weeks for that to work

because they come back to the

nest and clean themselves.

So I would start off that way

because you can keep

the bait stations

away from the animals.

You can just put them

in areas you know

your dog's not gonna be

and as long as they

can't reach them

they'll be fine that way.

- Sounds good, thank you.

Clain, another manure question.

How about pig

manure, is that hot

or is that low nitrogen?

- Intermediate so it's

between chicken and steer.

It has more ammonia

than dairy manure

and it has less

than chicken manure.

Again the best thing

likely is to send it

to a laboratory that can test

how much ammonia is in there.

How much total nitrogen,

phosphorus and potassium

so that you don't

under or over apply.

- Interesting question,

combination of

This person had the EPA,

which took out lots of gardens

and hauled out dirt

and brought back

in clay replacement soil.

They said get baby shampoo

and put on clay soil to soften.

When they did that,

they grew thistles,

now they have lizards

and tree frogs.

Nothing grows.

Put in potting soil

but nothing else helps.

Any suggestions there?

It's a tough question.

- Yeah I would probably

bring in new soil

if nothing else is growing

there unfortunately.

- They ought to call

you because you're just

replacing good

topsoil with clay soil

isn't probably the

best thing to do.

- Yeah it depends why

nothing's growing there.

- Laurie, blister

beetles in their garden

on several different plants.

They caused the blisters

on hands of family members.

What to do about them?

- Oh blister beetles.

Well when those come out,

those come out in groups

and I think you can use any sort

of contact insecticide

to take care of those.

It depends on what time of year

and basically I think we

have the gray blister beetle.

Yeah I haven't really heard

of too many complaints

about them hurting people

but contact insecticide

would work as long as

you could catch them

in the right area.

- Steve, from Lincoln,

what type of product

should they use to

control wood rats

or pack rats, they call them.

- You know there's not

toxicants registered

for the control of wood

rats, also called pack rats.

So you're gonna have

to use snap traps

or cage traps to

control your wood rats.

If there is a demand for

getting a toxicant for that,

definitely drop me an email.

I've put a request out before

and only got one person

who wanted us to get

a 24C for wood rats.

But otherwise if that's

something of an interest

in the state, we will

pursue a 24C to a toxicant

but otherwise there's no

toxicants allowed for wood rats.

- What is a 24C?

- 24C is a special needs

permit that allows us

a little more flexibility

than the restrictions

that are on the federal

label that allow people

in Montana to use a pesticide

beyond what the federal

label restricts it to.

- Okay thank you.

Yellow jackets, they heard they

eat honeybees, is that true?

- I think maybe the

western yellow jacket

would eat almost anything

because they're scavengers

but yeah it depends on the wasp.

- They wanna know

what they can plant

in their garden tomorrow,

here in Bozeman.

- Right so if you

can work the soil,

you can put peas in,

radishes, lettuce,

kale, spinach

- [Clain] Onion

- Probably some onion.

All those kind of cold

hearty leafy greens.

All the Asian greens are

fairly cold hardy, peas.

Some of those aren't

going to germinate

until the soil warms

up but some of them,

spinach and lettuce,

they'll probably germinate

and you might want to have

some floating row cover

on hand so if it's

gonna get, once again,

in the low 20s, you could

cover up your seed bed

with a floating row

cover and would maybe

buy you a little protection.

- Do you know what the

all time record low

for Bozeman was today?

- I'll guess probably minus 22.

- Not quite, minus teens.

So it can still get cold here.

But that was years ago.

Before we had a bunch

of traps that you had.

I want you to show the

people a few of these

and it goes with a

question from Saco

on how to control voles and

some of the other things

that we might use

for rodent control.

Sounds like you got all

kinds of stuff down there.

- It's a lot of stuff in my job.

A lot of stuff.

So voles was the question?

- Yeah

- Well this is a vole

box that's created

sometimes people are

concerned about traps

hitting non targets and so

this is something you could do.

Voles often create

trails in the grass

so you simply line it up so

that they'll come through here

and then just put a bunch

of snap traps in like that.

Notice I'm using

expanded trigger traps.

If you have a choice,

these are always better

than the metal ones.

So always use expanded trigger

and that's one way to do it.

If you don't wanna go

through all this work,

you can simply

get a large board,

put it up on some bricks

and just sort of

angle it like that.

Put your traps underneath there.

What do you bait them with?

Peanut butter.

If you have actually

nice clear trails

you don't even need bait at all

just simply place the trap

so that it's perpendicular

so that the vole just simply

steps on this and gets snapped.

They're not smart.

- Okay sounds good.

Voles have always been

a big issue in areas

that have lots of snow cover

during the winter time.

And Bozeman is one

of those cities

that have extensive

wintertime snow cover.

I do know we have

plenty of voles.

- Plenty of voles in the state.

- I've had good

luck with strawberry

- Really for catching voles?

What brand?

- Bubblelicious.

You should've seen

the looks I got

when I put a receipt

into the accountant.

For 12 packs of bubblegum?

- I haven't heard that.

I think you might

find peanut butter

a little cheaper for you but

I'm up for trying bubblegum.

- We'll have to do a trial.

- We've done that with

beer for slugs in gardens

and there was a preferred brand

of beer so you never know.

Alright we're running

a little short of time.

This is what I wanna

get on, I'm curious.

This came from Stevensville.

Laurie, they think they

have an infestation

of ladybugs in their house

for the first time, why?

I don't think it'd

be ladybugs would it?

- Yeah that's

really interesting.

So I know other states have had

the multicolored

Asian lady beetle

and we haven't really

had that reported here

but they come in mass

numbers in other states.

That would be a

good one to either

send me a picture of

or try to get a sample

because that's not typical

to have a lady

beetle infestation

and it could be carpet beetles,

it could be something else

that lives inside the homes.

But now this is when all

the over wintering insects

are waking up but

having that type

of lady beetle

infestation is kind of odd

so I tend to think

it'd be something else.

- A sample would be

good, out of curiosity.

- A sample would be good, yeah.

- Clain, we got just

a couple seconds.

When do you start to fertilize

winter wheat in the state?

- I see people fertilizing

winter wheat at seeding

so back in September/October

and going all the

way into late April.

I recommend the later the better

because the nitrogen gets

used more efficiently

but I recognize a lot of farmers

don't have a lot

of time in spring

and so that's why they

fertilize earlier.

- Sounds good.

Folks, thank you.

Thank the entire panel.

It was kind of entertaining

and I learned a lot tonight.

Steve thanks for coming

down, we appreciate it.

We'll be back next week.

Kevin McFee, pea

breeder, lentil breeder

for Montana State University

will be the guest.

Join in, we'll be back, 5:30

to six o'clock next week.

Goodnight.

(moderate banjo music)

- [Announcer] Montana

Ag Live is made possible

by the Montana Department

of Agriculture.

The MSU Extension Service.

The MSU Ag Experiment Stations

of the College of Agriculture.

The Montana Wheat

& Barley Committee.

The Montana Bankers Association.

Cashman Nursery & Landscaping.

And the Gallatin Gardeners Club.

(electric guitar riff)