- [Narrator] 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.

The Gallatin Gardeners Club and the Rocky Mountain Certified Crop Adviser Program.

(upbeat instrumental music) - Good evening, folks, you are tuned to Montana AG Live.

Originating tonight from the studios of KUSM.

On the beautiful and vibrant campus of Montana State University.

And also coming to you from our homes and offices across the beautiful state of Montana.

I'm Jack Riesselman, retired professor of plant pathology and I'll be your host this evening.

And before I go any farther, I'd like to repeat some words that Hayden Ferguson, who sat in this chair for a lot of years used to say, and that is, happy birthday.

Nope, Happy Mother's Day.

And he said that one time too, Happy Mother's Day to all of you who qualify.

And for the rest of you, have a nice day.

And that's directly from Hayden for many, many years.

For those of you who have watched this you know how it works.

You provide the questions and we provide the answers.

Tonight's topic involves a lot to do with invasive species here in the state of Montana.

And we're all concerned about that.

And there are a lot of different invasive species that have shown up in the state.

So, if you have questions about that tonight, please give us a call and we'll do our best to answer 'em.

Let me now introduce the panel.

On my left here in the studio with me, social distancing, Jane Mangold.

Jane is our noxious weeds specialist.

She likes to be known as invasive weed specialist.

Also to me, she's a great weed scientist.

Joining us tonight is Bryce Christiaens.

Bryce is kind of head of the Invasive Species Council here in Montana.

Bryce does a great job, and it is an important position.

He's also a Missoula County Weed Coordinator.

So if you have questions tonight, please send them in.

Also joining us, Jeff Littlefield.

Jeff is a biological weed control expert but he also is a great entomologist.

So if you have some entomology questions tonight, we'll stick him with those too.

Jared Beaver.

Jared is joining us from Billings.

Jared is our extension wildlife specialist.

And he'll tell us later on what an extension wildlife specialist does.

Answering the phones tonight and the phone number to send those questions in is on the screen.

But Nancy Blake will be taking your questions along with Ooda McKellvie.

Those questions will be relayed to me via technology on this cute little computer I have in front of me.

So get busy, get those questions in, and we'll start answering them as soon as possible.

But before we do that, Bryce, tell us what you do.

- Yeah, thanks, Jack.

I appreciate the opportunity to come on and talk about the work that the Montana Invasive Species Council does.

Before that, I needed to say happy Mother's Day to my mom who I always call when I have a gardening question.

But to get back to the council, it was established in 2015 to advise the governor's office, the Montana legislature and the department heads of Montana's Natural Resource Departments on the best policy moving forward and how we could coordinate our invasive species programs across the state.

We've had a long history of controlling noxious weeds and terrestrial weed species in the state of Montana but there've been other species coming onto the scene, like aquatic invasive species or feral hogs.

And we wanted to make sure that we weren't duplicating effort out in the field, and we were able to work together across on the different vectors that move invasive species around the state, and also help educate the public on just the economic and ecological impacts that a lot of these species have.

So, the council was made up of just over 20 different members that represent state and federal agencies, tribes, conservation groups, private landowners, agriculture, weed districts, conservation districts.

Your expert in the studio, Jane Mangold, represents MSU Extension.

So we have a great group of folks that come together to make sure we're communicating on what the most immediate threats are.

And also looking across our borders of what could potentially be impacting Montana down the road.

- Okay, we have some questions that have come in through Facebook that we'll get to in a little bit regarding the invasive species.

Also, we take questions via email.

So if you don't wanna call a question in, get 'em in with Facebook or through email.

Before we go any further, last week and the week before and the week before that, we had questions about snake grass in the pasture and also in gardens.

And we're not gonna get into the garden ones, 'cause I don't know of a good control in gardens.

And this one person from Bozeman has Timothy and Orchard grass pasture, a very luxurious pasture, but he has Horsetail that is increasing and he'd like to stop its spread, any suggestions?

- Yeah so, snake grass, it's also called the Horsetail.

It's a species of equisetum and it's that, I'm trying to think how to, when you're put on the spot to describe what something looks like, it's hard to do it but it's that real cylindrical vegetation that grows, and you can pull it apart, it's segmented.

So it pulls apart real easily.

It's kinda interesting to think about that being an Orchard grass and Timothy 'cause that's pretty aggressive grass, but the snake grass is increasing and So it is a native species, it likes wet areas and sometimes it just is growing there and you kinda have to put up with it.

There are some herbicides.

It's hard to control with herbicides because it doesn't really have any leaf tissue.

It's just this cylinder that kind of grows up from the ground.

This question has come in, you know, over the past.

Actually, I had an email conversation with a former Extension Weed Specialist, Dr. Pete Faye, who was on this show a lot of years.

And I think Dr. Faye dealt with it on his farm east of town here.

And he shared some information with me.

He said that he had good luck controlling it with, I think it was MCPA, the ester formulation.

Not a lot of luck with the amine formulations.

You can also control it with tillage.

So, if tillage is an option, you could get some short-term control with tillage.

But it's one of those species that at some point, sometimes you just have to live with it because it's growing in wet areas of your pasture.

- So, we talked before the program what to do with Horsetail and Asparagus, and we didn't have a good solution, but you said tillage, so dig it up.

- Yeah, tillage might work but you're probably gonna have to do that repeatedly.

So I think it'll work well for a season of growth but then you're probably looking at doing that year after year.

- Okay, thank you.

A question from Malta and this is for both Bryce and Jared.

Number one, they want to know, do we have wild feral pigs in the state of Montana at the current time?

And if not, do you anticipate their presence in the near future?

Jared, do you wanna jump on that first?

- Sure, yeah and like you said, Bryce can speak to this as well, is, right now no, we do not have wild pigs, feral swine, you know, whichever technical term you'd like to use.

They are very close and they have been spotted within 10 miles of the border to our North in Canada.

And so that's where the most likely natural concern is for expansion.

I always like to tell people Montana's growing.

And the people that come here love the outdoors, that's what makes this place so wonderful.

So, always tell everyone to be alert within the State of Montana, because actually, the most likely place for a pig to come from is traveling about 60 to 70 miles an hour in the back of a pickup truck.

And so, you know, really the threat exists most anywhere.

That's how they've expanded in large part across the rest of the US.

But at the moment we're pig-free and Bryce and the Montana Invasive Species Council is doing some really great work making sure it stays that way with their Squeal on Pigs campaign.

- All right, Bryce, do you work with Canada and kinda monitor where the feral pigs are at the current time?

- Yeah, so I'm glad this question came up and we're working hard to make sure people are interested and aware that feral hogs could be coming into the State of Montana.

The council last year worked with the Invasive Species Council in Washington and then our counterparts in Saskatchewan and Alberta to create a trans-boundary mitigation plan.

So, once those feral hogs that Jared was mentioning started to come closer to the border, we're working closer together to make sure that everyone's aware where those populations are.

And the number that was just up on the screen is really important.

Montana's just a huge state with a lot of space.

And it's really important that we can engage, you know, sports men or producers or people just when they're out on the landscape.

If they see something to just, you know, call the Department of Livestock.

They'll have someone out there to investigate it.

We've had maybe half a dozen sightings through this last year that turned out to be, you know, domestic hogs that just tended to be out of place.

But it's great to have people out on the landscape looking for these things, and so we can get 'em before they get established.

- Okay, thanks Bryce.

I did remember from last year when we had this topic on that it is currently, if you do find wild pigs, it's illegal to hunt them in the state or to shoot them.

Is there a reason for that?

- So, I think Jared, just because of his management experience in other parts of the country could speak specifically to why that's the case.

But a lot of the times you're not gonna be able to get every single one of them.

And these animals are extremely smart.

And once they've had that interaction with humans, they tend to be more going out just at night.

You're not gonna see 'em during the day, they're gonna hide more and it's gonna be harder for Department of Livestock or Animal Services to catch them.

- Okay, thank you.

Let's go back to a question from last week and this is for both Jeff and Jane.

The question came in from Babb.

And for people who don't know where Babb, Montana is, Jane will tell you.

They want to control Spotted knapweed using insects because they're on areas too big that they believe they could not spray those large areas.

- Do I get the easy part of the question?

Just start saying where Babb is?

(laughs) Well, Babb is on the east side of Glacier Park, north of East Glacier Ways, not too far from the border, and there's a lot of Spotted knapweed up in that region.

So I can see their interest in biological control but I'll let Jeff take a stab at the biocontrol insect question and then I can chime in if there's anything that Jeff forgets.

- Okay, Jeff, it's all yours.

- Yeah, there's a number of agents on Spotted knapweed and there's kinda two complexes, one that attacks the flower heads and the other are root feeders.

Flower head feeders are fairly widespread and I suspect that they're already present up there.

Probably the more effective of the root agents is root-boring weevil.

That's a fairly large weevil.

It's a Cyphocleonus.

You may or may not have it up there.

There's also a moth called Agapeta.

The adults look kind of triangular, yellow-sulfur color.

They're fairly widespread too.

Both tend to be fairly effective up in that area.

One problem might be just the weather and how cold it is.

They seem to do a little bit better in the warmer situations around Missoula.

I think they've been fairly effective in knocking back Spotted knapweed.

Also an option would be to use biological control and selective grazing.

The combination of the two, if timed right can really knock back the knapweed population probably more than biocontrol or grazing alone.

- Okay, Jeff, where do people get these insects if they did want to release them for control purposes?

- There's several options.

One would be to go to either your County Weed Office.

Sometimes they have sources for them.

Out of Bryce's office, Melissa Maggio, she's a state biocontrol coordinator.

Sometimes she makes collections.

There are local collection days that you can go to depending on where you're located.

They're also sold commercially, so you can buy them.

Sometimes they're quite expensive, maybe a dollar a piece for an insect.

And my suggestion would be just to go out there and see if you have them already, because sometimes they're fairly widespread.

So before purchasing, I would go see.

And there's also school groups that rear them.

There's a place up in Flathead High School, I think that rears 'em, Whitehall.

A number of school groups rear these agents.

- Okay, you can find that probably online, I'm sure.

- At least Whitehall.

Sometimes they have linked to other high school groups.

- I would just add, Jack that Jeff mentioned the Montana Biocontrol Coordination Project.

And Melissa Maggio was on here I think a year or two ago.

But the website there is, if I remember right, it's MTbiocontrol.org.

And she has a lot of resources there about where you can, the commercial opportunities or collection days.

So that's a great resource to check out.

MTbiocontrol.org.

- Thank you.

Jared, this question came in last week.

I gave him my two cents worth, which isn't worth much.

So we're gonna go to the expert.

This is from Phillipsburg in Granite County.

This person believes they have badgers that are burrowing under their buildings.

They would like to get rid of them, "humanely".

So any suggestions there?

- Yeah.

And I appreciate the kind words on the expert, but I'm not an expert in anything.

It's usually the first thing I tell folks, but I would be very surprised if it's a badger.

They're typically a very elusive and shy species.

They do not tolerate human presence very well.

So the key part I honed in on that was it was near structures or buildings.

And so if there's any sort of human presence, it's most likely a marmot.

And in Montana there's three species of marmots.

The yellow-bellied, the hoary and the woodchuck.

And the woodchuck typically does really well around structures and buildings and people.

So, control would most likely be what you would typically recommend for that.

And so trapping would typically be the best solution.

And you can either lob trap, do some sort of like Tomahawk or Havahart, or Conibear body gripping traps would be the most humane reason there.

But if you're using that sort of control, you need to make sure you know exactly what the animal is, confirm it's marmot and make sure that there's no risk for any sort of bycatch.

- Okay, thank you.

And I think that was an expert answer if you asked me.

I definitely had made a guess last week and I was probably partially correct, but not completely.

So thank you.

Jeff, this is an annual question.

We're gonna answer it one more time this year.

Slugs in a garden, that seems to be increasing.

We've had several questions from around the state.

Your take on what to do to get rid of slugs.

- For one thing is that you probably can't get rid of slugs, you can kind of manage them.

I think probably over the last few years, we've had wetter springs and that's really conducive to slug populations.

They really like to hide under mulch and plant debris.

So some of the options might be to really manage your mulch, turn it over or get rid of piles that you're not using.

You can address watering in your garden, to water maybe more in the morning, rather than evening.

They tend to be more active during the night, seldom seen during the day.

There are trapping methods you can use.

They can be quite simple.

You can buy slug traps that might have baits in them that you can attract and get rid of the slugs that way.

Or you can put out little slabs of like tile and pick them up in the morning and pick the slugs off and just kind of manually remove slugs.

There's also barriers you can put up.

Keep them out for say, raised beds or garden areas.

These are copper strips, and they have to be wide enough to prevent larger slugs from crawling over them.

And there's also chemical treatments you can use.

Metaldehyde is a fairly effective chemical, but it's really toxic especially around pets and children.

Iron phosphate is a lot more benign and also can be effective on slugs.

There are also baits you can use.

A typical bait would be to put out a pan with some beer.

You can buy a cheap can of beer for the slugs and then get a can of beer for yourself.

So, those are some of the options that you have to control slugs and you have to be more or less persistent in trying to manage them.

And some of these slugs live over several years as well, rather than a single generation.

- Okay, thank you.

And now we know how to control slugs.

And I will say, I mentioned this before, Kansas State years ago had nothing better to do than to test which beers work best for slug control.

And I'm not sure where that was published or if it was, but one of our previous entomology professors referred to that years ago.

Bryce, this question comes from Shelby.

I know a lot of people are interested in this topic.

What is the current status of the invasive mussels here in the state of Montana?

(indistinct) - Yeah, so right now we only have one positive water body for zebra quagga mussels, and that is Tiber Reservoir.

So pretty close to Shelby there.

Those mussels were first detected four years ago and they have not been detected since.

One more year, we have to go with negative testing to declare that water body mussel-free.

So hopefully after this season, we'll be a mussel-free state once again.

But it's really critical for us to prevent the spread and establishment of those species, in particular in Montana because our control options are extremely limited.

So, prevention is really where our focus is, and that's why we see so much focus and emphasis on our watercraft inspection stations across the state, making sure that we don't have contaminated water craft coming into the state of Montana and potentially infesting our waters.

- Okay, and speaking of checking watercraft, recently there's been a lot of news on float planes coming and going from water bodies outside the state of Montana.

How are those monitored?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

So, the float plane folks have been really engaged.

They understand that they have the potential to move mussels just as much as any other watercraft could.

So they have been working with the council and other groups across the west to create protocols that work for them and for the agencies responsible for managing them to make sure their planes are clean and that they're not moving anything around.

So they've been a great group to work with and have been super engaged in the mussel issue.

- Okay, and while I have you up, another question came in from Manhattan.

They wanted to know whether or not migratory waterfowl could be a vector of the invasive mussel.

- I think it would be extremely, extremely rare for that to happen.

I can't say with certainty that it's impossible, but for the most part, these mussels attach to hard substrates in water that are not moving around to make their home.

And so it would be very rare for them to attach to another live organism, like waterfowl and be moved from one water body to another.

- Okay, thank you.

Hopping over to Jane from Miles City.

What's your best way to control wild growing horseradish?

And can you use wild horseradish for horseradish?

- You know, I'm not sure what they mean by wild horseradish.

- [Jack] I'm not sure either.

I didn't know we had it here.

- Yeah, I didn't either.

So, I really don't wanna give a recommendation without knowing for sure what it is.

And I definitely would not recommend eating it when we don't know for sure what it is.

- So, why don't they send a sample of it in and we'll find out what wild horseradish is, and next time Jane's here, she'll let people know.

- So I would encourage the person to first take it to their local extension office.

And if the county agent can't help you, then it will make its way to campus and we'll get an identification of that plant so we know for sure.

- Thank you.

Question, another question from Manhattan.

This refers to the Eurasian collared dove.

Is that an invasive species?

And Jared, if so, is that a damaging species that you're aware of?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

I'll have to get back on the actual control part for that particular species, but at the moment, there's not like a particular invasive concern with it.

You know, obviously, when you're talking about different species and competing, there's always that aspect where they can start to fill in niches and push other species out in kind of that, you know, expanding aspect of where they can you know, fill in with other animals and the insects and all that.

So, I'll have to circle back on that particular question.

- I really find it kind of interesting to me, and Bryce, you can jump in in a moment here, but, Game and Fish has not classified them as a game bird.

So if you want to hunt 'em, you can hunt 'em year round and there are no limits on 'em.

To me, they do provide another hunting opportunity for the state of Montana.

What's your opinion, Bryce?

You're an invasive specialist.

- So these are the kinda questions that the council really likes to get from the public.

There's a lot of species that get moved around you know, all over North America.

And if you're starting to see a species that seems to be, you know, displacing native wildlife or native animals that you typically see in those areas where you're just starting to see a lot of something in a place that you didn't see it, those are questions that we like to get, and then we can try to track down the experts on those issues and see, you know, is there an invasive species concern here?

Is there either an ecological or an economic impact that we should be working to mitigate?

So we definitely invite the public to work with us on those types of questions.

- Okay, appreciate the answers for- - Could I ask Bryce?

Bryce, I don't know if you planned on talking at all about our science advisory panels, if this would be, this might be a good opportunity to talk about those and in light of an unknown species like the collared dove.

- It's really- - Yeah, so.

One of the tools that the council has been able to utilize over the last couple of years, our science advisory panels.

And that's really when we get a question like this either from an agency or members of the public, we work to invite a panel of expertise from either around North America or even internationally in our last one.

And a great example of that is the last science advisory panel that we hosted was on Eastern Heath snails, which is a terrestrial land snail up in the Belt area.

That's been up there for quite a while but certainly is not a native species.

And in other parts of the world, similar species like in Australia, have caused significant impacts to their agriculture and commodities industries.

So, one of our panelists actually was Jeff Littlefield, who over the last couple of years has become, I think one of the leading international experts on that species.

So it was a great opportunity to try to bring that expertise to Montana and try to answer a question like that on whether or not this is a species that we need to be concerned about.

If it is, what do we do about it?

So we can start to work through a lot of those questions, both with, you know, stakeholders and with the experts that would be working on 'em.

- Okay, thank you.

And I do have a question that came in about 10 minutes ago about the Heath snail.

Jeff, they would like to know, what type of damage does it cost to crops?

And number two, how widespread is it in the Belt area?

- To answer the last question first.

Some surveys conducted back in about 2012, 2013 by APHIS and the Montana Department of AG, found the snail probably over an area of 110 square miles.

So it goes same here from Highwood all the way down to Monarch kind of patches.

So, I think some of our subsequent surveys indicate that maybe it's a little bit larger area.

So they're fairly widespread, not only along the Belt River corridor, but up on some of the benches that have weed productions as well.

What they feed on, that's part of what we're doing in Bozeman looking at the biology of it, looking at what they feed on.

So out in the field, you can find them on probably about 30 different plant species, different plant families, about 15.

We've been doing some lab tests.

They seem to really like to feed on legumes and they do quite well on sweet clover or peas.

They do feed on wheat and barley to a lesser degree.

They probably have a fairly wide diet nibbling a little bit on this and that, feeding on detritus, dead material.

They probably feed on that quite a bit.

Out in the field, you don't see a lot of impact associated with them.

A little bit of nibbling.

Our greatest concern is, Bryce had mentioned the problem in Australia with a similar type of snail or snail complex.

And they've gotten into their wheat caused problems with harvesting, export issues.

They've gotten in canola, becoming quite damaging pests on canola.

And that's a fairly a recent shift in feeding behavior maybe due to climate changes.

They've been present probably in Australia for 100 years and only over the last 20 years they've made a shift where they're more economic.

And that's the concern that we have in Montana, that they'll start shifting, getting into legumes, alfalfa, becoming more damaging.

- Okay, thank you.

You know, I have seen snail damage years ago when we used to have some cooperative USAID project in Egypt, and they'd do a lot of damage to barley at that time.

They basically destroyed the flag leaf when they got on it.

So, I don't know if that would happen here but I'm glad you guys are working on it.

Back to Jared.

(chuckles) A couple of things, Jared.

First of all, we have a question from Billings.

This person would like to know your phone number and office address so they can contact you regarding some problems they have.

And also from that area in Huntley, this person grows sweet corn and they have raccoons and they say, "Help me."

You might explain what's going on there.

- Yeah, so raccoons have been kind of an increasing, growing problem in Montana.

And the reason for that is they thrive very well with human growth and disturbance.

You know, where you have raccoons, you And corn is an excellent food source or, you know, other growing crops.

Yeah, so, you know, that's kind of a common theme across most agricultural landscapes and where you have that kind of agricultural and urban growth.

In terms of control, you know, trapping it and shooting really is going to be the most effective control in those circumstances.

In terms of my contact information, I believe there may be an image or something that can roll up across the bottom but my name, Jared.Beaver@montana.edu.

And then there'll be an office line associated with that, which will also transfer directly to my cell phone when I'm out of the office.

But yeah, the raccoon problem is, you know, it's gonna take some effort.

They're pretty prolific in terms of breeding and existence for those food sources.

They also really do well in kind of wet riparian areas as well.

And so it's just been a growing problem as kind of land uses have changed in Montana.

And so it's probably something we're gonna see more of.

- You know I grew up in the Midwest where you always tried to put a patch of sweet corn in the middle of your field corn.

And about the time it was getting ripe, the raccoons would attack and they wouldn't just take one or two ears, they'd take one bite out of every ear.

So they pretty much destroy it.

My dad, rest his soul, rigged up a wire, hotwire about three inches off the ground.

And that worked for about two years but then they learned how to jump over the top of it.

So, you're right, it's a tough question to answer.

Jane, question from Bozeman.

They have what looks like a big dandelion in their pasture with a large fluffy head.

They wanna know what it is and how do they get rid of it.

- Yeah, that's probably western salsify, Tragopogon dubius, for those of you that like scientific names.

Big yellow flower, and yeah, it gets the big puffy dandelion later in the summer.

I actually dug some of these from my yard today.

It looks like grass before it flowers.

It just looks like a little tuft of grass.

And if you break any of the leaves you get a white milky sap.

So this is the time to, this looking pretty limp and wilted now but this is the time to control western salsify.

And if you treat it with 2,4-D plus Dicamba at this growth stage, when it looks like a grass, you can get pretty good control with it.

Now, interestingly, we're always talking about new invasive species.

There's another species that looks similar to western salsify, it's called cutleaf vipergrass.

And I'm not sure what I actually have in my yard.

I think I have two different species but this also looks like western salsify, only it's got more kind of cobwebby hairs at the base of the plant.

And that's why I think that might be what I have here, because I don't know if you can see that in the camera but there's some cobwebby hairs.

This is a species we don't know a lot about.

Utah added it to its noxious weed list a couple of years ago.

And people are watching this one, kinda trying to figure out what it might do.

But what I have seen mostly in Montana, and this area of Montana in the Gallatin Valley is the western salsify.

- Okay, I have plenty of that.

It really does spread quite easily.

It produces a lot of seed.

Jared, a question, a follow up from the raccoon just came in from Miles City.

This person drives a truck throughout the Midwest and he says he sees a fair number of flattened possums on the road.

And he's never seen any in Montana.

Do we have possums here?

And if not, why not?

- Yeah, I'm getting some of these mesopredators.

That's a little bit out of my wheelhouse, I'm kind of a large mammal guy.

It has to do with, you know, the niches and kind of the voids that they fill you know, to get a fully correct answer with that, I'd have to explore that one a little bit more.

You know, like you said, it's not an issue, we get a lot here.

So I don't know if I have a really good answer for that question.

- I don't either but I've never seen a possum up here.

- [Jane] I haven't either.

- I have seen 'em in Southern Wyoming, so maybe they're moving this way.

Bryce, watch out for possums, it may be an invasive species.

- We'll add it to the list.

- Jeff, Facebook question.

They would like to know, would the murder hornet survive in Montana?

And do you anticipate it becoming a pest?

And that comes from Libby.

- Yeah, I guess just recently last fall they've picked up some, what, the terminology, murder hornet or murder wasp.

They're Asian giant hornets.

They're a fairly large hornet, maybe about two inches in length, have a really bad sting.

Picked up some colonies in Washington and Vancouver Island that they try to eradicate.

If they become established, I've seen some models trying to predict where they might spread to in the Pacific Northwest and they probably can spread into Western Montana.

They tend to be in colder areas in Asia, Japan and tend to make their nests in rotted pine stumps.

So maybe Western Montana is not the most ideal climate for them, but they are capable of surviving.

If they do make it here, there's big concerns about them stinging people and causing deaths.

In Asia, there's been some deaths reported, probably not much more than any honeybees.

Most of the deaths are related to allergies associated with bee stings, but they do have a bad bee sting to them.

The main concern is that they tend to rob honeybees nest and can wipe out colonies fairly rapidly if they have large numbers.

So the main concern is with the honeybee industry on those.

- Okay, and the Washington Invasive Species Council has some really good resources on identification for those hornets.

The Montana Invasive Species Council has definitely been interested in that issue.

It's been nice having our counterpart in Washington so engage on that issue and providing us information as that develops.

- You know, I've been told through my education many, many moons ago that once the species arise, it becomes pretty hard to eradicate the species unless you eradicate the host.

And so, my own opinion is the murder hornet is gonna be here to stay.

But I don't think our climate here is gonna be that conducive, hopefully.

So I've been wrong before.

So Jane, from Bozeman.

This person is hiking on trails around town and wants to do her part in controlling noxious weeds by pulling them.

But she can't do all of them.

And I appreciate that.

She would like to know what are the three top noxious weeds that she should focus on pulling here in the Gallatin Valley, I know one of them.

- Kudos to her for wanting to do something.

And we should all be doing that when we're out enjoying our trails because we move weeds around and they like disturbance.

Just like Jared was saying, you know, with raccoons, they kinda like disturbance.

Gosh, the three species in this area, in the Bozeman area, I would say spotted knapweed.

Well, let me step back a minute and just say that if you wanna hand pull a weed you kinda want something that has a taproot and you can get that whole plant out of the ground, versus something that creeps and crawls and, you know, you might pull one stem but you don't kill the plant.

So I would say spotted knapweed.

That's a good one to pull.

Houndstongue.

- That's my favorite- - It's my favorite to pull.

Especially, I just noticed some this weekend it's popping out of the ground about this tall and the ground is nice and moist, so it's a great time to pull that.

And then let's see, a third one.

Oh, another good one in this area is Hoary alyssum.

That has a taproot and you could pull that.

I'm probably missing another important one.

- You got two of my favorite three.

So, all right.

And I do appreciate that people are taking time to pull some weeds.

It's not the only answer, but it does help.

Bryce, from Billings.

This person heard on NPR, National Public Radio, that the National Invasive Species Awareness Week is coming up.

You wanna say anything about that?

- Yeah, so the National Invasive Species Awareness Week is actually starting in just a week now, May 15th through May 22nd.

And the focus is on outreach and education.

And so the council will actually be launching an ad campaign, highlighting the different outreach and awareness campaigns that are active in Montana.

From PlayCleanGo, which just advocates that you clean all your equipment, your ATV, your boots, your fishing gear, whenever, so you're not transporting organisms from one area to another.

All the way to the Don't Let It Loose campaign.

A lot of our invasive species come from people accidentally or not meaning to introduce an invasive species but, you know, getting a cute little turtle that turns into a big snapping turtle and it gets too much to handle and then taking it to the river or the lake and letting it go.

So there are a number of education awareness campaigns that we'll be pushing in.

So you'll see ads and banners on the various newspaper websites.

So trying to make sure people know how they should dispose of pets, how they should clean their gear and what they should do to make sure that we're limiting the amount of spread that we have for invasive species in Montana.

- Appreciate it, thank you.

Jane, and this is another one of our annual questions.

I won't ask it again this year and if I'm not here, I'll tell whoever's there not to ask it again.

This person would like to know, is there a way to keep quackgrass from taking over their yard?

- Oh yeah.

I thought this is either gonna be quackgrass or field bindweed, 'cause we get those every year.

Yeah, and I think a couple of weeks ago we had a quackgrass question, but we tried to answer it at the very end and I think I just kind of threw my hands up and said too much to- - Wait.

- Yeah.

Well, so quackgrass, you know, we just, we were talking about prevention and the importance of prevention.

I would say that when quackgrass first starts showing up in your yard, I mean, that's when you really need to try to do something about it.

If it gets to be too pervasive in your yard, you know, it's very hard to get rid of.

One thing that I have done in my own yard 'cause I had just started having some quackgrass show up.

Is I actually got out my little brush, there's a photo of some quackgrass in my yard.

Yes, I do have weeds in my yard.

But what I did with that quackgrass was I actually just used this little brush.

It's one of these little foam paint brushes and I got my latex gloves out and I just dipped this brush in some glyphosate, ready to use glyphosate, and I brushed it on that quackgrass.

And what was really nice about doing that right now is I haven't mowed my lawn yet.

And the quackgrass is growing taller than the Kentucky bluegrass in my lawn.

And I just use this little wand and, you know, I brushed it on those leaves.

You can see there that those leaves that got the glyphosate are turning brown, but the grass around it is not.

And you know, I didn't get it all in that picture, but I do plan to be getting out there again probably when we get some warm, sunny weather again and brushing that on again, just kind of using one of these foam paint brushes is what I used.

And you know, obviously you wanna use some latex gloves when you're doing that.

- And that works well, I agree.

And it works well in flower beds and juniper beds and so forth.

But if you've got an acre of quackgrass, you got a problem.

- Yeah.

And that's what I said.

I mean, you're doing something like this when you're first noticing something show up.

And, you know, just the importance of all these invasive species, if you will, just the importance of prevention and detecting or finding something early and managing it when it's still manageable.

I mean, that's one of the main goals with Montana Invasive Species Council and all the species that we talk about is the importance of prevention and trying to take care of something before it becomes a widespread problem.

- And that's interesting because this question just came in from Reed Point, and they would like to know that some invasive species turn out to be positive.

Bryce, Jane, you guys wanna address that?

Is that true?

- So, I think it's important to say that we have a lot of introduced species that are important.

I mean, a lot of our crops are introduced species.

Invasive species are really when it comes down to an economic or ecological impact.

So I would say that we probably don't have any invasive species that do turn out to be beneficial.

I think we certainly have questions about some of those species when they show up, but really, it's our job to assess those species and make sure that there's not a negative economic and ecological impact.

And if they do, I think it's also important that the tools that we use to control them also don't cause more harm than good.

So making sure that the cure is not as bad as the.

I don't know what the rest of that phrase is, but you know what I mean?

- Okay.

- We do have some species that were intentionally introduced for a beneficial purpose and have become invasive.

And Russian olive is a great example.

So, you know, Russian olive is a great tree and shelterbelts where it's in drier areas.

It's one of the few trees that will grow, but when it gets into riparian areas, it becomes invasive.

So that's another important point about an invasive species, is, there are certain habitats where some of these species are more of a problem than in other habitats.

- Yeah, good point.

Absolutely.

- I just wanna add, Jack, that with the biocontrol pollinators are a major issue now that some of these invasive weeds provide pollinator services to bees and such that.

So there's a lot of concern there with biocontrol that you'll be wiping out that source of nectar and pollen for bees.

So spotted knapweed is an example of that.

- Yeah, interesting point.

Thank you.

Jared, and I'm surprised this hasn't come in before now but this came in from Joliet.

They would like to know the current status of chronic wasting disease, which if you're an outdoors man or a hunter in this state, you've heard of chronic wasting disease.

You wanna tackle that?

- I can, and, you know, obviously, I'll reference, you know, the state agency.

They have a really good staff there that is, you know really on to that problem.

Dr. Jennifer Ramsey is a vet with Montana Fish and Wildlife and an excellent source of information.

But yes, CWD is very prevalent right now in Montana.

In fact, last number I saw, it was at, I think at least 26 states in the US.

I see it becoming, you know, a very large concern.

We could spend a whole show on chronic wasting disease.

You know, briefly, it's a misfolded prion that replicates.

It's 100% fatal.

You see it.

You know, the observable signs.

It can exist in an animal for up to two years before you see physical signs, where the animal looks malnutritioned and confused.

But it presents itself typically in older males.

And so a common way to reduce the prevalence in an area is start to tackle kind of that older male structure in a population.

And, you know, within a state that really loves hunting and a population that typically comes to more favorable or desirable, you know, animal from a hunter standpoint.

And so it's really tough to tackle from a public standpoint, is you know, you typically get a little pushback when you're advocating to take more of an animal.

And typically, the more desirable aspect of that animal for the long-term and more beneficial good.

So I don't know if that directly answered the question but CWD is certainly a growing concern and we're just gonna have it.

It's gonna be a problem that we're gonna face, you know, in perpetuity.

- Great answer.

I agree entirely.

Jeff, a Facebook question.

Do biocontrol agents that attack Russian knapweed also attack Spotted knapweed, or they're two different biocontrol agents?

- They're two different complexes.

None of the Spotted knapweed agents will attack Russian knapweed and vice versa.

So they're genetically dissimilar.

Even though they're called knapweed, they are actually in different plant genera.

So different biocontrol complexes.

- Okay, thank you.

Everybody can jump on this one.

Another Facebook question actually from Choteau.

They heard of thistle rust that is a viable method of controlling Canada thistle.

Any comment on that, anybody?

- I can chime in, take a first stab.

There's a rust, it's petunia, I'm gonna forget the specific name but it is a rust that decreases the vigor of Canada thistle.

There's actually research going on here in Montana, that MSU is working on along with Melissa Maggio with the Montana Biocontrol Project.

Maybe some others that I'm missing, but yeah, it's an organism that's been around a while and been investigated as a pathogen for controlling Canada thistle.

But we've learned some new things about how to inoculate it and how to make it more effective.

So if anyone else wants to add anything that I've missed-- - Bryce, Jeff, you wanna jump in.

- Yeah, the rust is fairly widespread.

They have different types of spores and also have a systemic infection where it gets into the roots and can go from plant to plant.

The main problem has been trying to, to use it as a microherbicide is finding the correct spores to use.

And a pathologist with USDA found that spores that are produced later in the fall or late summer are better spores to use to inoculate plants.

So basically they collect plants at that time, grind them up and basically sprinkle them and put them on plants.

And from what I understand, they've had some fairly good success knocking back Canada thistle populations.

How persistent the rust will be after that is up in the air.

So it'll be interesting to see.

- Okay, thank you.

While I have you up, a question from Polson.

And we're running low on time, so quick answer if possible.

Are there biocontrol agents for whitetop?

And if so, where can they get 'em?

- Yeah, I'm working with a galmite, sorry, (indistinct) for whitetop.

It's the first agent that's been approved for whitetop.

Being up in the Polson area, you're in kind of whitetop central.

They might primarily causes gall formation up in the flower heads, causing it to look a little bit like broccoli.

So if you hate whitetop now, when it turns into broccoli, you'll hate it even more.

How effective it's gonna be, I'm not quite sure, it will reduce seed production.

In certain cases, stunt the plant.

We've just made some releases over the last couple of years and have recovered.

So it'd be interesting to see what sort of impact there is on whitetop.

There are a couple of other agents in Europe that they're studying.

A gall weevil and another flower.

Seedpod weevil that we hope to bring in in the future for whitetop control.

- Okay, thank you.

Jane, five seconds.

Bedstraw control.

- Pull it.

- Pull.

And what if we got a lot of it, spray it?

- 2,4-D. - 2,4-D.

Okay, folks.

That brings to close another session.

I wanna thank our guests this evening, it was great to have 'em here.

The invasive weeds or Invasive Species Council is really important in this state, so support 'em.

Next week, we have Mark Jensen with the Smoot Honey Company, talking about the Montana Beekeepers Association.

It'll be fun.

Join us, have a great week, good night.

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

(gentle guitar music) 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.

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