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Southwest Area Council Events and Information
Bio-Control Help
Flea Beetle Give Away
Annual Flea beetle give away, Fri. July 11th, 6:30 PM at Whitehall High School
Whitehall Project
 We have been busy collecting Oberea, the spurge root boring beetles, and getting ready for our summer class (for teachers, all about how to do this project) here in Whitehall July 7-11th. Part of the class is a leafy spurge flea beetle collection trip to a "super site" in the Grassrange area.
As we have done for the past several years, we will be driving back from this trip Friday afternoon with our haul of insects. We have collected as few as 800,000 to as many as 1.6 million insects on this awesome trip. However, one of the good problems of using a successful biological weed control agent like the Aphthona flea beetles is that they rather quickly wipe out most of the leafy spurge and thus, the insect population also quickly declines. We call this a "crash" of the population.
The Grassrange sites we have been collecting from the last few years are all crashing (it is amazing to see 5 square miles of spurge GONE in 5 years!!) so we are unsure as to how many insects we will be able to collect. Collection numbers also of course depend on the weather. If it is windy or rainy, we will not get vary many.
But, whatever happens, we will be providing the flea beetles we collect to all on the evening of Friday, July 11th at 6:30 PM. Come to Whitehall High School (turn So. off of I-90, come about 2 blocks, turn left into the school parking lot at the school sign and come around to the north end of the flat roofed High School bldg. to the biology room) with a cooler and an ice pack. We will have the insects (a mix of several species of flea beetles) already in containers for you. We also ask a voluntary donation per release.
Be sure you have picked good release sites that have leafy spurge. The hotter and drier the better however, these flea beetles can tolerate some shade, just not flooding. If you have received flea beetles from us in the past, do not hesitate to come get some more!! Use these to fill in the places that your original releases have not gotten to yet. It never hurts to augment with more of the same species of insects.
You may want to call the weed cell starting about 5 PM on Friday the 11th to see how we did numbers-wise. That number is: 498-5236. Please do not call sooner as we will be busy teaching the class and/or collecting insects like mad-men!
'Hope to see you there!
Teaching Livestock to Eat Weeds
The Madison Valley Ranchlands Group received a grant to teach livestock to eat weeds. This highly innovative program was used at the Grant-Kohrs National Historic Site.
The program was funded in part by a Conservation Innovation Grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. This summer several Madison County ranchers will implement a simple training regime to teach their livestock that noxious weeds are in fact nutritious forage.
An article explaining how this was done was featured in the Intermountain Compass. Click here to read this article and see photos.
If you would like more information about the organization who did the work at Grant-Kohrs NHS you can visit their website at www.livestockforlandscapes.com
A Message from the Southwest Area Coordinator
Greetings from the Southwest area. As I look outside I am reminded how it is so true that if you don't like the weather in Montana, wait 10 minutes. Just this morning there was a skiff of snow on the ground and it was cold enough to freeze the windshield on my county truck. Now it is late afternoon and kids are walking home from school in shorts and no coat. There is just enough hint of spring in the air to get us all talking about the upcoming spray season.
Just last week we had our annual MWCA SW Area Commercial Applicator Training. Each year it gets bigger and better. We had about 50 people this time around, and much new information was learned. On April 9th, we are going to have our first annual private applicators training. We are hoping for a large turnout as there are almost 1,000 private applicators in the area. With the start of spring, most of the counties and agencies are in the process of hiring and rehiring summer employees, a process that never seems to get easier. This year the SW area crew training for all those summer employees will be June 2nd-4th in Alder. Look for trainings in your area and as summer draws near, stay safe and pray that Mother Nature keeps giving us the necessary moisture.
To see the agenda for the training June 2-4 click here.
"A Replicable Weed Fight Strategy"
The Whitehall Project, Biological Control of Weeds
1 Credit or Teacher Recertification Credits
U of M Western Outreach
A 3-day plus 2 summer class is being offered July 7-8, with an extension on July 10-11 in Whitehall.
This is a class about noxious weeds in Montana, weed education and how to create a weed education and biological weed control program at your school.
Includes a optional 2-day extension to collect many noxious weed eating insects for you to take home.
For a complete agenda and registration information visit the class website. Click here.
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