County Extension

Though you may not have known it, MSU Extension for 100 years has been educating in your local community. MSU Extension may show up as afterschool or 4-H youth programs, a master gardener course, or in-person education and service through webinars on personal finance; testing for animal forages or crop health; or food preservation classes.

Celebrating 100 Years of Partnership

Extension was created through the Smith-Lever Act in 1914, which provided for cooperative agricultural extension work at the land-grant colleges that were established with the Morill Act of 1862. The educational partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the nation’s land-grant universities extends research-based knowledge through a state-by-state network of Extension educators.

For more information on events and local Extension learning opportunities in 2014, visit msuextension.org or call your county Extension office.

1914 2014 across generations across Montana

Missoula County Extension/Weed District and Montana State University Extension

INSIDE Expanding Educational Opportunities in Horticulture Improving Life, Health, and Finances in the Home and Community Positive Youth Development Vegetation Management Education and Landowner Involvement

Letter from Jerry Marks, Department Head

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t has been 100 years since Charles Hanson opened Missoula County - Montana State University’s first Extension office.

Extension Service was created through the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 providing cooperative extension work at the land-grant universities. The legislation enabled a unique partnership of the United States Department of Agriculture, land grant universities and county government to extend research based knowledge through the work of Extension offices.

The Extension programs evolved over the years as the needs of the people changed. Assisting the sugar beet industry and many dairy operations was important in the early years. Helping the people organize rural electric co-ops in the 1930s made a big difference. The interest in horticulture caused the Missoula Extension office to organize the first Master Gardener program in Montana in 1974, and continues today. Providing nutritional education and demonstrations to people with limited income launched in the 1970s and continues to have positive outcomes. Organizing the community based 4-H clubs became an important part of the Extension Service. Its mission to help youth develop their leadership, citizenship and life skills has impacted the lives of many Missoulians.

The merger of the County Weed District and the Extension Office into one department in 1985 brought new opportunities.

Cooperative landowner weed management projects were organized throughout the county to address the costs and environmental issues in managing invasive plants. Missoula provided statewide leadership in biological weed control, improved grazing systems and re-vegetation. It has helped land managers make an impact on plants like spotted knapweed, but much remains to be done.

The next 100 years will bring many new challenges. The most important part is building programs by and with the people.

Jerry Marks

Message from the MC Commissioners

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e offer our heartfelt congratulations to the Missoula County MSU Extension Service/Weed District on their 100th anniversary of delivering services to the residents and landscapes of Missoula County! The exceptional staff members at Extension and Weed educate citizens of all ages, reach out and engage folks in their communities, and cultivate opportunities that improve our health and our environment. Whether they’re giving 5th graders the chance to learn about healthy plant communities during a hike on the Jumbo Saddle or offering parents helpful tips on preparing nutritious meals on a budget, you can count on them to offer sound advice and great opportunities to learn and have fun. Whether you’re a discerning consumer, an aspiring master gardener, a livestock enthusiast, or a weed warrior, the folks at Extension and Weed are your resource. They care about our wonderful community and they look forward to doing all they can to make it better for generations to come.

Congratulations! We’re proud to support your hard work!

Jean Curtiss, Bill Carey and Michele Landquist

county extension staff Staff

Gerald Marks Extension Agent, Department Head Campbell Barrett Extension Agent, 4-H Lindsey Bona-Eggeman Weed Management Coordinator Bryce Christiaens Weed District Manager Elizabeth Foster EFNEP Nutrition Educator Sharon Gaffney Administrative Assistant Jean Jenkins Financial Coordinator Ashley Juran Weed Prevention Coordinator Not pictured: Sharon Gaffney & Ashley Juran

Jed Little GIS Data Coordinator Barbara Ludeman EFNEP Nutrition Educator Melissa Maggio-Kassner Bio Weed Control Coordinator Kelly Moore Extension Agent, FCS Sandy Perrin Plant Clinic Coordinator Diann Pommer Extension Agent, EFNEP Steffany Rogge-Kindseth Weed Education Coordinator Seth Swanson Colleen Terrazas Administrative Assistant, 4-H

extension plant clinic

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Sandy Perrin, Plant Clinic Coordinator and Bev Gutman

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he Missoula County Extension Plant clinic is a vital component of the Horticulture program.

The Plant clinic offers support to community members directly by diagnosing problems associated with garden and landscape plants, house plants, soils, as well as identifying structural pests. Providing education on how to grow healthy plants to minimize the need for pest control. The Plant Clinic contains books, fact sheets, publications on plant identification, pests and diseases, weed, landscape trees and shrubs, perennials, grasses and groundcovers, native plants, plant propagation and many other horticulture topics.

The Plant clinic maintains a keen understanding of pertinent and seasonal issues through scouting practices in the area, regional trainings, conversing with local horticulture businesses, and relevant publications. This multi-faceted approach ensures the Plant clinic is able to promptly resolve horticulture related issues of community members and businesses, and to identify new and developing problems in the area.

he Extension office is a helpful avenue with all plant, bugs, weeds & disease issues.

Their expertise helps with many problems, coming full circle.”

-Bev Gutman, Marchie’s Nursery

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xtension has been a great partner for us. I would call it an excellent private and public partnership. They worked closely with my father, and supported me when I started out in business. There is so much interest in the Calendar and Master Gardener programs and the public has so many questions, it is nice to have an agency to support them, and the Missoula County Extension office has been stellar.”

-Bill Caras, Caras Nursery

Bill Caras, owner of Caras Nursery

Expanding Educational Opportunities in Horticulture

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issoula County is a diverse county, both geographically and demographically. These diversities bring challenges and opportunities for Extension to aid and assist the members of the community. Gardening, landscaping, small farming, and general plant production continue to be areas of importance and great relevance in Missoula County from the Garden City to Condon.

Over the past year, the Missoula County Extension Horticulture program has expanded some of its educational opportunities to meet the needs of a greater audience. The Missoula County Master Gardener program was offered in the early spring to help build the fundamentals of horticulture and plant production for the community members. For a second year, this ten week program was offered in Missoula as two sections in order to make the program available to folks who are able to attend either morning or evening sessions. To complete the certification a volunteer service component in horticulture related projects in the community is required. This past summer yielded nearly 100 hours of volunteer service in the community. New to the program this year, gardening participants were encouraged to provide food to the Missoula Food Bank, which resulted in almost 200 lbs. of fresh food donated.

In addition to the spring course offering in Missoula, a similar course was developed and initiated in Seeley Lake in the fall of 2013; the Sustainable Gardening Program. This program focused on the environment and growing climate specific to the Swan Valley. This unique environment demands regionally

specific information. This will be a springboard for more programmatic efforts in that region of the county.

In addition to the Master Gardener and Sustainable Gardening programs, the Extension Horticulture program started an Evening Horticulture Series this past winter. This series covered a variety of topics, seasonal and unique, delivered by guest lecturers from the region. This series was open to the public at no charge and provided an opportunity for continued education and networking with other gardeners or plant enthusiasts. This program was well received and will be expanded in 2014.

In addition to these educational programs, the Missoula County Extension Horticulture program seeks other venues and opportunities to connect with the public and share information.

• 90 community members attended the three Evening Horticulture Series seminars • Expanded demonstration area at the Western Montana Fair focusing on Edible Backyards • Presence at the Missoula County Extension/Weed District booth at the Clark Fork Farmers Market, to connect with community members or agriculture vendors (look for us at the bottom of the stairs near the First Interstate parking lot).

• Co-host of a weekly KBGA radio show (UM College Radio), Farming and Foraging, discussing pertinent issues in gardening and agriculture through conversations and guest interviews

EXTENSION FAMILY AND CONSUMER SCIENCES

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he Missoula County/MSU Family and Consumer Sciences Program provides research-based information on family and consumer economics, housing and environmental health, family and human development, food and nutrition, and community health. It’s our goal to help empower individuals to make informed decisions with unbiased information that will help improve life, health, and have impact in the community. Nutrition and health education, food preservation, financial education, and Grandparents Raising Grandchildren programs are currently available at the Missoula County Extension Office.

With growing interest in supporting the local foods movement and promoting sustainability in Missoula County, the Extension food preservation program continues to attract interest. We receive approximately 75 phone calls per year dealing with food preservation (canning, drying, freezing, and pickling) concerns, questions, and advice. We also offer a free pressure canner dial gauge testing service. Contact us with questions and for a canning class schedule.

Financial literacy should begin early, so we are making it a priority by focusing on Missoula County youth. In an effort to provide information and improve money

relationships, youth classes and camps are being developed to create a better understanding of financial responsibility that will foster future independence.

The SOLID FINANCE$ program is a free MSU Extension webinar series, and is available to employees and employers Sept. 2014-April 2015. www.msuextension.org/solidfinances/ The Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Program; montanagrandparents.org, is designed to provide support and information to Montana grandparents, great grandparents, and other kin who are primary caregivers for their relative children.

Monthly meetings are held at the County Extension Office (Second Tues.-10:30 a.m. / second Thurs.-6:30 p.m.). During our informal confidential meetings, we encourage the sharing of ideas, information, experiences, frustrations, and successes that encompass the challenging world of grandparents as caretakers.

Whether you’re needing the latest information on Drying Fruits and Vegetables; Estate Planning; or Children and Bullying, A Guide For Parents, the MSU Extension MontGuide (www.msuextension.org) is available online and in our office for your convenience. You are invited to stop by the Family and Consumer Sciences office anytime to share your ideas and stories.

EXTENSION Homemaker’s Club

Achievement Day at the Florence Hotel, 1950

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hose were some of the best times of my life!” “We really did a lot of important work in the community.” “l learned how to be a more confident person because of the Homemaker’s Club”. “lt really brought the community together.” “l was taught to make improvements in my community just like I do in my home.”

Those were just a few of the comments made during a recent gathering of several former members of the Missoula County Extension Homemaker’s Club. Home Demonstration clubs or Homemaker’s clubs, as they were later called began with the passage of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 which established the Cooperative Extension Service of Agriculture and Home Economics in the United states. These demonstration clubs were designed to provide rural women with the opportunity to learn the latest techniques and proper methods for preserving food, making clothing, raising children, and improving general health and sanitation. Kitchen

improvement, upholstery, mattress making, meat cutting, and working to implement new legislation, would be added to the list in the 1940s and 50s. In many parts of early 20th century rural Montana, just getting to someone’s home to have a demonstration, was a big challenge for an Extension agent. Many of the clubs’ participants became project leaders because of the training they received at these meetings. By 1926,there were 152 demonstration clubs in Montana. In Missoula county, it was the Potomac, Orchard Homes, and Lolo women’s clothing clubs that provided a model for many other clubs to follow. By 1956, there were 26 clubs.

According to reunion committee members Gwen Thibodeau, Elsie Rieger, Wanda Alsaker, and Norma Wills, area clubs also concentrated on community projects such as planting roses and maintaining flowerbeds at the courthouse, demonstrating correct C.P.R. procedures to area schools and civic clubs, restoring the Paxson Paintings in the courthouse, establishing scholarships, making improvements and donating equipment to the fair booth. Achievement Day, (see picture), Women’s Week (an annual event on the MSU campus in Bozeman), and the International Tea were a few of the highly anticipated events where both the accomplishments and shenanigans of participants are still talked about to this day.

It would be difficult to truly appreciate the significance and accomplishments of these Extension Homemaker’s clubs without having had the good fortune of spending time with former club members. Their stories speak of countless hours of community service, of finding the passion to complete projects, often with little recognition, and most of all exhibiting the desire to make Missoula County an outstanding place in which to raise a family.

Extension Homemaker’s Clubs will be honored as part of the 100 year Extension celebration in collaboration with the 2014 Western Montana Fair Centennial celebration and at the Missoula County Extension Office/ Weed District Open House in September.

4-H

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n Missoula County, more than 400 youth are enrolled in the 4-H program. Every 4-H member belongs to a 4-H Club, and there are 14 Clubs to choose from.

There is no limit to the number of clubs operating, so new clubs can be formed as well. 4-H Clubs have regular meetings and are run by elected youth officers with the help of adult 4-H Volunteers. At club meetings, Parliamentary Procedure is practiced, community service projects are organized and accomplished, fundraising skills are learned, and fun social events are held. 4-H youth must be at least 8 years old at the start of the 4-H Year (October 1st). A number of project areas are available.

By category, Missoula 4-H members are enrolled in: • 848 Animal Projects • 115 Environmental Education / Earth Sciences Projects • 73 Leadership & Personal Development Projects • 63 Consumer & Family Science Projects • 56 Foods & Nutrition Projects • 52 Communications & Expressive Arts Projects • 25 Technology & Engineering Projects For more information about local 4-H Clubs, or to find out how to become a member, please contact Campbell or Colleen at Missoula County’s MSU Extension Office, or visit our website: http://www.missoulaeduplace.org/4-h.html. 4-H Council meetings are held the first Wednesday of every month, Extension Office, Everyone is welcome to attend.

2013-2014 4-H Board of Directors Roy Handley President Drew Hall Vice President Joey Hennes Treasurer Lisa Dumontier Secretary Jeri Delys Denise Elliott Aly Forney Amanda Hall

Lynn Sainsbury Sherie TeSoro Clarence Wildeboer

Youth Representatives

Randa Boler-Rummel Michaela Zimmerman Ambassador Rep: Nathan Wildeboer

The Positive Development of Youth

Comprehensive findings from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development is the first-ever research project of its kind. The decade-long study, completed by a team of researchers at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University, Medford, MA, is influencing research and practice around the world.

The report shows that 4-H youth excel beyond their peers. 4-H’ers are about: • Four times more likely to make contributions to their communities (Grades 7-12); • Two times more likely to be civically active (Grades 8-12); • Two times more likely to make healthier choices (Grade 7); • Two times more likely to participate in Science, Engineering and Computer Technology programs during out-of-school time (Grades 10 – 12) • 4-H girls are two times more likely (Grade 10) and nearly three times more likely (Grade 12) to take part in science programs compared to girls in other out-of-school time activities.

EFNEP continues to educate families

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he Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program is a unique program designed to reach limited resource families – especially those with young children.

EFNEP helps them acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and changed behaviors necessary to improve their diets.

Extension began EFNEP in Montana in 1968 and Missoula EFNEP is located in the Missoula County Extension office. This federally funded program has been serving limited resource families in Montana for the past 45 years! EFNEP was part of an eight state study that showed for every dollar spent, eight were saved in health care costs.

EFNEP teaches limited-resource adults a series of seven cooking and nutrition lessons around Missoula. The classes are usually 1 to 1½ hours in length and focus on stretching the food dollar, food safety and eating well balanced meals. Families report that they have reduced their food costs, cooked with their families and ate healthier meals and snacks.

EFNEP serves youth (ages 6 to 12) at Title One Schools by teaching a series of six lessons to first, third and fifth graders. The first grade focus is fruits and vegetables. Eating a variety of foods from the five food groups/MyPlate, food safety and physical activity are parts of the third and fifth grade lessons. The students love tasting the foods/snack as well as being active.

Missoula County Weed District Education & Outreach

The weed district works to educate Missoula County residents to promote healthy, productive vegetation, and to control noxious weeds by cultivating their interest in the ecological and economic impacts of noxious weeds.

Youth Education: • Leave No Weeds - For 13 years the Missoula County Weed District has taught the Leave No Weeds program to approximately 1000 area 5th grade students annually, free of cost, to all participating schools; offering students the opportunity to get out of the classroom and learn about the importance of native plant communities and the issues surrounding the invasion of noxious weeds.

• Naturewalk Week – 200 Missoula county 3rd grade students learn how to identify native plants.

• River Expo – 100 6th grade students transitioned through hands-on stations focusing on riparian habitat and the impacts invasive plants have on them.

Stations included a weed pull, bio-control investigation, “Who drank all the water” Salt Cedar demonstration and habitat walk.

• Washington Middle School Volunteer Day – 250 enthusiastic 8th graders participate in vegetation management at local natural areas.

• Lolo Public School Field Day – 50 Lolo 5th grade students learn the differences between native plants and noxious weeds.

• Camp Utmost – Potomac School 7th and 8th grade science classes.

• Distribute kNOweeds Curriculum

Weed Board Members Missoula County Weed District Mission:

To promote and maintain healthy vegetation by minimizing the ecological and economic impact of noxious weeds through public education, technology transfer, and monitoring, and by facilitating involvement of landowners and land management agencies to control the highest-priority species in our most sensitive areas.

Jim Olivarez Chairman John Rimel Vice Chairman Andy Hayes Paul Heihn George Hirschenberger

To carry out our mission, the Missoula County Weed District emphasizes the following program areas:

Prevention

The weed district provides leadership in identifying and controlling noxious weeds classified as “new invaders” and implements programs to minimize the spread of existing noxious weed infestations. Missoula County New Invaders Task Force is a collaborative project involving public and private land managers working to document, treat and monitor all new invader sites in Missoula County as well as identify and systematically monitor sites that have a high risk of infestation. The identification of high risk sites occurs through collaboration with members of the Missoula Valley Land Managers Group, and includes sites like fishing access sites, roadside pullouts, campsites, rest areas, trailheads, popular sites for OHV use, industrial sites with high volumes of out-of-state traffic or large out-of-state freight, storage and transfer sites for heavy machinery that travels out of county.

Summer Youth Restoration Crew

Robin Innes Doug Kopp Dennis VanderMeer Joann Wallenburn

Missoula County Weed District Mapping and Inventory

Provide up-to-date information on the distribution, movement, and impact of noxious weeds on vegetation in Missoula County, and assist public and private landowners in mapping the land they manage.

Mapping is an essential component to any successful vegetation management project. Knowing the full extent of what you are dealing with is the key to being effective in your weed control efforts. The Weed District offers training on mapping, GPS loaning and will generate and print a property map for local landowners.

Research and Technology Transfer

Landowner monitoring class

The weed district works to identify and prioritize research needs and work with the research community to develop new technology and applications that will minimize the ecological and economic impact of noxious weeds, as well as promote desirable vegetation. The weed district is involved in the following research projects: • Grazing Research on Missoula Conservation Lands • Use of Search Dogs for Detection of Dyer’s Woad – University of Montana • Integrating Biological Control and Targeted Grazing for the Suppression of Spotted Knapweed – Montana State University • Plant Community Response to Weed Control – Montana State University • Utilizing Environmental – DNA for Eurasian Watermilfoil (EWM) – US Geological Service, National Parks Service and Annis Water Resource Institute

Adult Education

Healthy Acres Seminar - The Healthy Acres Seminar provides a forum for landowners (approximately 30 annually) to meet their neighbors and learn about the land management issues that most affect the health of their land, communities and watersheds. The goal of Healthy Acres is to provide resources and training on management issues in natural resources.

Private Applicator Training – This two day training licensed over 25 new private applicators on how to safely and effectively treat their property with herbicides as well as educate them on the importance of an integrated approach to vegetation management.

Building Bridges Revegetation Workshop – 45 Missoula county landowners came together to discuss how to implement simple monitoring techniques that help in weed management. Techniques discussed included: MSU Invasive Plant prioritization Framework, monitoring targeted grazing and revegetation program, effectiveness of herbicide treatments and bio-control releases.

Vegetation Management Weed Management Areas

To encourage cooperative participation of both public and private landowners within designated watersheds, and to aid applying for and administering of grants to help promote the growth of desirable vegetation.

The Missoula County Landowner Partnership Grant is a 50/50 cost-share grant program that assists local landowners in implementing their long-term integrated weed management practices. Organized landowner groups and partnerships are prioritized for funding which include organized citizens within rural subdivisions, homeowner associations, irrigation districts, and watersheds.

Steffany Rogge-Kindseth, Bio Control Collection

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