HELENA — Ahead of temperatures cooling down within the next few months, folks are out enjoying some of the last big blooms of the season, and one avid gardener in Helena reached out for help to solve a plant problem he is having.
"It's very different every day," said Sofia Franzluebbers, a Montana State University agriculture extension agent in Lewis and Clark County.
Watch to learn more about how MSU Extension helps Montanans
She received a call from Len Walch after he noticed something was wrong with the mugo pine in his front lawn.
"I've worked in gardens and stuff a lot, and I knew it was getting stressed," Welch said.
From a brief conversation and a look at the pine, Franzluebbers quickly figured out it was pine needle scale.
"It just kind of sucks out the juice from those needles over time, and then in that crawler stage, it moves over to different sections of the tree and expands its infestation," she said.
The services she provides are part of extension, which is a partnership between Montana State University, counties, state, and federal agencies.
Extension is tax-funded and is usually free to the community.
"The only things that aren't free are when we have to put in a lot of money that is not in our budget," Franzluebbers said.
In the warmer months, Franzluebbers answers a wide range of gardening and agriculture-related questions, from plant identifications to site visits, as she did with Walch.
"I'm a biologist myself, so I love living organisms," said Walch. "Some of them are out to get other things, but they're just trying to make a living too."
When winter hits, extension work focuses more on providing workshops and courses for the community, like the Montana Master Gardener Program.
"We can give them information without looking for something in return," Franzluebbers said.
County extension agents also work with state specialists at MSU for a variety of things.
"When somebody has a question that is beyond my expertise, I can lean on those experts to help me out," said Franzluebbers.
Extension has been around for over one hundred years and is one way that folks, from urban gardeners to rural ranchers, can learn how to protect their plants without feeling pressured to make a purchase.
"We won't actually do anything to your yard, but we can provide you all of that research-based educational information to give you the next steps," Franzluebbers said.
Learning about the possible next steps is all that Walch wanted.
"Understanding how the world goes around is important, and that makes you enjoy it even more," he said.
There are 97 MSU extension agents spread across the state, and you can find the office closest to you here.
