Montana ARS Botanist to speak at Missouri River Watershed Coalition meeting
ARS Research Botanist John Gaskin has been invited to speak at the Summer 2012 meeting of the multi-state Missouri River Watershed Coalition (MRWC), to be held June 13-14, in Sturgis, SD. Dr. Gaskin will discuss the “Biological control of Russian olive and Tamarisk.” Dr. Gaskin is Research Leader of NPARL’s Pest Management Research Unit. He and fellow PMRU researchers, Erin Espeland and Kevin Delaney are participating in MRWC’s Conservation Innovation Grant project focusing on innovative conservation approaches to invasive riparian plant management of Russian olive and saltcedar (Tamarisk) by monitoring herbicide treatment and control sites infested with both species for short and long-term ecological changes, riparian system health and function, and natural resource enhancement. Under the three-year grant program administered by the Natural Resource and Conservation Service, the group is also investigating the use of innovative bioenergy technologies that promote the utilization of invasive plant biomass as an untapped bioenergy source. The project is also charged with transferring its project findings, products and technologies to a broad range of regional stakeholders. The spring meeting in Sturgis also includes presenters from several land grant universities, state governments and private industry, who will be discussing new weed mapping technologies, technologies for utilization of the woody biomass found in Russian olive and saltcedar, and various riparian weed management products from Crop Protection Services, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont.
 
(John Gaskin, 406.433.9444, john.gaskin@ars.usda.gov)
(Erin Espeland, 406.433-9416, erin.espeland@ars.usda.gov)
(Kevin Delaney, 406.433.9440, kevin.delaney@ars.usda.gov)
 
Montana ARS Ecologist to speak at International Symposium on Invasive Plants and Climate Change in China
Sidney, MT ARS Plant Ecologist Erin Espeland has been invited to speak at the International Symposium on Invasive Plants and Climate Change to be held June 13-14 in Urumqi, Xinjiang Province, China. Dr. Espeland’s presentation is entitled “Interactions in invasive species and other rangeland plants.” She is a member of NPARL’s Pest Management Research Unit. The symposium is being funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the US Natural Science Foundation. Organizers include: Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); University of Nevada, Reno ; CAS Key Lab of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land; Xinjiang Agricultural University, and Xinjiang Society of Botany. The goals of the Symposium are to: (1) assess mechanisms of plant invasions; (2) evaluate how potential global changes may influence these mechanisms and alter plant invasions; and (3) project how plant invasions may be managed as global changes occur. Because arid ecosystems are especially susceptible to plant invasions and global changes due to low resilience and extreme sensitivity to environmental changes, special emphasis is being placed on plant invasions in dry regions of the world.
 
(Erin Espeland, 406.433-9416, erin.espeland@ars.usda.gov) 
 
ARS lab welcomes school tour groups of all ages
Sidney, MT ARS researchers and administrative personnel welcomed four different school tour groups over the past month to the Sidney ARS lab to learn about science careers in their own backyard and the many research efforts underway at the lab. In one instance, students were also able to help with an actual experiment. The school groups included 90 plus kindergartners, 40 fourth through sixth graders, 60 middles school advanced science students and nine high school sophomores, all from four different schools. • First up were 9 sophomore biology students from Froid (MT) High School who toured the lab on April 30 hearing presentations from ARS Botanist John Gaskin on the uses of DNA fingerprinting and sequencing to identify the origins of weeds being studied in the lab’s biological control of weeds program and from Insect Ecologist Robert Srygley on diet and immunization studies in Mormon crickets designed to identify the most effective pathogens to apply for managing the insect pests. • On May 9th, Technical Information Specialist Beth Redlin and Biological Science Technician Rob Schlothauer traveled to Central Elementary School in Sidney, MT to discuss insects with 90 Kindergartners. The youngsters learned about the parts of an insect, their life cycles, and problem and beneficial insects. They also got to see and touch live Mormon crickets and grasshoppers as they learned more about these important insect pests. • On May 16th 60-plus Sidney (MT) Middle School students spent the morning at the lab, touring the facility and hearing presentations on his Mormon cricket research by Dr. Srygley; soil types and crop residue research by Agronomist Bart Stevens, wheat stem sawfly and saltcedar biocontrol work by Entomologist Kevin Delaney and grasshopper microbial research by Insect Pathologist Stefan Jaronski. In addition to his presentation, Dr. Jaronski also had the students help with an actual experiment to identify potential “attractant” oils for use in applying fungal biocontrol agents to grasshoppers. The students were given caged insects and oil samples to observe in their classrooms, and were asked to note the movements and reactions of their insects to the various oils at several different time intervals. Dr. Jaronski and technician Rob Schlothauer, then collected the insects and observation notes for review and found an unexpected result…an oil previously thought to have high potential as an attractant proved the least attractive in the experiment. While additional studies will be done to further narrow the field, the students’ findings have helped to eliminate at least one candidate from those under consideration. • On May 22, 39 fourth through sixth graders from Terry, MT toured the lab and got their hands dirty in a soil texturing exercise led by Agricultural Research Systems Unit Technician Joy Barsotti. Barsotti discussed the impacts of different types of soils on plant growth and the many organisms and other nutrients found in soils.
 
(John Gaskin, 406.433.9444, john.gaskin@ars.usda.gov)
(Kevin Delaney, 406.433.9440, kevin.delaney@ars.usda.gov)
(Stefan Jaronski, 406.433.9486, stefan.jaronski@ars.usda.gov)
(Beth Redlin, 406.433.9427, beth.redlin@ars.usda.gov)
(Rob Schlothauer, 406.433.9431, rob.schlothauer@ars.usda.gov)
(Robert Srygley, 406.433.9420, robert.srygley@ars.usda.gov)
(Bart Stevens, 406.433.9476, bart.stevens@ars.usda.gov)