The concept of doing twilight pasture walks in Gallatin County started in 2019; and because of the popularity of walks, it has remained in our programming repertoire. 

Because of the negative attention that agricultural chemicals so commonly receive, some landowners are hesitant to apply herbicides to pastures and hay fields. In a effort to help these landowners determine whether or not a herbicide applications is warranted, the Gallatin County Extension Service conducted several Twilight Pasture Walk sessions on local farms and other properties in the county. 

The goals of these pasture walks were three-fold: to identify common pasture weeds; to establish which of these weeds are likely to cause the most problem; and different types of measures used to control the weeds.

The results of these twilight walks may be best expressed by some of the comments made by those who attended.

• "I was always too quick to spray something; I didn't know that I could bushhog a weed to death!"
• "I'm going to keep a small sprayer of weed killer with me when I'm out on the farm. That way I can spot spray some weeds to keep a small problem from becoming a BIG problem."
• "I didn't know the state had a noxious weed program. I hope to take advantage of that next year."

As a side benefit of the Twilight Pasture Walks, when told that the Monarch Butterfly population has shrunk by 80 percent, some of the producers even agreed to allow the milkweed to grow on parts of their farms.