WHITEHALL – Staff at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park are pleased to reopen the cave for the 2023 season.  

Tours will be offered from May 1 through Sept. 30. Both first-come-first-served tours and reservable tours will be offered. Visitors are encouraged to visit the state parks website frequently as tour options, times and availability may change throughout the season. Reservable tours are available from May 25 through Labor Day. To make those reservations, call 1-855-922-6768 or visit fwp.mt.gov/stateparks. 

During the season the upper visitor area will be open and cave tours will be offered seven days a week. The gate opens at 8:30 a.m. and the ticket office opens at 9 a.m.  
The campground and trails are open, and the showers, comfort station and water stations will reopen as weather allows.  

Paradise Tour 
The Paradise Tour includes a view of the largest and most decorated room in the cave — the Paradise Room. This 1-mile tour lasts 90 minutes. It includes 15 stairs between two rooms, but the path is mostly level and partly wheelchair accessible. Because the paradise tour provides better accessibility and easier passage, this tour is recommended for visitors with small children, claustrophobia or who prefer a less arduous experience.  

The Paradise Tour will be offered every day on a first-come-first-served basis until Memorial Day weekend. Starting Memorial Day weekend, reservations can be made, and tour times will be 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. These times are subject to change, so visit fwp.mt.gov/stateparks prior to your visit.  

Tickets for the paradise tour are $10 for visitors ages 62 and older, $15 for visitors ages 15 to 61, $10 for kids ages 5 to 14, and free for anyone 4 or younger. 

Classic Tour 
The Classic Tour features a 2-mile journey through the majority of the developed cave and includes the second-largest and longest rooms in the cave. This tour lasts for two hours and includes more than 600 stairs, stooping and tight squeezes. It is not recommended for small children, or visitors with claustrophobia or who prefer a less arduous experience.  

Bats occupy some rooms that are part of the classic tour. Bats can be susceptible to pathogens carried by people.  

Limited Classic Tours will be offered every day except Tuesdays from May 1 to May 25. Additional tours may be added as staffing allows. The Classic Tour will be offered Wednesday through Monday starting May 26 on the hour from 10 a.m. through 4 p.m. by reservable tickets and as staffing allows.
 
Tickets for the classic tour are $15 for visitors ages 15 and older, $10 for kids ages 5 to 14, and $5 for anyone 4 or younger.  

Planning your visit 
Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park features one of the most decorated limestone caverns in the Northwest, filled with spectacular stalactites, stalagmites, columns and helictites. The park also offers camping, trails to hike or bike, a state-of-the-art visitor center, interpretive displays, a gift shop, food and beverage concessions, an amphitheater, and interpretive events during the summer months.  

An $8 entrance fee is required for visitors who are not residents of Montana. Residents of the state normally pay the fee with vehicle registration.  

Visitors are asked not to wear any clothing, shoes or accessories, including glasses, jewelry and cameras, that have been in another cave or mine in the past two years. This is to protect bat populations at the Caverns. White-nose syndrome, a fungus that kills entire bat colonies, can be transmitted easily and does not come out of clothing or other materials with normal washing methods. While it does not affect humans, it could have significant impacts to the cave ecosystem.  

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park is about 15 miles southeast of Whitehall, along Montana Highway 2. For more information about the park, please visit fwp.mt.gov/stateparks/lewis-and-clark-caverns or call 406-287-3541. 

Come and share your talents with visitors and neighbors alike! The Livingston Depot Museum is seeking volunteers to welcome visitors this museum season, starting on May 20th.  The Depot is often the first place visitors stop when touring our region. Help welcome them and share a piece of railroad history! Historical or railroad knowledge is not required, so come learn about your town and help others have fun.

Volunteering at the Depot is a great opportunity. Volunteering looks good on a resume and can be the perfect way to develop workplace confidence following a career break. Volunteering is also a great way to stay connected with our vibrant community during retirement.  Don’t forget, we also have opportunities for Park High School students to earn their required community service hours—why not have fun while you fulfill your requirements?

“There’s a kind of camaraderie in helping as a volunteer,” said Museum Director Laura McCarthy-Cota.  “It’s fun to share the experience of local history with visitors. It’s a good chance to make new friends and meet people visiting from far and wide.”   

McCarthy-Cota said volunteers help out at the front desk greeting visitors and answering general questions, as well as in the gift shop. Schedules can be flexible but usually involve just one 3.5-hour morning or afternoon shift a week.  Openings are currently available for both weekdays and weekends, and the museum will be open to the public starting May 20th. 

Volunteers can also help with other occasions such as the Depot Foundation’s summer and winter events including the Festival of the Arts.  

General information is available on the Depot’s website at www.livingstondepot.org, and anyone interested in signing up is invited to reach the Depot at (406) 222-2300.  

BOZEMAN — A new grant from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust will support ongoing efforts by Montana State University to expand biomedical engineering research and education with an emphasis on developing new technologies to improve rural health care.

The $429,000 award will allow MSU to create the Biomedical Innovation for Research and Development Hub, an interdisciplinary biomedical research project bringing together engineering, nursing and computer science to advance life-saving technologies and provide hands-on opportunities for students.

“We are very appreciative of the Murdock Trust for this support,” said Bernadette McCrory, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in MSU’s Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, who is leading the project. “This funding is a catalyst for growing our biomedical capabilities and translating them into saving patients and enhancing quality of life. That’s what we care about most.”

The Murdock Trust grant will primarily be used to purchase cutting-edge instrumentation that will significantly boost MSU’s research capacity, including high-tech manikins, an advanced 3-D printer and an interactive, augmented reality simulator, according to McCrory.

"This is going to be groundbreaking for researchers at MSU and the health care partners we want to collaborate with," said project co-leader Elizabeth Johnson, assistant professor in MSU’s Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing. "It allows us to bring in our partners and have the research be tangible, so that we can move novel solutions more quickly from lab bench to bedside."

Johnson is working with Montana nurses to test a wearable device that streamlines clinical trial record-keeping, which could help patients in rural areas access the latest experimental treatments for cancer and other diseases without the need to travel to hospitals outside the state. McCrory is helping develop a device that makes it easier to detect heart abnormalities in remote settings. Both efforts are examples of the kind of work that could be significantly accelerated by the BioReD Hub, they said. The manikins will enable lifelike testing, especially for technologies involving trauma treatment, while the simulator — which can display virtual patients within a variety of lifelike surroundings — will help researchers and health care partners visualize and conceptually test solutions. The resources also create opportunities for collaborating with partners, McCrory said.

"We’ll be able to immerse our health care partners in these situations without having to leave our lab," Johnson said. “We can rigorously control the science and actually test failure rates and inefficiencies in medical devices. This interdisciplinary space for technology incubation and device development is unique in an academic environment and the expertise of those using the hub and its equipment will set us apart."

BioReD Hub will working with MSU’s Gianforte School of Computing to capitalize on the potential for computer science to facilitate remote health applications, new digital health technologies and other health care improvements, said project co-leader Laura Stanley, associate professor in the Gianforte School of Computing. Her recent research includes developing augmented reality and virtual reality systems to support patients recovering from opioid use disorder — another example of the kind of project that could benefit from the hub’s interdisciplinary collaboration with health care partners, she said.

The hub will also provide opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in the growing biomedical field, similar to how computer science undergraduates have played a key role in developing Johnson’s wearable device, Stanley noted. In that way, the project is aligned with MSU’s broader effort to expand biomedical education, including offering a Bachelor of Science in biomedical engineering since 2021.

“We have a lot of students who are excited about using innovative computer science approaches to do things like assist with high-risk surgeries or detect life-threatening diseases,” Stanley said. “There’s great potential to harness data and integrate emerging technologies to support health care professionals.”

According to Johnson, the hub will support "having students answer challenging questions in a rigorous, scientific way, which prepares them to be systems thinkers and leaders in the health care system."

MSU is contributing $161,000 to the project through the Office of Research and Economic Development, Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering and Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing. The total funding will also be used to provide biomedical engineering “seed grants” to MSU faculty and their research partners to stimulate new ideas and technologies.

“With increased emphasis on interdisciplinary science and the integration of research, teaching and community engagement, MSU will see more projects like this,” said Alison Harmon, MSU’s vice president for research and economic development. “It’s an excellent example of how our collective expertise can address biomedical challenges in rural Montana and improve the quality of life for the people of this state.”

“Health care is a very complex system,” McCrory said. "Innovation and technology are really what’s going to help reduce barriers to rural health care delivery with a special focus on Montana."

The Murdock Trust was established by the last will and testament of the late Melvin Jack Murdock, co-founder of Tektronix, lifelong resident of the Northwest and philanthropist. Since it was founded in 1975, the Murdock Trust has provided more than $1.3 billion in grants and support to more than 3,000 nonprofits in the Pacific Northwest.

What is Give Big? Give Big is a 24-hour celebration of giving to support local nonprofits. One Valley Community Foundation’s 9th annual Give Big Gallatin Valley will take place from 6 pm on May 4th to 6 pm on May 5th at www.GiveBigGV.org. During the event, donors county-wide come together to support the causes they care about by donating to nonprofits across Gallatin County at one convenient website. Since its inception in 2015, the event has raised over $11.4 million for 230+ local nonprofits. This year, there are 250 local nonprofits participating - a new record!

What is included in the events calendar? Throughout the 24-hour event, local nonprofits and businesses will be hosting over 90 events. These events are open to the public so folks can get to know and support local nonprofits. These events include a family festival, a comedy show, an opportunity to check out a fire truck, concerts, karaoke parties, 24 hours of treadmill running, swing dance classes, ceramics classes, a salon day, and many partnerships with local coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. You can see the full event details here. We invite you to visit any of the events to see Give Big in action and meet the nonprofits impacted by this initiative.

Lighting is crucial to the growth of cannabis, which is both a science and an art. Proper lighting not only impacts plant growth, but also influences the potency and yield of your cannabis buds. We'll go over all you need to know about lighting for cannabis production in this in-depth guide, assisting you in illuminating your path to bigger, better buds. However, before you start with growing, it’s important to select quality cannabis seeds to ensure the best possible product at the end. Feminized cannabis seeds, for example, are an excellent choice as they produce almost exclusively female plants, ensuring higher yields and eliminating the need to identify and remove male plants that could potentially pollinate and reduce the quality of your harvest.

Understanding the Cannabis Light Spectrum
Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) is the range of light wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. In cannabis cultivation, it's essential to provide your plants with the right balance of light from the PAR spectrum, which includes blue, red, and far-red light.

Blue Light and Vegetative Growth
Blue light (400-500 nm) plays a crucial role in the vegetative stage of cannabis growth, promoting healthy and compact plants. According to research from the University of Guelph, increasing blue light exposure can lead to shorter internodal lengths and more branching.

Red Light and Flowering Stage
Red light (620-750 nm) is vital for the flowering stage, as it encourages bud development and increases yield. Studies have shown that red light is essential for initiating the flowering response in cannabis plants.

Far-Red Light and the Emerson Effect
Far-red light (700-800 nm) is also important in cannabis growth, as it contributes to the Emerson effect. This phenomenon occurs when plants exposed to both red and far-red light experience an increase in photosynthetic efficiency. A study by Emerson and Lewis found that this effect can lead to faster and more vigorous growth in plants.

Types of Grow Lights
There are numerous varieties of grow lights, each with unique benefits and downsides. Let's focus on the most well-liked choices.

Fluorescent Lights (CFLs and T5)
Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) and T5 tubes are affordable and energy-efficient options for small-scale cannabis growers. They produce a balanced light spectrum, making them suitable for both vegetative and flowering stages. However, their light intensity is relatively low, which may result in reduced yields.

High-Intensity Discharge Lights (HID)
Metal Halide (MH) and high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights are high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps that produce intense light, making them ideal for larger grow spaces. MH lamps provide a blue-heavy spectrum, while HPS lamps emit a red-dominant spectrum. Many growers use a combination of both for optimal growth and flowering. However, HID lights are less energy-efficient and produce more heat compared to other options.

Light Emitting Diode (LED) Lights
LED lights are rapidly gaining popularity in cannabis cultivation due to their energy efficiency, long lifespan, and customizable light spectrum. They produce less heat than HID lights, reducing the need for extensive cooling systems. However, high-quality LED grow lights can be more expensive upfront.

Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH) Lights
CMH lights are a type of HID light that combines the benefits of both MH and HPS lamps. They offer a full-spectrum light output, high-intensity, and energy efficiency, making them an attractive option for many cannabis growers.

Choosing the Right Grow Lights for Your Setup
When selecting grow lights, consider the size of your grow space, the intensity of the light needed, your budget, and energy consumption. You may make a decision that best meets your needs by balancing these aspects.

Determining the Size of Your Grow Space
Measure the dimensions of your grow space to determine the total area that needs to be illuminated. Larger grow spaces require more powerful lighting systems, while smaller spaces can benefit from lower-intensity options.

Matching Light Intensity to Your Plants' Needs
Different stages of cannabis growth require varying light intensities. During the vegetative stage, cannabis plants need lower light intensity, while the flowering stage requires higher intensity for optimal bud development. Ensure your chosen lighting system can provide the appropriate intensity for each growth stage.

Considering Your Budget and Energy Consumption
Factor in the initial cost of the lighting system as well as its ongoing energy consumption. While LED and CMH lights may have higher upfront costs, their energy efficiency can save you money in the long run. On the other hand, HID and fluorescent lights tend to be more affordable initially but consume more energy.

Balancing Light Spectrum for Different Growth Stages
For both the vegetative and blooming stages of cannabis growth, use grow lights that offer the ideal ratio of blue, red, and far-red light. It is simpler to fine-tune the lighting settings for each growth stage when using lighting systems that let you alter the light spectrum, such as LEDs.

Adjusting Light Conditions for Different Strains and Growth Stages
Researching the particular demands of the strains you're growing is vital because different cannabis strains may have different lighting requirements. Make any necessary modifications to the light intensity and spectrum as your plants move from the vegetative to the flowering stages to guarantee they receive the best illumination possible.

Conclusion
Proper lighting plays a significant role in the success of your cannabis cultivation efforts. You'll be well on your way to producing bigger, superior buds by comprehending the cannabis light spectrum, selecting the appropriate grow lights for your setup, and carefully monitoring and modifying your lighting conditions.

Never forget that every grow area and plant is different, so don't be afraid to try new things and modify your lighting strategies to best meet your requirements.

HELENA – This year’s Montana paddlefish seasons kicks off on May 1 with the opening of the Upper Missouri River section from Fort Benton downstream to Fort Peck Dam. Anglers must have a White Harvest Tag to participate in catching and keeping a paddlefish from this section of the river. These tags are issued through a lottery system. FWP mails these tags to successful applicants.

Unsuccessful paddlefish drawing applicants will be issued a snag-and-release only license for the Upper Missouri River. Others may also purchase snag and release tags for this fishery, even if they are not part of the lottery.

The paddlefish season on the Missouri River below Fort Peck Dam and in the Yellowstone River below the mouth of the Bighorn River opens May 15, and the archery fishing season for paddlefish in the Fort Peck Dredge Cuts below Fort Peck Dam opens July 1. As in the past, anglers may only select one area to fish for paddlefish in Montana: Upper Missouri River (White Harvest Tag), Yellowstone River and Missouri River downstream of Fort Peck Dam (Yellow Harvest Tag) and the Fort Peck Dredge Cut archery-only season (Blue Harvest Tag).

All harvested paddlefish must be immediately tagged and reported within 48 hours. Reporting options include: on-site where fish were harvested (at check points like Intake Fishing Access Site or roving creel staff along the Missouri), on the phone hotline at 1-877-FWP-WILD (877-397-9453) or 406-444-0356, or online at MyFWP at fwp.mt.gov.

BOZEMAN – As the academic year at Montana State University draws to an end, the university is again partnering with the city of Bozeman to reduce curbside clutter with its annual “Don’t Curb Your Crap” event.

For the month of May, the city’s Solid Waste Division will waive its fee for bulky item pickups for MSU students and spring graduates. Pickups of bulky items such as couches, desks and mattresses normally cost $20 per item.

To arrange a pickup, students need to fill out a form on the city’s website to confirm their student status, provide a description of the item and list its location.

“Every year, we see success with this program” said Margaret Davies, program manager of MSU’s Off-Campus Student Life program, which was formed by ASMSU last spring  to help students as they transition to off-campus living. “The university is proud of our partnership with the city of Bozeman, and Don’t Curb Your Crap is just one of the ways we work together to support students living off-campus and reduce the impact MSU students make on the community at the end of the semester.”

“Don’t Curb Your Crap” began in 2019 and is a partnership between the Office of the Dean of Students, the Associated Students of MSU, the city’s Neighborhoods Program and Bozeman’s Solid Waste Division.

For more information and to access the online form, visit bozeman.net/dcyc.  

The Zoot Art Gallery in Bozeman is accepting solo and group applications for exhibitions to be held in 2024. Applications are open to the Montana art community.

Call Deadline: June 16th, 2023
Notification of Acceptance: On or before July 15th, 2023
Accepted Mediums: All
Application: zootartgallery.com

Zoot is committed to championing the Montana art community. The corporate exhibit space is open to the public and hosts rotating works by Montana artists for the enjoyment of employees and the community. The gallery has an expansive open area for sculpture and boasts over 100 square feet of vertical exhibit surfaces. One exhibiting artist described it as “...arguably the finest gallery space in the area.”

All work sold through the gallery is commission-free, and underwriting is provided for opening receptions. The exhibits of Montana-only artists rotate approximately every three months and are selected by the Zoot Committee for the Arts.

Public hours are 9 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday. For more information, visit the Zoot art gallery website at zootartgallery.com or contact Carol Lehmann, Gallery Coordinator, at carol.lehmann@zootweb.com.