Thomas Mlsna (00:00.184) This is Thomas Mlsna a holistic land manager and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Kent Boucher (00:14.136) Carol Hochspurian, owner of Hoxie Native Seeds, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Thomas Mlsna (00:20.706) This is Hal Herring, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers podcast. Skip Slot. White tail. Valerie VanCoten, State Historical Society of Iowa. Judd McCullum (00:24.718) I Kent Boucher (00:29.582) Helmer at Iowa State University. My name is Kyle Laubarger with the Native Habitat Project. Judd McCullum (00:34.238) I'm Judd McCullum, appeared out of the wilderness, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Thomas Mlsna (00:38.626) Welcome to the Prairie Farm Podcast. At Hoxie Native Seeds, our mission is to provide native seed and education for land owners and land managers that care about their ground. So the education, we're doing that through the podcast and interviewing experts and the stuff we put out through our website. But the native seed that we provide, whether we grew it or we work with other producers that grew it, we are here to provide that for you. It's what keeps the lights on for us and it's what we love to do. Most of our seeds grown right here on our farm. hoxynativeseeds.com. and if you need a little help with consultation, not sure what's put on your ground, we would be happy to help you with that as well. Give us a call, hoxynativeseeds.com. Kent Boucher (01:22.112) Hunters today, whether they have land or not, have really been trained to hunt not intentionally necessarily, but just through experience of being out hunting. You learn to hunt based on the availability of half a tat. you operate based on, mean, and I'm not criticizing. I shouldn't. If I was, I'd be a hypocrite because that's what I do. We we shift our hunting patterns around seasonal differences and and seasonal food sources, seasonal cover. And I think some of that is just natural anyways, especially as it pertains to topography. It's just colder down by a river bottom in the winter. It's, you know, It's colder on a north-facing slope. animals are gonna move in relation to those types of things. But if I'm understanding you correctly, a perfect example would be my home farm that I live on. The deer are abundant when the corn is tall. Where I live would have very much been a prairie area. And if you're listening, why don't you fix that, Ken? Because I don't own it. I have very, you know, I am thankful for the influence that I do have, but I definitely do not have full influence over that. And so during the summer months and up through basically when the corn comes down, there will be, you on a good year, maybe 20 deer living there. But up until basically this time of year, there are not a single deer living there. you know, from, from after the corn comes down until now. And during the rut, you know, bucks are traveling through and there there's usually a deer to bedding in October. But once it gets cold, it's, it's back to half a tat. And so I, I changed my hunting behavior based on that. Right. I don't go looking for sheds where I live too much. I, you know, I do a quick pass and I found one shed through the years, but I know Judd McCullum (03:31.306) Yeah. Kent Boucher (03:46.21) where the sheds are probably in abundance and it's where I don't have permission to go looking. And the same is true for like if you hunt the early season versus let's say you have a late muzzleloader tag or something, you're, you know, we as hunters have been trained off of the availability of half a tag. Judd McCullum (04:05.198) And I think both of you said something that worries me a little bit because the social media effect is going to kick in for a certain subset of people to hear this. They're going to hear Thomas say that, oh, corn doesn't serve as cover. It's a food source. And then you just said during part of the year, I've got more deer in corn. It's not a preferred cover. I think that's just mostly a reaction. Kent Boucher (04:28.266) It's not a preferred cut. It's a thing of necessity. Judd McCullum (04:34.702) To shining a light on the fact that like most of the habitat people are deer hunt on is so degraded that that seems like Kent Boucher (04:43.214) And what is corn? Corn is a grass. just that it's an annual grass. And if that was all prairie, I am convinced that not only will the deer still be bedding there, the carrying capacity would be so much greater that there'd be more. Judd McCullum (04:58.83) If you can make it so a buck doesn't have to walk more than a mile to get what it needs, they have the capacity to get huge. That's the only reason they don't have giant bucks in Pennsylvania, because they got to walk up and down those mountains. Those things are a nightmare. I watched a buck try to run up one of those hills one time and I got tired. Thomas Mlsna (05:18.014) You're hitting the nail on the head, Judd. A whitetail deer has an average home range of about a square mile. And that's another problem in and of itself. Not the deer's problem. The human, the construct of having a hunting property problem. So most people, and it's getting worse and worse every year because land prices are so high, most guys can't afford a square mile. So they're not effectively managing that deer herd all the time. When I introduce people to my program, the three core goals that we push in the program are increasing the holding power and carrying capacity of a property, increasing the hunt ability and management efficiency. I used to say, want to make a really attractive property, but I've since changed my vernacular because I don't necessarily want a property that draws deer in during a specific season. And I always get guys that ask, just the other day, actually that property close to Doug's, it's backed right up to. Well, it's a 40 acre chunk away from a 500 acre preserve essentially. It's a private landowner that doesn't allow hunting there. So one of the questions was, how do we pull deer out of that sanctuary area? My answer is all is the same. You just provide everything that you can for them on your property, including a low pressure or sanctum, right? Low pressure areas where they don't get disturbed and they're gonna find those spots. But we don't wanna have these super seasonally attractive plots. I mean, we do in the sense of drawing them through areas, but not so big that they're pulling deer from miles and miles away. I just saw it on a podcast, probably the top consultant in the business, sells a lot of, ironically, I don't wanna go too far into this. Kent Boucher (06:59.596) Yeah, ironically the name... dox anyone here. Thomas Mlsna (07:02.294) revolves around wildlife, nothing that they sell is really truly for wildlife. It's just repurposed livestock industry stuff. Judd McCullum (07:09.706) I don't know who that would be. Kent Boucher (07:12.834) The... Chad behave. Thomas Mlsna (07:14.254) There's two things he said. He said, you gotta have really big food plots. You need big food plots. He said small food plots don't pull deer in. And then the analogy that he used, and he said he used it with all of his clients, is a small food plot is like a McDonald's. No one's traveling out of their way to go to a McDonald's. And he's correct there, right? No one's going out of their way to go to McDonald's. But he said a big food plot is like a fancy restaurant where someone will go hours out of their way on a special occasion to show up there. Kent Boucher (07:48.8) Brazilian steakhouse. Correct. Thomas Mlsna (07:50.57) Yeah, I'm getting the meat swester thing. So if you take that, he's not wrong, but he's not entirely right. So you back up small food plot like a McDonald's. Okay. Why is McDonald's successful? It's not because of their food quality. It's because of their location. McDonald's very much as a real estate company. They out how to put a convenient junk foods dispensary on every corner that's convenient. Yeah. Used to make me sick. I'd leave my previous employer. Kent Boucher (07:53.25) haha Thomas Mlsna (08:20.302) there's a McDonald's on the way and every single night at 4.35 p.m. there's minivans lined up around the blocks. Like that's what you're doing. You're taking your kids there and you're packing them full of that. You know, once in a while not a big deal, but every single night. Anyway, McDonald's is convenient and the location is everything. So when it comes to a small food plot, having it in the right location, security is gonna trump the quality of the food plot time in and time out. Now if you can create a really high quality food plot full of nutrition in a secure location, that's dynamite. That's what we strive for. On the other side of that, big food plot, to me it's not a fancy restaurant. To me it's a soup kitchen. And what happens is you draw in all these deer late in the season and they go and they eat corn. And corn's a high carbohydrate and with a fast, hot fermenting system like a deer, it just burns hot and it burns hot but they never feel satiated. So what they do is you draw in all these deer, they go eat your corn and then they go back in the woods and they have to eat more protein. They have to get protein from your native brows and they just decimate your brows. The biggest problem we have Kent Boucher (09:19.086) That's a really good point. Thomas Mlsna (09:20.43) And that's the thing. The biggest problem we have in habitat rehabilitation is the sheer number of deer most of the time. I come across these properties, guys call me, hey, we had a big EHD die off, or we're having all these problems, or we just bought this farm. I want to put all this food in. Let's earn the right to plant giant food plots. It's one thing to convert a row crop back into maybe we run it soybeans for one year and then convert it into native or something, right? But ultimately, if you go in there, with the mindset that I need more food, right? More food is gonna equate to bigger bucks and more deer. Nine times out of 10, it turns into a property that is completely out of balance with your herd sex ratio. You have a pile of does, some smaller bucks, and the big bucks just don't stick around because there's too much pressure from the herd and not enough available resources in general, so they just disappear. So if you approach that the opposite, where you go in, you start building your habitat up, Small food plot here, small food plot there. And then also you hit a point where like, our carrying capacity is going up. Maybe I want more standing grain to get me into December. I never push standing grain for winter deer food. It's, again, let's draw deer into a muzzle or stand location or something in December. But if you try to strive to feed deer off of food plots year round, you're gonna fail. And that, you know, it's a snowballing effect at the end of the day. that's why I brought my note pack, because there's a handful of things that go hand in hand. Kent Boucher (10:37.55) Yeah. Kent Boucher (10:45.646) want to make sure we get to that. Since we're on food plots specifically, let's dive into your notepad. Thomas Mlsna (10:50.454) Yeah, so well the big thing that I wanted to talk on, know, again, my approach evolves through time and my strategies with hunting and habitat management haven't really changed much, but how do you explain it to someone so it makes sense? this year, I think what's been really effective is I try to explain deer food based on like the food pyramid, right? Not so much the inverted pyramid, but if you think of the old school pyramid, I mean, I guess it doesn't matter to turn upside down or not. At the very top of that pyramid is your sweet treats. That's where food plots sit. They are the sweet treat, highly attractive food source. It's like, you just gotta have that, gotta have that. But they're at the tip of the pyramid. They're by no means a foundational food source for deer on your property. So when we start breaking it down into other food groups for deer, the next down in that pyramid, and no particular importance, but the lower you go on the pyramid, the more foundational the food source is. Food plots at the top, the next one down is usually where I rank soft-mast. you know, a lot of people think apples, pears, you know, again, what's industrialized where I can sell you, right? And I'm for apples and pears, but most soft-mast consumed by deer comes from shrubs. Shrubs and bramble. And that's the beauty of shrubs and bramble is not only do they provide a soft-mast in form of a berry, but they also provide leafy, herbaceous brows in the summertime, which is really high in crude protein. and also the woody brows component in the wintertime. You work your way down that pyramid, then you get into hard mass. Same thing, there's a variety of shrubs that produce hard mass, obviously your oaks, chestnuts, stuff like that. And between those two, in the fall specifically, that can equate to like 30 or 40 % of a deer's diet, where food plots really only at best ever are like 15, maybe 20 % max if there's not enough nutrition on the landscape elsewhere. So when you look at the hard mass and soft mass, they're a strong component of that. What's really important about those two types of food sources is the seasonal availability and what they do for a deer physiologically, right? That's when their sugar content, high fat content, they're building up a reserve to go through the winter time. Deer don't need carbs in the winter time. They need a fat reserve and protein and largely they just need to find a good spot to hang out and not move around, right? That's how they survive. And then you work your way down that pyramid a little bit further. Now is when you hit the browse category. So now you're talking native forbs and legumes. Thomas Mlsna (13:16.526) and below that would be like woody browse. Again, some of those, there's kind of some overlap there. You kind of have bramble, woody vine stuff, all kind of mixed in there. But the native forbs and legumes are so foundational on properties, and that's the biggest thing lacking, at least where I come from, southwest Wisconsin. know, it's farmed right up to the edge of the hill, and then everything else is used, abused, depleted, pasture ground, or overgrown invasive woodlots. Closed canopy forest, no real food value there. But the bigger picture in general with the native browse or the native plants on the landscape is the additional or ancillary health benefits that they bring to the deer herd. And most guys don't think of it. So they think, well, why would I plant something that costs $350 an acre? You know, cause they're not thinking long-term benefit. Why would I plant something that costs that much? That's really only good food for deer during two months out of the year, which just happened to be the most critical months of the year for fawn, birth weights to increase lactating dose and antler development. And also, you know, the nutrients, the right proportions, the right amount of fiber, all those things are perfectly, you know, supplemented to those deer through a native plant like that. But why would I do that when it's gonna lose attraction later in the year? Well, that's when your food plots really turn on and become even more attractive. But the real benefit, I think, from those native plants beyond the food value is keeping deer spread out on the landscape, one. And two, the insect diversity that comes with it. So the property I just came from is, I mean, you've been there. It's a gorgeous area. Absolutely gorgeous area. I mean, it's not far from our home. Kent Boucher (14:59.438) Driftless part of the Midwest is the best part of the Midwest. Thomas Mlsna (15:03.714) Yeah. Judd McCullum (15:05.026) care where Kent Boucher (15:05.556) I don't where you're at, Minnesota. I don't care where you're in Wisconsin. I'm sure to tell you it's the best part of the video. Thomas Mlsna (15:12.942) From a deer hunters perspective or just deer habitat wise in general topography is the greatest form of Yeah, solid cover got no food value with just topography alone, but solid cover So when you look at the driftless region, it's I mean, there's a lot of extra surface area a 40 acre farm can hunt like, you know an 80 120 acres a lot of times Kent Boucher (15:34.094) was talking about that with a friend recently, just the reality of like 10 acres is not 10 acres everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Like you could have from surface area standpoint, 20 acres packed into a 10 acre perimeter. Thomas Mlsna (15:48.526) Oh yeah, and that's exactly right. And that's where, you know, it ultimately comes down to an access issue from a huntability standpoint there. But in that area, in that, you know, and this guy's specific farm, he's sandwiched right in between the CWD hot zone and they had a big EHG outbreak there two years ago. Really? So this 400 acre property, they found 56 dead deer in like a two week period, which is interesting. We've never had. EHD issues on our farm and we're eight miles from there and you know, it's real sporadic throughout the southwestern, Wisconsin where we do have EHD. Kent Boucher (16:25.484) You guys had a terrible drought. Not last year, but- Thomas Mlsna (16:29.038) the years before. Yeah, I think that's when that's when they had it. Yeah, that EHG outbreak. it you know, it speaks to a bigger question or a bigger issue on the landscape. Most of my client properties, I should say all of my clients that are actively managing don't have EHG issues. Never had an EHG issue on any client property after they're one or two years into management. well, there's a couple couple big things like our approach. to combating EHD is pretty straightforward and simple. It's the same approach that we use to combat CWD and the same thing that we use to combat XYZ disease that we don't even know of yet that's coming down the pipe at some point in time. We keep on this trend. We keep our deer spread out as much as possible and we push maximum abundance through maximum diversity on the landscape. And the plant community is the foundation of that, right? And then that affects the microbial activity in the soil, that affects the insect biology. all those things, the carbon cycling, the nutrient cycling, it all goes hand in hand. But specifically with something like EHD, where we have this mindset, because I see it now, and I know you've seen it too, it's like what other pharmaceutical can we add to the equation that you're treating? Yeah, oh, you've got ponds? Let's treat your ponds. We can get ahead of that. Yeah, you sure can for, know, exactly $120 of treatment, and you gotta treat six to eight times a year, and every waterhole you have. So it's just. Judd McCullum (17:42.03) Yeah, well we throw in the creek too. Judd McCullum (17:48.558) $20,000 Thomas Mlsna (17:57.484) That's the problem with any industry in general. It's geared towards making money. And that's why you don't hear many guys in my position pushing native habitat because at best I get one sale out of it. I don't sales. I just kick them to you and let you guys deal with them. But that's the whole point. And I sell food plot seed. It's not a huge part of my income, but I sell food plot seed to my clients. And I will be the first guy to tell them, you need to shrink your food plots down dramatically. And let's take the rest of that space and plant it back to natives. But on the EHG side of things specifically, Kent Boucher (18:23.96) Yeah. Thomas Mlsna (18:26.894) We look at EHD and it's a vector-borne disease. It's spread by a midge. So what's the life cycle of that midge? It bites a bunch of deer, infects bunch of deer, then it goes and lays some eggs in the mud. The larval state is in the mud. That's where a lot of times those dry periods, deer are more concentrated down the last remaining water sources. Then you have a hatch. Then you have all these midges flying around. They're biting deer. They're already concentrated. It's just a snowballing effect. Every single property that I've been on that has EHD issues has one thing in common. There's no native plants. It's cool season grasses, invasive shrubs, and row crops. And that's all it is. So what is feeding the predatory insects or the insect predators in general, the dragonflies are a huge one, the bats, the birds, what feeds those species the rest of the year? When you have Judd McCullum (19:00.269) Yeah. Thomas Mlsna (19:22.286) good diversity on a property with a lot of insects. keep the dragonflies around, they're happy, they're fed. The birds are around, the bats are around. When you have a hatch with those midges, those predators... Yeah, 24, 48 hours, they've cleaned up 90 % of them. And that drops that life cycle fast because now you have less insects going back and laying eggs waiting for that next cycle. And I forget what the cycle is, know, the hatch and like mosquitoes are the same way. What are they like 20 some days or whatever it is. It's kind of the same thing. It's like, you know, the first couple of days, my house tucked in the bluff outside of the cross, you know, like last summer you could hear the valley humming some days, right? But within a couple of days. Kent Boucher (19:52.206) Yeah, they're very short. Thomas Mlsna (20:05.646) then all of a sudden it's not so bad, right? So those insects, those hatches feed a lot of those predators. But point being is you can't maintain a predator population if you're only feeding them once in a while or expect them to show up when you eat them if you're only feeding them that one thing. And you're not even consciously trying to promote them. You're just like, damn, I wish I had more of them after you find a whole bunch of dead deer around your mother's house. So that's a big thing. We've went away from, Kent Boucher (20:22.338) for us. Kent Boucher (20:34.702) Can I add something to that too? We had a recent conversation, great, great conversation. Nicholas and I did with Mark Tennion on Wired to Hunt just a couple of weeks ago. I think you'd have to scroll. Actually, it was kind of a I think it was episode 1010, 1010, if I remember correctly. was like, oh, that's kind of cool. But I hypothesized on there along these lines. And Judd, to his credit, has done a lot of preaching on this. And I had heard this years ago, think from, it might have been Kip Adams talking on Wired Hunt, that deer get, during the growing season, was it 60 % of their drinking, right, is coming through the vegetation that they're eating. if you have a property that is loaded with native Judd McCullum (21:16.0) Moisture, the water, they're Kent Boucher (21:32.248) grasses, flowers, so we'll call them forbs. You also have those soft mass berries and bushes. truthfully, deer don't eat a lot of grass, but definitely lot of forbs. You're not having deer congregate around these open water sources and these muddy banks where they're getting exposed to these midges as much. That's what I would hypothesize we go along with that. I mean, does that add up? Thomas Mlsna (22:01.258) Absolutely. And that's, you know, again, kind of goes back to what we talking about earlier. There's a lot of problems with the idea of managing a property for high deer density period. And that's where we're we're on this threshold right now where we're either going to be, you know, 10 years from now, we're going to be wildlife managers or we're going to be managing wildlife like livestock. Yeah. Where it's going to be give them this, you know, this vaccine or supplement that protects them from this disease. You know, I see it all the time already guys with feeders out or dumping ivermectin in the feeder to help combat ticks and flies and stuff like that. And that's a problem too, but that like that adds to the downward spiral that we're already in of insect diversity declining, right? So then, you know, then the deer eats that and it poops and the insects can't even break that carbon back down, get it back in the cycle because it's toxic. Judd McCullum (22:39.342) organic free range meat man. Thomas Mlsna (22:56.462) So there's a lot of problems with that. It's not, you know, it's this band-aid fix, band-aid fix. And, you know, I just want to back up on that for a second because I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. You know, we just went through this big era of bullshit with COVID and we're going through more of it right now. mean, American history, world history is going to get rewritten here, hopefully, right? In many ways. Like we're learning a lot of things that were told to us that are not true or just blatant lies. Judd McCullum (23:24.984) Yeah. Thomas Mlsna (23:26.318) And you'll have one person that stands there and says, I don't trust the government. I don't trust this. I don't trust that. I don't believe that, especially with COVID. Oh, get the vaccine. Do this safe and effective, all that. But then you'll turn around and you'll believe a different pharmaceutical company when they say that this is the right answer. every big egg company is just pharmaceutical. Judd McCullum (23:41.401) Absolutely. Kent Boucher (23:44.456) who rag on trust the science and then they the second they have some major medical problem yeah how can i trust the science any faster please get me in front of somebody who studied the science yeah Thomas Mlsna (23:58.99) Well, and we all have a confirmation bias. Right, absolutely. And that's, you know, it can be a problem. If your bias always goes towards what's the easiest or what's gonna be the most profitable, not most sustainable, most resilient, we have a problem and that's where we are. And that's where with whitetail management in general, you know, I think the biggest mindset shift that needs to take place is quality over quantity. Absolutely. Because we don't need, I've been preaching this for years to guys and it's just hard to get people to understand like, there's no benefit to looking out in your food plot and seeing 40 does in there on an evening. And I just had this conversation with a guy the other It's unhuntable. It is, it's unhuntable and your habitat never recovers from it. I had the conversation with a client the other day, said, because he was talking about more deer, we've got this, we've got that, we want more deer. was like, do you want more deer or do you want better quality deer? Because at some point you have to make that decision. And with the recent popularity increase of these thermal drone herd analyses and whatnot, guys are talking, I say that lately because they're just observing, right? They're not like scientific analyses by any means. But they're observing that a lot of these big bucks are hanging out in these areas. away from quote unquote highly managed properties because those managed properties just draw in a ton of deer. And it's because they're managed as half a tat. It's a big food source, enough cover to be adequate, pull those deer in. But just the mindset of more deer in a concentrated area for your viewing pleasure, for easy opportunities, I don't know, I do know there's varying mindsets there, but it's just not the right mindset to have. And it doesn't really get you closer to achieving your goal per se, right? Instead, it kind of takes you a step back. Because every generation, it seems to get worse. And in last 10 years, it's really started to snowball. Judd McCullum (25:53.534) Yeah. I said this in a tick talk. Don't go looking for it. that Pike County, Illinois, my mom's family had a bunch of ground in Pike County. And like back in the day before anybody had ever heard of a cell cam or anybody ever heard of a food plot, every flat spot was either row crop or hay. And if you couldn't do either of those things, you ran hogs on it. And It still produced that quality of deer and built that reputation. And now look what you see has happened. I mean, there was the whole debacle with the, you know, no buck, no pay thing down there, but like, they just love that County too hard. They've loved Calhoun, Schuyler, Brown. They're loving those counties too hard. You know what I mean? And it's just. You're seeing those numbers drop and it's mystifying people like, I don't know what's going on. know, we're going in and we're doing the TSI and we're putting in the, you know, eight acre food plot and the deer numbers are just keep on falling. And that's exactly the reasons we're talking about the lack of availability of clean water and you know, the lack of ability of the foundational elements of like Fawn growth. And like you said, milk production and antler growth and stuff like that. We've cut all of that out and that in conjunction with like some of the row crop practices we're seeing like It's been a few years now since I've seen the little seed grasshoppers in my timber that come out when the may apples start coming up. And that's when I started seeing the Turkey numbers collapse. And that's when I started seeing the mesopredator numbers collapse. know, I've had three consecutive years of D EHD because they all go to the same infected water holes somewhere in a deep holler, you know, north of my house. And that's where I find them all dead and they disappear. And it's just like, you got it. Thomas Mlsna (27:29.774) Thanks Kent Boucher (27:33.08) Just. Judd McCullum (27:34.816) You got to go in and find out what your land can make on its own before you hire somebody with the skid steer and the forestry mulcher and line of credit to go in and find a flat spot and annihilate it. And just, you know, it's doing so much more harm than good. And everybody thinks that's the way you got to go. Like I was talking to the guy at the Iowa deer classic this past weekend, you know, they got a big veil forestry mulcher right there on the end. Kent Boucher (27:48.845) Yeah. Judd McCullum (28:02.86) And of course the salesman is not going to say this to anybody, but everybody looks at that thing and like, that is the Swiss army knife of land management. have to have one of those, that machine, that attachment by itself. That's the good one. That's the good one. It's passed, but it's a mower. You want the mower. I'm talking about the four roti mulchers, but like the guys buy these, the sticker on them is $40,000. Kent Boucher (28:13.705) the auction Judd McCullum (28:26.67) And you see these setups where they didn't look at how to pair that with their machine. They didn't look at what that thing actually does. And what they end up doing is shoehorning themselves into an extremely tight niche. And they can't find their way out of it. Either their machine won't run it properly or they find out its limitations and now they've got all this money into it and they're in panic mode. You know what I mean? When they could have gone in with a Thomas Mlsna (28:39.861) Thank Judd McCullum (28:53.73) just a heavy duty mower at a fraction of the price. actually is closer to the Swiss army knife for this. You can do a lot more nuanced things and do it, you know, but those guys are really hurting things. I went a long way around the barn to say that. Thomas Mlsna (29:05.016) Well, let's talk about that for a second. Kent Boucher (29:07.198) Real quick, I want to put something in here that I think puts us into context what Judd's saying and what Thomas is saying too. I think we used to seeing deer operating successfully at above carrying capacity. And the only thing that has happened since that time is carrying capacity has been chipped away at by loss of habitat. Judd McCullum (29:34.476) And the deer numbers are just like a wave crashing over you. Kent Boucher (29:36.866) So when we see 40, and I'm guilty of this too, know, the deer hunter side of me can say, man, I used to see so many deer over there. I want to see more deer over there. But maybe that wasn't healthy in the first place. Maybe it was, but maybe it wasn't. And we can't say, well, either way, I want to see more deer there. That's wrong. It's ecologically immoral. Thomas Mlsna (30:04.59) Well, and there's a lot of things that go with that that we've amplified to your point less habitat. I just got in the you know, well Call it an internet argument Exchange of comments. Yeah, I posted a video the other day about predators the importance of predators and that's like one Oh, yeah, simple example, right? It's like we want to kill every Bobcat and every coyote because they're they're cutting into our deer numbers They're affecting our deer herd the simplest thing of having deer moved around on the landscape with the threat of predation keeps the landscape healthy, right? And they don't yard up in one spot for three days straight and mow everything down. It keeps pushing them around. keeps them spread out. And what I've found with predators more than anything is it's actually made our hunting easier because the deer like to get out in open air. Yeah, and they'll get those little secluded food plots where they've got wide berth of security around them. They can see something coming and they spend more time there. Not so much out in the big open fields, because then there's more human pressure, right? But that's a perfect example. Kent Boucher (30:48.718) I wanna see. Thomas Mlsna (31:03.372) I end up on these properties, you know, in the CWD zone. I do a lot of work where there's CWD and EHD. And you guys are like, what should we do for priority management? Like if you want to go hunt coyotes for fun, go hunt coyotes for fun. But don't think that you need to go kill every single coyote in the tri-state area. don't gun it. Exactly. And I mean, all the studies show us that when you kill coyotes, it actually makes it worse because they have an inverse population response. And then on top of that, if you have like a territorial pair that's keeping all the betas off the property and they're only feeding on a selective amount of deer a year, coyotes don't kill that many deer. Judd McCullum (31:37.804) No, coyotes Thomas Mlsna (31:40.174) I mean, they eat a lot of things that are not deer. And that, yeah, so that, that amplifies things too. It's like less mice, less lime, less a lot of things, you know. Kent Boucher (31:49.838) And also there was just that study that came out like a year or two ago that the intestines, so the gut bacterial colonies of felines, especially bobcats, but bobcats and mountain lions are like 96 % efficient at denaturing CWD prions. somebody just over the weekend, I don't remember who it was, stopped by our booth at the deer class and he said, well, you deer have been living with these diseases for millennia or something like that. I've often thought, you know, before there was all this yarding and confinement in a way, ecological confinement of deer. CWD may very well have been around, but there was enough of a predator specifically. And think back to the Pleistocene, how many big cats were in North America that could have been keeping CWD just as like a one-off occurrence, but because it was a sick animal wandering around with his tongue hanging out or something, know, the easy prey for a predatory cat and boom, those prions were denatured naturally going through the guts of that cat. And so once again, it's like a complete ecosystem does not favor those huge congregations of the animal. Thomas Mlsna (33:19.374) And there's, mean, you wanna go down the rabbit hole of CWD and I don't wanna claim to be an expert on it. I know enough about enough things. Kent Boucher (33:27.07) Every dude is at us this point. Thomas Mlsna (33:31.066) But you know, I don't, you know, with CWD in general, I don't wear the hat of like the sky is falling. Yeah. Right. Like that's not my outlook on it. We've never had a positive deer on our farm, but every single year I see sick deer. know, I mean, technically not on our farm. Last year, the Amish neighbor killed a doe, skin and bones. I sent her in for testing, CWD positive. Across the road, good friends, neighbors. Judd McCullum (33:32.062) state's wasting money Thomas Mlsna (34:00.174) buck CWD positive. Every year, a buck or two, skin and bones, they just kind of disappear. It's pretty, like the- So have Yeah, I mean, it's a very consistent timeline. You see them throughout the summer. They're in that clinical stage where they're kind of, they're wasting away. And then usually the first cold snap in October, they disappear. This is the argument from the CWD's fake crowd. Nothing, you know, show me a deer that's died from CWD. Well, you're right. Most of them die from pneumonia. Kent Boucher (34:07.246) You know it's there. Judd McCullum (34:07.918) You Thomas Mlsna (34:29.357) The first cold snap, their immune system's garbage or whatever it is. It's not that different from like HIV and AIDS, right? It reduces the immune system. Judd McCullum (34:40.237) Go more better days, Aero. Thomas Mlsna (34:42.114) But point being is I'm not in the camp that the sky is falling per se because whether CWD is as bad as they say it is or it doesn't exist at all, we should be managing relatively the same way. Keeping herd numbers in check within the carrying capacity, trying to keep deer spread out versus this livestock mentality of like, want all of them in this spot where I can literally get up here and shoot them in a barrel. And that's, you we want it too easy all the time. But on the CWD side of things, glyphosate's been on the news a lot lately. I think people, deer hunters especially, are missing the big picture with glyphosate. And I'm glad it's in the news. Now, I don't personally think that we need to ban glyphosate overnight. I think that speaks to much bigger issues, which we're all aware of, the dependency on Judd McCullum (35:16.44) Thank Kent Boucher (35:33.838) And what does it get replaced with? Thomas Mlsna (35:37.078) Yes, it could be exponentially worse. Yeah, that's whole thing. Like, let's take glyphosate out of Roundup and let's put in, what did put in? Dicamba or, yeah, Paraquad. That's what it was. Which is, isn't that like Agent Orange? Judd McCullum (35:47.038) pretty much. Kent Boucher (35:47.566) It's not in Roundup, it's TriClip. Judd McCullum (35:50.286) treacherous with the house was a lot more so was your activity out Thomas Mlsna (35:54.776) So the big picture here. Kent Boucher (35:57.358) Paraquat would just be, I had talked to a, had talked to a, a guy and I said, Hey, what would happen if, if they banned Roundup? And he's like, I probably see a lot of guys go back to using Paraquat. Paraquat is like the, you know, link to Parkinson's disease. That's stuff that you do not want to mess with. Carol had a way of describing it that is not suitable for a family podcast. Judd McCullum (35:59.798) family Thomas Mlsna (36:18.584) Well, most of Thomas Mlsna (36:24.206) I mean, that's all. Kent Boucher (36:26.926) Said you don't want to put it. He said you don't want to put it somewhere rub it somewhere more or less Judd McCullum (36:32.226) Yeah. Fun fact that takes chemical about 15 times more than hands, feet, forearms. Thomas Mlsna (36:32.792) place. Thomas Mlsna (36:38.414) Oh yeah, mean, you ever have an icy hot on your hands or your legs, never forget that mistake. Two a day football camp, hamstring super tight, put it on there after a shower, then sit down for too long. That's probably the only time I've sat down in a public shower and cried. But I had to. Anyway, the glyphosate thing, you know, I think it's Kent Boucher (36:57.383) yeah. Thomas Mlsna (37:05.92) It's just like everything else. You know, it's very, very apparent that our agencies don't actually care about public health. That's on the public health side of things. From a deer hunter management standpoint, there's a couple of big things I think hunters should take into consideration. Now I say that I use glyphosate as limited as possible from a habitat standpoint. You know, the way I try to coach my guys on it is think of it. almost like chemotherapy or like a credit-based system. You can only burn so many credits and beyond that, you're degrading the system. And every time you put it down, it degrades it a little bit, but if you only degrade a little, it can kind of bounce back from it, it can bounce back, right? But repetitive use is what the problem is. with food plots specifically, we try really hard to reduce chemical inputs. The reason for that isn't necessarily because I'm worried about causing cancer in my clients. Now that is. you know, a plausible consideration. you know, and that's like the big argument. like, well, it's all, you know, causation, correlation, blah, blah, blah. You guys are missing the point, right? I mean, I would argue that the problem with a lot of these is that we're so hell bent on trying to prove that it's a problem versus proving that it's safe. that's part of the issue. But with glyphosate, what everyone forgets is that long before glyphosate was patented as an herbicide, a broad spectrum, very effective herbicide, Kent Boucher (38:19.96) Yeah, that's a point, Thomas Mlsna (38:31.566) 10 years prior to that when it came to market, it was patented as a mineral chelator. It was used as a pipe boiler system descaler. So when you take that into consideration, okay, and then 20 years after that, it gets patented by Monsanto as an antibiotic. So you look at just those two things alone. Remove yourself from the potential. non-Hodgkin's lymphoma risks, whatever the lawsuits are lingering right now. From a deer manager standpoint, I'm managing the health and basically the peak performance. If we look at them like a professional athlete, we're managing the performance or the expression of these animals, a ruminant animal. Now we're. All of us are dependent on our gut microbiome for our health, right? But a ruminant animal specifically is even more dependent on it. Why do deer drink out of stagnant water sources more than running water sources? More bacteria and generally speaking, most of the year, that water temperature is gonna be closer to their body temp. If they drink cold water, it shocks the bacteria in their stomach and it can shut down digestion for a period of time. Kent Boucher (39:37.026) more bacteria for the Thomas Mlsna (39:53.046) where drinking stagnant water brings in more bacteria and can sometimes amplify digestion, right? So the whole world depends on bacteria. The bacteria in the soil, the bacteria in our systems, closely related. We know that now. know more and more every day we learn more about this. And to back up on it and not to throw shade at current farmers, we didn't know any of this stuff 10 years ago. We didn't have microscopes that could see that. Just like we didn't have telescopes that could see way out in space, right? It's kind of same thing. Your level of observation dictates. how much you know and how much you can. Kent Boucher (40:25.832) Yeah, one of the reasons there were so many fatalities during the Civil War is because germ theory didn't exist yet. Thomas Mlsna (40:31.96) Yeah, yeah. And now we just went overboard with it where we want to sterilize everything. So it's like, where's that happy medium? But from a deer manager standpoint, there's two big things working against us with repetitive glyphosate use on food plots specifically. I say that because again, killing off cool season grasses, promoting natives, cutting and treating stuff. I think it's about as good as it's going to get right now for that, for the long-term residual effects in the soil especially. But if we're... consistently spraying, and I say this, the industry standard for a long time was this whole spray till spray. you're gonna plant a food plot? Go spray it, kill it off, till it up. Bring the weeds in. then let it green up again. And And then spray it again, right? So you're literally trying to sterilize the soil. In the process of doing so, you're tying up the minerals available. know, chelation can be good and it can be bad. It can be good if you're trying to tie this mineral to another mineral so that it's more bioavailable when you take a vitamin or something. Judd McCullum (41:12.43) Bring the wheat. Thomas Mlsna (41:30.994) But it can be very bad when you're tying up essential minerals and nutrients in the soil, which is the big picture on the human health that people are overlooking. It's like, don't, I do care that it causes cancer, right? That hits home for me. My mom died of cancer, my uncle died of cancer, my brother-in-law died of cancer, my sister has cancer, like all these things. Like how many people, you guys, we're in Iowa right now. Yeah, exactly. And it's terrible to see that, but does anyone take a step back and go, where's this coming from? Kent Boucher (41:52.942) Carol died of cancer. Thomas Mlsna (41:59.756) right? And there's no one specific thing. Kent Boucher (42:02.158) It's a combination of that. Judd McCullum (42:04.45) back up right now and they're backing up into a wall. Correct. Thomas Mlsna (42:07.63) Correct, because there's no alternatives. But from a deer perspective, again, just because I'm not a doctor, not a physician, I'm an ecologist more than anything. So to bring it down to what's an actionable step or something we should be aware of as deer and habitat managers, when you're spraying this thing that just makes it convenient for you, it's doing two big things. In its simplest form, safest bet, guaranteed is it's reducing the microbial activity in the soil and it's tying up minerals. So you're producing a crop that's void of nutrients. I we know now that most row crops and crops in general are anywhere, soybeans are good example. GMO soybeans versus non-GMO, GMO are somewhere around like 40 % less nutritious than non-GMO. And it's a combination of the genetically altered plant that is resistant to the chemical. but also the fact that the repetitive use of the chemical in the soil is tying up the biology or killing the biology and tying up the minerals in there so that it's not bioavailable. So when you take those two things and then the other side of it is glyphosate, it's not necessarily a residual, it can, it accumulates, it's a bioaccumulator, it accumulates in plants. So you can spray a plant and maybe it's resistant to it, but it still accumulates in that plant. Where does it accumulate mostly? in the meristematic tissue, the fast growing new tissue, and the reproductive tissue. So the standing beans that you leave there is higher concentration in glyphosate. The tips, the fast growing portions, and in addition to that, the roots, the parts of the roots that are growing, it's accumulating there. So now it's accumulating more in the soil in general. But by doing that, we're reducing the total amount of nutrients available, and then at the same time, we're adding this antibiotic to the system. if you go into a deer's gut biome and reduce the amount of biological activity in there, they can't process the minerals the same. If they can't get the minerals and there's less minerals available to them in general, they're way, way, way more susceptible to disease, plain and simple. And there's some very specific nutrients that we know are being tied up that also we know that when there's a lack of those in a deer's diet, their prevalence rate of CWD is exponentially higher. you know, Thomas Mlsna (44:31.15) I don't even like to use the word conspiracy theory anymore because pretty much all of them are, all right. They're theories that come true. that is one of the theories out there. Kent Boucher (44:38.744) fringe theories that nobody wants to talk about. Thomas Mlsna (44:40.494) And that's the thing, right? You know, and you know, do you have to do the whole? I'm not suicidal. I love my family. I'm very happy. Judd McCullum (44:46.99) How fun we have to do that? Thomas Mlsna (44:50.158) But that's where I think a lot of the issues come in. Kent Boucher (44:52.366) feel the same way. Me too. Thomas Mlsna (44:55.394) Because we're never, and again, this brings up the bigger issue, which when you have the president saying that it's a matter of national defense that this, we up the production of this chemical that causes problems, that's already overused and over abused. We up the production of that. One, it makes the public think, well, it must not be that bad, right? And we can go down another rabbit hole on the EPA and all that garbage, I mean, what we know at end of the day is it's all their scientists versus. Kent Boucher (45:19.448) Yeah. Thomas Mlsna (45:24.962) you whoever's funding the other science, which doesn't have the backing that big ag or big corporations have. And then the lobbyists getting the government to say, just turn the other way and stuff this in your pocket and you'll be happy. Right? So that's the root issue. But from a deer hunters perspective and as a land manager and biologist background, it makes a lot of sense. It's like, let's just back away from this slowly. And we can, that's the thing. It's like, we can farm, especially food plots, right? And that's like, Again, I'm not here to say, hey, row crop are running 3000 acres that you should get rid of it overnight. think that's a whole nother topic of conversation. Absolutely. using the ground? But from a deer hunters perspective, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's just me. When I go out and check trail cameras in late summer timeframe, I take my kids, my dog with, I want them to have fun. I turned around the other day, my four year old daughter's rolling around the food plot with the dog. I'm like, I don't want to look at that and be like, ugh, get out. Kent Boucher (46:21.379) there. Thomas Mlsna (46:22.677) Or worse is like Or worse you don't even think of it that way right and then you're setting the next generation up for failure I want to look at it and be like let's get the most out of this property And if my management objective is to increase the health and resilience of the property Then I don't want to do things that go against that Yeah, know even sometimes it's you know one step forward two steps back or two steps forward one step back Just depends on the scenario. Yeah, and that's where like there's a time and a place Kent Boucher (46:24.156) Mineral Q later on there. Yeah Thomas Mlsna (46:51.842) But we're very successful at reducing chemicals on food plots, very successful. And it's not an overnight thing by any means. It all comes down to getting the soil balanced out, getting the right plant communities in there, but ultimately it goes down to the soil biology. You increase the soil biology and it's twofold there because if you increase the soil biology, then you do have to come in with a periodic treatment of glyphosate every three or four years to get ahead of grasses. Grasses are the hardest thing to get ahead of, right? But if you do that, healthy soil biology can break down those chemicals a lot faster in the soil than soil without biology in general. again, I think there's a lot of things there that we just kind of overlook, but I think we've talked about this before. I always tell clients, every convenience comes at a cost. So if you're just purely looking at this like, it's convenient. I don't have to have the right timing. I can go out and I can spray it. I'll spray it three, four times a year. It doesn't matter. That all comes at a cost. If you don't want to listen to me on the health standpoint, if you don't want to listen to me on the water quality standpoint, or you guys on the water quality, all these things, at the very least, you're going against your management objective of producing healthier, bigger deer by overdoing it with something like. Kent Boucher (48:06.168) Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think there's so much truth packed in there. And again, it just goes, I mean, so much of it, right? So much of the change. And I don't know if it, I imagine it probably is tied to our mentality. It's tied, I guess you could probably say directly to the great depression era when people had nothing for a good chunk of time. I mean, you can just tell when you go into like an old person's house that Either they spent some time in the depression or their parents did. That's why a lot of our grandparents reused the butter container. You know what I mean? That's why they'll be, why on earth did you save that? Because we learned that more is better. I think going way back early in the conversation, so much of what we preach is just trying to make it as simple as possible. Let's oversimplify this. Judd McCullum (48:51.797) cool containers every Kent Boucher (49:05.71) because that will match the literacy in this area and the attention span of the average Joe who's shopping in this market. And we gotta stop doing that. And I think so much of this too just goes with how we try to live our lives, is glyphosate is far more, like you said, convenient than... having a regenerative approach to, to managing the, your food plot or whatever it is. And, and as a result of that, man, could get Judd back good right now for what he, he just stepped away from them. Just kidding. it, know, those things take so much more time and, and effort and, and, sacrifice of other things that we want to get to in order to to thoughtfully, mindfully manage something. Thomas Mlsna (50:09.326) Well, that's where my philosophy and my approach with clients on properties, my own property is quality over quantity. Right? So let's talk on the food plot thing a little bit more. Couple things with food plots in general. We deal with high deer numbers, a lot of high deer numbers. I'm at the point now where I strongly encourage clients to fence off food plots. So we have smaller food plots that we can guarantee have food during the season versus the mindset of, well, I'll just plant four extra acres. I'll plant four acres of beans knowing that the deer are gonna eat 50 % of that before season. And then more chemical inputs, more stuff. Or like the big thing now that just makes my skin crawl a little bit, we're talking glyphosate, again, lesser of many evils. Now all these wannabe farmers in the food plot industry, they love their pre-emergence. Love their pre-emergence. You don't have to be that observant or. or that knowledgeable to look around the world and see that most of these chemicals are banned in most other countries. Which brings me all the way back around to this whole glyphosate thing. And again, we're sitting here in Iowa, right? This is like the breadbasket of the contiguous 48. Do you think that our politicians care about the health and wellness of anyone living in this state, let alone the farmers? I mean, I think they've proven... over the last 50 to 100 years that they don't give a shit about the farmer as long as the farmer keeps on supplying them with stuff that they can make money off of. And that's why they push corn and beans so much because it's the easiest thing for them to store and trade, right? So I mean, every farmer that I know this year lost money on their crop, but someone's still making money on the other end. Kent Boucher (51:50.062) most uncared for that I've ever felt when it comes to the government is this tort immunity. That's, well, it out as a state issue, the Senate filing 394 here in Iowa. And then thankfully our Iowa House stepped up against our Iowa state senators, by the way, to shoot it down. But now it's at federal level to grant tort immunity to agrochemical companies. And specifically in the realm of any mal-effect from their product that is not on the label, they are not held liable to. And can you make it any more plain for me that it's all about the money? Thomas Mlsna (52:40.306) Yeah, exactly. And that's where, you know, again, with the glyphosate thing, you see all these videos, the farmers like, you know, it's not that bad. We're talking, you know, acceptable levels and parts per billion. It's right. Yeah. are you going to bat for big egg, big pharma, same companies, right? Why are you going to bat when you're the one that's going to suffer the most? You have been suffering the most. Kent Boucher (53:02.254) Yeah, let's take that into any other context. You know, how about your glass of water there? We'll put whatever parts per billion of raw sewage in your glass of water. Are you drinking it, pal? I don't think so. matters on some level. Judd McCullum (53:16.302) That mindset makes a good crop and a good producer for big ag. Thomas Mlsna (53:20.782) Yeah, and that's it. That's that's exactly it. You know, I just again, I don't want to I don't want people to perceive this as like and I think you guys do a great job. Like you're not attacking the farmers. It's not the farmers fault. And to your point, I think it was it either a conversation we had or you said on the podcast one time, you know, this this chemical salesman knocks on your door and says, here's a one ounce vial of this that you can mix with water and spray it and take away all your weed problems for the crop. Like, yeah, you're going to jump on that. But this goes all the way back to Why do we as a society, why do we have to prove something's not safe versus proving it's safe before we use it? And as soon as we give immunity to these companies, we lose all those rights. We're done, right? And how do you come back from that? mean, we're already, we're at a point where we've got a big hole to dig ourselves out of. Judd McCullum (54:10.574) I tell you what, if I was somebody that produced lead or asbestos or what else, anything, I'd be hiring hitmen for these gag guys. Cause like they suffered, they had to pay for the things they had to learn. Exactly. Thomas Mlsna (54:24.014) and their materials. it's wild. It's a wild world. what we do with food plot wise, right? Again, I don't like to complain about things unless I can give someone a solution to it, per se. Correct. Pointing your So on the food plot side of things, we're actually, the blends that we put together, again, we're trying to maximize efficiency. And we look at, like when I. Kent Boucher (54:27.79) Hmm. Kent Boucher (54:39.006) Right, yeah, otherwise you're just... Thomas Mlsna (54:51.118) layout of property, we map things out, we rank habitat on net primary productivity, right? What is the total amount of dry matter production in any specific habitat type? And just to put it in perspective, when you look at a closed canopy forest ecosystem, there's like 70 pounds of dry matter produced versus a savanna type ecosystem, which is my personal favorite, which is like, it's prairie with oak trees, essentially, right? Now you're talking like 1200, 1500 pounds of feed forage per acre. So I kind of use that same philosophy with food plots in general. So how do we maximize the area so that instead of having four acres of food plot, we can have an acre of food plot and three acres of native habitat around that. And that's what I do almost every single time my strategy with clients is that, okay, your food plots this big, let's start choking it down. So there's a couple of big things that I do. One is I'm big on perennial systems. So we're always managing water first, because water is the number one. nutrient out there, right? So in hill country and bluff country, a lot of times we're cutting in a slope cut terrace or a subtle berm to slow the water down. And if the client wants to stick a little bit extra time and money into it, we'll actually grade it so it's the right slope and slowing that water down. And then we plant trees and shrubs on those rows. So if we can have trees and shrubs that outline our food plots, create edge, I refer to it as an orchard edge, right? So apple trees, pear trees, chestnuts, oaks, soft mass producing, hard mass producing shrubs. All those things. create a brushy hedgerow on the sides, and then in the middle we basically alley crop our food plots. You know, do the same thing. That's what we're designing for Matt and Hattala's property right now is a pasture pork system. Same exact thing. We're just rotating hogs through it versus deer. So we can do that. And then in the food plot itself, my go-to strategy is I try to always have, you in any given location, you know, maybe like a really tiny kill plot or something, but we're talking more of like a food system. I try to have split it in two. So we get in a rotation. 50 % of it's usually in a perennial alfalfa, clover, chicory, that type of mix. Then the other 50 % is more of an annual. And what we do is we stack things in there. And that's why I refer to it as a stacked system. So I'm big on sorghum and soybeans, non-GMO. It's a good cover crop in the summertime. It's good balance. Your carbon and nitrogen ratio is balanced out there. There's some other things in that blend that we use. Buckwheat's good at pulling the phosphorus from the soil. The deer like to browse on it. It takes a little browse pressure off the beans. Thomas Mlsna (57:18.872) But ultimately we grow that. And then later in the summer, as those, we use early maturing beans and sorghum. So it starts to dry down. Then we can come in and broadcast our fall forage blend, our brassica heavy blend into that. And then we come back again and we broadcast a cereal rye blend into that. I say a blend, all these are blended with this carbon-based mineralized fertilizer as mostly a maintenance thing, right? We're trying to keep the pH and the mineral in the soil balanced out. in addition to a constant living root and constant ground cover, combats our weed issue. And then the combination of all those is we can really stack in a lot of calories in a small area. And a cool thing from an infrastructure standpoint, I've kind of went away from tubing a lot of trees when we plant them and even caging individually. Now we fence them off in blocks, like solid blocks, 100 feet at a time. And then if you do that and you have like a contour strip, all you gotta do is close off each end, deer can't move in there. and then you open it up, deer can flow through there. So if you have two of these run in parallel, one's in perennial, all is open, the other one's annual, closed up, your deer get conditioned to flow through these areas. Now you have a one or two acre food plot that hunts like a quarter acre, because all the deer have to enter from one end or the other. It's a sweet system, it really is. And we dramatically reduce our inputs, and then over time, we have these perennial systems. The chestnuts, the oaks, the soft mass are great, and then for a late season crop, I'm big on these thornless honey locusts, these like Hershey and there's a couple other varieties that have been cultivated out Eastmore. They use them in silver pastures settings, you talk about the pods on them can be huge. They're like 30 % sugar content and they hang and slowly fall from basically December through February. exactly, so you don't have to plant a giant cornfield and pull in all these deer. But I tell all my clients, Judd McCullum (59:05.198) It's like a metered feeder. Thomas Mlsna (59:13.87) is this, think of this like 80-20 rule. It's not exactly that, but it's a rough, again, it's kind of more of an analogy than anything, but 80 % of the deer that we observe on the property, from trail cameras, from field observations, 80 % of those deer are resident deer. They're spending 80 % of their time on your property and 20 % of their time off on neighboring properties. And then inversely, the other 20 % are spending 80 % of their time on the neighbor's property, 20 % of the time on your property. And that's what we strive for, is something rough like that. We have a foundation of deer. Back to what you said earlier, Judd, is like providing those deer with everything that they need on a property or in the general vicinity keeps those bucks alive. It gives you more options. Your judge, jury, and executioner at the end of the day. What bucks do I want to survive? Which bucks do I want to quote unquote take out of the gene pool? So on and so forth. But more importantly than that, and this is where the native stuff really comes in, if you don't have enough good habitat, habitat, food plus cover. you will lose a lot of does and fawns because if those does have to travel, they either one are crossing roads, potentially getting hit by cars and or two, they're dragging a fawn with them and they're dropping fawns, you put them in areas that they're not super comfortable with, they're moving them frequently, like that increases predation, car collision, stuff like that. all of this comes back down to like high quality habitat at the end of the day is the best way to combat almost every wildlife health issue we have. And it's the one thing that it's like, let's just try this. Let's just try this for the next 10 years. Let's just, let's just 10 years. Let's just try it. Yeah. Let's see what happens. Let's see how things go. But it's, it's, it's, it's all a product of the industry, right? Cause I can't sell you a big buck, a bag with a big buck on it. Kent Boucher (01:00:59.074) Too often. I'm glad you said that, because that's where I feel like this is leading to, and what we're bumping into here. And this is where our friend Doug has tremendous frustration. And Doug has seen, you know, they test every deer that comes off their farm, and they harvest a lot of deer on their farm. And they have a very high prevalence of positive CWD tests. Doug is one who. does a lot of what you're talking about with him. He's doing the best thing for the land. He's following the leadership from unbiased, guys who don't have a, how would you say it? What's the old Turner phrase? Something in the game. Yeah, who don't. Yeah, dog in the fight, that's what I'm talking about. They're not hunting there necessarily. They're not a whitetail guy. They're just a, Thomas Mlsna (01:01:42.382) Let's get it again. Kent Boucher (01:01:53.334) Forester they're a prayer restorationist or something and and Where the tremendous frustration comes from is the industry the the whitetail industrial complex and I think it's a great term for because it's the agricultural industrial complex where we Get tremendously frustrated and then going on on and on down the down the list Judd McCullum (01:02:19.448) I want to jump in right here. I want to say that I think it's easy to say the whitetail industrial complex is the enemy. I think the people that it serves the most are the ones that don't have their own land, that don't know if they're going to keep their lease next year. know, that don't have any certainty as to what their hunting is going to look like year to year. I think it does serve those people. And I feel like that part of the market exists. And that part of the market overflows onto all the other hunters, obviously. But I feel like there could be a hard partition there where if you're a landowner, have agency and ability to do things on your land, then we need to start pushing that mindset of perennials and everything you're talking about. And I didn't want to sweep up one thing when we were talking about those food plots. I heard two things that I'd like to clarify just so everybody, we're sure they caught them. Thomas Mlsna (01:03:11.426) If you're thinking about CoverCrop for your land or your landlord's land or something that you might be managing, you've got to check out Iowa CoverCrop. We have worked with them many a times personally, and even though they're small company, they are as efficient as any of the big companies that we've worked with. They do a fantastic job and also super educated. Those poor guys, we have pestered them with more ignorant questions than maybe any other company we've ever worked with on anything, and they answer. really well and very promptly. We really appreciate them. If you're looking for cover crop, check out iowacovercrop.com. You're not going to regret it. And let them know that the Prairie Farm podcast sent you their way. Judd McCullum (01:03:47.618) You're talking about these blends rolling into each other. No bare dirt. You're keeping something on that dirt all the time. then the other thing I heard is drought resistance. Because leaving that residue on the ground is going to trap moisture and create a sponge at that level to hold that. Personally, from personal experience, Kent Boucher (01:03:50.744) heard. Kent Boucher (01:04:07.426) Back to the roots and the growing tissue. Judd McCullum (01:04:09.346) I used to be the guy that tilled. I used to be the guy that threw down my annual food plot. And then I would just be disappointed with how poorly it performed if it didn't get enough rain or if so many things didn't come together. But one year I couldn't get to it. My tractor busted down. I was doing stuff by hand and so I wasn't able to deal with the residue that was already on the ground and I just over seeded into it. Thomas Mlsna (01:04:30.67) Best year of annual food. Judd McCullum (01:04:32.376) plot I've ever had, ever had by far. mean, I had brassicas that were, you know, 24 inches tall and I had never seen that on my property before. thought that was Mark Dury stuff. Yeah. You know, so. Kent Boucher (01:04:44.492) Yeah, but the point being that, and yes, I agree, John, and I've had that thought too, where the guys who have very little influence on the land, let's take just a cell camera, for instance. You got no land, all you can hunt is public land or maybe some small permission pieces, a cell cam is a heck of a tool to help even the odds. I heard somebody once, I think it was Tony Peterson. Thomas Mlsna (01:05:03.906) gets hit right. Judd McCullum (01:05:04.503) in there. Kent Boucher (01:05:13.422) They were asked, it was on one of the Meat Eater podcasts, one of their network, they were asked, what's been more of an advantage to hunters, on X or a bag of corn? And it's like, that's a really good question. I think probably a bag of corn would get you to killing a deer easier, but as far as like finding a big deer and killing a big deer, on X is a heck of a tool. And so the industrial complex that exists certainly does allow more people to participate in a way that all the big dogs in the industry. A guy who owns no land, well, I know. I know three people just off the top of my head, and I think more, like know them well, that have killed, well, let me put it this way. All three of them have killed a deer that is 190 inches or greater on land they do not own. And a big part of that, of those three, I don't think, yeah, none of them own any land other than their house that they live in. And so, It has serviced those people well. has made it so that it's not only the guys you see on the outdoor channel that get a chance at a giant buck of multiple lifetimes. Thomas Mlsna (01:06:48.302) And that is part of the problem too, right? Now I don't want to poo poo people on the outdoor channel and the industry as a whole. I've worked in the industry now going on 16 years, 17 years. Got a lot of great friends in the industry. Just like any other demographic of people, there's good people, there's bad people. You food plot companies are a good example. Every food plot company out there, how do I say, because I don't want to too abrasive. Judd McCullum (01:07:17.102) Thank Thomas Mlsna (01:07:18.036) food plot companies are like bartenders. They're all mixing the same stuff. Yeah, maybe there's some coming off the top shelf. Maybe there's some rail put in there, but they're essentially mixing the same ingredients, slightly different variations. And then they give it a different name, right? You want sex on the beach? You want this? You want that? You want something catchy, something flashy, but it's all the same at the end of the day. That's fine. you know, capitalism in general is a successful thing, but it's only successful and sustainable if the consumer base is educated to understand what they're actually buying long term and not just manipulate. Where I have a beef with food plot companies, and this is where the industrial side of things comes in. And I've worked with a lot of food plot companies over the years. Again, I really have no loyalties to any food plot company, more so the people that work for them or own the business. Where I generally, I don't want to say cut ties with them per se, but Kent Boucher (01:07:53.07) to understand the trade-offs. Thomas Mlsna (01:08:14.67) tend to stray away, not promote them, not mention their name, is as soon as they hit this mindset of, well, how are we gonna pay the bills in the winter time? We're gonna sell supplemental feed. So now, we're selling the magic bean for the fall and supplemental feed for the winter, and it's just snowballing, in fact, problems. I've probably talked about this, I think I talked about it on your podcast last time. To me, personally, I would rather see guys bait, dump out a bag of corn for a couple weeks out of the year than supplemental feed, because, And I'm not really like trying to promote the baiting per se, but if it's a guy that doesn't have a lot of control, can't do a food plot, I'd rather see him dump out that bag of corn if he thinks he's going to give him an increased chance of success over pouring supplements into deer throughout the season. Because just the concept of supplemental feeding alone is anti-conservation. The reality is when you supplemental feed, you're promoting habitat loss somewhere else to push corn, beans, whatever is in that concoction. And then it's harvested, aside from all the chemicals, the topsoil loss, the water quality, all those things, it's harvested, it's processed, it's packaged, it's shipped to you just so you can drive a false sense of carrying capacity on your property, which in turn degrades the resiliency of your ecosystems. Kent Boucher (01:09:29.549) Yeah. Judd McCullum (01:09:30.254) It's another one of those things you gotta pay for multiple times. Kent Boucher (01:09:32.578) And it's like, and I mean, continuing on with our conversation on the industrial complex model, let's look at the ag industrial complex. There are people that have, people call it food security. I would call it calorie security. People can afford an Obisko. People can afford a microwave burrito. And so yes, we are, are, you know, I guess supporting. Thomas Mlsna (01:09:32.962) Yes, over and over again. Kent Boucher (01:09:59.724) people enough to keep them in a survival state, So that is, you know, so just like hunting has been able to do that through the whitetail industrial complex, more people can get more deer. The trade off are all these other problems that we're talking about. And if and if I think you the next logical thing is to go, yeah, but who's making the money. And who is making the money in the agricultural industrial complex and who's making the money in the whitetail industrial complex. That should be looked at. And then from there say, okay, what's the overall long-term trade-off like you're talking about that's coming as a result of this form of capitalism? And what are gonna be the trade-offs that we deal with in the long run? And I think in both cases, we can see some things that are pretty concerning. I said this on Mark's podcast. I don't look at and Doug and I had a good texting conversation about me saying this. He challenged me on a little bit. He said, well, what do you mean by the best days? I said the I do not from what I see right now, I don't look at from an ecological standpoint. that the best days of whitetail hunting are ahead of us. I mean, the key word from our good friend, Jace Elliott, the state whitetail biologist here in Iowa, he was the keynote speaker at the Iowa Sportsman's Club banquet this last Friday. His key word was decline. Iowa's deer herd is in decline. And then Doug would ask, okay, I want you to clarify that. What do mean? You just have less trophies to chase after or is the deer herd itself in decline? And I think you could probably say both. And that is, That is the long-term effect when we look at something and say, I want to exploit this anyway I can. And then when those very real problems start coming up, super high nitrates in our water, super high cancer rates, terrible EHD outbreaks, CWD spikes, when we start seeing those problems, then the industry can be in the way. Kent Boucher (01:12:23.746) And a thing that I kept thinking while you were describing your method for these regenerative and really truly a great term that you use is holistic putting food on the landscape. I'm thinking, boy, that just doesn't go super well with a tower blind that sits there for decades in one spot. And all my effort is walking to this tower blind. And I know guaranteed there's going to be, because this is the only food on the property, this is where the big bucks going to be. he might not be there because 200 yards over there, you set this up to be a great place to live. And there's a real good chance he's going to be spending time. And that's good. think, I think that's what, and that, and I've heard Doug, you know, make that criticism of, thought, boy, Ken, I thought it was about being a good hunter and not a, not a good, not a good sitter, you know, and, and, there's truth to that. And we get tuned into if I pay for this, if I buy this, If I have this product, I get my deer. Judd McCullum (01:13:25.678) Yeah, 15 more inches of antler. That's the danger. Kent Boucher (01:13:30.51) I've put up my part of the investment nature delivered to me what I am do and that is that attitude gets in the way of of dealing with these trade-offs that have come from the exploitation of these things whether it be corn whether it be soil whether it be deer whether it be turkeys whether it be whatever right there's there's trade-offs there that we have to deal with and then that's where the money that's being made people don't say, well, shoot, it was a good run. No, there's clawing and scratching. And that's why you have to say the things, I love my family. I'm not feeling suicidal in any way. Because nobody just says, well, shoot, it's great making money while we could. And I think that's where we as the consumers, the people that are participating, I give money to the industry. I've benefited greatly. from the industry. But I want what's best. It goes back to another thing Doug says. I know what the hunter gets. know what the farmer gets. What does the land get? that's where our decisions have to be made based off of that point if we're going to enter this arena. Or it won't be here forever. And it certainly won't be here in a way that was lush and vibrant. And I heard Ronella. say this recently, we're all fighting over crumbs. When you think of what historically this continent held from wildlife standpoint, we're fighting over crumbs. And until we recognize the poverty of our situation, that we are indeed fighting over crumbs, then we won't wake up to make things better. We'll just keep jamming ivermectin into our deer feed. Thomas Mlsna (01:15:21.23) Well, that's yeah, a big part of the problem is the general public is so desensitized from the problems that we face, right? It's just that's normal now Judd McCullum (01:15:30.606) It's not knowing where food comes from. All those things you mentioned earlier, the things that are reliable, the things that are sustainable, the tinfoil hat stuff, is that all those things are being hidden from us actively. You know what I mean? They're put around the edges of the grocery store. In the middle of the grocery store is the good stuff. Get in there and get that. That's easy. That's cheap. And that's for almost everything. Thomas Mlsna (01:15:56.128) I want to back you up on the food plot thing. I didn't listen to the whole podcast, but I caught a couple of the reels that you guys did with Mark. So I think, you know, you don't want go too far to the extreme because you don't want people to have a bad experience, My business is Correct. Like my business is, I was going to say selling the idea of essentially, creating the experience is everything, right? Kent Boucher (01:16:12.777) participate. Judd McCullum (01:16:20.462) carry on top is Kent Boucher (01:16:24.352) So that is a very important part to consider. Thomas Mlsna (01:16:27.416) Correct, so like my strategy is again, not to remove food plots from the property in its entirety because the best strategy I've seen so far is having the natives do the heavy lifting, the foundation of habitat on your property and then using those food plots as a seasonal attraction to pull deer through certain areas. So we can dramatically reduce our inputs and the amount of space that we're wasting essentially for low quality food plots. know, and that's the analogy I use too is like if you're just, throwing brassicas down with a bunch of synthetic fertilizers, it's like stopping at the gas station, filling up on a bag of chips before you go home to eat an actual high quality meal. And again, to relate this back to antler expression, because big bucks drive everything, right? We know through research that the antler expression potential of a buck is determined at the time of conception. So how healthy is that doe? How many nutrients or what nutrients is she receiving at the time she is bred? And then all the way leading up until you know, the lactation period all the way through that, right? Until that fawn is on its own. So, but we know genetically that certain switches are turned on and off based on the nutrients that doe receive. having really nutrient-dense food on your property year round is important. Absolutely. That system that we use with the strips, the rotation, it can be a dynamite box blind set up. Because what happens is throughout the fall, you know, the native, like the native food plot blend, fantastic blend. Kent Boucher (01:17:53.548) Yeah, and wasn't trying to insinuate that people can't expect to kill deer over your food. I just think it's more likely. It's more likely that you are going to have to be a better hunter in your. Thomas Mlsna (01:18:06.19) But I would argue you don't really have to be if you have that's where the design element of a property comes in but it's mostly focusing on the seasonal attractiveness of whatever food source you're hunting, right? So like for me, my early season strategy on our farm is where's the recent, the youngest seeded alfalfa stand. It's the highest palatable crop on the landscape. in September timeframe and it's a moneymaker for me. First cold front in September. Kent Boucher (01:18:38.126) Well even that, what you're describing though is woodsmanship. Correct, You understand the animal, you're understanding what's on the land. Thomas Mlsna (01:18:44.686) There's there's layers to that because the average landowner only owns, I don't even know, 20 acres? So in that sense, and I've got a lot of clients that way, I just tell them straight up, you can't expect to have a buck on your property 365 days a year, but you can figure out that one or two week period where he is the most active on your property and just hunt casually, and that's like, Kent Boucher (01:18:53.432) Yeah, 20 acres. Thomas Mlsna (01:19:12.206) you know, those food plots setups, more like destination main event food plots, those are the ones where we stick a box spine in. Hey, you can hunt that on almost any wind. You might not see anything half the time or just like the same doe family group. But if you really want to dial it in, you know, then you know which. Correct, exactly. But I just want to emphasize that if you're a hunter right now slash land manager and you run food plots, I don't want people to go out and get rid of their food plots and plant them to native forbs because then they're going to come back and be like. Judd McCullum (01:19:25.678) stuff. Thomas Mlsna (01:19:40.044) You guys told me that this would take the place since Trevor's, it's not gonna work. I would love to be your neighbor when you have all native on your property and I've got a luscious green food source in mid October, right? But point being, you can dramatically shrink those down, reduce the inputs, and work towards the goal of nutrient-dense, biologically active system. Because nutrition equals attraction for deer. They're concentrate select feeders, right? So they browse a little, they graze a little, but ultimately they're eating the highest palatable portion of any given plant on any given day. And that's why I like those systems where we have the tree crops and all the shrubs and all the stuff mixed in there because if I can provide them with 17 different food options in the same area, they're not gonna be there every day. Judd McCullum (01:20:22.99) They want one mouthful of each one of those things. They don't have to travel miles to get it. Thomas Mlsna (01:20:28.012) And if it's close to adjacent bedding, I mean, at the end of the Kent Boucher (01:20:30.978) in that case then yeah you could have your box blind yeah yeah Thomas Mlsna (01:20:33.678) Well, that's where I mean, I've written a few plans just in the last couple of weeks where it's like, how do we get access across this long ridge to get in and hunt the back? Well, that's where a strip down the middle on the top of the ridge of a tall grass native native grass screen comes in. And then you get to the back end and we've got that strip where the deer have to enter those that strip system from one end or the other. You know, our beddings back here. So it makes perfect sense. A little transition area in the woods where they come out shrubby, tall component. The native perennial food plot, to me, it's perfect to create the edges around the bigger food plots, the transition area. Perfect deer cover is at the height of a deer's eyeballs. And what is that, 40 inches or so? So when you look at a native stand like that, and even having more grass component where at any given point they can kind of see through it but not entirely, but they can stand still, their eyes are just above it, they feel safe and secluded and they kind of meander out. And I've watched mature bucks. You watch a mature buck stand for 25 minutes in one spot, not move because he picked up a potential threat. He's just waiting for it to move again. Right. And that's what they love is those transition zones. So that's where I think a native planting comes in. It's like everyone out there right now that's chomping at the bit to order beans and corn. That's where I strongly suggest like think about how you can choke that down, get maximum benefit out of a smaller area because it's easier to hunt that too. Yeah. You if you concentrate movement. through an area, and that's our goal. So not to hold or concentrate deer in one area all the time, but pull them through common areas consistently enough where it's huntable movement. But get the most out of that system itself. And on the food plot side of things, we're working right now with what I would say are the top agronomists in the industry. Because conventional ag is just a chemistry experiment. These guys are like forefront of biological agriculture and eco ag. And our system. I'm actually trying really, really hard to create a full system that can be 100 % broadcasted. And we're doing that with a proprietary blend of seed coatings that increase microbial activity, add the minerals that the seeds need to get a huge boost and out-compete everything else. But another product that we're using right now, and we've used the last couple of years, is a coating that we can put on the seed. It's 100 % organic, but it's a water and nutrient retention medium. So for fall food plots, getting them down before a timely rain, Thomas Mlsna (01:22:57.07) and then in combination, not stirring up the soil, keeping them with thatch layer, stuff like that. We can create very drought-proof food plots. The drought-proof that comes with native plants gets you up until mid-October. And then if you can suck them into something green after that, that's a money. Kent Boucher (01:23:15.002) That's an important part to mention in there. I think a lot of times people when they look at it's on both sides. So why is the perennial food? How is it food? Right? It's not just when the seeds mature because we think of that with beans and corn. And I think a soybean is probably a little bit better example than corn because the soybean leaves through the growing season, the tender pods and stuff, all that stuff is edible. With corn, yeah, it's kind of once the ear is developed or developing. Thomas Mlsna (01:23:47.982) They like that in here. Judd McCullum (01:23:48.8) in July and then they like that you're developing and then they like whatever the raccoons knock. Kent Boucher (01:23:53.038) Right, right. It's not and so I think people think okay. Well these things will produce seeds and then the deer will have something to eat and Some yes, you know like some of the you know legumes and stuff that can hang on there Maybe yeah, but but it's it's there's a time and again from the water standpoint These plants senesce in the fall and they they dry up crisp up above ground and that stuff Thomas Mlsna (01:24:20.462) soul sprout back at the the big thing is it still maintains a component of cover. Kent Boucher (01:24:22.316) Yep, someone had basil. Kent Boucher (01:24:30.936) Yes, exactly. The cover value is really where that transitions into. And also, it gets you through that EHD time of year when those plants provide that moisture. Once you get to those killing frosts where the midges aren't a threat anymore, then yeah, it's safe to go drink out of the creek. But yeah, think it's I'm really glad you're pulling at the practicality of this because I've always I've always struggled with describing it well to our listeners, to our customers of how this is an advantage that's exactly right. And I think it's important too to remember that, yeah, it's okay to have some of the forage crops out there. there's some great companies out there. We've worked with a few of them that have some great stuff. And there's ways that it can be applied well. And that makes sense for the land. Judd McCullum (01:25:24.59) The problem I see is like with all these companies, you know, they don't have a solution for what you were just talking about. You've got that native browse right up until mid October and then you've got a green food source. can jump on. can't apply human intellect to a deer. Like they're not going to walk out when all those plants dry out for a week and check and see if you know, you've changed something or you're going to create something. It feels like a podcast listener. Like if you miss a week of podcasts, deer is going to go find something else to listen to on a Thursday. They're gone. You lost them. Thomas Mlsna (01:25:55.086) Yeah, that's what I explained that to. It's like you look at a bird feeder in your backyard. When the bird feeder runs out, the birds are gone. Now birds, you they scout a little bit. So you fill back up a few days later that come back and then pretty soon they're all back. A lot better than the deer situation, right? But one thing that I wanted to make sure I mentioned on the chemical free side of things, because again, it's very doable. And I just want to give people some ideas on how they can approach it. There's really four main ways that we approach the chemical-free side of food plots. All of them, all of them at their foundation come from balancing out the mineral profile in the soil. Because most weeds will show up for one of two reasons. mean, mostly for one reason. It's to fix something in the soil. Isn't that covering bare ground, right? So if we're trying to force 30-inch rows between corn or beans or whatever, you're going to get a lot of weeds in there because of that. You created a of Correct. Judd McCullum (01:26:48.046) vacuum. Thomas Mlsna (01:26:49.454) And then the other side is the mineral imbalance. So a lot of weeds will show up to fix mineral imbalance in the soil. I had a client conversation the other day. He's a guy I worked with a few years ago and he didn't really follow the plan. He's like, well, you you told me to do this, you told me to do that. Okay, so how'd your food plots go last year? Oh, well, I just did all corn and beans. I'm like, okay. He's like, oh, the beans didn't turn out very well. He's got all this weed pressure from, I think it was mare's tail or horseweed. you know, so I'm like, well, let's look at your soil for what it is and try and figure it out. Ultimately, he's got a huge calcium deficiency in his soil. And a lot of that comes from constantly spraying. Because if you're killing the bacteria in the soil, you create more compaction. There's no oxygen. The earthworms aren't in there. You're not getting water. All the things snowball with that. But the four main ways that we get ahead of it, we start with that foundation. So soil samples are obviously where we start everything. I always tell clients, we evaluate the property from the top down, and we rebuild it from the bottom up. Soil samples, food plots, got to start there, balance out the soil. From there, it comes down to termination and then cycling those crops through, right? So the main thing, and you can start the system at any point in time, but it's usually easier to start with your fall planting, going to a cool season, there's less competitive weeds out there. You got to get a good cover crop down. So heavy, heavy cereal rye in the fall is a great way to do that. Cereal rye, you get it down in the fall, it gets established. First thing that greens up in the spring, the aliopathy that comes with cereal rye will choke out most of your weeds, most of them. And then from there, you've got options. So a couple of options we have. If you really insist on spraying, we have some nonchemical herbicides that we use, which are an acid base that are completely inert in the soil within like 10 hours, 12 hours something. And it's really effective at killing cereal rye when it's like eight, 10 inches tall. So you can let that green up, spray it. drill right into that. If you're doing bigger areas. Beyond that, you can let that rye grow up. You can roll or crimp it down at the right stage, drill into that. There are some inherent issues with that because rye, it pulls a lot more minerals up. It's really heavy with carbon. If you're early in the stages of converting to a chemical-free, biologically active food plot, but you don't have a lot of biological activity, that thatch doesn't break down super fast. So one of my strategies there, I wouldn't necessarily want to. Thomas Mlsna (01:29:13.474) try and roll that down and plant like the soybean sorghum summer blend into that. What I do, I think that's when you and I were talking last fall, I'll let that rye rye until July die desiccate on its own and then I'll knock it down and light it on fire. So any weeds that start growing up through it, you burn them, you top kill them or completely nuke them. You just broadcast your brassica blend, your forage blend in there. Brassicas will grow in the bed of your pickup, right? So time it right before rain, it's awesome. You get a huge flush, no chemicals needed. and then your rye, you know, that hit full maturity, you'll get little clumps of rye that grow all over. It's not a problem. If you hit it with a brush hog, it can be a problem because now you're getting like 600 pounds of rye per acre. Which is fine. If you want to do that heavy after your brassicas are established, it's fine. I think there's some studies showing that you can plant rye at 50 pounds per acre or 200 pounds per acre. And then when it comes back in the spring, it's basically the same either way. It's kind of self-regulating itself. Burning, I call it burn and broadcast, that's a good technique. Now you don't wanna do that every single year, year in and year out, right? There's problems with that too. The other strategy we use is light tillage, right? Tillage has a bad reputation, like chemicals get a bad reputation, just like everything else that you use or abuse too much. So what it will do, like when we're rotating from that perennial blend back to an annual, I prefer to do that late in the summer. And I'll come through with a rototiller as my go-to. Because you can set it inch and a half deep, no. no deeper, just trying to clip that root crown off, shallow incorporation of organic material. One pass slow, you're not trying to pulverize it to a powder, you're just trying to terminate the existing crop. And then I immediately go back in and broadcast that fast germinating blend into there. Gets that back in that rotation. And then kind of the same thing, it goes from brassicas, top dressed with rye, rye comes back the next spring. At that point, if you wanted to put it right back into clover, frost seed your clover in. and then mow your way out of the weeds and the rye throughout the summer, you've got a really good stand of perennials there. And then the last way that we would do it is, I lost my train of thought, truck distracted. Is mostly just the roller crimping in general where you can, or even brush hogging, just let it desiccate down, broadcast into it, and brush hog it down. And I've done that before, you get late in the summer, if you're just focusing on fall food plot, Judd McCullum (01:31:18.368) chart got us to Thomas Mlsna (01:31:34.414) You can let ragweed fill in a food plot. Oh, yeah. It's not a problem. Oh, yeah. It's great cover. It's great forage in the summer. And I love, like, I love what I call like a dirty plot where if it's tall and full of weeds and they're already starting to senesce and dry down, you broadcast in, you just brush hog, leave some strips in there. There's good structure. Deer love it. And none of those seeds are going to Judd McCullum (01:31:40.544) The highest protein things you can get. Kent Boucher (01:31:55.316) I like it too. yeah. Thomas Mlsna (01:31:58.138) Some of them will, but they're never going to outcompete a brassica. But most of them aren't going to germinate going into the fall. They might be there next year. But again, to be honest with you, in a lot of situations, if guys just let weeds fill out in a food plot a year or two, it would help your soil more than anything. So it's a big takeaway there. But there are many ways to do food plots without heavy chemicals. I think it kind of goes back to the size of the food plots in general, where if we want a giant, giant food plot, then from an efficiency standpoint, chemicals are gonna be the most efficient, But we don't need that because our total net productivity out of that area is so limited compared to what we can do if we focus on a smaller area and manage it more intensively, right? It's not even more intensively. It's the same amount of trips across the field, but you're paying more attention. Maybe your timing is better with when you're planting or, you know, like the non-chemical herbicide, the timing has to be a little bit better, like as far as growth stage in the plant to be effective. But where there's a will, there's a way. Right? It's what it comes down to. Judd McCullum (01:33:01.078) So we got these two ways of doing things we've been talking about and explain how other wildlife, turkeys, quail, upland birds, things like that suffer doing these things both ways. Thomas Mlsna (01:33:15.918) Well, when you look at it holistically, they don't suffer much at all. Yeah. Right. Huge benefit. We talked earlier about plant diversity, snowballs up. can't just spend. Judd McCullum (01:33:28.43) Spend money on one thing and expect it to benefit everything. That's crazy. Thomas Mlsna (01:33:32.012) I spend money one time. That's I always preach management efficiency. Because the amount of money is one thing. So when I lay it all out for clients and I show them the framework of how we manage or just the thought process in general, taking a goal, evaluating, coming up with plan, so on and so forth, it all revolves around the resources. Your time, your money, the ecosystem services on the property, the community in the area, all those things come into play. from a management efficiency standpoint, there's nothing more efficient than having the bulk of your property in natives. Because if you can rip a fire through it every few years, mean, you know how fast you can reset things to make it better versus are you gonna go in and recut everything? That's where I try and get them away from this mindset of like projects, projects, projects. There's implementation and then it's management. So we get away from that and then with that, I like a lot of small habitat units on a property. So a big concept that I employ is this concept of edge and flow. So we break up the property, create more edges. I don't wanna fragment the property per se, but if we stagger our management practices from this unit to that unit, it be the same type of habitat, but maybe we burn this one this year and burn that one two years later. It's just a difference enough that it creates an edge that you're following that edge. So if we point all of our edges towards our hunting locations or accessible pinch points, we create really good huntability. And on the other side of that is we promote the native biodiversity that, again, the insects, all the ground nesting birds, and the turkeys, the grouse, all those things all come into play. But that to me is probably one of the things that snowballed the most early on. Because when I went into this realm of consulting on habitat, I actually didn't do it at all for hunting. I was trying to get more into backyard landscaping stuff and work more with farmers, because that's what I'm passionate and what I knew more than anything else. And then once word got out, like, Thomas is consulting now. He's got a couple of 200 inch journals, but we should get him on our property and he'll teach us how to do the same thing. Well, to me, it's not that complex. It's like, you know, again, sorry, we started at the beginning of this conversation. I'm like, you take all this stuff and try and jam it down. You can just see clients that are eyes are just like glaze over because it's much. Don't overthink it. If you focus on native biodiversity, and I say native because you cannot Kent Boucher (01:35:50.69) Too much Thomas Mlsna (01:35:58.414) reach a level of biodiversity with introduced or invasive plants, right? So it's pretty straightforward. Because guys' laws argue that, that's introduced, but it has benefits to wildlife. OK, I get that. I do want to go on the record and say, puked in my mouth just a little bit, even thinking about it. This is the first year I will ever have ever planted Miscanthus. And I have to justify it. Judd McCullum (01:36:23.938) What? no. Kent Boucher (01:36:28.014) You do have to justify it buddy, I can't think of a justification or reason. Thomas Mlsna (01:36:32.302) It's because, again, I have to meet clients in the middle. And the only utility I have found for it and the places I'm caving on it are specifically directly in front of a box blind. Like a 15 foot arc around from a box blind. And the reason for it is from a management perspective, if I get a two foot wide hedge roll that 15 foot tall around that, Judd McCullum (01:36:36.024) Yeah. Thomas Mlsna (01:36:57.422) The client standpoint, it's faster than getting conifers there. Switchgrass doesn't get tall enough to screen it off. But the bigger thing is I can't burn switchgrass thanks to a box plume. Where I can take a hedge trimmer and whack off the mescanthus and throw it in the food plot or use it as a mulch layer by my trees in the edge of the food plot. But it took a long time for me to get to that point. And I haven't actually done it yet, but I have some on order. Again, it pains me. I try to, just, the conversation I had the other day with this client, he's like, what's your thoughts on mescanthus? And I explained that to him. I said, this is the first time. this first year I've ever, ever even considered doing it. And the only way I will promote it to you is if you understand fully that it has the ecological value, actually a lower ecological value than a hard panel fence, a wood panel fence. Cause a bird can perch on a fence overnight. can't perch on this. And that's what I tell, so like these big strips of it, these, Kent Boucher (01:37:44.44) Yeah, there's a robot. Judd McCullum (01:37:45.966) you know that's what you're planning. Thomas Mlsna (01:37:52.206) diversity pockets, there's so many better ways to do it. I'm like, if we're gonna do it, this is where. And that falls into that 10 % category of intensively managed area of the property that's non-native. The other 90%, I try to follow the approach of like, if we walked away from this property today and didn't touch it for 20 years, what would it look like when we came back? I want it set up for that. And that's why we don't go crazy. And that's where the argument comes in from the companies that sell Mascanthas. Like, well, your apple trees aren't native, your pear trees aren't native. nothing that you're planting in that food plots native. All right, fine, I'll bend a little bit, plant your miscanthus from the blind, so you get 15 foot tall screen in five years or whatever. Beyond that, it doesn't go anywhere, right? But again, I feel dirty to say that. But you have to meet these guys in the middle. And that's the same thing with the food plots. Kent Boucher (01:38:40.308) I see where you're coming from. I don't know that I would go the same route, but I respect the heck out of you, Thomas. Thomas Mlsna (01:38:47.758) I'm trying so many options and to be honest with you, in the plans that we're laying out, where we're mapping out these long-term plans, the goal is to put that in with trees behind it. And once the trees mature, we... Kent Boucher (01:39:00.47) Yeah, I like that. Thomas Mlsna (01:39:01.422) And that's the thing is like, you everything's in waves, succession and whatnot. But back to the initial question. If we focus entirely on deer, if we manage entirely for deer, the whole concept of whitetail land management, all of those other species suffer dramatically. You know, just from the simple thing is like the seed coatings we're putting down on the field, some of these seeds, the turkeys go through there. The habitat in general, know, deer Kent Boucher (01:39:26.862) Neonicotinoids and stuff like that. Thomas Mlsna (01:39:31.566) I wouldn't say they're thriving by any means, but they can handle a solid stand of invasive cover and a field of Judd McCullum (01:39:38.958) They can do good on a sand drive on a golf course. Thomas Mlsna (01:39:41.07) Exactly, yeah, you see giant deer in town all the time, live off of bird feeders and Japanese yu, right? Things that should be poisonous, they can adapt to it. It doesn't necessarily mean it's good for them or anything else, but to the first part of our conversation when we were talking about EHD, it's like, if you focus on a resilient ecosystem with a lot of biodiversity, and I say this to clients all the time, good deer habitat is for the birds. If I came in here and I put a food plot in a strategic location, create some pinch points, to pull deer through there that you could hunt. And everything beyond that, I just say, I wanna have as many songbirds on this property as possible. You're gonna have better deer habitat than you will with anything else. And that's where I learned very early on that opening people's eyes to that, most guys want that. Most guys want a good experience. I have the conversation with them, like, are you a box blind hunter? Do you like hunting on box blinds? And I've got clients now. I picked up a client this year. who has three properties in three states all over a thousand acres. And he's at the point in his life, he's earned it, like built a business, sold his business. Him and his brother are full-time managers of these properties and all they do is hunt in the fall and fish all summer long. And he told me straight up, he's like, to be honest with you, I get the most enjoyment out of managing the property. And when it comes to the hunting season, I really just want to kill that deer and move on. like, so I'm okay with sitting in a box blind for a couple of days to kill that deer, but me personally, I have box blinds, I hunt out of them. I don't like hunting out of them. I hunt with my ears, I like to be a part of that. So I always ask those clients, box blinds, the utility of a box blind is very effective. Contains your scent, contains your movement. It's great for taking a kid, it's great for all day sits, all those things. Inclement weather, all the things. But you don't get the experience from it. And if I'm here trying to improve your experience, and we do all this work and you sit in the blind, it kind of takes away from you. Exactly. But there is nothing more rewarding than sitting out in a tree stand and hearing the birds. Judd McCullum (01:41:43.682) Here comes the flight of bluebirds. Yes, exactly. The nut hatch is all coming in. The little honey grabbers are all. Thomas Mlsna (01:41:48.225) Alright. Kent Boucher (01:41:48.856) I sit there with my Cornell. Yeah, the bird. Thomas Mlsna (01:41:50.924) of the Verde. Yeah, see how it can pick out in a day. Yeah, no, I love that stuff too. And I think, you know, this is part of the problem with the industry is we've kind of like turned chemical usage or just like the general practices into more of this like masculine approach, right? Like, I'm really good at mixing this cocktail so I can murder a whole bunch of weeds. You know what mean? Kent Boucher (01:42:17.688) Yeah, right. Thomas Mlsna (01:42:20.559) The guy that fights for the underdog and says like I like birds and butterflies. I do. Does that make me gay? Call me Alton John because I like birds and butterflies. Judd McCullum (01:42:28.728) I honestly think that's part of it. I think there is this hurdle we have to get over that happens like in middle school and high school where you have to like code switch to comply with the guy that's presenting most as the dude. Yes. You know, and if you're not tearing down a V8 engine or you're not, you know, killing stuff all the time, it's gay, you know? And so, you know, you gotta, you gotta tuck that back in there somewhere and not put that out there to the world. Cause you know, that guy might show up again when you're, you know, quick trip and told you, know? we just gotta get past that, like be yourself, be weird. Like do the things, enjoy the, there's nothing wrong with it. Thomas Mlsna (01:43:03.244) birds enjoyed the butterfly. And you know, I've got two kids, you got young kids. It's like what they see us do gets amplified exponentially the next round. Right? So like my kids, obviously they follow me around. Kent Boucher (01:43:21.304) would add this in there or it completely turns them off from it. Thomas Mlsna (01:43:24.334) If you push it too hard. Well, that's another whole nother problem in and of itself with whitetail land management that I see more and more. I grew up in the woods. I'm guessing both of you guys did too. The thought of these properties now where kids aren't allowed to go out and kill squirrels or they're not allowed to go out with the kids in the woods because you're risking bumping that trophy bunk off the property, it hurts me. It's like, it's the death of woodsmanship. is a hundred percent. Cause now all we're doing is we're buying things to park. things here to get deer here and you only hunt that blind. You know most of my strategy. Judd McCullum (01:43:58.03) any time in woods. You're just trying to get from point A to point B as quietly and quickly as possible in the dark most of day. I'm not going to dispute that, but it's not the outdoor experience. Thomas Mlsna (01:44:03.202) Which is highly effective to kill a deer. It is. Kent Boucher (01:44:08.942) Yeah, you're turning the woods into a conveyor belt. Judd McCullum (01:44:10.996) Yeah, pretty much. Thomas Mlsna (01:44:11.724) Yeah, so like one of my strategies again, cause I, it's the dichotomy of my life. It's like that battle, right? Like here we are talking about removing chemicals, native habitat. I come from a 2000 acre conventional egg family, right? If I have that same conversation in there, the eyes roll, they walk away. Exactly. They know where I stand. But it's the same thing with the kids where you have to get them involved, but not pressure them so much. my like, middle ground with my clients is when we lay out the property, I rank all the stand locations. I do what I call it stand location pressure audit. So here's your easy access stands. Like if you only hunt these stands on the fringe, you're going to hold that buck in your property a lot longer. However, I'm not a hypocrite. I've killed most of my big deer getting in there, like going deep. So understand that, understand your whole property, get some stand locations either prepped or set up in there. Have the intel that says, okay, now's my chance, the weather's right, the wind's right, the time of the year's right, the risk versus reward, the reward is much higher than the risk at that point. But understand, you go in there, especially if you go in there just at random, you could ruin your property. And if you're a guy that's only hunting 40 acres, that can be a big deal. Or 20 acres, can be a big deal, right? If they understand that, it's a whole different ball game. Like, hunt here, hunt safe, but get aggressive, make those moves. There's nothing more rewarding to me. Judd McCullum (01:45:22.069) everything correct Thomas Mlsna (01:45:37.218) than making a tough decision and having it pan out, right? The summer, you guys came to the farm. killed two consecutive years in a row, I killed my target buck from the ground. One I stalked in, shot him in his bed. The next year, right down by the cabin, I snuck in through the cornfield, set up on the edge of this small food plot and shot him from the ground in a food plot. And I was just like. Like then after that, now I look at it completely differently. You know, I hunt out West, that's why I had that mentality, like you can make it happen. But just like the experience is so different. Even hunting over that poop. Kent Boucher (01:46:09.262) Well, that's what I was thinking of earlier when you're describing how you lay out your properties is just like you. We've lost so much that in the industry has benefited from it because they can sell more tree stands, they can sell more box blinds. But that's one of the things I actually really appreciate about the mobile hunting part of the industry is that does that that rewards woodsmanship. Yeah. When you say, nah, I need to be 15 yards that way. It sets you up to be able to do that. Thomas Mlsna (01:46:43.47) Yeah, no, 100%. And that's the thing too, and I explain that to clients when we scout a property or evaluate a property. There's always two mindsets there, two perspectives. One is what is actively happening right now, and how do we make the most of that? And then two is how do we make this better long term and incrementally so you're not overwhelmed with a lot of work? But I just think we missed the boat. as far as how much we can actually improve a property to be abundant for everyone and everything. The client I'm going to visit here in Western Iowa tomorrow, I was looking at this property on a map the other day with him and kind of talking through and he's talking, oh, you know, we want to build a house up in here and this and that. was like, and this goes back to those orchard edges. I'm like, do you want to plant some fruit trees for your family? Oh, we would love that. That's why, that's how that system started. It was like, you know, I don't have a lot of space on my property. If I'm doing all this work for these deer, like, Kent Boucher (01:47:28.046) Yeah. Thomas Mlsna (01:47:37.198) It's the same management, we're limiting chemicals, we're doing all the same things. So let's produce a system that we can go out and pick fruit, berries, all that stuff during the summertime. And then just from September on, we just let the wildlife have it. You know, it's beautiful thing in that sense. And you're getting more out of it. And again, I want my kids to go out there. I want them to be excited to go to the farm. I don't want them to be like, oh God, you're gonna drag me out, put me on a blind. I have to stare out this little hole all day. have to shh, shh. You know what mean? like, take so much away from it. yesterday, my wife and I and kids went for a walk just around the outside edge of our property. And it brings me so much joy just watching kids get dirty. yeah, absolutely. here's a rotten log. Dad, look at these bugs in here. And they're like, what's that feel like? it feels like a sponge. Like, yeah, think about how much moisture that holds. So when everything's dry. And then what does that do? What do those bugs do? I asked myself, what does it mean if there's bugs here? what do you mean? I'm like, well, what are those bugs doing? Well, they're breaking down the log. Yeah, I'm like, what else does that mean? Well, the birds can eat them. Yeah. So as long as we have dead stuff here, then there's live stuff eating out, there's more live. It's this big cycle. And that actually, that was one thing I wanted to touch base on. We were talking about earlier on the mulching side of things. Because it hurts me, too, seeing all these land clearing companies calling themselves land managers, which is a marketing thing. I think there's a time and a place for mulching. I assume you agree, right? But I think mulching gets way over abused. And one of the problems that I see, I was talking to Nicholas about this on the phone the other day, and it's thing I'm checking off my list when I'm here. Ironically, actually, I'm driving out to pick up a veil tree saw. I'm going away. I'm not going to stop mulching entirely, but going away from the tree saw or the mulcher because it creates such a heavy thatch or duff layer there that you can't get any reach in for three or four years sometimes. So what I'm going to try is this tree saw where we can reach in. and just cut things off and then follow up with a treatment. It's something that we want to terminate versus regenerate. But ultimately, we're trying to create a system where we can get regeneration a lot faster versus having, if you go in and mulch, like even those cedars, like man, you get a lot of mulch there. I had a guy, a friend of mine last year reached out to me. He was asking me about some stuff and then he told me, he's like, yeah, I had a mulcher guy out to mulch some bedding areas. I like, I'd been on his property. was like, that's all, almost all of your timber is like, Thomas Mlsna (01:49:59.182) 10 inch diameter maple trees. I'm like, you mulched three acres of 10 inch diameter maple trees. He's like, yeah, is that a problem? I was like, why do you mulch your garden to suppress weed growth, right? And weeds, native plants. So what's gonna happen in those bedding areas where we regeneration? There's not a lot going on there. We've since. combated that a couple ways. One, trying to get away from heavy mulching in lot of spots, know, make some slash piles, either burn them, push them off the side, try and get as much firewood out, utilize the resource. The other thing that we've done, which works pretty well in general, it's just another step and more money, you know, and I don't want to be the guy that's like suggesting products all the time, but we have a, we use a biological cocktail essentially of bacteria designed to break down cellulose to decompose it. So we spray that on. you know, a months later when it starts to dry down, maybe a little boost in nitrogen, we can break it down exponentially faster. But it's all part of the process. a big battle, you guys know, it's like a big battle with invasives isn't necessarily getting rid of them, it's how do you keep them away, and the way to keep them away is by filling that void with something better, and then managing that. Kent Boucher (01:51:07.662) Well guys we are we stretching long here judge got to get to a client and my wife has a raging eye infection that I have to get home and keep an on the kids for and so I Mean there's just so much here in this episode There's there's yeah, yeah, we could and there's there's just a I think a common theme is just there's got to be thought behind what What we do and there's got to be a true Judd McCullum (01:51:24.584) for another eight hours. Kent Boucher (01:51:37.184) you know, mindfulness to the whole approach from the planning phase all the way through the maintenance phase after the project's done. And, know, I think another important part of it is we can, you know, I've just been thinking while we're going through this, you know, I've been writing within the industry coming on seven years now for magazine publication and how differently, I think about some of the things that I have told I have made money telling people to do over the past seven years and just point being that we should all reserve the right to change our minds and and not be too proud to do so when when better practices are uncovered or made possible by a new invention like this tree saw you're talking about. There's. There's always ways to do things better, and there's always more to learn. And it's not wrong to adjust when the better information comes around. But it's also important to try and find a way to connect with the process so that you can enjoy it and that the work, which oftentimes only costs us money, most people don't get paid to manage their property. Judd McCullum (01:53:01.612) for Equip. Kent Boucher (01:53:02.542) Yeah, there's some equip money in there and there's some CRP and WRP and some other cost sharing. But even that, you're not going to get rich on any of that. Judd McCullum (01:53:09.08) chip. Thomas Mlsna (01:53:15.33) Which side note on that, that native perennial food plot mix falls into a pollinator category for CRP. It absolutely does. And it is a magical thing when you tell a landowner that they can plant a native food plot around the entire ridge line and get paid per acre off it. I actually said that to the client the other day, he's like. Kent Boucher (01:53:32.108) every year. Judd McCullum (01:53:34.604) working with a client on 50 acres of that right now. He's just happy as a clam. Kent Boucher (01:53:38.734) Yep, yep. So some great stuff out there, but it all begins with our minds, right? Conservation is a mindset. And conservation truly happens one mind at a time. you