Nicolas Lirio (00:00.11) stuff. That's where it's like, okay, well then we can't have an operate note until next year. So do we not get Kent a sprayer that he really needs or do we not fix the lights in the back? Kevin Griggs (00:13.74) Right, right, yep. Nicolas Lirio (00:16.938) time period in 20 years and be like that was one the best Kevin Griggs (00:22.776) Sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Nicolas Lirio (00:24.532) Nope. Kevin Griggs (00:31.022) absolutely. That's fantastic. Something to be said for that. There's a lot to be said for that. always tell myself, I always have told myself, it's not so much about the paycheck coming in, it's being able to sleep well at night knowing that you did something right and feel good about what you do. A lot of people can't say that. Kent Boucher (00:51.564) Yeah, that's exactly right. Nicolas Lirio (00:55.054) That's what I keep telling the guys after a race from 750 days. Kevin Griggs (00:59.534) Exactly. Nicolas Lirio (01:01.55) Right, right. Kent Boucher (01:05.838) It's about how much you're paying. Kevin Griggs (01:08.226) Ha ha ha ha! Kent Boucher (01:10.806) in the world. Kevin Griggs (01:11.798) Hey, with the pain. huh. man. Nicolas Lirio (01:17.08) That's funny. well, just a quick rundown. We're not here to gotcha, of course, on anything. And we'll probably be talking about water. I know that can be sticky for situations. Yeah. So if there's something you want us to pull out or anything like that, you just you just let us know. Obviously, we love perspective doesn't have to be just data driven. We really haven't had too many people do this, but just don't pretend your opinion is dated, you know, is scientific fact, which I don't think you would do at all. Right. Right. And then staying close to the mic. So, yep, you'll keep it and don't be careful touching the top because that's a touch screen, but you can, gotcha man. Handle this thing all you want. Gotcha. And we'll have you do an intro, which is your name, your title. And this is the Prairie Farm podcast. And I'll just have you look at the camera whenever you do it. But before we start, what happened to your head? Kevin Griggs (02:12.814) I could go ahead. I'm glad you saw that stupid story. I don't even have a good story because I usually have good stories. I'm cleaning a bunch of stuff in the garage last Sunday afternoon and metal shelving. I got one of those hand clamp bracket, you know, the ratchet and it stuck to there. You don't want a big metal bar. spent down to pick something up, that thing's sticking out, slice it and blood's running down in my eye. I'm like, I think that was bad. It looks really good right now though. Yeah, yeah. Last Sunday it really Nicolas Lirio (02:51.982) need to tell people you got in a fight. No, no, you need to tell people you fought a bison. Kent Boucher (02:56.43) No, no, no, no. Assassination attempts. Just leave it at that. Nicolas Lirio (03:03.854) Man. Kent Boucher (03:05.806) Another assassination attempt. Nicolas Lirio (03:07.95) And my monthly assassination attempt and man last night, uh, Danielle, my wife, Danielle, she had, and she's so pissed about this. So we both got the same policy life insurance, which it's not very much. It just pays off all our debt. You know, if one of us dies and uh, it's like $200 a year. And so for me, I filled out like 20 questions online. Kent Boucher (03:31.47) $2,000 worth of coverage is, mean, how much do you expect it to cost? Kevin Griggs (03:35.525) Right, right, right. Nicolas Lirio (03:37.006) Dude, that would be so great. $2,000 a cup. yeah. Debt free. But Danielle had to get a full blown checkup. She had to like really see a doctor. They had to pull her blood and stuff. Well, they drew blood and she had a severe reaction. That's what they call it. They call it a severe reaction. And I, we didn't know what was going on. that her blood getting pulled. wasn't an allergic reaction. wasn't like hives. Her body started cramping up really bad and she like seized up and she like clenched her fist. And I was like, my goodness, we're going to the emergency room. Riley's coming into work today to interview Kevin with Ken. This is not good. And then like three minutes later, and she was like crying, you know, it was very painful. And then three minutes later she was fine. And you know, I fed her soup for dinner and nothing else happened, but it was like, what? Kevin Griggs (04:32.366) I said that is scary. Nicolas Lirio (04:33.422) You know, I've never heard of anything like that. didn't have. Well, this is what we call students. This is what we call sludge. It comes from a special kind of man ape. They have to have an IQ of 70 or below. All right, well, we'll get started whenever you're ready. You look at the camera. Kent Boucher (04:35.384) What happened when you got your blood drawn? I f***ed you. The needle clogged? No. Kevin Griggs (04:49.12) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (04:58.872) Give it a beat before you say anything and then it's name, title, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Kevin Griggs (05:06.862) I'm Kevin Griggs. I'm a senior environmental scientist at EOR, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. Nicolas Lirio (05:14.03) Wow, great. All the way here, all boarded, just say it over and over. All right. Well, Kevin, just it was probably not quite too far, but just a little closer on your mic. And if you to pull it towards if you want to lean back, whatever we had a guy, he would just do this and pull the mic all the way back, which does the camera would show your double chin if you have one. Kevin Griggs (05:15.48) been practicing. Kent Boucher (05:19.796) I got a great opening thing. Kevin Griggs (05:36.704) I have several hoods to cover it up. Kent Boucher (05:41.152) All right, Nick, you had a very uncaryllic moment yesterday. Nicolas Lirio (05:48.472) Man. Kent Boucher (05:49.038) Which is why you're wearing shorts today. Kevin Griggs (05:52.174) There's a story here. Kent Boucher (05:54.862) You know how Nick never, you can tell that Nick never looks at the weather app. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a weather app on your phone. Because it's been 80 degrees all week. Sure. And what is these, he shows up in shorts and a t-shirt on the one day where it's a real feel of 40. And the only reason for that is because his jeans are not clean. Nicolas Lirio (06:17.834) I have more than one pair of jeans. Yes, they are all dirty. Three pairs of jeans are all dirty. Kevin Griggs (06:22.636) Ha ha ha Kent Boucher (06:23.566) There's just so much you can tell about Nick's at home life. But just taking a quick glance at it. Kevin Griggs (06:30.19) I'm not far off. Check out the jacket I'm wearing. Now let me tell you the reason behind it. So last, uh, last Friday we have our company annual meetings up. We're up in, uh, we're up in St. Paul and all week long it's 80 degrees. It's nice. I pack, I'm up there for three days. I pack t-shirts Friday. We got a field tour. It is 42 degrees raining, hailing. I don't even have a jacket with me. Nicolas Lirio (06:33.74) Yeah Kent Boucher (06:47.907) Yep. Kevin Griggs (06:56.91) But our meeting is at the St. Paul State Stadium. I go down. We were inside for the meeting, but for the field tour, you know, we're outside. And so I went down to the pro shop, had to buy a jacket because I wasn't smart enough. Nicolas Lirio (07:02.67) that outdoors? Kent Boucher (07:13.676) had to dip into his 401k to buy a jacket. Kevin Griggs (07:16.308) There was at least three other people on the tour though that were out in short sleeves all afternoon. we got, I mean, we got hailed on outside. was, was miserable. Nicolas Lirio (07:25.55) AAA team or yeah okay was gonna say I don't follow the MLB. Kevin Griggs (07:29.802) I'm real happy I bought it. Absolutely. Kent Boucher (07:31.534) It's Yeah, Nick's not only because of the weather, but what happened well? Nicolas Lirio (07:37.006) Well, first of all, I got to say I did that exact thing. We were at a tour of a friend named Steve Maori. I wore that. Yeah, I saw that. That's what reminded me of it. We were in Missouri on like a 30 degree day in November doing an outdoor tour. I don't know why I I think I did. Yeah, I this shirt and like a pair of pants and no jacket, no gloves, no hat, no nothing. Kent Boucher (07:43.214) picture to Travis. Kent Boucher (07:50.664) November Sure. Kent Boucher (08:02.156) gloves that Nicolas Lirio (08:03.848) Yeah, we were given gloves, but I wasn't aware of, didn't have, I was too proud. I should have. And, we were in a UTV. we were driving. It was cold. It was cold. It was, I couldn't even hide it. mean, the goosebumps looked like, like their own arm muscles. mean, they were huge, but so yesterday what was going on is we were clearing a back patio, on our, on our property and there's like mud on this patio mixed with metal. Kent Boucher (08:08.622) That's Steve for a sweatshirt. Nicolas Lirio (08:33.42) Yeah. So we can't just scoop up the dirt and throw it in a dirt pile. Right? So we're scooping up the dirt and we're throwing it in a metal bin and the wind is like, what was it yesterday? 12, 15 mile an hour. Kent Boucher (08:43.597) It was 17 in the morning and then I think it probably picked up to 20s. Time this happened. Nicolas Lirio (08:49.6) Well, I think it was, so I'm, I'm in the skid loader and I'm dumping the dirt. And this is my first load of dirt. And I dumped that sucker straight into the wind. We do not have a door on our scale. And it's like, you covered me and I was itchy the rest of the day. And I could hear my dad being like, weren't you watching the wind? No dad. was Kevin Griggs (09:18.314) Obviously not. Kent Boucher (09:19.566) If Carol had been watching he would have been equal parts disgusted and he would have been Nicolas Lirio (09:24.526) You would have went straight into the office to find Kent to tell what, tell him what just happened. And I, you know, I learned very quickly and I now dump, I dumped all of them on the other side of the metal bin. Yeah. Let's hope I remember it next time. That's what I learned so many lessons. Kevin Griggs (09:38.862) I've learned. Kevin Griggs (09:45.791) Over and over and over. I want to make sure I really get it right. Kent Boucher (09:49.326) The main thing I've learned is that when I I think feel all high and mighty after somebody does something dumb like that my turns coming It's just gonna happen Nicolas Lirio (09:58.126) Soon. Oh man. Well, Kevin, we really appreciate you joining us again. Um, last, what was a year, year and a half ago. Yeah. We, uh, I opened with how do you deal with Canada thistle, but this one, this is the other big Bain of Iowa's existence. How do you deal with Reed's canary grass? Cause you do wetland. did. Kevin Griggs (10:09.408) You're you're in a half ago. I think it was Kevin Griggs (10:22.102) You didn't just do that. Kent Boucher (10:23.063) Yeah Nicolas Lirio (10:25.39) just had a 20 minute conversation with someone yesterday about it. And I was like, I mean, you just nuke it. But one, how do you deal with it? And two, how do you deal with it if there's a little bit of standing water? Because that's pretty common for it. Kevin Griggs (10:38.126) It is, it is. Okay. So yeah, right off the bat. Wow. Just, just jump right in. Just like that. Um, I'm going to give you two different answers and they're, very different answers. The first is, um, except it it's here. This is Iowa. This is the Midwest. It is horribly invasive, horribly persistent. And no matter what we do, it's going to be here. So. having a little bit of that mentality is gonna go a long ways. I work in the regulatory world and the regulatory world says, for things like wetland mitigation sites and things like that, says you can't have any or you've gotta be less than 5%. Well, now all of a sudden we've gotta deal with it a little bit different way. All you can do is make a good, solid, conscious effort, but you can't ever tell yourself that you're not gonna have. Even if you can control it for a couple years, mean, the way the seed floats and comes in on floodwaters, unless you can control the whole seed source and the whole watershed, you're never gonna get rid of it. my theory is number one, accept it. But number two, if you have to deal with it, do the best you can. Me and every other wetland manager in the entire world, we're still waiting for the miracle herbicide that's gonna just be species specific. we've been waiting a really long time and there still isn't one. There's, you know, the one way I try to manage it and do have some success is, you know, take advantage of that. It's a, you know, cool season. It's the first thing that, you know, to, green up in the spring. Last thing that's still green in in the fall. Well, that's a good time to hit it with herbicide. If you can, if you can do that, typically just round up, you know, unless Nicolas Lirio (12:26.344) What herbicide do you use? Tidium. Unless there's... Clathinum or the the grass killer? Okay. Kevin Griggs (12:33.43) No, I haven't used that. I'm using the cheap stuff right off of Fleet and Farms shelf. Kent Boucher (12:40.034) Yeah, well, it's an annual grass or I mean a perennial grass. so Clethodome, it can set perennial grasses back, it, you know, to hit harder than glyphosate, just, don't know that I've observed Clethodome being able to do that. And I could be wrong. And there's people that have used it a lot more than I have. I'm sure that would be able to cite some evidence that might suggest otherwise. But yeah. I think glyphosate's probably... Now there are aquatic glyphosates. Kevin Griggs (13:13.656) There are absolutely. if there's, you know, if they're standing water around, if there's a need to, you know, protect a water source or something like that. Yeah. And then we'll, switch over and use, I'm not even sure they make rodeo anymore. but I think it's called something different, but, but yeah, there's an aquatic. Nicolas Lirio (13:28.79) that water bottle to the left by the because otherwise our camera is going to autofocus on it. Yes. And then your face will be blurry, but we'll have a really beautiful view of that water bottle. Kevin Griggs (13:39.278) The world's a better place with nothing. Kent Boucher (13:41.396) That was smart Kevin to put it there while you're talking about glyphosate. Kevin Griggs (13:45.782) Right, right, right. No, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'll say it right off the bat. I'm, I'm a water quality guy and I use glyphosate. Do you? I'm a, I'm a resource manager. It's the number one tool we have. Kent Boucher (13:56.43) I was talking with a chemical distributor yesterday, a guy who's been doing it for probably 50 years. And I said, is there, because I have a pasture that I'm converting to native grass production at my house, and I need to do one more application on it. I said, is there anything that I can use that can go along with glyphosate or maybe be, I didn't say it this way, but I thought, know, just another, something that functions like glyphosate that leaves no residual chemical in the soil. And we'll be able to burn this off, all these invasive plants that are here so that I can put these native plants here and plant, you know, within a week of doing so. And he's like, nope. There's nothing right there's there's not a a single product on the market that that functions in that way where as soon as it hits soil, active ingredient is deactivated. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that there's not a trade off to using glyphosate every time I have to use it. I hate it because I know I'm exposing myself to something that has caused someone else to answer. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (15:19.675) That was designed to kill biological living things Kent Boucher (15:22.574) Right, right. But the difference, I think the key difference here, because right now there's people ready to turn off this episode because we said we can use it. But the trade off is we're not applying it multiple times every single year to the same acre. with an indefinite ending point to when the day comes when we don't. Kevin Griggs (15:32.322) how great it is. Kent Boucher (15:52.318) And so it is a tool that's got some serious negative impacts, just like burning fossil fuels does. But doing so in it is calculated in as little as possible. always looking for ways to use something better, of course, but until that day. mean, there's just, you talk to almost any. Prairie Manager and you ask him about five cities and yeah, I gotta use it. It's one of the top tools. Kevin Griggs (16:30.19) It really is. really is. So here's an example of, you know, how I've learned to deal with that a little bit. I've got a well mitigation site. It's a mitigation bank up in Franklin County right now. It's got about 35 acres of what was at one point in time, a really nice edge meadow through various management practices. It's almost 100 % regal area grass now. Really unfortunate, you know, the seed source is still there. There are still, you know, sedges underneath that canopy. Well, how do you, how do you treat that? One of the ways I've recommended with that particular client is, you know, I could go out, you know, say three times during the season and broadcast spray glyphosate on it, on the whole thing and nuke it and have some degree of success. Right. Or I can hit it first thing in the spring. Kent Boucher (17:19.15) Mm-hmm. Kevin Griggs (17:22.657) when the recanary grass is greened up and it's actively growing, the other plants are still primarily dormant, hit it once and have about the same amount of success. So just by timing, now I've reduced that application by two thirds. That's an improvement. Am I still using glyphosate? Yeah, I am. What other tool do we have? In that case, We've got a charge to do the best we can to control that species on that piece of land. What alternatives are there? Nicolas Lirio (17:54.798) you ever use a wiper bar? Kevin Griggs (17:57.462) I have, haven't for quite some time. I've done it even on a smaller scale around, you know, more valuable plants where, you know, like a hand wiper. Kent Boucher (18:07.19) I just purchased one of those. It's like a long PVC pipe and that pipe serves as your handle, but it's also your reservoir for chemical. then it's got a little ball valve at the bottom and then it's connected to a sponge. And then you can just literally select by the individual plant, dab, dab, dab, you know, and really minimize the amount of glyphosate going on the ground. Kevin Griggs (18:37.067) that anything you can do to minimize that. Do you use a higher concentration chemical when you're doing that? Kent Boucher (18:43.404) But yeah, that'd probably be the best sure best route just because you're putting such a small amount, right? Nicolas Lirio (18:48.518) Interesting. My dad always used a wiper bar and then until maybe the last couple of years of farming, but it was really nice for our Buffalo grass fields, right? Cause the Buffalo grass is so short and short. You go, over it and get rid of everything. But also when fall Forbes, new England, Aster stiff golden rod. Well, basically any Aster are, and any golden rod, in the spring and early summer, they don't get tall. They, a lot of them green up kind of right away, but they don't shoot that. They don't shoot up their stem that's going to have the seed for quite a while. So they stay pretty low to the ground and you can, he would wipe right above them. Sure. In the middle of the summer when you get those, those warm season annual. Yeah. But, you know, cause height difference, I mean, people pay a fortune for those Zapper bars for organic part. And I know a few people that have either used one dealt with one or know someone that's used them. And, and all of them are like, Yeah, it doesn't really are why, you know, like. Kent Boucher (19:47.522) Yeah, they're expensive and I mean, pretty dangerous. mean, I'm sure they have a lot of the safety stuff worked out. I've actually wanted to get one of the companies to come on the podcast. I haven't reached out yet, but just to explain it a little bit. Sure. But I mean, when I've looked at them online, thinking maybe this is a way we can come even more chemically. non-dependent is like the instructions, be careful, do not touch this, do not touch this. It's like, man, if you just made one wrong move on some of this stuff, it's a lot of like. Kevin Griggs (20:19.66) Yeah. You can, you can get, you can get zapped. Yeah. That is scary. Nicolas Lirio (20:25.646) No, I don't. That stuff freaks me out. the whenever we would wire our house so we can flip a house, you can do electrical work if you live in it. Yeah. So I don't know what defines us like a house, but we lived in sheds and we did tournament houses and the electric. Kent Boucher (20:40.622) Nick would rather pay for a funeral bill than an election. Kevin Griggs (20:43.8) Trish. Nicolas Lirio (20:44.238) It's a lot cheaper to pay for a funeral mill though. Kent Boucher (20:48.007) Somebody else is paying Kevin Griggs (20:50.67) Me and electricity do not get along well together. Yeah, you got a new policy. Nicolas Lirio (20:53.358) I got life insurance. So it was expensive. It was almost $80. the, um, but what I would do is I'd, I'd run the whole house and then I would have the electrician come out and do two things. They would look over everything and then they would hook it all up to the box. I'm not getting anywhere near that box. I don't, don't check. Cause there's like a bar in there that's like, and they're like, you touch that you die. Oh, okay. Good to know. Kevin Griggs (21:22.95) Right, right. Note to self. Don't touch the metal chain again. Nicolas Lirio (21:24.28) This one? I'm not- Kent Boucher (21:24.824) Yeah Nicolas Lirio (21:30.574) I'm not that aware of my so if you look at like how I eat. Kent Boucher (21:32.167) Thanks for coming out. Kent Boucher (21:36.268) What is beyond looney tunes you really? Kent Boucher (21:43.01) I'm usually Kevin Griggs (21:44.536) But Nicolas Lirio (21:45.262) I should not be around electricity, but yeah. Okay. So for the reeds canary, you're just trying to manage it. You're just trying to Kevin Griggs (21:52.558) Absolutely. There was a point in my career where I, you know, thought like a lot of, you know, young foolish wetland managers that maybe we could control it. But really when you start to look at the seed sources and where they're at, and unless you can control it on a grand scale, you know, you might be able to, you know, satisfy your own needs for a couple of seasons, but long term, are you really going to do that? So, My focus is more on what can we do for the client, for the project, and be as effective as we can right now. And try to focus on that. And then I think it comes to more of a timing issue, certainly a quantity issue, but like everybody else, every time I stop at Fleet and Farm, got to buy another jug of glyphosate, I don't feel good about it at all. I just know that my tools are very limited. Nicolas Lirio (22:47.052) Well, and there's a difference between like a transitional tool and a blanket maintenance, mowing blanket maintenance tool. You know, I wish grazing was a blanket maintenance tool. You know, there's a lot of them out there, but a club say doesn't need to be one of them. And I think, think there are proven models out there. People doing it well that, know, what's kind of interesting how much farmers on Facebook hate well in the comment section, which is always kind of like, but Kent Boucher (22:55.35) like this is we're using every day. Nicolas Lirio (23:16.982) They really, honestly, they really crap on regenerative farmers. So not like organic. And I think what it is, I think it's an optics thing where like regenerative farmers are like, you guys are all fools and we're doing it the right way and you need to look how we're doing. And farmers like hate that hate getting told, Hey, you're wrong. You're doing everything wrong and stuff. Now do I think we're doing it for absolutely. They got some merit to what they're saying. But yeah, I don't know. Kent Boucher (23:17.848) half AI bots. Kent Boucher (23:43.404) I like that your first part of what you said though to Kevin with acceptance is part of it and one of the best things about Reek Canary is some of it is native. It is. It And it's it's hybridized with the the non-native and the non-native versus the native is almost indistinguishable. And that gives me, I guess, a little bit more peace of mind when I see it. like, yeah, there definitely shouldn't be this much, but there was some here. And if it's in a bottomland area, it's kind of like, that's where it would have been. And that also is what keeps you from over-applying glyphosate to try and solve a problem that, like you said, is not completely solvable. And you can you can put your efforts towards and your your resources towards more needle moving things elsewhere in the project in the scope of the project if you don't obsess over Kevin Griggs (24:45.342) I agree. you know, rather than, you know, beat your head against a wall with a hundred percent reed canary grass, maybe you can get to the point where, you know, with, with some targeted management, you can get to the point where, you know, your particular, you know, project or property, maybe you're at 60 % and the other 40 % is, is valuable natives. That's, that's a long ways. And, and that's not a, that's not a horrible target to be. They'll, you know, it'll, it'll find some equilibrium at some point. Kent Boucher (25:14.434) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (25:14.828) Huh. Do you, when you're like first stepping on to a property and it's a grassland and you know, okay, I'm trying to improve this grassland. are the first things you're looking for on that property? Kevin Griggs (25:30.154) Uh, couple of things, um, water source, you know, the floodplain, I work in floodplains a lot. So I want to know, you where's that, where's it coming from? What's it flowing through before it gets to, you know, to this particular site? What do I have to, uh, what I have to deal with? Um, uh, very similarly is, you know, adjacent disturbance. Um, done a lot of work in, the city of Ankeny the last, last few years. And, uh, you know, the city has done tremendous. work in implementing, you know, really ingenious stormwater features and, and bio cells and all sorts of things. But what we, we have to really be careful about is, you know, what you're doing at that particular location is important. What's going on around it equally important. And if it's new development and there's bare ground and there's going to be, you know, a weed source, something like that, we got to think pretty carefully about what you're putting inside that bioswell until everything else is established. So disturbance. seed source, hydrology, those are the things that I'm typically looking at. Nicolas Lirio (26:34.222) I never would have thought about that because we just worked on a project south of here. Yeah, that's how we met you Yeah, yeah, and that was that floodplain. Okay, so here's a question for you. I get this a lot Hey, I want to plant this thing it floods, know every few years it you know, the river comes up and it floods What do you do about do you just plant and hope it doesn't flood and then if it does you plant again the next year? What do you do? Kevin Griggs (26:59.308) Yeah, I'm so I probably remember from last time. I'm a real generalist. I'm a I'm a lumper, not a splitter. I like to use a big diverse seed mix because work in floodplains a lot. They're very, very dynamic. They change every year. You might go three, four years and have a drought and all of sudden flood for the next three years. So various hydrologic conditions and things like that. I like a seed mix that has a wide variety and I let them fight it out. And there's going to be some species that are going to do well in the dry years, some species going to do well in the wet years. To me, it typically means maybe you got more maintenance. Maybe you got to do more mowing after the first couple of floods or something like that to knock down the annuals and try to hold their seed bank in check. But ultimately, it's going to be what it wants to be. Nicolas Lirio (27:52.535) But what if you plant in November and it floods in April, right? Your plants haven't established. Do you just have to replant it? Kevin Griggs (28:00.13) Yeah, really. More than likely if that's your timing. And again, that's part of the risk in working on a floodplain. Interesting. Even if you get some germination that first spring and then it's all underwater, mean, they just can't tolerate that very well. So it may take a few tries. Nicolas Lirio (28:16.728) Wow. Wow. That sucks for an answer because, but that's how it is. Kevin Griggs (28:22.414) That's what it's like working in a dynamic situation like that. know, think about a farmer's crop field. Typically you don't have to deal with, you know, flood conditions on a regular basis or something like that. It's much more predictable, much more controllable and, you know, doing native restorations in a floodplain. Not so much. Nicolas Lirio (28:39.822) place, not 10 minutes from here. think we might've, pointed it out over map last time, but it floods every few years. And I mean, the river was like an inch away from flooding. Can you probably saw it? But I mean, it was, Kent Boucher (28:53.206) Got some big puddles, but that didn't quite break through. Nicolas Lirio (28:56.798) one side has corn and beans and they cash in on the on the insurance. Kent Boucher (29:03.042) There's a pump run drain that literally keeps that other field terrible. Nicolas Lirio (29:13.39) And then, and I mean, it's a giant, it's a giant pump. They hook up to some big old tractor and yeah. And then they, then the other side, we planted like four acres of it, like 15 years ago. And it's like a hundred acre field. we planted like four little, little corner, but that year it flooded. Right. So, and they didn't have us come back and replant that whole area, but the whole area, what is it? Is that Brom and reads Canary? Kent Boucher (29:41.934) Tons of Reed Canary. Yeah, I mean, it's mostly just cool season grasses. Nicolas Lirio (29:51.586) that and they handle the flooding like they'll it'll be eight feet high of water and then settle back down after a couple of months. And then by golly the Reed Canary and the brumb, they just come right on back. But, but even with that, it's cool to see the grassland. Like you see ducks in there all the time and like there's little pockets of water. like, we just need to, we should just get ahead of it. We should get some natives in the mix there. Kent Boucher (30:17.358) There's quite a bit of forest in that bottom land there. it's hard to know, you know, what all has been the history of that that ground there. It could have been they could have robbed a bunch of dirt from there to build up the highway that runs over there, you know. And so it might even be sitting lower than where it was historically. And that would have allowed for more a greater variety of native plants to live there than do now. But my guess is it was probably like a silver maple willow Cottonwood type and there are some cottonwoods growing in there, you know bottom line Kevin Griggs (30:55.246) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (30:56.046) But it's on, so on two sides it's got road. One side it's got a Creek and one side it's got a river. Um, and it's about a hundred acres, mostly read Canary, maybe some brome, some other non, maybe a few natives split here and there, but I don't see too many. Um, and the, uh, landowner reaches out and they've got a program. They want you to implement it with the EOR. Sure. What walk me through step by step. What are you doing? How are you starting that project? What are you looking at? Kevin Griggs (31:23.404) Yeah, I think the first thing I'd want to do is, you know, a careful site visit to do a good inventory. You know, are there anything, any species in there that are worth saving? Let's say there's not. Let's say it's, you know, former crop field. Just about any sedge. That's what I'd be looking for. And that's going to key off. you know, there's going to be lots of other things in there, but they're quick, easy to identify. Nicolas Lirio (31:38.936) What's that's worth saving? Kevin Griggs (31:52.174) especially if you get some diversity, you know, find three, four different sedges, all of sudden, you know, my wheels start turning and says, you know, this is, this is a sedge meadow and there's probably some other good stuff here. If there's species worth saving there, you know, think management's probably, you know, ought to be catered towards preserving what's there. If not, and more often than not, I'm finding, I'm finding places that aren't, that it's a hundred percent re-carrying out, there's just nothing else there. Yeah. Then nuking it might be the best option, you know, and, and the more you can stress that plan out, you know, through, tillage, repeated tillage, repeated spraying, the better off you're gonna, you're gonna be. I, know, I remember reading an article about the best treatment for reed canary grass. And this was, this was 30 years ago, thick black plastic. That's, that's the best treatment for it. And, and, by the way, you got to leave it in place for like three years. That's not. That's not very practical. You know, you you you try not to, you know, what does that do to the soil biology when it's covered? Nicolas Lirio (32:53.372) You don't do 100 acres of thick Kent Boucher (33:01.71) She's just wrapping around a semi-wallet. Kevin Griggs (33:03.808) Right, right. mean, it's not, but that's what it takes to fully control it. thing less than that, you're just, you you're working with it, not necessarily against it. So yeah, not practical. Nicolas Lirio (33:10.012) Any Nicolas Lirio (33:17.088) So you would go in there and then, I mean, it floods from the skunk river. you said you would go up to look for seed sources up. Kevin Griggs (33:21.106) yeah. Kevin Griggs (33:25.45) I'd be real curious as to how often it floods, for one thing. if it's flood water from a major river like that, the seed source is in there. You don't have to go look very far. This Franklin County farm that I mentioned, it's got some flowage that comes in from across the field that's not directly tied. This is right on the Iowa. It's not directly tied to the Iowa River, when we get heavy rains, there's flowage that comes through there. Well, it's going to flow through a hundred acres of solid recanary grass before it gets to this particular area. There's no way to stop that. I can do only so much on the target property to manage it. I can't do anything on the neighbor's property. So we've got to accept that. Kent Boucher (34:09.934) Yeah, is just such a point. There's a there's a creek bottom by my house and it I think was two years ago remember when Pella had all that flooding. yeah. And we got I think it was like six inches of rain in the afternoon. Wow. And I mean, it looked like the Tigris River like running through our Nicolas Lirio (34:30.606) the same year Spencer, Iowa got hammered. Kent Boucher (34:33.621) Yeah, I it was. think it was. Yeah, it just kept raining up there. But yeah, that that water just washed through that whole drainage, you know, low point that valley, I guess you'd say through the Nicolas Lirio (34:50.601) yeah. Kent Boucher (34:51.133) And there's tons of reed canary in there. And I don't know if any was yet going, probably pretty close to what it was going to seed. And I never thought of that, but everyone, you could have the most pristine bottomland prairie you just got. Kevin Griggs (35:04.888) float all that seed right into it. mean, Kent Boucher (35:08.174) 50 pound bags of reed canary grass seed dumped in your prairie. Kevin Griggs (35:11.982) Exactly. it's just, know, evolution has prepared it for that moment. It floats well, it's going to germinate well. mean, it's just waiting for it. Kent Boucher (35:24.942) the right opportunity. Nicolas Lirio (35:26.254) Do you test water for seeds? Kevin Griggs (35:30.03) I have not. think that's probably cost prohibitive to be able to do that. Kent Boucher (35:36.704) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (35:38.216) Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't imagine the cause we test for nitrates. We test for chemical and some other things. Do you guys do any before and after nitrate testing on your, Kevin Griggs (35:47.918) We really don't. We do very little. If we're restoring a wetland and part of the objective is water quality improvement, then we may very well. We want to do some before and after to see if we have some lift and what that does. But a lot of times, our objective is acres. How many acres can we get restored? Kent Boucher (36:08.962) Yeah, I want to go back to your I mean, hugely impactful and important program that you helped start the Iowa wetland mitigation. But but but before that, while we're on the topic of nitrates, water quality, and what's realistic. Having a conversation right now with a dear friend who cares a lot about us here in Iowa, but Kevin Griggs (36:19.825) yeah, you- Kent Boucher (36:38.508) They do not live in Iowa. And the question they're asking is, we just had this new report come out and we kind of now know the extent of how bad the nitrate problem has become. We're seeing the link drawn between that and cancer, how bad cancer has become in our state. And everybody's wanting a solution and they're wanting it fast including myself including Nicholas and I imagine you yourself absolutely and When we look at that it's like well what options do we have and the friend of ours who? One of the most brilliant people I I know and especially when it comes to like practical assessment of a situation They are concerned that it's impossible like yeah, you guys have a major problem I don't see how you can undo the things that have caused your problem. And that is a scary question that I don't even like to think about, but if I'm gonna be intellectually honest, I have to. And so it leaves me, okay, I don't know, even read Canary Grass, I don't know if there's anything that's truly unfixable if you threw, if you had bottomless resource, bottomless. you know, group mentality of wanting to solve the problem. So I guess what I'm saying is if we go perfect world scenario and we said, yep, we are going to have, we are going to do whatever we can to get as clean of water, surface water, runoff water, leaving our state as close to what Iowa would have been when it was, you know, well, I shouldn't say it that way. We'll go to the best state. that we have in our country, the best water quality state that we have in our country. So we've talked a lot about having some kind of buffer law like Minnesota has. But the problem with the buffer law is there's so much fuel tiling that just bypasses the prairie roots. Kevin Griggs (38:42.232) love that dirt. Kent Boucher (39:00.866) To my surprise, and to my costly loss of a bet on this podcast, I thought that, yeah, there's a ton of tiling. mean, millions of miles of tiling in our state. But surely there's just so much surface area that it can't be capturing. Well, it turns out they put those, where they put those tile lines, it is so efficient with gathering water based on the topography of the land that the bulk of our nitrate-laden water would still bypass our buffers if we had them. Now, we would still be getting all kinds of benefits, so I'm still in favor of a buffer law. But I can't look to that to be my silver bullet solution to solving this. I imagine wetlands are probably the biggest missing factor just because there would have been way more wetlands in Iowa than there are today. I mean, We also have the idea of the bioreactors being put at the end of these tile lines. You've saturated buffers. You've got so much experience in these areas that A, do you think this problem is like we can tackle it and we can, maybe we don't get as good as the best state, but we get way, way better to where it's not even really on a radar anymore. Yeah. Is that possible? And then if so, Kevin Griggs (40:05.986) got traded buffer Kent Boucher (40:29.388) what needs to happen. Kevin Griggs (40:31.192) Sure. The word that comes to mind, is fortitude. Yeah, we have these answers. We don't have the fortitude to implement everything that we need to do. Could we get there? Absolutely we could. And sometimes the solutions are, sometimes they're technical. Kent Boucher (40:46.478) That is encouraging. Kevin Griggs (40:56.886) Sometimes they're amazing. Like, why didn't we think of that? And the whole idea of a bioreactor, that's pretty cool science. It's not all technical. The idea of cover crops. know, farmers have been using cover crops for thousands of years. That's nothing new. Using them on a large, grand scale, that's a little different story. But I think the answers are in front of us. I think we need continued research. But what we need more than anything is the fortitude to implement. We need the infrastructure to be able to implement. And right now that's really working against us. Fortitude to just make it happen, to want it bad enough. Right now, I think we're working in a system that is so heavily controlled by large agribusiness that it's very difficult to implement that system. There's so much fighting against implementation. Nicolas Lirio (41:33.272) Fortitude from what? Kevin Griggs (41:52.814) Um, yeah, we have state government that, you know, we'll sprinkle a few million here and a few million there and, and, you know, and, you know, now our cover crop percentages up to 10 % and we feel good about that and pat each other on the back. That's great. But we need to get to something significant. We need to get to 80%. How do we make that jump? We can, if we want to bad enough, maybe, and I, you know, don't necessarily have the solution to this, but maybe we need the money to do it. Well, then where does that money come from? How do we get there? Is it incentive? Is it disincentive? Is it a taxing structure? I'm not sure. That's the hard nut to crack. The actual science of getting there, I think we've got that in place. We just need the fortitude to actually make it happen. Nicolas Lirio (42:40.116) So we've talked a little bit about this, like are we willing? I've asked, I think every governor candidate when we talk about water quality, cause right, they got, they got all these answers they could do. And then I ask them, what are you going to do when farmers don't want to change their practices or, and so in this arena of, we willing to go through the pain for the success and the new vision of Iowa and it being a healthier state? What is, what do you see being a stronger opposition? large ag companies that are incentivized to make a lot of money off of a lot of corner bean acres on the ground or individual farmers, landowners, um, even just the people of Iowa in general, because if you took, if you took a small percentage, three, 4 % of a state's, um, capital or liquid assets that people might think 3, 4 % won't be noticeable, but it will. it'll be huge noticeable because people live on a margin of 10 or 15%. So you're taking a third to half of that. And, and so we would have to give up things like, know I beat up on this a lot, but we'd have to give up things like the amount of youth sports we do. Sure. think people don't understand how much family spend on youth sports, right? We'd have to give up our way of living in that way. We'd have to give up going to Chick-fil-A as often as we do. And we'd have to cook more often at home cause it'd be more economic. We as a people. So, Is there more pushback, do you think, as a group of people having less convenience and less money? Or do you think it's going to be bigger pushback on the large agricultural companies? Because everybody, yeah, I want better water quality. I want better water quality. But what if that means two less vacations for you a year? And your kids can only play school sports. They can't travel. Right. Would you say, well, only if everybody else does it. Is anybody willing to be the first? So I'm curious which ones you think would have more pushback. Right. Kevin Griggs (44:39.406) I think there's definitely gonna be more pushback from agribusiness just because they're big, they're organized, they're well-funded, they want to continue on the trajectory that they're on. I do think, and you know, I'm an optimist. I think most people want to do the right thing for the right reason. I really do. Farmers especially, farmers included. If there's a solution that is attainable for them, I think they're gonna go for it almost every single time. I think they want to do the right thing. I really, really do. I just don't think they often have the tools or the financial ability to get from point A to point B. And I think a lot of it is because we have established the system that we do. And it's not just agribusiness, it's our government system as well. We're going this direction. Now we've got such momentum to go there. Support of the ethanol industry is a perfect example of that. How do we change course? How do we alter that course? It's very, very difficult. It's hard to turn that ship even a couple of degrees, let alone have revolutionary change. But that kind of change is what it would take. So I do think it is possible. I think everybody has to give a little to get there. But agribusiness, the agricultural industry, and state government especially, they've got to get behind it before we're to see anything, any meaningful changes. Kent Boucher (46:05.435) So we talked about cover crops and the buffer law and we've talked a little bit about the bioreactors and saturated buffers. How do we solve the tiling problem? Kevin Griggs (46:14.124) Yeah, that's a really good question. And I probably have maybe a different perspective than a lot of people. So my son-in-law and his dad own a tiling company. They make a living putting tile in the ground and adding drainage. I make a living taking tile out of the ground and restoring drainage. Kent Boucher (46:35.022) sounds like a perfect father-in-law. Nicolas Lirio (46:37.72) How's Thanksgiving for you? Kevin Griggs (46:40.014) It's a nice balance. But I guess, you know, I understand the need. I learned something really early on in my career that a lot of other resource managers don't necessarily subscribe to. This is Iowa. These are our working lands. We raise a tremendous amount of food, fiber, and fuel. And, you know, we're always going to, you know? But it doesn't mean that every acre has to be farmed. doesn't mean that we have to support an unproductive, unscalable ethanol industry forever. We do need to grow crops and we will grow crops, but let's work on the profitable acres for farming. Let's add tile where it makes sense to. Kent Boucher (47:14.318) No. Kevin Griggs (47:26.946) But there's a lot of areas that should not be tiled. There's a lot of places farm that should not be farmed. And right now we are trying to farm every damn square acre we possibly can. And that is not doing us any good. So let's farm the best and save the rest. I didn't make that slogan up, but yeah, it makes sense. When I'm thinking about restoration, when I'm working on restoration ideas and stuff, I'm not looking for the best stuff. I don't want the best stuff. I want the easy stuff to restore. Well, that's... things like floodplains or edge of field or, you know, areas that are hard to get to or, or are already poorly drained. That's fine. Let's save those areas for restoration. That that's, that makes my job easier, more efficient, and it saves the best farmland for, for production. That's a really, really good question. who's ever paying the most money. That's, that's who, that's who decides that. Nicolas Lirio (48:12.802) Who decides that? Nicolas Lirio (48:21.218) What do mean by that? Kevin Griggs (48:23.262) If, you know, wherever the most profit is. So if, let's say it's an absentee landowner, they want to rent that ground for as much money as they can so they've got income, they're going to be resistant to pulling anything out. How do we get to that person? know, when they're in Florida living, you know, 10 months of the year, how do we convince them that, hey, you know what, that 20 acres of bottom land, what if we don't farm that? We put that into a program, we restore it or something like that. I think we've lost so much connection there, but. Nicolas Lirio (48:54.99) So you don't think it should be regulated? Kevin Griggs (48:56.942) I think regulation absolutely is a part of it. think large-scale regulation is unattainable. just don't think we're going to get there. But I think there's common sense things that we can do. The Minnesota buffer law, perfect example of that. I they've seen success there. My company's headquarters is in St. Paul. I spent a lot of time in Minnesota. There's no way to sugarcoat it. People care about their water there. They really do. And they're serious about it. You know, they Kent Boucher (49:27.086) It's a conservation minded populace. is. We've noticed that from being up there more times than we ever expected to be in Minneapolis. Nicolas Lirio (49:34.754) several times Kevin Griggs (49:36.438) Right? Right. No, but, but, it's palpable. mean, you, you, know, you can, you can sense that people really do do care. Nicolas Lirio (49:42.254) Well, and I, you know, it's a tough conversation because I understand farmers where they, don't want, I don't want the general populace telling me what to do with their land. And sure. My, argument I have in my head, I love winning those conversations that I have in my head, uh, is, um, it, think it's totally fine for you to do what you want in the land, as long as it doesn't leave. So if water leaves your land and comes into the populace water, then, then you got to figure it out. then the populace should have a say. if it doesn't, if you can somehow keep your water table totally separate than everybody else is that by golly, you'd do whatever you want over there. And, and I wish they could, I wish they could just put a wall right in the ground and say, this is my land. I'm doing what it won't affect the air or the water or the, you know, the fauna or anything like that, but just not what we're. Kent Boucher (50:13.688) Yeah, that's a good way to look at Kent Boucher (50:25.346) I so I like the answer that let's get rid of what we truly do not need. Let's take that out. I do have ongoing concerns about the fact that just tiling at all has. tied into our drought cycle that has seemingly getting worse. At least this part of the state, we got a nice break last year. Looking like we might get a break again this year. It's been pretty wet so far, but things can change a lot. All it takes is eight weeks of basically no rain to enter drought status. I do agree with you that to, and a lot of critics of the conservation or environmental group is it's anti-human, right? Yes. So what you're looking for just means we got to get rid of a few billion people. And no, that's... That's... Well, and it's wrong. It's immoral to look at human life in that way from my perspective. I will say this though. I do think pro-life is a whole lot more than just being anti-abortion. absolutely. think pro-life means you aren't... Kevin Griggs (51:24.631) project. Kent Boucher (51:43.104) Okay, with little kids being riddled with cancer and having an increase in cancer rate in your state. Absolutely. So I do think it includes that as well. But I get that criticism of it can come across as an anti human standpoint. So I agree, we need to have prairie acres producing food for humans. Yes. So I going back to an 85 % surface area coverage of prairie in our state. Do not make that into a reel, by the way. I will get, I will get. I just saw you salivating over there. But, so we have to produce food and that may very well entail having some field tile left in place. Kevin Griggs (52:21.825) Hahaha Nicolas Lirio (52:26.556) Anything for 2,000 Kent Boucher (52:39.402) And the trade off might be we're a drier state as a result. But surely we can make those tile lines that have to stay. harm us less. Do you think we could? I mean, it would take decades. And I think there's a lot of timelines. Nobody even knows that they're there anymore. You talk a farm that's been sold two, three times, that could be ancient timelines there that are 100 years old. Kevin Griggs (52:55.31) Absolutely. Kevin Griggs (53:04.843) I mean Kevin Griggs (53:11.434) Often there is multiple lines. Kent Boucher (53:13.566) I mean, but do you think what we do is have the goal of, of Yep, it makes sense for this line to be in here, it has to be installed with a bioreactor or go into a saturated buffer instead of piping out directly into the into the creek. Kevin Griggs (53:32.47) I, yes. And what you're hitting on, think is something that's incredibly important is, in general, I think, you know, we should probably be doing less tiling, but an absolute minimum, we should be doing more smarter tiling. And I think we are slowly, slowly getting there, but a perfect example, you know, you see how many fields last fall, you know, let's, let's, I'm just going to make up a hypothetical, you know, pull up to an intersection. And on the corner, there's a 120 acre field there that was freshly patterned tiled. Every 33 feet across that entire 120 acres, there's a field tile. It's hard for me to imagine that every single acre out there needed a tile every 33 feet. Does the whole field need some improvement? Very, very possibly. Is there a way to treat some of that water on site? But we look at it as you're either going to tile or you're not going to tile. What if you tile just a little bit less? What if you did it a little bit smarter? What if you had some kind of an outlet that was treatable? Let me throw out an idea which kind of goes to what we've been talking here and that's incentive. Regulation is one incentive. It's a disincentive. Paying somebody to do a practice, that's an incentive. idea I had several years ago and I may have mentioned this last time I was on there. I hatched this idea and I haven't been able to find anybody to take it to the next level. Maybe this is a venue that somebody will say, you know what? can do that. It's tied to nitrate specifically and Iowa has a tremendous nitrate problem, right? Several years ago, remember Conservation Districts of Iowa came up with this program that was basically water quality testing in a box. basically they were putting nitrate test strips into farmers hands. And you hand them a box, little instruction manual, a set of Hock test strips, and they could go out and test their field tile. And they knew through that test what that tile level was reading for nitrate levels. That's really important. Kevin Griggs (55:49.234) And one of the reasons it was important is it's just for that farmer to know. This isn't public information. It's not published on a database. Nobody's looking over their shoulder. This is just for them to know what's coming out of their tile. What if we tied that to dollars? It's important to know that there's nitrate coming out of there, but that's nitrate they paid for in fertilizer. Here's this idea. What if we had some kind of cheap sensor system that we could put on the end of not every tile line. But specific tie lines, maybe it's one major one per field or something like that. We have a one inch rain and the farmer can drive out to his field the next day and through a Bluetooth connection on an iPad or something like that. wow, this drain lost X number of pounds. Nicolas Lirio (56:36.6) Didn't Riley say that? Riley was not not Travis. Kent Boucher (56:38.478) Travis was talking about this when we were up there. Nicolas Lirio (56:43.01) But Riley was like, you know, farmers are proud. And if they could have a metric where they could almost be like, well, my nitrate level is lower than your nitrate level. know what I mean? Kevin Griggs (56:51.867) And they're competitive. Yeah. And if, you know, implementing different practices. Kent Boucher (56:56.76) They could reduce light on it. Green if it's good, red if it's Kevin Griggs (56:59.726) I mean, absolutely, but. Nicolas Lirio (57:02.466) Also, want to say, do believe farmers are proud, I would love like landowners and managers are like, can I also are like, well, how does it look? You know, we are also proud about how it is. So I don't, that wasn't necessarily a negative. Kent Boucher (57:14.274) We are farmers. Kevin Griggs (57:16.238) Absolutely. you know, I want you guys to succeed. I want all farmers to succeed. I want them to make a responsible, reasonable living. Absolutely. And the biggest thing about nitrate loss like that is if you can equate that to dollars, let's say you could measure that in as 14 parts per million. Okay, that's fine. Now equate it to dollars. I lost $275 in fertilizer. last night because of that rain. Now all of sudden that's meaningful. That's powerful. I love that. it into today's fertilizer price. And again, I don't care if anybody else knows about it or not. I don't care if it goes to some statewide monitoring network. That's not the point. I think if they have their own financial incentive and say, man, you know what? I put down 250 pounds per acre last year and I'm losing this much now. What if I back that off? giving that information, that kind of power to individual farmers, I think that can make a difference. So here's my plea. Somebody please develop this technology. Kevin Griggs (58:23.296) And I could care less about anybody making money off of it. I don't want to make, I want to give this idea away. I want to move the needle. want to change. That's my incentive. So I that a few times, but I need somebody to pick it up and run with it. So. Nicolas Lirio (58:31.798) Absolutely. That would create. Kent Boucher (58:40.846) Nick, your thing on clock. Kevin Griggs (58:44.302) One of the things I've learned about farming in the last few years is, mean, show me a farmer today that doesn't have an iPad in his truck and in his tractor and they're not tracking data, high speed internet. I mean, that's the way it is. It's only that way. So if you make an easy system for them to track something like that and make it tied to a financial outcome, man, I think there's incentive. Kent Boucher (59:07.884) We have the mapping technology that can go with it. Nicolas Lirio (59:11.298) Like a heat map of where the most nitrates coming from? Kent Boucher (59:14.03) Just like, so I use it for hunting. I went on an elk hunt a few years ago and there was a bull way up at the, I mean the top of this mountain. And we were basically out of water and it was part of the day where he was still gonna be bedded up there for a few hours most likely. And we're like, I mean we're so far from water, it's hot, it's dry, it's anything, it's a super drought. condition there. This part of Colorado and we're like, is it going to be worth it? I mean, we're even going to be able to get this thing off the mountain if we got up there and shot it. And so we looked at it as an on X slope angle. And you could just see, you know, they they graded it by color, like purple and red. Not good. Kevin Griggs (01:00:04.43) Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't want to climb that. Kent Boucher (01:00:06.438) You're climbing on all fours, you know, to get up there. And that's what it was. And that weighed into our decision. the point being that that technology, that sloping technology is there that you could work a map to match the sensor data like, look, you just lost $275. Let's look at your slope angle here. Yeah. And you can see this crease. That's where these two, you know, hills are meeting that is Nicolas Lirio (01:00:29.334) If you make money off of tiling stuff and you know somebody that knows how to code, you are the perfect person to sell this and go to Des Moines Ag Expo and make literally make millions of dollars. Here's a question. What do you guys know? You know, I naturalist, you know what I naturalist is. So I naturalist, they do a really cool thing where you can see publicly where these are, where other people. mark that plant, but also they're very vulnerable plants. So you can mark, I want this to be anonymous. So it'll give you a general, I think County, but it won't tell you where in the County it is. It'd be interesting if they could do that with the nitrates where you could see by the County without being able to pinpoint it to the farmer. So the farmer could feel safe. And it'd be really interesting if you did the program and what, does it cost a month to have a trail cam cell data subscription? Kent Boucher (01:01:15.214) There's all sorts of levels to the number of pictures you want and things like that. Kevin Griggs (01:01:20.48) So what's normal live color video the night night time scope you can Kent Boucher (01:01:25.39) I'd say Moultrie is probably your best comparison because it's per camera, per package. You know, with that camera that includes video and pictures. And I think that is around, the one that I used to use with them was 18 bucks a Nicolas Lirio (01:01:41.358) 18. Okay, okay. So, yeah, yeah, let's say you've got 100 sensors. It's 10 bucks. Kent Boucher (01:01:43.586) Damner though. Kent Boucher (01:01:50.734) That'd be more like Cutty Link there. Cutty Link is you have one, you don't get video, but you get pictures, and you have one unit that, as long as it's within a quarter mile of another unit, it can all go to that one unit. And it's very affordable. It's like bucks a month. Nicolas Lirio (01:02:07.686) subscription fee. Let's say $1,000 to $2,000 a year and then the state of Iowa says and we'll pay two thirds of it if you let us have the data as well. Right. You know what I mean? And so who's setting it up? The farmers setting up their tracking and all this stuff because it saves them a bunch of money. also on the flip side, they would they could get it basically for free if they're willing to share their data publicly, which is I would say, I would argue, I'm glad my tax dollars would go to that, you know, because it's on their private land. So it helps with the intrusiveness of that feeling, but also public, the public gets benefit, a lot of benefit from it. Yeah. I'm like salivating and how good of an idea that is, Kevin, I'm going to like be deeply disappointed if no one reaches out to me about how they could start this. Kevin Griggs (01:02:59.726) I they do. I've literally been peddling this idea for 10 years. Kent Boucher (01:03:03.402) I should run with it, Nick. Nicolas Lirio (01:03:05.166) Here's the thing, I don't know tiling and geography. Kent Boucher (01:03:10.794) as excuses. Nicolas Lirio (01:03:12.878) I could definitely make the UI and like the backend and most of that stuff, but I could. Kent Boucher (01:03:17.166) And you find the right guy to pair with. Kevin Griggs (01:03:19.5) I can't even spell UI. Nicolas Lirio (01:03:24.536) That's funny. Okay, I've got a couple more questions before we head out. If there's anything you want to make sure you mention, please do. Do you have strong opinions on data centers? specifically for their water quality of the utility and stuff like that. Kevin Griggs (01:03:37.07) Yeah, absolutely. have strong opinions and my company is deeply involved with data center siting and management. I look at it as one of those things that it's going to happen. if we try to pretend that it's not going to happen, we're going to be sorely disappointed. But we can have some effect on where they go and how it's done and can it be done smartly. One of the things I see happening in Iowa right now This is good local example is there's there's multiple counties that are just implementing moratoriums and Basically, they're saying no data centers can come to our camp Or for some period of time. I don't know if they can outlaw them forever Maybe maybe they can but they're at least implementing moratoriums where you know, basically they're saying we don't want to deal with it We want you to go somewhere else. I think it's a little little short-sighted But I think you know, I think we have to be Nicolas Lirio (01:04:13.865) moratorium Nicolas Lirio (01:04:17.876) ever, yeah. Kevin Griggs (01:04:35.028) smart about it. And yeah, sometimes their resource usage is immense. There are places, and there's even places in Iowa where the resource needs can be managed. They need a tremendous amount of energy, but they oftentimes need a tremendous amount of water for cooling, things like that. Nicolas Lirio (01:04:55.18) they had to bring like the there was an executive order that they had to bring the energy with them. Okay, I didn't know if you you sat in those rooms. So So with water, what's going on with the water side of it? Kevin Griggs (01:05:01.248) I'm not sure. Kevin Griggs (01:05:07.382) Absolutely. If they're cited somewhat willy-nilly, and data centers aren't going to invest the dollars unless they know, there needs to be a good, hard, honest look on what water supply availability is. I think the data center companies are probably doing a pretty fair job. They're not going to implement a billion dollar project someplace where they can't come up with enough water. They're doing their due diligence. Are they convincing local residents and communities that they're doing that? I think they need to do a lot better job communicating that. And what happens when the second one wants to come to town and they want to expand? there's legitimate concerns there, and I get that. There is advancing technology all the time on closed loop systems for data centers. So yes, they take a certain amount of volume of water, but it's a closed system. So it's not. They're not completely cycling that all the time every year. They're using a closed loop system. There's more of Nicolas Lirio (01:06:09.414) If it's not a closed loop system, my wife was actually just asking me this. Because I was telling her that Jonathan Swanson said, if done well, they can be a net positive, right? And she was like, well, that's not what I'm hearing online. So how can it be a net positive? she asked, so when they because they add something to the water, if I remember correctly, to protect their infrastructure when the water enters their their infrastructure. then where are they putting it? Are they just throwing it back in the river or what's going on? Kevin Griggs (01:06:39.512) They're discharging. It's going back to the river or whatever source. Nicolas Lirio (01:06:42.439) regulated what's in their water when they put it back into the river Kevin Griggs (01:06:45.42) I think it has to be, that'd be a point discharge. I'm sure that it. Nicolas Lirio (01:06:49.088) Okay. Yeah. Okay. Cause I'm like, cause you can have like a DuPont situation where, know, and I, that we gotta be very vigilant against it. Kevin Griggs (01:06:57.09) I have no doubt that if they're using water for cooling, they're probably adding something to it for treatment just to preserve their equipment. But I'm guessing it's not horrible and that whatever they are discharging is certainly going to be regulated. So yeah, they probably are adding some kind of preservative or something to it. Nicolas Lirio (01:07:17.838) So you but you've only kind of brought up negative things about or things that potentially could be negative. that do you think they'd be a net negative if they go into a community or. Kevin Griggs (01:07:28.014) No, no, I don't. I think if done, if done properly, if done well, if done thoughtfully, it can absolutely be a net positive. Here's, here's one of the reasons why. Even though it is, it is not regulated yet, there are a number of data center companies, data center developers that are going above and beyond and, doing what they're calling, you know, volumetric water offsets right now. And we're, just getting into this. We just completed a study for a company up in Northwest Iowa a couple of months ago. Volumetric water offset. Nicolas Lirio (01:07:57.999) What did you call it? Volume metric water offset. Okay. Kevin Griggs (01:08:03.16) Think about somebody's gonna build a new big box store and they're gonna impact an acre of wetland so they have to offset that by creating an acre of wetland someplace else. Same thing, but we're just talking water volume. So this data center is gonna use 100 million gallons of water a year. They're interested in offsetting that by creating or restoring water elsewhere on the landscape. All of a sudden that just became a new opportunity to do some unbelievable environmental restoration work. Yes. And it's voluntary. Kent Boucher (01:08:33.493) That's, that's where I think I understand the the complaints against having them and everyone saying, Nope, no, no data centers, right? I understand that I can, especially if it was going up right next to my house, you know, that the whole NIMBY thing, right? So I get that. I also though, think that You we have an opportunity. I've said this before, so people may have heard it be say before might be getting sick of me saying it, but I think it's an important point that an opportunity that we take advantage of when you have somebody who wants something from you and they want it desperately. And they have bottomless pockets. That's a great opportunity to get some heavy lifting done. That takes a lot of dinero to do it. Yes, and. And why can't we, why can't we look at this and say, okay, you want a data center. The world is going the direction of the data center. And I might keep you from being here 20 years from now and or 50 years from now. But after I'm dead and gone, and the new people are calling the shots, there's probably gonna be a data center here. That's just the way it's going. It is. So if you're, can have your data center, but here are my list of demands. Yeah. And, and one of them is you need a lot of water. You're not getting it from our aquifers. That takes too long to recharge that can jack with everybody else out here in this rural setting. Who's dependent on that aquifer being there. It's very expensive to drill a new well. So can't get it from there. It's got, you got a setup shop on the raccoon river. Yeah. And guess what? The raccoon river. It's one of the most polluted rivers in North America. And you gotta make it not that way. And we don't have to. Right. Yeah, Yeah, you gotta help us. So water coming in to cool your servers and everything, great. It's just gotta come out significantly better within this region of, or within these measurables on the other side. And I know it's expensive, but that's what the cost of setting up business is. Kevin Griggs (01:10:36.95) or least incrementally better. Nicolas Lirio (01:10:57.774) Because data centers aren't long-term jobs. They're literally just like warehouses that sit there. Kent Boucher (01:11:05.358) I do think- afford it and it not hurt them. It's $16,000 a day to do the denitrification. Someone just sent me that stat yesterday. So we've been saying 12, 16, you probably adjusted. Kevin Griggs (01:11:18.623) You're about the Des Moines nitrate removal plant? Nicolas Lirio (01:11:21.1) Yeah, but that's well, I want to be clear that's only that's only their special machine that. Kent Boucher (01:11:26.275) Right. Yeah, it's not all the rest of the operation. Yes, just the nitrate removal. Yeah, well, that's nothing to to shoot. Nicolas Lirio (01:11:33.004) tech meta or Google. Yeah, literally. Kent Boucher (01:11:35.128) not it's not right and and you Nicolas Lirio (01:11:37.838) You heard about that guy that was invoicing the giant giant tech companies. He was just invoicing them and made hundreds of them. And then finally got caught, but he fled to Brazil. So he just, and they just would pay the bill. Yeah. Kent Boucher (01:11:45.87) Maybe I did here. Kevin Griggs (01:11:54.655) Sometimes that's easier. Kent Boucher (01:11:56.11) But yeah, I mean to me It's an opportunity where there's a lot of resources where we could solve some really huge problems that affect a lot Nicolas Lirio (01:12:10.03) Do you think that's practical? you think like from the conversation you've heard about, or maybe you're even in the room with these companies, are they willing to dance with that? Kevin Griggs (01:12:19.822) Absolutely. you're spot on that there's an opportunity. And the example you use was a water quality improvement. The one I'm currently working on right now isn't necessarily a water quality improvement. It's a water quantity improvement. They're interested in replacing a certain amount of gallons per year, a million gallons per year, on the landscape itself. We pitched a project to them and we're waiting for a response right now. Restoring river channel. So in this case, this is far Northwest Iowa. Lots of channelization has gone on in the rivers and streams the last few years. It's a particular piece of property that's got old remnant channel scars all over it. What if we restored those? What if we were able to capture that water and increase the cycle going through the landscape? Kent Boucher (01:12:49.71) Whatland or something Kevin Griggs (01:13:12.82) and by the way, it's only used for intensive cattle pasture right now. So we get water quality improvements by taking the cattle off. by the way, it's a Topeka Shiner stream. So we improve endangered species habitat. We provide public opportunity for restoration. It's win-win for everybody. And they get their water, volumetric water offset that they're looking for. Nicolas Lirio (01:13:36.92) Do you know Jeremiah Haas? He is what's that? What's that nuclear power plant? Constellation, but he doesn't technically work for them. He's like a mandated third party to ensure that the water that goes in to cool down their nuclear power plant comes out clean enough. It isn't affecting the fish and stuff. Kevin Griggs (01:13:38.509) I don't. Kent Boucher (01:13:41.975) constellations. Kent Boucher (01:13:54.926) it has to have zero net impact on the. Nicolas Lirio (01:13:59.182) He argued that they do. you know and if a dirty old nuclear power plant from 40 years ago can have a Net zero I I do believe data centers can but can and I want to be really clear about our position We're not just like pro data center We are only pro data center if I will get something big out of it and we see this as an object because you were just talking about who's gonna have the four to do it Kevin Griggs (01:14:09.09) I did too. Kent Boucher (01:14:22.03) I'm not interested in someone else sticking a fork in Iowa. I'm not interested in Iowa being strip-minded in another way than... Nicolas Lirio (01:14:28.504) But if you give me a whole rotisserie chicken, I'll let you put a fork on my plate for a bite or two. You know what I mean? I'll take that whole rotisserie chicken. Yeah. Yeah. man. Kevin Griggs (01:14:37.422) Similar vein is the power supply required. I'm a big supporter in renewable energy. think Iowa is the perfect place for more wind farms, more solar farms. We need the whole package. We need the transmission capability to export the power. this is a good place for that, and it's as good a place as any. And there are communities that are reaping the benefits of the tax base that those projects provide. And why should we be any different than any other state? I think it can fit. I just think it has to be done with a thoughtful purpose. Nicolas Lirio (01:15:19.714) I'm not, I'm not a more regulation guy, but I have thought it would maybe if we looked into any large scale building, like our building we have here, our shop, right? Any building we have like this, has to go into the plant. Like solar has to go into the plans. Even if it's like the government's like, look, the utility company is going to pay for it. They're going to put it on. They're going to maintain or whatever, but we need land to put solar on. And I don't love the idea of them. use and you know, 2000 acres of perfectly good land that could either be conserved or have crop or have cattle on. don't like that idea too much, but if we start doing it on all our houses and all of our, we'd really, right. We'd make a huge dent in the energy, uh, in the energy boom. And so especially with, cause that's a problem with the data centers is like the energy, just as a country, we don't have enough energy for what they're trying to do. So that's why we're starting to dig more into nuclear and some of those other things. But I want to talk to you about one more thing. This is actually a little off topic, but I've been thinking a lot about it and you're very thoughtful on these things. So I'm curious if you have an opinion. I saw a post from farm bureau recently about they, there was a flower farm that they were promoting that was giving a tour and the flower farm was showing how they do agribusiness. And I think that's fun or like a lavender farm, but like let's say 5 % of the population goes to a lavender farm. So you, If that was the case in every county, yeah, that's more than, than probably is accurate. You know, it's more like 1 % goes every year or every other year. Kevin Griggs (01:16:50.67) I have been to a lavender farm Nicolas Lirio (01:16:52.61) Yeah, I have. do you go every year? Kevin Griggs (01:16:55.022) I went two years in a row, but now there's been a gap. Nicolas Lirio (01:16:58.402) Yeah. Well, and so even at that, let's say 1 % of Jasper County, one lavender farm per county is too many lavender farms. So what I'm saying is a niche farm like that, that's cool. larger ag businesses are starting to promote these little niche farmers, but they, if I've been saying this, if Prairie doesn't end up getting something in someone's household, It's not scalable. The reason corn is scalable is because the end product is in gasoline. That's in everybody's house or some sort of feed for beef. That's in everybody's house or pork. That's in everybody's house. Yeah. That's it. Everybody's house. yeah. Yeah. What are Fritos? Kent Boucher (01:17:39.818) Or in cans of pop. Kent Boucher (01:17:46.831) It's got corn starch or high fructose corn syrup Nicolas Lirio (01:17:49.902) I mean, it's cheap calories. That's why we, that's why we do it. and, well they're expensive on the backend. I'll tell you what, I'm trying to run a marathon and it's hurting me. Kent Boucher (01:17:59.656) Expensive on the back end. Nicolas Lirio (01:18:02.498) Yeah. How are Oreos 80 % corn? This is good. Actually, I don't know. Here's how you know if your food source is good or not. was thinking about this in the shower yesterday. Are they willing to go on a show of how it's made? If they're willing to go on a show of how it's made, it's probably fine. If they're not, then don't eat it. Kevin Griggs (01:18:19.967) Right, I know that you don't want to see how the sausage is made. Yeah Nicolas Lirio (01:18:22.83) So, so with these, what are some farms that have products that end up in people's households that are scalable, that have better conservation? Kevin Griggs (01:18:36.994) Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that's an interesting question. First, let me challenge something you said that that, you know, prairie, unless there's some benefit coming into the house, it's not it's not scalable. I think there's probably a large percentage of the population and I sure hope it's more than this, you one percent the value prairie just for prairie and want to see it on the landscape, whether whether that comes into my house as a product or a, you know, a step in a realized monetary benefit or not knowing it's there is. Nicolas Lirio (01:19:12.334) Shock me if it was 1 % of it was got some high is 1 % of Iowa. think it should I think it should end up in people's households. And I've argued even just a mentality is in someone's household or Disneyland, right is like a house. Kevin Griggs (01:19:24.846) experience that they've had driving through Neil Smith. Everybody that drives through Neil Smith now has either a new or a renewed appreciation for what tall rash prayer used to be. We didn't have that 25 years ago. That was almost a foreign concept anymore. So I think there's other ways to put value on that. back to your question, can we incentivize that? Can we improve that? think we can and that's, I've always been a fan of entrepreneurs. So when we come up with an idea and can they make a go at it and with some due diligence and exploring and doing some data crunching, yeah, I think I can make a living by doing this and making this product off of the land. I think that can happen. I think we need, you We need more opportunities for that. need to, and less barriers. just getting a hold of any piece of land right now is extremely difficult. That's, you know, that's that's that's a huge challenge. Nicolas Lirio (01:20:24.332) Yeah. I want to encourage people. I've seen it done. It can happen. Just making a go at a hobby farm at five acres. absolutely. And that could be a stepping stone to 20 acres. But obviously if you're going to do corn and beans, it's about a thousand acres a person, 1200 acres a person to make a living or per family, I should say to make a living. Right. But, If you could do a hobby farm and find yourself making 15, 20, $25,000 a year on a five acre piece, most people can swing a five acre piece if they have an in town job. Right. You know, and I think that could be a way to go. But the niche farming thing, I wrestle with it because I'm like, what, what can we do that can end up in people's households? Cause if I will got ripped up and 10 % of it got put into Prairie, it's not, that's not 10 % of farmers because you know that the biggest farmers It's not their land because they bought the nicest land. They bought the flat stuff they And so it is 40 % of the of the humans, even though it's only 10 % of the land, it's 40 % of the humans that are farming and Kent Boucher (01:21:30.39) I think prairie will just, it would show up more as a service than as a good. And when you think of what the percentage of the population that already depends on something that's important to them, well, hunters for one, know that prairie is incredibly important to hunters. There's a reason why people from Wisconsin get excited about coming to Iowa to hunt. pheasants. And there's a reason why people in Iowa get excited about going to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. They're following the prairie, right? And the same is true for deer hunters. And right on down the list, if you wanted to have elk hunting and bison hunting in Iowa, you've got to have more prairie. People had that in Iowa's history a lot longer than they didn't have it in Iowa's history. Great place to hunt bison for millennia was Iowa. that's something that people pay a lot of money to do. birdwatchers, you know, there's a I got home last night, I noticed that the birds of North America book was open and laying upside down open to a certain page on the banister on my stairway. It was because my kids put up a bird feeder in the yard, and they're staring out the window at the awesome ever watched the show on YouTube called listers. It's a it's a film about these like, I don't know, they must have been they were definitely Gen Z. But it was entertaining. They like were fresh out of college and they said, we want to learn about bird hunting. So we're to do a big year. If you've ever seen the movie, the big year with Jack Black and and shoot, who's the he was on SNL all the time. White haired guy. Super funny. Pink Panther. Steve. Yes, Steve Martin. Yes. There's a great movie called The Big Year. Nicolas Lirio (01:23:19.679) Steve Martin? Yeah, that dude's great. Kent Boucher (01:23:26.51) that tells you that there's a huge number of people who are crazy into birdwatching and a big year is you set your entire life aside to take a full calendar year to see as many species of birds as you can possibly see. And there's a competition, whoever sees the most wins that year, right? And so there's a ton of people that are really into birdwatching. There's... a ton of people who are into photography now, just because it's so much easier to get into that, right? There's, and there's countless other things that we could come up with, but it's a service. The prairie provides a service. And that only increases as the prairie increases. And I think, I think, as we, as we draw that connection for people, but you know, I didn't always know that prairie was, was important for better deer hunting. I didn't always know that. I do. What about duck hunting? You know, the Prairie Pothole region of Northwest Iowa, what that would have been for millennia? I mean, you'd have to use an arrow with a tiny little bird point on it. Nicolas Lirio (01:24:38.727) You just know Kevin knows the best spots in the state for sure. Nobody knows better spots. Kent Boucher (01:24:44.622) But I mean, all that stuff was provided and can be once again if we restored those prairies. And so I agree with Kevin. I think that there is already a percentage of the population and they maybe just haven't drawn the connection yet. Kevin Griggs (01:25:00.974) Yeah, maybe a little more intangible than a direct product or something you can put a dollar number on, but certainly has some real value. Kent Boucher (01:25:11.214) The plumber probably doesn't live in your house, but man, you're calling him when there's a problem, when you need that service. Nicolas Lirio (01:25:17.41) Yeah, I think, I think that is true. And part of it will just have to be like, we'll have to find value and not in, things that aren't tangibly possessive, whether it's money or, or actual. Kent Boucher (01:25:29.666) Why do people go to the mountains? Very few of them are climbing them, but everyone's taking a picture of themselves standing in front of them. know what I mean? Kevin Griggs (01:25:38.092) want to be there. They want the experience. Nicolas Lirio (01:25:40.024) Dude, we should go to Renear. It's like you like find religion. Kent Boucher (01:25:43.598) My brother can see Mount Rainier from his backyard. Really? Nicolas Lirio (01:25:48.078) Awesome. You know what's really crazy? is it in Japan Mount, it's the big one Mount not Fuji. Maybe it is Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji. You can be kind of at the base and it be giant in the sky one day and the next day it's not there. because the sky plays like an optical illusion where the mountain is literally just gone. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? And it's giant. It's not just like a little peek over there. It's like, it takes up most of the sky and then somebody's just gone. But all right, Kevin, we'll, we'll let you go here. But before you take off, quick little question, if you could, snap your finger, change one thing about the world, what would you change? Kevin Griggs (01:26:29.838) Wow, what kind of question is this? Nicolas Lirio (01:26:31.714) That's a quick little guy. Quick little question. Kevin Griggs (01:26:34.862) alright, but this doesn't have to be prayer related. Nicolas Lirio (01:26:40.77) You want to make sure that everybody in the world has listened to Def Leppard, know, you can do that Kevin Griggs (01:26:45.454) I was going to say Def Leppard. They're like my favorite band ever. Everybody should listen to Def Leppard. No, if I had to nail it down to one thing, it'd be eliminate hate. Absolutely eliminate hate. There's too much in the world and the world is too good of a place when we don't have hate and people just get along and love each other. It's not a bad thing. It's so easy to do, but we have way too much hate. Nicolas Lirio (01:26:57.235) wow. Nicolas Lirio (01:27:13.55) Man, that. No, that's. Kevin Griggs (01:27:15.106) That went deep, it? Kent Boucher (01:27:17.326) I think that's what at this juncture in history. Yeah. Kevin Griggs (01:27:22.273) Now more than ever. Nicolas Lirio (01:27:23.15) all of Kent and I have all sorts of conversations about tractors and video games and prairie and deaf leopard and deaf leopard. And they always all boil down to it. It's just a human condition, you know, they all blow down to the same thing. Well, we really appreciate Kevin. You guys do really great work and, and, and not just great work like that. We like the work you do. You do high quality work and we really appreciate it. And sometimes I mean, wetlands are difficult to deal with. They're not basic. You know, basic prairies, man, I love it when someone calls it, Hey, I want to basic prairie. It's going to go, you know, it's going to go on what used to be corn and I'm like, yeah, but you deal first or the hardest, the hardest situations in prairie. we really appreciate if someone, do you guys have, is it just commercial? Do you do work? Kevin Griggs (01:28:00.622) The worst Kevin Griggs (01:28:11.022) all sorts of clients, government, private individuals, easiest way is website. So the name of the company is Emmons and Olivier Resources. go by, that's mouthful, go by EOR. Our website is EORinc.com. Nicolas Lirio (01:28:15.689) Where would they find ya? Nicolas Lirio (01:28:29.486) Cool. Well, we really, really appreciate you and everyone listening. mean, you heard in the con conversation, there's, there's no silver bullet to fix what we've going on Iowa and the Midwest and the conservational issues that it, but it starts with our decisions. It's conscript conservation happens one mind at a time. Great job, Kevin. Kent Boucher (01:28:51.182) was like, that was, that that was, Kevin Griggs (01:28:53.026) That was fun. I love coming down talking to you guys. We definitely gotta do this.