Nicolas Lirio (00:00.14) You can always my wife hates it. Hates the mentality of like just ask if they'll give it to you for less. Why? Wouldn't they just post it for less if they wanted to sell it for less? That's the game, baby. Just yeah, she's not a Kent Boucher (00:14.387) They want more out of you and then they know that. Riley Rozendaal (00:17.291) You gotta haggle it. Nicolas Lirio (00:18.446) So she was like selling furniture on Facebook Marketplace and her stuff would get eaten up like really quick. But people would just ask, Hey, can I have it for she'd be listing for like three hundred and twenty and someone would be like, Can I have it for two hundred? And she would get so mad. I'm like, babe, that's like that's fine, that's part of the game. Kent Boucher (00:37.078) You just ignore them. That's pretty Nicolas Lirio (00:44.111) yeah. I dude, there was a house selling for fifty five thousand and we offered twenty once. Yeah. So and she was in on that. So we did we got it for twenty Kent Boucher (00:55.638) There are times where somebody has something that's nice but they're completely delusional about what it's worth. Riley Rozendaal (01:00.494) I know what it's worth. If you see those words in a listing, run. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (01:05.314) Yeah. Yeah. The the whole like video game craze from twenty twenty, twenty twenty one where people would post these like video games online and they'd be like, I know what I got, don't try to Kent Boucher (01:07.022) Yeah, yeah. Kent Boucher (01:22.606) Post their vi like when they're like selling. Now you've told me that those are no longer a like fungible like or physical product anymore. Like you just own the rights to play the Nicolas Lirio (01:25.73) Selling them, yeah. Post on Facebook. Nicolas Lirio (01:36.952) Yeah, people are so angry about that. Yeah, that in and Playstation just announced Kent Boucher (01:41.238) have to like subscri pay a subscription to maintain your rights. Nicolas Lirio (01:44.756) No you get you buy the rights one time and and my guess is like so PlayStation just announced a download it. They're revocable. You've you've bought in revocable rights. Yes, you license to the for the right to play the game. Kent Boucher (01:51.182) And you just download it onto your on the local device. Riley Rozendaal (01:57.71) It's a license. Kent Boucher (02:01.208) There's no more little DVDs that you put in the Nicolas Lirio (02:04.076) I mean we I still do. I still I'm I'm all about that stuff. But Kent Boucher (02:08.588) You can they still make that stuff on like a little disc or something? Nicolas Lirio (02:11.916) the little disc that was just the GameCube. most things are a full disc or the Nintendo Switch is like basically the size of an SD card. Yeah, tiny little tiny little cartridge. You remember those cartridges that people used to blow in for the sixty four? Riley Rozendaal (02:22.336) A cartridge. Kent Boucher (02:28.78) We went from planting corn with a horse to now using things in space to help us play. And yet video games they really haven't come that far. Nicolas Lirio (02:37.71) No, I think I think video games will be one of the biggest money producers for AI. because video games are the only technology so far of what it entertainment that as it's gotten better better, the graph has followed it with how much money it's made. All the other ones, TVs. Way better than they used to be. They make way less money. Yeah. You know what I mean? They cost way less money. People watch less T V in term so Kent Boucher (03:12.842) They don't make them out of wood anymore and I think they probably changed. Nicolas Lirio (03:16.75) Like a month salary. But y you so video games it's going up and it's because you know they're way more addictive than like watching T V or anything, and and they will my guess is it'll get to a point where people like the evening before will be like, All right, I want to play a video game where I'm this kind of character and I do this kind of thing. And then it'll make the video game throughout the night, the next day you can wake up. Riley Rozendaal (03:18.648) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (03:46.046) No, no, I agree. I totally agree. Riley Rozendaal (03:49.612) It's a little utopian. It's interesting sounding future. Dystopian dystopian Nicolas Lirio (03:54.456) Man, I watched I watched Good wait, good luck, have fun, don't die. Sad. That movie bummed me the freak out. It was like everyone in the movies addicted to screens and there's like the main character, she's allergic to Wi Fi. And so she like can't be around it. And and then I'm not gonna spoil it, but the ending twist was like There's like three twists that happen right in a row and you're like, Man, that was depressing. Riley Rozendaal (04:28.0) I think I think if you wanna see a glimpse of a potential future, all you gotta do is go back and watch Wally from the old Kent Boucher (04:35.438) I floated around reclined. Riley Rozendaal (04:38.242) Miners with Slurpees and Burgers and your T V was right there with you. Nicolas Lirio (04:42.19) It has nothing to do with the future. Kent Boucher (04:45.582) Well it was a feature back then 'cause they came out with that movie in like the early two thousand. Riley Rozendaal (04:49.708) Yeah, Nicolas Lirio (04:50.978) Back when parents still said, Don't sit too close to the TV. Go blind to her face. Kent Boucher (04:54.19) Yeah, it is it is spooky how Wally has there's there's a lot of illustration that parallels what we see today. Nicolas Lirio (05:05.614) ten ten people ish reach out to me, say how much they liked our coffee time last week. What'd we talk? Shame on you. We wrestled each other in the car. They liked our pain that we were going through, even though it was only like twenty minutes long. Kent Boucher (05:17.515) yeah, yeah. Kent Boucher (05:24.494) Different weeds. Well why did we not think to cover sweet clover? That was one that we left out. Yeah, there's sweet clover everywhere right now. Nicolas Lirio (05:29.467) yeah. Prairie and Pella, like right across from the big church there when you're driving kids in a yard. It look there's like there's a little bit of ragweed and some sweet clover. but everything else looks pristine. Kent Boucher (05:42.55) Mm. Yeah. Though the one at the church next to it looks it looks a lot better this year. They burned it. Yeah. And it it looks a lot better. There's still still needs a lot of management. Nicolas Lirio (05:51.02) Same dad planted both of those the same day with the same mix. Isn't that interesting? Riley Rozendaal (05:57.617) It shows what management. Yeah. What management Kent Boucher (05:59.704) Good prep. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (06:00.43) Yeah, what the the one has like tons of bushes and all this brome. Kent Boucher (06:03.502) But it's it's getting better. Nicolas Lirio (06:05.966) Yeah, they're they're trying to manage it. Yeah, we I think we donated seed one year to like help them with one of the spots that they were reseeding and it's like that spot, that very small spot looks really good. Yeah. But all right. We should jump in. Everybody look at the camera in case you're the one who's picked this week for the quote. Have you guys been paying attention to that? The quotes that I pull out from the podcast on YouTube thumbnails. Don't look at Riley Rozendaal (06:33.383) I don't want to see myself. Nicolas Lirio (06:35.692) Welcome back to the Prairie Farm Podcast. Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio, with your favorite co-host, Kent Boucher. Hey, hey. And your favorite co-host to the coast, Riley Rosendah. All right. We should just Kent give him a little fill-in about what you've been doing the past few weeks on the farm. Mid mid South Riley Rozendaal (06:45.24) Howdy, howdy. Kent Boucher (06:55.842) Yeah, we're in I actually had a couple days of vacation I was able to take. We're officially that part of the summer. July is is the month where we all try to take a little time off. And Riley's actually gonna be on vacation I think next week. And it looks like he's catching some good weather too. It's gonna be low eighties. So he's gonna be stomping around a prairie near you. Nicolas Lirio (07:19.778) He's going to the beach, the Iowa beaches, frolic in the water. Riley Rozendaal (07:24.331) no, I'm gonna sit on a b on a chair and not going in the water. Kent Boucher (07:27.458) Yeah. He's not you're you're not a swimming kind of beach goer? Riley Rozendaal (07:31.094) Well not not at the the lakes here, not Kent Boucher (07:34.106) Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But yeah, so we we're kind of in the slowdown. I do have one crop that's on the ground right now that I'll probably get, if not today, tomorrow. And it's it's new planting mowing time. so if you have a new planting from this last fall or this this early spring, get it mowed. It's time to do that. There's some things that are starting to go to seed already. things like Pennsylvania Smart Weed is is going to seed. Nicolas Lirio (08:05.096) Can thistle's already gone. Kent Boucher (08:07.078) Can of thistle, yeah, a little late on the game for that already. but if you tune into this podcast we have coming soon with John Judson, then he talks a little bit about how to how he has managed Canada Thistle out of his prairies. And we saw the evidence it works. and and honestly with with Pennsylvania Smartweed, not really a concern. If you have a if you have a solid stand prairie coming in, it'll it'll get largely choked out by the prairie as the prairie matures. So but yeah, it's a good time to to get things mowed. And so I have some of that going on and and I don't think we have another harvest until I need to look at at this actually my my notes, but I don't think we have another one until kind of mid August. So I'm enjoying a nice yeah nice little break right now from From harvesting and then we'll be then we'll be in it. Yeah. Then come the long night. Nicolas Lirio (09:10.848) New fields are good in the middle of the summer because you're not getting a harvest. So just mow them, right? And you're like, wow, look, we've managed our field so well. And then at the end of the year, when the bank comes knocking and you that field produced nothing for you, you're like, crap. How did we miss this? man, yeah, that's cool. I think you're doing a great job, Ken. We've got some high schoolers, more high schoolers since when I was in high school. We had there were a bunch of us that worked here. Kent Boucher (09:26.008) Dang it. Nicolas Lirio (09:39.456) on the farms when I was in high school. But a bunch of out there in the fields, p picking out the what was it, wild oats. Kent Boucher (09:46.234) Yeah. Wild oats, yep, working on that right now and and mowing some some I mean, we we did a pretty good job staying on top of the Kin the Canadian thistles this year. There are a few spots we didn't quite get to in time, but for the most part, the vast majority of we did, but we're still keeping trimmed down. Wanna put as much of a herd on as we can. And so they've been working on some of that too. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (10:14.1) I am grateful that we don't deal with like Palmer Amaranth here and I'm grateful that we don't deal with Ceresia Bespedisa. Yeah. That that's not good. That stuff's not good. But we do deal Canada, we don't really deal with Brome. It's not a not a huge issue. Wild oats and Canada thistle are kind of our lifetime battles here on the farm. And I find by me to have those and not the other ones that I just mentioned. Riley Rozendaal (10:23.086) Mm. Kent Boucher (10:43.169) Yeah, definitely. Nicolas Lirio (10:44.246) Yeah. I should jump in. The first one was sent to us. I'm not gonna say their name because I'm gonna talk a little bit about what they texted me and I don't want to dox them. basically they sent me a bunch of photos of their new oak plantings and an article showing a bunch of research that connected Overspray with these defoliation of oaks. and he texted me that and he was like, just in case you didn't feel depressed today. And I saw that part of the text and I was like, I'm not even opening this till tomorrow. I'm going to bed in a good mood. Yes. and and I I looked into it, it's kind of interesting. I so obviously Dicamba is the one that it's like if. If they s if the farmer does everything right and they spray in great conditions, but then it just gets six degrees hotter than the weather said it was going to, you know, and and you know, the weather Kent Boucher (11:49.826) Well, and I if I understand it right, th that that doesn't mean six degrees warmer that day could be within a couple of days. Nicolas Lirio (11:56.782) Yes, yeah. And it can I dun what's the process when it becomes a gas? It vaporizes and and can travel miles. Kent Boucher (12:03.125) vaporizes. They call it volatility in the chemical applicator world. Nicolas Lirio (12:11.66) Well Yeah. So th that's obvious Kent Boucher (12:15.169) Gets up and leaves is what it does. Riley Rozendaal (12:16.878) It moves, yeah. Yeah. It says here's where you put me, I have somewhere else to be. Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (12:22.252) Yeah, I don't I don't know, man. It and I wanna I wanna actually read what he texted me because and he is by all accounts has a great relationship with the neighboring farmers and he says that they do a good job. They do their best to like make sure that everything's managed. and I told him after I I told him after a spray sometime you should get this a sample tested. And he said Kent Boucher (12:40.878) And see who's Nicolas Lirio (12:49.016) Farmer next to us does a really great job taking precautions and does the best he can. But it is a little discouraging when you see three or four 747 size sprayers within sight. And often you can catch them spraying at 10 to 20 mile per hour winds. And then there's always a chemical spray in the air that lasts a couple of days. and then he asked me a question about foxtail that I'm realizing I forgot to get back to him on. But I it I guess it's kind of discouraging because it's like even if you follow everything the EPA says to follow, you just don't get away from it. And and everyone knows because we can smell it in the air. You smell it in the air, you know, you're it it's contaminated your skin or whatnot. And what I'm not trying to do is be like everyone you need a fear for their lives, and farmers are doing a terrible job. And most farmers that I know f follow the label, you know, do what they're supposed to be doing with with the chemicals in terms of what the scientists have said this is the safe way to deal with it. But specifically, he was talking about oaks because most species will kind of have that cupping effect where their leaves start to cup. We've all seen that on trees. And oaks can get that as well, but they will actually also tatter. White oaks, their leaves will do this weird thing where it kind of shatters to pieces and the veins are kind of all that's left while it's still hanging out on the tree. That's weird. That's like a weird thing. And Illinois, the University of Illinois studied this intently. In the 2000s, I wanna I wanna get this chemical right. basically they definitively proved that this tattering, which is a weird thing, happens on oaks from a common corn pre-emergent acetylchl Aceticlore. Acetoclore. and so dicamba and some of these other ones can cause that curling, it can cause negative effects on the tree. but Kent Boucher (14:32.354) A seat. Nicolas Lirio (14:43.842) The specifically with aceticlore on oaks. Now, the reason it's a bigger deal for oaks than these other trees, one, there's not that many oaks, you know. And two, they carry they way outpunch their weight class in terms of what they do for their environment around them. So, you know, the pollinators and everything else that are surviving off of directly or indirectly from these oaks are very negatively affected. And so I don't know, the overspray we've experienced here on the farm. There's a cool flower farm not that far from here. And she has a she has signs. She's right next to a big old cornfield. And the signs say no drift zone. And I'm like, I get it. Even if the farmer next to you was awesome. Like just doing everything he could to make sure it doesn't drift. I don't you guys would know this better than me. I'm pretty sure you just can't help it. Kent Boucher (15:32.718) Yeah, there's there's I mean there's always the the push and pull of you gotta d you know, get it done while the weather is suitable for it, right? And th those days are some years you got a lot of and other years you got one, you know? And and there was a day like that, it's either last week or maybe the week before. And you could just smell two four D in the air. Everybody I think it was last week. Everybody, last Monday is when it was actually. everybody was spraying. And I think it was because the high that day was eighty five, which is what Carol told told me was you really don't want to spray two four D at anything above eighty five degrees because it pi has pretty high volatility at after that point. Yeah. And so there's days like that. Where we're in the middle of this heat wave and it's gonna happen next week too. The guys that didn't get it done, we have a couple of low eighty degree days next week. You're gonna smell two four D on those days. Interesting. And and Nicolas Lirio (16:41.71) Creates a concentration of it where it's just everywhere. And you don't get that Kent Boucher (16:45.322) The point the point is the point is everyone's gotta fit within these windows, right? So then if the wind is like the your friend talked about, that texted you, you know, those ten to twenty mile an hour days, well the temperature's right, but the wind is yeah, a little iffy. They gotta run because otherwise they're not it'll be ninety degrees tomorrow and they're not gonna get their chance to spray. And the the where the real friction is in is in what I just said. they got to run, right? there we have decided as Agland USA that the farmers needs preside over the flower growers' needs, right? The in the case of the the person you talked about who has the signage, right? The the the farmers needs preside or are they they they are more urgent, more important Than the needs of this guy with his oak trees. They're more important than the family with the garden in the yard. The little kids playing on the swing set, right? The look, you know, it's I I hate it, but I gotta get my gotta get my corn sprayed. Gotta get my beans sprayed, right? And that has just been I guess legally, socially, legally there are some implications. Like if you can prove that You know, like the person who has the flower business, if they get oversprayed and they can prove to eyedols, take soil samples. Yeah, look, you know, all my all my give me a give me zin yeah, all my all my zinnias. Give me an invasive flower. No, give me all my zinnias got oversprayed. And and yeah, there are legal ramifications for that. But it's more of a Nicolas Lirio (18:25.314) Xineas. Kent Boucher (18:41.79) soci like a societal accepted norm, you know, where where we what we as a society are when when push comes to shove what we're really okay with. And Riley Rozendaal (18:54.09) I think the other thing that comes into play here too though is as farms continue to get bigger, as operators if you have three hundred acres of crop and you have a tight constrained window to spray, you know, you might have to take that chance. But as farms get bigger, people are contracting more and more and more. And one guy instead of spraying three hundred acres needs to spray two thousand. Or a co op needs to spray a whole area. Kent Boucher (19:20.814) And it's and it's not being sprayed by your neighbor anymore. It's being sprayed by someone your neighbor hired. Riley Rozendaal (19:26.132) Exacerbated and people don't know where stuff is. Nicolas Lirio (19:28.896) And they're willing to do more marginal days because they have way more to spread and a tighter deadline. So maybe you know, maybe there are several good Kent Boucher (19:33.726) Yeah. Kent Boucher (19:39.166) And the option and the option has back to what I was saying, the option has not accepted weedier corn or weedier soybeans, right? Yeah. The option is no no no, no weedy corn or soybeans. Spray. Nicolas Lirio (19:52.792) You know. Yeah, and I d I don't know I don't know what to do about that. I mean, we just live in a state that we start Kent Boucher (19:59.719) We we start a podcast and we talk about these issues and start swaying societal norms. Nicolas Lirio (20:05.462) That that's true. I I think that everything we talk almost everything we talk about on this podcast gets fixed at the grocery store, in my personal opinion. I think you know, there's a lot of people that we love that I think are doing great things. They're fighting for it in legislation. is not the world that I want to fight in. You know, if you want to do that, more power to you, not for me. but I think, you know, we could solve a lot of this at the grocery store. Like there there's all this talk about wheat getting sprayed with glyphosate so that it matures kind of congruently and in time. Kent Boucher (20:39.032) Wheat and oats, right? The desiccate the desiccant spray, what what do they call it? The dry down spray or whatever. Right at the end of the right at the end of the crop's life they they spray it so it it dries up faster and greater high. Nicolas Lirio (20:51.074) I also heard that like a really small percentage of our wheat and oats in the United States actually gets sprayed like that. I don't we should actually look into that. How much of it gets sprayed before it gets put into food? That's a great top coffee time topic, Nicholas. Future Nicholas. Editing Future Editing Nicholas. write that down. but my wife and I decided, we're like, okay, we're gonna we're gonna work very hard to buy organic gluten and we just decided this this weekend. Because I get if you could see my hands right now, I get sores all over them. And they're from And the doctor keeps saying that if I'd wash my hands that would fix the no. Kent Boucher (21:23.938) Go both. Kent Boucher (21:31.52) So I'd wash my hands, deodorant. Brush my teeth. Wash my clothes. It might help. Riley Rozendaal (21:34.542) Skin eating better. Nicolas Lirio (21:40.459) man. No, but I I get all and it is d it is for sure correlated to something that I'm eating. I just can't figure out what the thing is. and here's a really tricky one. Sometimes I get it when I eat eggs and sometimes I don't get it when I eat eggs. Kent Boucher (21:55.822) Is it that cok coke and nerd shake that you make every morning before you Riley Rozendaal (22:02.316) my toes, cooked men too. Nicolas Lirio (22:03.918) No I haven't been Kent Boucher (22:05.614) That bowl of nerds and and and and diet coke. Nicolas Lirio (22:09.314) I need to bring back the smoothies. You guys need to see some smoothies again. The smoothies are good, guys. Riley Rozendaal (22:14.914) Smoothies was better than a head of broccoli. Made me feel like it made me feel like you were getting a more balanced nutritional output. Kent Boucher (22:21.582) It's not it's not a pleasant experience getting into your truck when there's a head of broccoli. Nicolas Lirio (22:25.706) And just sitting on the chair like my head Riley Rozendaal (22:27.566) Yeah. Kent Boucher (22:28.29) Yeah. Riley Rozendaal (22:31.81) That's so Nicolas Lirio (22:32.398) The past few mornings I've been doing carrots because the farmers market has a lot of carrots right now. So and so they're cheap, you know, you get a ton of carrots for two dollars. but but anyway, I think most of it could be fixed at the grocery store. But the truth is I don't know. Like usually my brain's like, what can we do? What can we implement? But it's like every corner or every side of our farm has corn and beans on it, every side Kent Boucher (22:54.114) how many emails you just got telling you why organic gluten? Why should just go gluten free? Nicolas Lirio (22:58.83) 'cause gluten is awesome. It's aw if you ever had gluten-free bread, it's terrible. It's terrible. Kent Boucher (23:06.126) yeah, when you eat like a gluten free cookie, it's like mmm This is almost so good Nicolas Lirio (23:14.03) Okay, anyway, the I wanted to bring up one more thing. The I wanna Iowa D and R to basically replicate a test on was this actually affecting Oaks. they did a bag test where they would thanks, brother. let me check. Nicolas Lirio (23:36.642) We're still good. Okay. So they they put bags on the same tree over a bunch of different leaves, and then where they were gonna have spray. And I don't know if they did the spray or if they were next to farms that had spray come over them. And the leaves with the bags on them that protect them from spray, nothing happened. The other leaves were showing heavy use, heavily tattered leaves. Basically direct, you know, cause and effect of the Kent Boucher (24:02.958) You know, it's interesting. I think this happened to me this this spring. So I planted a a a Burroak sapling in my yard back in twenty twenty-three, I think. Twenty-three or twenty-four. That thing's growing like crazy, which is awesome. I planted right next to this dead ash tree that got destroyed by a EAB. And You know, it it it won't be much of a shade tree like that ash tree was when I was a kid, but until you know, after I'm dead. Right. But that's kind of the hopes. And it's been doing so well. I'm just so proud of it. I planted like I don't know, five or six trees that year, and I think that's the only one to have made it. All the other ones were killed in some other way. And I noticed that the leaves were Nicolas Lirio (24:36.098) Yeah, when Jonas has grandkids. Kent Boucher (24:56.792) That's just a great term for Tattered, like shredded. I'm like, man, there's some kind of like aphid or I wonder if it's Japanese beetles. Something is just like defoliating this tree and planted right on the edge of my yard this year is the rotation for corn. Mm-hmm. And and I don't know if the operator is using aceticlore. I would imagine so. it's just conventional corn. So I'm I'm guessing. 'Cause I saw an article on this a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, th where somebody else was documenting this problem. And I I'm guessing that's what happened. Nicolas Lirio (25:34.894) there's a pros and cons, right? Like we don't use chemicals to like go out and destroy ecosystems. Right. Yeah. You know, we use chemicals because of the list of pros that are on the pros and cons sheet. It's just like as we've been doing them longer, or maybe as we're using harsher chemicals or something, the cons list is getting longer, you know, and so we gotta we gotta figure that out because at some point Kent Boucher (25:56.834) Don't have we don't have less corn and beans. You know what I mean? Yeah. So so the the margins disappear, right? There's no like things are they're it's just everywhere, you know? Riley Rozendaal (26:10.094) Really really curious to see if and this wouldn't be it wouldn't imply straight causality, but if someone would do surveys of oak trees in areas that are right against crop fields and areas that aren't. You know, you have these green belts in fields that have trees in you know, are oaks underrepresented in in some of the stuff or Kent Boucher (26:33.326) Yeah. Do they say how long it's it's remaining, you know, volatile in the atmosphere? Nicolas Lirio (26:41.238) No, I I I didn't look that up. Kent Boucher (26:43.542) Wonder how long they kept those bags on on the leaves in their leaf test. Nicolas Lirio (26:47.116) Yeah, that I actually saw the Iowa DNR test was on a USDA website. So they didn't go that far into depth. They just had a blurb about it. I should have actually looked up, you know, their actual test. But yeah. All right. Well, should we go to something a little happy? Go to something a little happier. Wait, I just got a short little blurb on this. native plants. This was you, Kent. You sent this to us. Kent Boucher (27:03.246) Yeah, yeah, that's good. Kent Boucher (27:12.382) Where that article come out of? Was it a Chicago news station? Nicolas Lirio (27:15.55) No, no, it was Iowa. It was I I don't know. I can look it up. Grist? Is that Kent Boucher (27:19.096) Is it a Tama maybe? Kent Boucher (27:25.132) It was it was a news station that posted the R sure it's was it K C R G maybe? Nicolas Lirio (27:28.226) Pretty I'm not sure. But it Thank you, Riley. It had me diving into some actual numbers. Kent Boucher (27:33.278) It Riley's gonna find for us. Riley Rozendaal (27:40.47) It was grist dot org. Grist. From a reporter a regional reporter in Illinois. Nicolas Lirio (27:45.228) Okay. and and so basically the ar article was about how native plants are just having the comeback, you know, comeback of the decade. And the actual one of the native plant people in the article said five years ago I couldn't give these away and now they've flown off the shelf. Well, another native plant nursery. Saw a staggering spike of 350% in native plant sales. another one out of Wisconsin said that and this guy's been doing it for over 40 years. In 1982, his native plant business grossed $13,000. and today he shipped over half a million plants. That's not a half a million dollars, yeah, half a million plants. Kent Boucher (28:29.966) I remember that in the article, yeah. Kent Boucher (28:38.316) Yeah you figure a lot of plugs are five to seven dollars, some some are as much as twelve. Nicolas Lirio (28:42.422) A full plant is yeah, fifteen bucks, no problem. the Chicago Park District plant sale saw an inventory bump of twenty percent and a record breaking twenty. Kent Boucher (28:54.542) I think that's probably the most key piece of information or the key data point right there. The Chicago Parks. Unless I'm understanding this wrong, to me that sounds like when the NRCS has their plant sales at so that's your general that's your general public. Wow my collar looks like trash right now. I just noticed. I was just gonna let it ride. Really nice shirt here. It's all faded for the sun. Nicolas Lirio (29:10.794) Yeah, I think that's Kent Boucher (29:24.428) Wonder what that's doing to me. the Nicolas Lirio (29:28.048) yeah, it's all plastic, yeah, just melting into your Kent Boucher (29:30.47) Riley Rozendaal (29:33.39) I thought this was the bright the bright spot in the city. Kent Boucher (29:35.754) Okay, let's get back to the native planet. Nicolas Lirio (29:37.742) My wife showed me this reel of this guy showing his grandma's fried chicken recipe. Have you seen this? No. He's like, you know what really gets the chicken crispy? Gets it kind of hard. My grandma would throw a couple Ziploc bags in the fryer. And the guy with them's like, dude, you're just eating plastic chicken. And he's like, the guy's like, no, no, no. It just hardens. The plastic bag just disappears. Anyway, sorry. Kent Boucher (30:01.794) Yeah. Kent Boucher (30:07.246) Yeah, that's kinda happening to me probably. But that to me shows what the average citizen in that area, you know, there's a native plant sale over here. I'm gonna grab a few of those because it shows that the the average person in in public is is learning the value of native plants and their importance. whereas when you have like a sp like even if it's hoxie native seeds, right? That's people hunting us down. Like they're they They it's there's not really a s ton of convenience that brings them in, right? Yeah. It's whereas when you're like for the local NRCS office around here, they sell at the farmers market a couple of times in the summer. I've been there, I've seen them, I've bought some plants from they they are capitalizing, yes, on people understanding the value of native plants, but also convenience, right? Yeah. Like I'm I showed up to this farmer's market to spend twenty dollars and I haven't spent all my twenty dollars yet. Look at this beautiful foxglove over here, you know, or something like that. And and people are are jumping on it. Riley Rozendaal (31:16.526) I feel like the real turning point for me would be seeing it at farm stores. You know, when you got I I looked this spring. I actually look a decent bit. I got some from a community college a couple years back that was having a plant sale and had some native plugs. Yeah. But w y you don't see a lot of native plants yet at like local farm stores. I'm hoping to see that change. I mean, maybe that's just the bias around here. Nicolas Lirio (31:22.594) Yeah. Kent Boucher (31:42.638) But Riley Rozendaal (31:45.698) Seeing mixed in with, you know, your zinnias and hydrangeas and all the other things that everybody stocks in the spring. Nicolas Lirio (31:50.968) Well if you go to Menards I did a video on this on the Hoxy Instagram page, but like if you look up their wildflower mixes, it's like, yeah, there's cone flowers and some black eyed Susan and then it's just all Eurasian species. Yep. And Kent Boucher (32:03.326) That's what we have to be you gotta be looking out for. Yeah. When you're doing this. Nicolas Lirio (32:08.216) Well and now I'm thankful most of those have been spread for decades and most of them aren't invasive. But the like dozen species that we do have are invasive that a lot of them came from something like that. Yeah. Right. But I wanna give flowers. I wanna give some flowers because I searched for a long time and I could find no credible or like true information from like USDA or World Economic Forum or anything like that. I couldn't find any of those sources where they accredited what why this was happening, right? So why do you guys think that's happening? Kent Boucher (32:41.494) well, I think things like what we're doing right now, there's a lot of there's a lot of people that hear these believe it or not, a lot of people hear these podcasts and see these reels and and they engage with it and it clicks. It makes I think people love ecology when they dig into it. if they're gonna if they're gonna have a science that they really enjoy, the average you know, the average bear out there is gonna enjoy, it's it's ecology because you can see the linear connections, right? Like a food chain or a the the energy pyramid, right? The flow of energy through an ecosystem. Like people can can wrap their their mind around that. And and people like to be able to put a puzzle together. Yeah. And that's what ecology is. So I think when people see the the logical progression of if we have native plants, we have more butterflies. And we love we all love seeing the beautiful butterflies, right? But we also love to eat and and butterflies and bees and other pollinators, they are all part they they we rely on them for one third of of all food on the planet, right? So that so we can we can draw those connections and so I think people enjoy it that way. and there's been a lot of other podcasts and YouTube videos and And social media influencers and even like I think things like MPR and and public television that have featured this kind of information for a very long time. Yeah. And and have have been talking about it and and and featuring other people who who grow these things. And then also I think the roadside program here in Iowa deserves a lot of credit, right? It's it's a beautiful thing driving across A lot of the major roads in Iowa, if you look at the ditches, you see a lot of color in the summers. Yeah. Yeah. And and you don't get that in a lot of places. So I think the roadside prairie programs through the DOT and also through what U and I does, I think that deserves a lot of credit. Yeah. Riley Rozendaal (34:51.903) I I think that it offers the interest comes from native plants offering a story for people. You know, before you know, I can't speak for the entire history of landscaping, but planting annuals that are not native to America just because they're pretty isn't inherently I mean some people would say that's wrong, but it it offers some value to pollinators and stuff like that, but there's no through point. There's no through line to your area, to to history, to something you can enjoy like that. And it's not just, those are my hydrangeas and they're really pretty at this time of year. It's you know, this is my butterfly weed and it is native to here. You'll see it in the ditches, you know. Also it offers people that whole store. Nicolas Lirio (35:39.575) Yeah. Kent Boucher (35:41.966) Yeah, that's a good point. It's like pa it's like if someone were to give you like fifty thousand plastic plates at your when when you got married, you know, like as a wedding gift. Interesting. It's like, yeah, this will do the job. You know, that's that's what I kind of compare the stuff. Yeah, the non native annuals that people put in their landscaping, right? Or non native grasses too, right? Yeah, this will do the job. But like Riley's saying, once you understand the the whole storyline of what this is, that would be like getting the the fancy China. Riley Rozendaal (36:05.016) yeah, annuals. Kent Boucher (36:19.852) Free or something that no, this is this has permanent lasting value. This is a higher quality thing. and and is something that will come back year after year. Riley Rozendaal (36:30.675) Returning value. Nicolas Lirio (36:32.014) It's kind of interesting that a lot of different groups, this is very validating to me. A lot of different groups came to the same conclusion. Yeah. Natives are better. That's a great point. Deer hunters, pheasant hunters, backyard gardeners, municipalities. You see more and more blazing star and cone flowers with the municipalities, people at home, the save the bees move. Kent Boucher (36:53.578) Even huge corporate greenwashing has gotten in on Nicolas Lirio (36:57.078) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I I think that I mean, people caring about water quality. You know what I mean? It's just like this i it they all they all came to one thing. Kent Boucher (37:04.798) It's a unifying point. That's a great I like your I like your answer better than Riley and mine. Nicolas Lirio (37:11.47) Well it's just it's just validating. It's like and so we have a podcast called the Prairie Farm Podcast. And when I tell people I do a podcast for a living, I'm always so embarrassed because I I'm afraid I'm worried, I'm just vain. Kent Boucher (37:23.742) You just well, you just feel so like Nicolas Lirio (37:26.626) I I do a podcast. Yeah, like my mom out lets me do it in her basement. Kent Boucher (37:30.702) I mean it takes a certain level of arrogance to think that somebody cares what you what I have to say. Nicolas Lirio (37:34.996) Unbelievable arrogance, dude. Yeah, that's true. but yeah, I so I when I tell people and then I tell them the name is the Prairie Farm Podcast and they you see it in their eyes, they this gear of like people listen to that? But and and I thought that when we first started, I was like, who is gonna listen to this thing? But it's been cool to watch all of these worlds show up in the same place, agriculture, hunting, the outdoor space. Kent Boucher (37:47.468) Is he done talking yet? Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (38:02.742) Water quality. Apparently now the gubernatorial race. You know what I mean? It's like they all circle around prairie and and even though it's like an integral part of more than we're willing to admit, we ripped it all up. Yeah. And so but Kent Boucher (38:17.954) It's it's almost like Nick always likes talking to metaphors. So it's it's like we it's like we realized that our foundation was was broken, right? yeah. And and interesting. There's when you have a broken foundation, there's a bunch of quick fixes you can do. Well, we can go go to Menards and buy a few more of those those floor jacks that we can put up put under the that we can put under the joist. Nicolas Lirio (38:30.19) There's Nicolas Lirio (38:42.134) You don't have to make fun of how to fix houses. Kent Boucher (38:44.662) Or you can say, we gotta call the concrete contractor, we gotta get an earth mover out here, entrench along these basement walls, pull out the broken stuff, put in all new brick. It's gonna cost a ton, but then we can look forward on on how do we get all these other these other problems with the house, how how do we get those fixed? Nicolas Lirio (38:58.006) It's gonna cost them. Nicolas Lirio (39:08.706) Well, it it's interesting because in that metaphor, all of the siblings, all of us humans are having to live in the Midwest. We all live in different rooms and a lot of us don't even get along with each other. But we're all kind of recognizing, man, our foundation is jacked. We should probably get this figured out. Yep. Man. Well, last week Judd and I had the time of lives. You guys will see photos coming out as the time rolls on because we went and visited a bunch of the CRP fields that we'd planted as long as I think the oldest one was 19 years ago or something like that. And it looked really good. and you could see the progression of like our mixes getting more diverse as we went along. Well, I went to I've talked about him here on the podcast, Nick Motes. I went to one of the plantings that they had done. They did it, and we just provided the seed. and they picked the perfect area. And I I don't understand this as well, but we saw like 30 bobble links. And Judd was like, Bob links don't just show up because you have they have to have like a full-fledged ecosystem to be able to hang out. And after he was he could. Kent Boucher (40:09.366) I have never knowingly seen one. And I I try I'm I'm out in the field a lot and I got my Merlin app going a lot when I'm here and stuff and I've I've never recorded one. Riley Rozendaal (40:18.444) We had ten last year, didn't you? Yeah. I got a picture of ten ten bobble it's blurry, but ten male bobble inks in a line on a barbed wire fence. Nicolas Lirio (40:27.266) We need to talk about Bobble Links at some point, apparently. But yeah, so also cool for their family. They had a bunch of natives. Yeah, they had tall thimbleweed, they had which is cousin to Kanda and Emini. they had Wingstem on the edge of their prairie. We I promise you, no one would pay enough for CRP to get tall thimbleweed and wingstem in the prairie. So it is it's just from their place. And it was cool to go around and visit. There was one field, there was only one field I got ticks from. And I got like eleven or twelve ticks from that one stupid field. And I when I started realizing how many were on me, I jumped out. Kent Boucher (41:01.208) Covered in meat juice. Nicolas Lirio (41:05.966) man, but it was a great time. The prairie this is my favorite time of prairie. It's right before the big blue stem shoots up and covers all the flowers. You can still see the flowers. It's kind of good. The heat units, as Kent taught me. The heat unit units are here. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget if you got any questions, go to the prairiefarm dot com. You can hang out with us on the forum. If you're looking for native seed for this fall or have any questions, reach out at hoxynative seeds.com. We really, really appreciate you. And we'll talk to you again next time. Kent Boucher (41:39.478) Yeah. Nicolas Lirio (41:39.822) That was a great episode.