Ep. 256 Forgotten Prairie Gems and How To Save Them with Kyle Lybarger

May 24

Kyle Lybarger from Native Habitat Project joins us to discuss how he fights to protect some of the South Eastern Prairie’s most endangered species. He tells many stories of prairies that he has reclaimed, saved, and reconstructed. We also discuss how hunting practices affect conservation.

Check out our Merch for Conservation. (50% or more of the profit will be donated to conservation). Available through June 11th.

Check out this episode of the Prairie Farm Podcast to find out more!

Listen now on Podbean!

You can also find this episode on other popular podcast networks:

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:04
Unknown
Kyle. It's so good to have you on the podcast, man. We've been we've been trying to arrange this thing for, I don't know, basically since Pheasant Fest and, you have been. I don't I don't know if you've been home yet since. Is this the first time you've been home since, Hasn't Fest and early March? It feels like it.
00:00:20:05 - 00:00:40:10
Unknown
It feels like. I mean, just this week, I was in Knoxville and Kentucky, and. And, I need to be. That does in other places, too. It's just, it's, this is this is one of my days that I've, I've set aside to be home and and rest and good and take a breath. So, it's,
00:00:40:11 - 00:01:14:17
Unknown
It's been crazy. We're we're, we took on a project this year to, to, to film grasslands in the southeast. And so, the two kind of stories we, we chose to tell were stories of, Glades in the South and, and, cane breaks. So, it's been, it's been really crazy. We've gotten lucky because, one of the guys who works with this Travis, he, Travis is farm is, like, surrounded by the Talladega National Forest.
00:01:14:17 - 00:01:37:06
Unknown
And, it's, he has Alabama cane there, which is, or the Tallapoosa cane, which is a new species of river cane, if you're where, there's four four in the US now, all four of them are actually in Alabama. But his cane, whole cane patch across his 180 acre farm, there's patches all over the place on it.
00:01:37:08 - 00:01:59:08
Unknown
Every single one of them went to see this year. And so, round Stone came down a few weeks ago and we harvested like, 30 pounds of, seed. That was it. Wow. And, which is crazy. That's like the think the second or third time round Stone has ever done that. It's the it's the second large amount they've ever harvested.
00:01:59:10 - 00:02:35:11
Unknown
And, so we were up in Kentucky yesterday cleaning that seed and filming it, and, I'll probably never get that chance again. So that's pretty cool. That is really cool. I'm glad you I'm glad you, brought that up because, the cane breaks if you if you go back into, you know, I guess it'd be journal entries, but, like, historical documents first hand historical documents from really the settlement era of of, I mean, any while really North America.
00:02:35:11 - 00:03:00:13
Unknown
Right. As soon as European, settlement began taking place here, you start seeing it documented, in, like, you know, books on Daniel Boone or, books on Simon Kenton, you know, they'll talk about. And then they made it to the cane breaks. And that's how they escaped, you know, the the attack that day. And you just hear over and over again, the cane breaks, cane breaks.
00:03:00:13 - 00:03:25:03
Unknown
Cambridge and, you know, I've been so here on this farm where I live. First time I ever went pheasant hunting, I walked through this, some kind of cane that was along this creek bottom. I don't know what it it it was it's totally gone today. I, I don't see really any of it at all. But at that time it was so thick you could barely walk.
00:03:25:03 - 00:03:45:13
Unknown
And it was towered way over my head. And I don't know if it was a native. I, I don't know if it was a farm. Yeah. I don't know if it was a native. Trees or because it was non-native. It probably still be there. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of what I thought too. Yeah. The native cane, when it goes to seed, it dies.
00:03:46:02 - 00:04:05:08
Unknown
So it could have gone to seed and died. There's a population. I made it, I made a video about it, like, 3 or 4 years ago. It was on a farm we managed, and it was such an impressive, like, patch of giant river cane. Is that really big stuff? And I made a TikTok about it, like.
00:04:05:08 - 00:04:28:14
Unknown
And, you know, this is what it can break. Looks like. And, I went back there this year and, there may have been like ten green stalks left. And, it was like the privet had kind of taken over the past 4 or 5 years. And, it's amazing how fast, the cane break can change, and get out competed so that's interesting.
00:04:28:17 - 00:04:48:17
Unknown
It takes a while to establish, but it seems like it doesn't take very long for it to on established. So yeah, that that's that totally describes the circumstance. I mean, now it's all red canary grass where it was once. Yeah. It was once that that cane. Well, I don't understand with, Rubicon. So it like, totally dies.
00:04:48:17 - 00:05:19:06
Unknown
It doesn't go dormant for the year. It goes to seed one time, ever. It does. Yeah. That's crazy. And there's like, there's, like, conflicting numbers on how often it goes to seed. So, some people say 52 years, you know, everything from 70 to 100 years to seven years to 17 years. I've heard I actually for this documentary, I want to get a bunch of people saying different dates on how like, we don't know.
00:05:19:08 - 00:05:42:18
Unknown
And everybody has a different number. It seems like, yeah. And also something we don't know that I haven't found any research on is this is something we've observed, Jake has observed in the Piedmont. You know, the canopy opens up over a cane patch that has kind of gotten shaded out by forest, and that seed or that plant goes to seed the following year or the year after.
00:05:42:20 - 00:06:01:04
Unknown
And here in North Alabama, there was a, a hardwood, like there's a hardwood bottom that had a ton. It used to be just a savanna of over cup oaks, and it had all these water scattered through. Well, one year it got wet really late in the year, and it killed all the water oaks in the willow oaks.
00:06:01:09 - 00:06:24:21
Unknown
And it was just over cup oaks left. So this is back when I was a, procurement forester. We had a timber crew come in. This is on our buddy Allen's for. And they, they cut all the all the oaks off of it and left, left, a lot of most of the over cup oaks and young over Cup Oaks and turned it into like a bottomland savanna, which is pretty cool,
00:06:25:14 - 00:06:43:21
Unknown
And and the river cane in there two years later went to seed, and it was just a small patch, but I was like, There's got I feel like there's got to be something to this. And so, I was talking to a landowner who was in contacted brownstone this year about coming to collect some of their river cane seed.
00:06:43:23 - 00:07:04:08
Unknown
That's another thing is like a bunch of it went to see this year like a bunch of different populations. Like. No, it was the time. Yeah, yeah. And so this farm in Tallapoosa County, which is like an hour and a half from Travis's place, it went to seed. Redstone went down there and they said there was like it was a smaller patch.
00:07:04:08 - 00:07:25:18
Unknown
There wasn't as much viable seed. But I asked that guy, I said, what? What's the what's the history on that property or what this population has. Any disturbance has happened over the past few years. He said. Well, two years ago, a giant white oak that was like towering over this cane patch died. And, now there's sunlight getting in.
00:07:25:20 - 00:07:48:03
Unknown
There's like. And then I don't know if you know, Dudley Phelps with multi oak native nurseries. No, I don't know if I, if I'm familiar with Dudley. Y'all should have him on the podcast. Okay. Yeah, yeah. He's great. He, his farm in Mississippi got hit by a tornado in, like, a year or two after all of his cane went to seed.
00:07:48:05 - 00:08:08:14
Unknown
And so I'm like, I can't find anything about it online or in any research. And there maybe that doesn't mean there's not some out there. There could be some out there. But I think if we took a lot of these cane patches that are like shaded out by forest and opened up the canopy, I think that would create a response that would allow them to go to seed.
00:08:08:16 - 00:08:30:23
Unknown
But the other thing is, is I don't know if they're in the all I know about this is as a grass, will they self pollinate? Or would it be more beneficial to have multiple patches go in to see the same time? Is there any any difference to the quality of see that that would make if it's, if it's just one plant that's genetically, you know, the same plant.
00:08:31:01 - 00:09:12:11
Unknown
Yeah. Self self breeding. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that's, beneficial or maybe that's why maybe that's maybe it's a species that's kind of like the passenger pigeon that needed a needed a huge population to, like, be able to function correctly, you know? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that is a good point. You know, just the there's there's some things that that's the it's, you know, you have the, of course, the whole k strategist thing and how we classify life it but there's almost like extremes within those to, you know, like like elephants are kind of the most extreme case strategist where, you know, they have one of they have like
00:09:12:11 - 00:09:33:04
Unknown
two year gestation periods and stuff like that. And, you know, things like passenger pigeons, which technically probably would classify as a cage strategist, but the their numbers are just so immense that it's almost kind of blurs the line there. Well, John from brownstone said, it's like, this stuff's like that would make sense because he said, it's like chia seed.
00:09:33:05 - 00:09:56:11
Unknown
He said it'll germinate within 48 hours. Wow. Yeah. So that would make sense. I don't know. He he also talks about, early settlers. Harvesting it in such quantities. They could they would fill kegs with it. And they said it made the best beer they ever had. And they'd make bread out of it.
00:09:56:13 - 00:10:20:02
Unknown
And, man holding it yesterday after they ran it through some of their cleaners, like, it was just like wheat seed, like very dense. That's so interesting. Yeah, I know that they've they've done a lot of experience with tons of different plants. On figuring out a perennial that can, that can produce, you know, seed that we can consume every year.
00:10:20:02 - 00:10:39:20
Unknown
Value. Yeah. For food value. And then here we've got this perennial that creates just this incredible seed, and then it decides to just die right after it produces these seed. It's like it's it it's crazy. It's but it seems like we've done zero research on it. It seems like there's still so many questions about it. I don't know if y'all know another name.
00:10:39:20 - 00:10:59:14
Unknown
Drop Jesse. Ask it back from feral foraging. Have you ever seen his stuff? Y'all, y'all should check him out. He's he's, he's local to where I'm at. And, so he came down when we were collecting that river cane seed. So there was a bunch of us. We invited, Callie. She works for, SGI.
00:10:59:21 - 00:11:25:01
Unknown
She's the tribal liaison, and she's a member of the eastern band of Cherokee. And, her and her mom came down and harvested some of that cane seed with us. Which is cool, because. Yeah. How long's it been since the Cherokees have harvested river canyon seed? But Jesse also came down in his. He's a he's a plant nerd and a a forager, and his wife's a plant geneticist.
00:11:25:03 - 00:11:42:23
Unknown
Oh, well, they're they're on their way down to harvest seed, and and she's like, which species is this? And he's like, the new one, the Tallapoosa king. She's like, the rarest one. And he was like, yeah. And she's like, so you're going to harvest the river cane, see that? This is like very difficult to ever catch and seed.
00:11:43:01 - 00:12:02:05
Unknown
And it's also going to be the rare one. And he was like, yeah. And she was like, you're going to make a video of you eating this. And he's like, yeah, yeah. She's like, it's like she's like, you don't see, you don't see any problems with it. And he was like, oh, now that you say it, you know, like maybe that's not a good idea for me because they eat like the rare seed.
00:12:02:05 - 00:12:20:23
Unknown
Yeah. Right. You know, the southeast. But I was like, you know, but at the same time, people, people connect to plants that have human uses in it, and I hate it. I hate that, yeah, but humans ask, what? What is this? What's this plant going to do for me? That's like always the first question. And I can't stand that.
00:12:20:23 - 00:12:43:20
Unknown
But also, if you can show people that this plant can do something for you, then maybe that will motivate people to, to conserve it, I don't know. So yeah. Yeah, I've had this a similar conversation with a friend of ours who's been on this podcast several times, Luke Fritsch and, and, he, we talk about putting in, prairies in people's yards.
00:12:43:22 - 00:13:20:14
Unknown
And, and we've talked about how pointless it is to, to just mow yard grass. Right. But we've said we understand that for whatever reason, it's in our brain to enjoy symmetry. It's it clean edges and contouring and stuff like that. And if the general public becomes more accepting of having, you know, pollinator patches in their yard because they can mow the Kentucky, you know, blue grass that's growing around on the outside of it.
00:13:21:15 - 00:13:52:05
Unknown
And, and, you know, keep those clean edge edges, but have, you know, 1000ft² of, of native pollinating plants in their yard. That's a win still, you know, and yeah. And so you kind of have to meet people where they are with, with a lot of, with a lot of this stuff. So I agree, I think the value, you know, the value because of what it does for me is just, it's it's a bad question, but it's it's a real question that people ask.
00:13:52:06 - 00:14:30:11
Unknown
I've been on this, like, rampage against consumerism, which I know is, is like, you know, everyone says that consumerism is bad, but we just don't understand how deeply it goes, you know, into our into our souls. Not just not just on, like buying a bunch of stuff from the grocery store, but when we're interacting with people around us or when we're dealing with taxes or when we're dealing with our own family, or who's going to do the dishes tonight, like it's just, you know, there's such a mentality of take that, like you were saying, I bet Kyle there's a bunch of people.
00:14:30:11 - 00:14:46:23
Unknown
I bet the people who listen this podcast understand where you're coming from. But I bet if I start having conversations with people who don't really think about conservation, it's out of their wheelhouse. And I said, you know, it's actually kind of bad to be thinking, to make sure every plant has a use for us. What are you talking about?
00:14:47:04 - 00:15:04:09
Unknown
That's that's just how we think about things. You know, it just goes so deep inside of us that. And, it's tough. We, like, broke out of the the circle of life, as the Lion King says. You know, the ecology we like broke out of it, and now we're just kind of dictating how it's going and every way.
00:15:04:09 - 00:15:29:07
Unknown
And so we've got a lot of power. And as Uncle Ben says, I mean, we've got a lot of responsibility. Yeah. That's man, that's that's, that's a really good saying. That's how I, that's how I feel. That's like, I don't know, when I was, I worked as a forester, as a peer to Forester, and I was I was driving around the southeast, mostly, north Alabama and middle Tennessee.
00:15:29:09 - 00:15:50:07
Unknown
But, as I was driving around, man, I covered a lot of ground and a lot of properties, and I was able to find that's when, that's when I kind of, like, was trying to learn every plant I could possibly come across. And, and by doing that, I'm taking pictures of everything flowering. And then I ended up finding a ton of rare stuff just by happenstance.
00:15:51:10 - 00:16:17:18
Unknown
And and then I'm like, I'm the only person who knows that this plant is here. Like, nobody else knows this plant is here. The landowner now knows because I told him. But they're, you know, in some cases, they're not going to do anything about it. And so, so, like, I felt like, responsible for those plant populations and making sure that they expand and, and, you know, stay a healthy population.
00:16:17:18 - 00:16:39:03
Unknown
And, and so that's how I got that's how I got started. I was managing a lot of these places for free for these landowners, like a, a dozen plus properties on top of, on top of my regular job, just to have access to natives and protect them. Or what were you doing it just just to make sure those populations didn't keep dwindling to nothing.
00:16:40:04 - 00:16:58:14
Unknown
A lot of them were being mowed. You know, to where there was, like, like Porter's goldenrod groves. Two places in the world. That's one of the first ones I found that is still the rarest plant I've ever found. We found there's three populations now. Both of them are in my county. Or. Wow, two of two of them are in my county.
00:16:59:22 - 00:17:22:15
Unknown
Duane Estes found the other one. And right across the state line in Tennessee. And then, the he's with, the Southeastern Grassland Institute, right? Yeah, yeah. And, and so the this population in my town was less than a mile from me inside the city limits, next to a neighborhood on a lot that has never had a house built on it.
00:17:22:17 - 00:17:41:09
Unknown
And they mowed it, like, frequently, except they didn't mow in between these two big oak trees because of all the root, the root structure. They couldn't get their mower through there. And right there there's 15 porous goldenrod plants growing. They were mowing over the rest of them. There were some out there that were just basil leaves that were this tall.
00:17:41:11 - 00:18:01:04
Unknown
And so that was a like a circumstance where, you know, worked with the landowner to stop mowing it. And, and I think those conversations go like, hey, you know, this thing, you know, and one of the rarest plants in the world is right here. Yeah. That was everybody's like, you got to get a lot of people who are like, no, I don't have any interest in it.
00:18:01:04 - 00:18:23:08
Unknown
And I'm like, actually, most people want to do something about it. Most people like to hear that they have something rare. Yeah. On property, something unique. Except for this lady who owned the borders, goldenrod. She didn't she she, she was, I went and knocked on her door. She's like, nope. Yeah, I don't care. Don't want people trespassing.
00:18:23:08 - 00:18:43:01
Unknown
Don't step foot on my property. I wish I didn't have to. I could see it from the paved road, from the from the right of way. And, and she's like, no, I don't want you collecting seeds of it. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Turns out her boss, this kind of stuff happens to me all the time.
00:18:43:01 - 00:19:05:11
Unknown
I don't understand why. Her boss's wife. I figured out she worked at a local hardware store. Like a lumber. They sell lumber and stuff? Yeah, the wife of the owner of that place wanted me to come out to their property to look at plants, and I didn't put it together until I was out there. And then while I was out there walking the place with them, I remember that that lady had worked for them.
00:19:05:21 - 00:19:24:17
Unknown
And I was like, oh, by the way, do you know this lady? And they're like, yeah, she works for us. Her and my husband are like really close. And her husband just passed away last year, and I was like, oh, all right, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And she's like, I'll have my husband talk to her.
00:19:24:19 - 00:19:45:07
Unknown
And so he talked to her and after that, she was just, like, super nice. Yeah. Go get seeds. Whatever you got to do. Oh, wow. And which, you know, between us, that I guess you could put this on the podcast if you want to, but, you know, there was like, a year and a half time there where I didn't know the the future of this plant population.
00:19:45:10 - 00:19:54:18
Unknown
Yeah. And, there were seeds gotten so.
00:19:54:20 - 00:20:15:19
Unknown
I love it. There were seeds got to, you know, here he just waited for the right wind direction guys. Yeah. He didn't absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I know he stood there with a butterfly net just catching those seeds. Yeah. Hey, speaking of that, if you want to keep rolling into another story. Yeah, that, I was out at,
00:20:15:21 - 00:20:41:06
Unknown
So we. I'm sure I don't know if y'all follow this leafy prairie clover stuff. Yeah. The one that the that you raise money for to buy the plot. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. We bought one of the we bought one of the populations I guess 2 or 3 years ago it went out with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to meet one landowner in Franklin County, that owned a population and the US.
00:20:41:06 - 00:21:00:00
Unknown
And it was that lady moved here from California to. And she her place had, making this the longest story possible right now, by the way. Oh, so this is good. I was gonna I had it in my notes to ask you about this. This is to be, like, ten stories to get to the story. That makes me think of the the wind blowing.
00:21:00:08 - 00:21:20:06
Unknown
So we'll get to the wind blowing here in a second there. Maybe. Maybe an hour, I don't know, but, anyways, this lady moved from California and she had this population to leave over on the road side. County was spring from one direction, so it couldn't spread that way towards the road. The other direction was just solid cedar.
00:21:20:06 - 00:21:46:01
Unknown
Just solid cedar. And and I told her I was like so our if this is federally endangered this is a really rare plant species. There's if you want to call it populations. There's, there's a I know Jerry French or SGI. They use a they, they're idea of like a population is like if it's within a quarter mile of each other then it's a, it's one population.
00:21:46:01 - 00:22:12:00
Unknown
Well. This is just me considering populations being like 2 or 300 yards away from each other. There's one property in Lawrence County that has like seven populations that are to me are very distinct, distinctly separated. They can't ever merge into each other. And then this lady had one population in Franklin County, so eight populations in the state, none of them were being managed.
00:22:12:19 - 00:22:32:21
Unknown
And I and I'm like, this is extremely rare. We're going to have to we're gonna have to remove some cedars. No, I had nothing. She wanted nothing to do with removing cedars. And I was like, but these trees are supposed to be here, and cedars are everywhere. They're not a species of conservation concern whatsoever, right? Yes, they're native, but they're in an abundance that they're not.
00:22:32:23 - 00:22:54:06
Unknown
They're not supposed to be. It's an unnatural density of cedars. And this plant is federally endangered. Only eight populations in the state growing on two properties. So there's two properties here. Leafy prairie clover. The state. Yours is one of the two. She said no, I bought this property to conserve, really big into conservation. And I don't want to cut trees.
00:22:54:23 - 00:23:13:23
Unknown
And I like, I worked on her for like, two days I spent out there. She was a single mom, had a bunch of kids she had adopted, and. And I was just like, I was like, she's got bigger fish to fry. I mean, she's. Yeah, she's, she's got a lot going on, and I didn't want to keep harassing her, but.
00:23:14:01 - 00:23:35:04
Unknown
So I had to give up on that population. So I called Kevin England, my friend, who's a botanist in Alabama, probably the best botanist in north Alabama, definitely in north Alabama. And and I was like, hey, Kevin, where's the where's the Morris County population of leafy prairie clover? Our population in Morgan County, Harvard and Harvard needs to come down and study it in the 60s.
00:23:35:06 - 00:23:56:11
Unknown
Wow. Which is crazy because that that they were even paying attention to that stuff in the 60s. But for some reason. Why me? Why? What's up with the leafy, prairie clover that we're paying such close like that? They were paying attention to it back then. It's it's so. It's just rare. It's only found in, Alabama, Tennessee and Illinois.
00:23:56:13 - 00:24:20:19
Unknown
And, it grows on limestone and it's just it's like the largest show east of the of the prairie clovers. It's, it didn't get twice as tall as the other ones. Wow. That's awesome. They. Yeah. Sorry. They. No, no, no, no. Where is this? This place in near me called McKendree Glades. It's just a big limestone complex.
00:24:21:14 - 00:24:44:05
Unknown
There are some growing there. And somehow Harvard found this glade in the 60s, and they had done a bunch of studies or a bunch of research there and collected plants and stuff. Anyways, there was a population there that got destroyed, sometime after the 60s. The county sprayed it on the roadside station, roadside spraying killed this entire population.
00:24:44:07 - 00:25:02:22
Unknown
So I was like, Kevin, where's the one and where's the populations in Lawrence County? He said, well, this property right here has them. You can see him on this roadside. And so I'll go and look. And the landowner is a is a forester that I know who also buys land. And so I call him and I'm like, Stan, hey, this is Kyle.
00:25:03:07 - 00:25:20:23
Unknown
I saw you on this property, and he's like, well, I did on that property. I sold it to a real estate to, another real estate company, and he's like, I can put you in contact with them. So I called them and they were like, well, we did on it, but we sold it to these investors in Virginia.
00:25:21:01 - 00:25:41:18
Unknown
And, and, and there and we're currently trying to sell it for them. So I was like, well, can I if I raise money for this plant, can I put that money towards, like towards this property to come in and do habitat work to like open up the canopy in something? They're like, no, but you can buy some of it.
00:25:42:00 - 00:26:05:08
Unknown
And so I was like, well, all right, shifting gears. Yeah, we started trying to make an effort to buy some of it. And it turns out we we discovered a new population on the place, that made that made it a populations. And this is the largest one in the state, like it had like a thousand plants, which is this is also one of the only ones that we still have it conserved.
00:26:05:08 - 00:26:27:05
Unknown
So we've conserved now six of the eight populations of leafy prairie clover. Wow. And this is the biggest one is one that we're still trying to get conserved. But anyhow we bought one of them. I had a friend by, a couple of their populations next to our place, and then another friend bought a few more populations on some power lines.
00:26:28:00 - 00:26:50:12
Unknown
Actually, Allens Allen has a big population. He has a population on a power line to this. Just really nice. And, so we've got fire and canopy opened up on all of those now. Six of them now. And so that's pretty, are they, are they thriving? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You collect seed on those and try to plant them anywhere else.
00:26:50:12 - 00:27:10:04
Unknown
I know they need really specific conditions, but they do they. So we're we're finding them at like they're on these limestone escarpments off of Cumberland Plateau. So like the molt valleys real flat. And then you have these little mountains of limestone out scattered throughout the valley. And, at the base of those mountains, it's like 700ft elevation, all of them.
00:27:10:09 - 00:27:31:00
Unknown
And they like that. They like the place where the where water seeps out of the mountain, so that they like those conditions. They're kind of picky about that in the wild. So, yeah, we're trying to I've been spreading seed as they go to seed on the property. I just collect it and then just go drop it. If you try to grow them, you got to put them in the refrigerator for like, three years.
00:27:32:03 - 00:27:50:06
Unknown
That's what I grow wild in Nashville. They've told me they tried to grow it in the past, and they had to have it in the fridge for three years. Wow. Wow. So anyways, it's been spreading. Is it, like, so purple? Prairie clover is a really small but very hard seed and it'll show up years and years later in the ground.
00:27:50:06 - 00:28:32:21
Unknown
Is it similar? Got a similar seed to that? Yeah, they're they're almost identical to seed heads. Oh, interesting. But you know what this is kind of this is kind of sounding like, I always butcher butcher the first word, but it's like our algorithmic talus slope, micro ecosystems. We have some of that in the driftless part of Iowa and which the driftless, Driftless Iowa or the Driftless Region, Driftless Area encompasses is northeastern Iowa, south eastern Minnesota, southwestern Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois.
00:28:32:23 - 00:29:17:12
Unknown
And there, I mean, when you said that three years of like, cold stratification, basically, what makes those talus slopes so unique is they are limestone slopes. For one. And there's I can't remember exactly how, but there's a cooling effect. Water seeps in and, because, I don't remember the mechanism how this happens, but there's basically ice back inside, the crevices and, you know, like caves and things like that inside that limestone that allows for very specific organisms to, survive there.
00:29:17:12 - 00:29:41:18
Unknown
In fact, they found a snail species like, back in the 60s and 70s that had that became a Lazarus species. They thought it they thought it was extinct. And then they and I almost wonder if, like, that is what, because, I mean, how on earth does Alabama have the conditions today where you have three years of cooling? Yeah.
00:29:41:21 - 00:30:16:18
Unknown
So, to stratify that seed, you know. Yeah, it's I don't know, it's crazy. But I know what I mean. These limestone escarpments, like these mountains are so far apart. I call them, limestone knobs. A lot of time, but they're so far apart that you'll find snail species that are like they. If they found a lot of new snail species on these because they're so separated from each other and just junk, but yeah, that, we ended up not getting we got the property that I was like, it was kind of my second choice.
00:30:17:09 - 00:30:34:04
Unknown
It didn't have as many plants on it, but there was like maybe a one, 1/20 of an acre was open and that's where the plants were. But it's 20, it was 24 acres. And so like we had a lot of opportunity to improve that habitat. Yeah. And and we've opened up probably 15 acres of it now.
00:30:34:04 - 00:30:54:19
Unknown
So we've really improved it. But also ours is like an east slope. And last year all we have is a real dry summer. A lot of the other populations didn't even flower or go to see. They were struggling. And our East little population did great. So I kind of lucked out, but we really lucked out having the, like, one of the healthiest populations.
00:30:55:01 - 00:31:18:10
Unknown
Even though it's not healthy in numbers. It will be, because we're now opening it up, but. Sure. But that goes on to my point about the wind blowing that I've been trying to get to. But yeah, we're we're over on Allen's part. We call the David Webb Glade. He's the TVA botanist that discovered this site and passed away last year, and we named it after him.
00:31:19:02 - 00:31:45:07
Unknown
And I'm standing there last year on a real windy day, and it was like, right, as all the, like, blazing stars, rough, blazing star seed was kind of right. And will it like blowing off of the stem? And I was able to make videos out there while it's happening, but you get these gust of wind like this gust of wind would come through the power line and just sweep all these seeds up over the hill, like just off into off into the distance.
00:31:45:09 - 00:32:13:15
Unknown
And, it just makes me, like, made me think I'm like, what's the chances of those seeds landing somewhere where they're able to grow? Because in that direction, it's crop field, it's cow pasture that's overgrazed. It's people's front yards. It's close. Canopy forest. Yeah. Hayfield. Maybe, maybe, maybe they survive in a hayfield. I don't know, but like the chances of them landing somewhere that's going to be optimal for their growth is like.
00:32:13:17 - 00:32:37:19
Unknown
I mean, I can't even imagine the odds. Yeah. Can't be good. Can't be good because it's, there's hardly any good conditions for, grasses left in Alabama because it's all it's all forested now. Right. Like a fire. But, it's just, I don't know, it's crazy to think about. It also makes me feel better about collecting stuff in the wild.
00:32:38:00 - 00:33:02:19
Unknown
All those places, because, like, it's going to be in better hands if I have it. Yeah. Instead of it blowing off into a cow pasture that it's never going to grow in. So we just had an extended conversation with Tabitha Panis, who she was the president of the Iowa Prairie Network for a while. And, we had a long conversation about what would happen if all humans just left Iowa all of a sudden.
00:33:02:19 - 00:33:23:09
Unknown
And we kind of came to this like, there's a good chance it would be forested. And I feel like Alabama kind of shows that will be true. It's a good point. Well, if all humans left Alabama, we also wouldn't have anybody putting out naturalist calls. Fires. Yeah. And so and I can't I've been looking for this.
00:33:23:09 - 00:33:48:17
Unknown
I took a screenshot of it and I cannot find it. In 2022 there was like 790 something lightning strike fires that were put out. And really wow. That. Yeah, it amazed me. That number amazed me. Yeah. Cause I'm like, man, it's like wired in our into our brain to think like, oh, you know, lightning, you know, you teach kids about the prayers.
00:33:49:00 - 00:34:09:08
Unknown
Yeah. And, and on occasion, you know, a lightning strike would hit and it would like the prairie on fire, but everyone in that room, including yourselves, like. But that happened once every 20 years, you know, I mean, yeah. Yeah, that's that's I mean, if you think about it, I mean, there's like, oh, I can't remember the number of counties and it's like 50 or 60 or something, but let's say it's 50.
00:34:09:10 - 00:34:35:02
Unknown
I mean, that's how many is that. That's that'd be 16, 16 lightning strikes in each county that, set a tree on fire. And so, yeah, I mean, just yesterday I saw I mean, I saw multiple we had a huge lightning storm here and driving down the interstate, I saw multiple trees that were smoldering, and, and so, like, I don't know, if we weren't here, we wouldn't be putting those out either, you know?
00:34:35:02 - 00:35:03:05
Unknown
Yeah, that's fair. And and that's what SGI had. They had, I don't know if it was them had done research or somebody else. But, on the Cumberland Plateau, they did research on really mature short leaf pine that were like hundreds of miles away from each other that were seeing the same fire events. Whether that was just because the year was a really dry year or if that was the same fire traveling the ridge tops for hundreds of miles, I guess they can't really say.
00:35:03:05 - 00:35:26:18
Unknown
But, as long as there was something stopping, those fires could have gone for a long time. So yeah, yeah, we talked about that as well. Like the road, like the whole road system, you know, would be pretty intense. I think that, I mean, gravel roads would eventually just pretty easily be taken over by plants. But, yeah, the, the major highways could stop some fires.
00:35:26:18 - 00:35:55:22
Unknown
But I do know what's interesting, Nick, is there's there's some. In fact, we drove past one. You and I did. I think, on, Monday, there's, like, old highway bridges in Iowa. When they turned a lot of our, two lane highways and, four lane highways, they they left sections of those roads still intact.
00:35:55:22 - 00:36:18:08
Unknown
And a lot of them were, like, close to, like, public areas now, like, you know, hunting areas, things like that. And you can see, like, those roads were definitely in use, like in the 60s and 70s, but today already, like, there's no way you would drive a car across that bridge because it with the concrete is already breaking down so bad.
00:36:18:19 - 00:36:35:23
Unknown
There's plants that are growing, you know, in every crack on there. I think that stuff would probably actually, you know, the land would give it 100 years and it would. Yeah. Or, you know, in, in nature terms, 20,000 years, you know, I'll just say I put a lot of trust into a paved road before as a fire line.
00:36:35:23 - 00:37:07:19
Unknown
And it didn't work. That's where. So I've had, it was like two years ago, it was one close to the house. So I was just like, man, you still get you get lazy. And, you know, you wonder how long you've been doing it. I just jumped on my four Wheeler and had my leaf blower and a drip torch, and I went and burned this pasture, and it was midday, and the wind was just right, and everything was dry, and I was probably burning it too late in the day.
00:37:08:10 - 00:37:26:07
Unknown
Jake was there, but he was just there. And like, his slacks and not not his fire gear, he had, like, sandals on or something, and, and, and I had one some embers just roll across the road and light up a patch on the other side. And I had to go over there and blow it out.
00:37:26:09 - 00:37:44:01
Unknown
And then it kept happening. And then it got on the other side of the fence on the other side of the road. And so I'm like, jumping the fence. With a backpack blower on my back. And I just busted on the other side of, like, faceplant. And I'm like a leaf blowing it, and like, Jake's like, I'm calling Jake.
00:37:44:01 - 00:38:02:00
Unknown
I'm like, how about air pods and I'm like, help now? Like fire. Hell, yeah. I'm like, choked out on the smoke. Yeah. He got there and we had it put out and it was like, maybe, maybe a 10th of an acre. But it was luckily, as the brother of the guy who were burning for. So,
00:38:02:02 - 00:38:27:15
Unknown
Yeah, he didn't he didn't care. But we got lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Those roads, you think you put a lot of trust in them, but it doesn't take long for an ember to just blow right across that pavement. And, you know, besides, we actually strong winds have never been the, And we've never had something get out of hand because it's basically always no wind or very little wind where it can change really easily.
00:38:27:15 - 00:38:45:07
Unknown
Right. If it's a strong wind, it's not going to just change. All of a sudden it's really barreling in that direction. But the, the no wind and the other day and then if you have no wind, fire creates its own wind. Right. All that heat raising up and it's going to create air movement. And then all of a sudden you've got a light breeze going in the opposite direction that it was going.
00:38:45:07 - 00:39:04:00
Unknown
And we've had a couple things, not go well with that. I didn't I don't like I don't trust calm days when burning and trusting one bit. No, and, it can, it can get away from you when you least expect it. I know that this fire will humble you. It'll help. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:39:04:02 - 00:39:24:12
Unknown
It's also at the same time, it's like, I hate to say easier, but it's like, it's easier to implement on your property than people think. Like, I don't want to scare people away from using fire. Right? But also like, when do you let your guard down? It can, it can get away from you. As long as you have the tools to fight it, you're usually good.
00:39:24:17 - 00:39:46:01
Unknown
It's crazy how much of doing fire is is prep like back burns and and wetting down areas and stuff like that? It's like it's like 90% of it. And then you, like, just light the other side and the wind takes it across in 60s and then you go home, you know, it's. Yeah. When a burn goes well, it's like the simplest thing that you've ever, that you've ever done, you know.
00:39:46:05 - 00:40:12:00
Unknown
Yeah. But when it doesn't go well you're talking, you can add hours of work to it could take it could take weeks off of your life too. Yes. Yes, sir. That all that's. Yeah. All right. Here's what I worry about, Kyle. You've you've done a lot more burning than I have, I'm sure. And you do. You do so much in on the edge of wooded areas or in what it in, in woodland fires and stuff.
00:40:12:02 - 00:40:29:10
Unknown
Poison ivy. Smoke. Have you ever had a problem, like running a fire through some poison ivy and breathing in some of the smoke or anything? I mean, I did a video of me lightning poison ivy on it was like a literal blanket of poison ivy in this pine straw. And I live on fire. And I made a TikTok about it.
00:40:29:16 - 00:40:48:14
Unknown
And oh, that comment. I got so many of those. It was I knew I was going to get those comments. Yeah. And so I was kind of like, so that's why you're, you know. Yeah. I was like, let's see how mad I can make people. And they're like, don't stand in the smoke. You're going to you're going to die from the inside out and like, and did you die from the inside out?
00:40:48:14 - 00:41:05:13
Unknown
No, I did not. I didn't, just stayed out of the smoke like a, like a logical person would, you know? So, I mean, people think that, like, the smoke is going to go in every direction and chase it down like a cough mouth, like a cottonmouth is going to chase you down. Yeah, I think smoke is going to chase down, too.
00:41:05:13 - 00:41:27:21
Unknown
I'm like, well, the wind's blowing that way. So I'm just going to stand over here and not breathe in the pine. Yeah. The the poison ivy smoke, you know. So yeah. Yeah, yeah I mean it does I, I don't like stand and smoke. You know what I was thinking about the other day, Kent, I did an episode about, microplastics, making its way on the land and, like, ruining land.
00:41:27:21 - 00:41:51:07
Unknown
I don't know, like, there, I don't think there was not microplastics. You're thinking of people. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So PFAs getting out of, or being spread on, through people's poop. Yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and so I'm like, I wonder if there's, like, PFAs in these plants right now that I'm breathing. That's like what I'm thinking.
00:41:51:09 - 00:42:11:11
Unknown
The smoke, you know, because it's like, yeah, you don't want to stand and smoke a plastic, but, I don't know. But, doing your burning, I think, switchgrass and big bluestem. Well, the percentage that small kind of, you know, you're, like, calculating the risk. I've lived a good life, you know, but, Yeah, I mean, like, I have a burn here.
00:42:11:12 - 00:42:31:02
Unknown
Yeah, like, I live in the house I grew up in, and, and my dad always had this one burn pile on the property, and I've. Everything got burned in there. And then we have. We made it. So we made it so far without an internet interruption there. Sorry, guys. Yeah, Kyle was telling a great story. You're the interrupter.
00:42:31:02 - 00:42:50:02
Unknown
Okay. You're good that we have this one burn pile that we always used. And my dad would probably burn anything and everything in there. One year, it was like after my dad passed away, my mom's cleaning out the barn, and she burned a bunch of stuff in there. Whatever. She burned, like, left a dead streak, like downhill from this burn pile for like, three years.
00:42:50:04 - 00:43:08:06
Unknown
That's also where, like, our muscadine vines are, like, my dad had, like, a muscadine orchard. It didn't kill him, but, like, now, I'm afraid to eat them. I'm like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know. So it was like, probably like the smoke. Like it didn't catch fire. It was just smoke that it just the when it rained, it rained into that fire pit.
00:43:08:11 - 00:43:33:18
Unknown
The water, I guess, washed something out of that fire pit downhill and just killed sterilize the soil. And it was like, yeah, I don't know what that was like. There's I don't know if there's even any way of knowing, but I know I'm not eating those muscadine anymore. So, yeah. So yeah, that's, no telling, man. There's got to be so many micro-plastics and campfires and yeah, I don't know.
00:43:33:20 - 00:43:55:18
Unknown
Judd sent me this picture. You might have gotten it a while ago as well. It was like this Pokemon evolution. So there's three different, right? And they each get bigger. And it's like the little one is my grandpa filled with lead? The medium one is my dad. Oh. What is it? My dad filled with a Festus. And then the bigger one is me filled with microplastics.
00:43:55:20 - 00:44:15:12
Unknown
It's like we've all got the. I mean, it's got interesting. You know, we were really into picking the easiest way out or the cheapest option or, you know, whatever. And then we end up just poisoning ourselves as, there's some sort of terrible poetry in that. But, Kyle, this is the question I was going to start with.
00:44:15:14 - 00:44:33:01
Unknown
I just thought I would ask my. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah, it'll come up. It'll come up. Sorry. I've been. No, this is better talking. No. If we if we. That's why we have our one for for any of our guests. If we like, keep looking down looking for the next question on the outline. That's that's no bueno. It's a good sign.
00:44:33:01 - 00:44:57:22
Unknown
It's not going to. Well, yeah, but, so what? I'm curious, what Prairie did you walk on to for the first time and have the strongest emotional reaction, for whatever reason, either the most angry or the most excited or. You know what I mean? I'm the most confused. Yeah. The the one that there's a place that's the best prairie I've ever walked on to.
00:44:57:22 - 00:45:18:07
Unknown
And it's like an 11,000 acre farm in the Black Belt. And it's been burned by the same family for over 100 years. It's probably been burned prior to that. And that place is a time capsule. And every time I go there, it's it's just incredible. It's 11,000 acres of prairie. Yeah, yeah. Well, not all of it's prairie.
00:45:18:07 - 00:45:45:21
Unknown
Some of it's timberland. At least 2500 acres of it is like pristine prairie. It's like incredible, But have you have you noticed how that provides a reset like I've been. I've been doing what I, what I do with Hoxie long enough now to where you can get kind of like, used to seeing the same plants all the time or the same acres and dealing with the same problems that it it becomes almost routine.
00:45:45:22 - 00:46:04:09
Unknown
But then when you go to a place like that, it's just like it totally, you know, rewires you up, you know, you're like brought back to me. And this is why. Yeah, I think that's the Lost Hills for me. Nick. When we when we went on that hike the other day, that's why I didn't want to come. And it is just like it was doing that for me, you know.
00:46:04:09 - 00:46:25:22
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I, I'm curious. You said it's the best prairie you've ever been on. What does that mean? What qualifies something as best? It's just hardly any invasives. A lot of plant diversity. Like a lot, I think. I don't know what they're up to on that place. Maybe. I think 600 species of plants. It's. Oh, it's,
00:46:26:03 - 00:46:52:02
Unknown
Man, it's, it's crazy. I need to I need to double check that, but it's like it's up there. It's insane. And and there's just wild, like quail everywhere. Like it's like stepping back in time to what? Like. I mean, I don't see I don't hear quail in Alabama hardly any more, like, ever. And the only healthy population of Quill I've ever seen was on that place.
00:46:52:04 - 00:47:14:06
Unknown
And it's because that was it's such a nice grassland ecosystem, and it's just like it proves that good habitat equals good wildlife populations. And so do they ever open it up to the public and do like tours or anything. Yeah, they they've had the Audubon out to do a lot of birding. It's a it's a great family, a great event.
00:47:14:07 - 00:47:33:15
Unknown
Like it's in the hands of like don't I don't know what happened in the world for this to align, but the person that's in charge of it is the person that should be in charge of it. Yeah. Making decisions for it. It's it's pretty incredible how long they've been. They've been managing it. How many people? The family for 100 years.
00:47:33:20 - 00:48:06:22
Unknown
That's crazy. That's crazy. So they they really understood the like what they had. Well, they know they had a quail. They had a quail plantation. And they only understood what they had until like, I guess in more recent years. But prior to that they were just managing it for quail hunting. And, and so they have these old kennels there where they had quail dogs and, blenders and and it's that's just they burned it so there would be quail there and that's how they managed it.
00:48:06:22 - 00:48:28:19
Unknown
And so, then recently they realized how good of a place it is, and they've opened it up to all these different schools to do research there. And, they've just been really great stewards. And of this place, it's, pretty impressive. There's like these big prairie washes like these where the soles just highly eroded.
00:48:28:21 - 00:48:52:04
Unknown
And, real cows or souls and it looks like a desert and there's just like mosasaurus vertebrae laying on the ground, like it's just. Now the place is crazy. How tall is it? Wild, wild horse prairie on Instagram. It's wild wild horse prairie if you want to follow them. Mitchell Bell manages it. It's just, it's just incredible.
00:48:52:04 - 00:49:12:21
Unknown
But how would you say how tall is that prairie? It depends. I mean, there's areas it changes throughout the whole place. I mean, it's just like a mosaic. There's places that have big blue and Indian grass. And so, I mean, and huge blazing stars so it can get tall. I mean, I saw, like, an 8 or 9ft blazing star there one time.
00:49:12:21 - 00:49:41:05
Unknown
It was, wow, the towering over my head. It's crazy. But the place that shaped me, the most, my neighbor growing up had 40 acres about ten minutes up the hill from us on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. And, he's let me it since about 2013 and, 2016, I was in forestry school, and I was working for the State Fish and Wildlife at the time as a laborer.
00:49:41:05 - 00:50:05:15
Unknown
And I was just really into habitat for wildlife. And so my dad and I, spent a lot of time up there cutting down cedars and, opening up these openings. And I was trying to turn these openings into food plots, just not knowing any better. And, so, one summer, I opened up a bunch of cedars, and at this in the where it was open already, I sprayed it and tried to plan it as a food plot.
00:50:05:15 - 00:50:29:17
Unknown
And of course it was like a very thin soils. Yeah. I even try to bring in compost and, like, make the soils thicker or just try to make it healthier, you know? So I thought, and, and the food plot failed, but where I cut down the cedars around the edges of the field, it was, I came back the next summer.
00:50:29:17 - 00:50:51:15
Unknown
It was just color everywhere. The first thing I noticed that I was like, I don't know what this is. And as a forester, I should know what this is. Was rattlesnake master. It's almost like last year there, and I was like, what in the world is this? This is so distinct. Yeah. How have on how do I not know what it is?
00:50:51:20 - 00:51:09:10
Unknown
It's like it just seems like iconic, like more iconic than, than a magnolia or like a. Yeah, you know, hosta or something. I'm like, yeah, how do I know what these are? But I don't know what this is. This thing's crazy looking. Yeah. And then it comes to another planet. Yeah. And then there's butterfly weed everywhere.
00:51:09:10 - 00:51:32:10
Unknown
There's there's literature everywhere. Gray headed comb flowers. This place is covered in just some of the rarest. It's one of the. It may be the best remnant that I managed to. This day. Like, it's really good. And so I post those pictures online, and Kevin England, who's a local botanist, saw it and he messaged me, he said, where is this?
00:51:32:10 - 00:51:53:05
Unknown
I need to see it. So I brought him out there and he was just super excited about this place. That's cool. It's it's a limestone barren halfway up the Cumberland Plateau. And it's just like they terraced these like flat limestone terraces. They just, like, work their way down. It's just a really cool habitat. And, we've been restoring it for ever since.
00:51:53:05 - 00:52:14:05
Unknown
But, like, unknowingly opened up and restored of the limestone barrier. And that area that I sprayed and tried to plant is food plot. It's back to back to its former glory now. And, yeah, that's that's good. Yeah. It's just a really cool place. It's probably a relief for you. Yeah. It was. Yeah. That's that's what I was like.
00:52:14:05 - 00:52:35:02
Unknown
I mean, it's eye opening. I was like, dang, I was trying to manage this for wildlife by planting 1 or 2 species in a food plot mix. Right. Well, there's hundreds of species here. Like what? What am I even doing? Like houses better for wildlife. Like, you know that that made me realize how wrong we had it. Do you see the whitetail browsing it?
00:52:35:04 - 00:53:04:17
Unknown
Oh, the deer are out there every day. Like, every single day. How would you say that compares to, like, so a perennial, like, habitat. There's tons of food for whitetail. How does that compare to just planting a species or two as a, as a food plot? Yeah. So I mean, here's the thing is, throughout the growing season, they're going to have something there that's palatable to them all summer long, all from spring to fall.
00:53:04:19 - 00:53:27:16
Unknown
Yeah, there might not be something green there in the wintertime, but that's not what deer adapted to eat anyways. Like, right? It doesn't have to be green for a deer to eat it like deer in the winter. They're, they're they're dots, which is over the brows, woody brows where they're eating the ends of stems and the buds of a plant like it doesn't have to look like a golf course for a deer to want to eat it.
00:53:28:01 - 00:53:49:16
Unknown
Yeah. And actually, that can only be so much of it's diet anyways. A food plot can only be so much of a deer's diet. Their most of their diet during that time of year is still going to have to be acorns. And. No, nothing, I said acorns. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I was like, do you hear how you said that they're addicted.
00:53:49:17 - 00:54:18:08
Unknown
Yeah. That's that's he's definitely, definitely from Alabama. Yeah. I tried to be polite about how long he was about out to it. Yeah, yeah, but Acorns and Woody browse and so that's they're, you know, I think of, I don't know, like. I don't know greens like the food plot and like the leafy browns. Just like eating a salad to humans.
00:54:18:10 - 00:54:38:09
Unknown
Me acorns and woody browns is like, the bowl of chili with all the carbohydrates. Like, yeah, you don't want to eat a bowl of chili in the summertime. Know you all may. But like, I don't want to get a bowl of chili during the summer on a hot day. You know, I'm going to eat that during the winter time.
00:54:38:09 - 00:55:00:11
Unknown
Like, it's a good winter food. Like, that's that's how I see, food plots anyways. And I think they're, you know, of course a deer is going to use it. But deer are generalist species that could survive in a in a HOA if they wanted to. You know, you could put them in an HOA and they're going to do just fine.
00:55:00:13 - 00:55:36:11
Unknown
You humans can hardly survive in an HOA. Yeah, but but a deer can. And so why are we managing for something that could live anywhere when we could be trying to manage for quail, especially for a species. Yeah. And and B benefiting all species of wildlife deer, turkey, quail, rabbits, squirrels, grouse. You know what? Songbirds, pollinators. What are we going to manage for one species that could literally survive on a golf course or an HOA like that seems like a very low bar we're setting for ourselves as habitat managers for wildlife, you know?
00:55:36:13 - 00:55:58:02
Unknown
So, that's just my mindset. Yeah, I love it. And it I don't know from every possible angle. I mean, it's way cheaper. I mean, it's it's more expensive the first year that you plant perennials, right? My only thing I can figure out is that you don't get something that year. You have to wait to the second, maybe the third year.
00:55:58:13 - 00:56:19:09
Unknown
But Jed McCollum calls it a full plate, meaning two different things. They get food there all year. And so they're trained to kind of come back to this spot. And secondly, they as you were saying, they just get way more diversity for their diet. Yeah. And I don't. And, and Alan, who has he owns one of the Leaf Clover properties.
00:56:19:09 - 00:56:45:13
Unknown
He also owns that over Cup Oaks of. And I was talking about Allen does our wildlife consults for us and he's still prescribes food plots. But like the thing is, is we're not putting food plots on rare limestone barrels with tons of plant diversity. We're finding the place that's taken over with less buddies, and with it. And we're making taking the worse spot and making it better without a plot.
00:56:45:15 - 00:56:59:22
Unknown
You know, it's going to have some value then. But we're taking the best spot in the only open spot and turning it into a food plot. And that's what happens on a lot of properties. That's the reason I turn that place into a food plot. It was 40 acres and the only two acres that was open was a grassland.
00:56:59:22 - 00:57:14:10
Unknown
And I was like, well, this is where the food plots going, you know? Yeah. When I should have said, oh, dang, up the hill here, there's a bunch of kudzu. Let's spray that out and turn that into a food plot. Yeah. Instead of taking the high quality stuff and turning it into a food plot. Yeah. So it's just like anything else.
00:57:14:10 - 00:57:45:12
Unknown
It's, you just got to learn the property and figure out ways to approach it. There's always a way to get what you want without taking away something valuable. And Alan does a great job of that on on properties when he does consoles. Yeah. Oh, yeah. While we're on this topic, we have quoted, you know, less than 35 times and the 200 and some episodes that we've recorded, 260 episodes or whatever on, something you said on Mark Kenyon, who's bound it was about politics.
00:57:45:14 - 00:58:29:00
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. May as well be may as well be. No, but it's, you were on Mark Kenyon's podcast a couple years ago, and, honestly, it was it was one of the one of the best, like, perspective statements I've heard on a podcast before. And Mark, was he was just working through like, hey, here's I mean, no one, no one in, that I can think of has talked to more voices within the whitetail hunting world and had their ear closer to that, to the ground on on the issues in whitetail hunting and tries to try to understand every viewpoint better than Mark Kenyon does.
00:58:29:02 - 00:58:57:00
Unknown
And he had you on and, you know, I also I'm going to take a just a little side jaunt here. As I ask you this question, I think it's important that we recognize how often hunting, served as the motivation to find something great in the stories that you just told. The that super diverse prairie, where they were running the the the quail plantation.
00:58:57:02 - 00:59:21:22
Unknown
It didn't it wasn't necessarily that activity that led to discovering this, this on this priceless gem, but it was a it was motivation to keep people out there lighting those fires and holding and serving as a placeholder. It was it was a motivation that got people to do that hard work. Or in the case of you and your dad setting up those food plots, no one else wants to go out there and cut down cedars right?
00:59:22:11 - 00:59:42:21
Unknown
Even if you got paid like 15 bucks an hour as a high school kid, you'd hate every second of it. Probably because that's hard work. But when you have that motivation of, hey, I might be here hunting in a few months and I might get a shoot, giant buck, or shoot a shoot at, you know, a gobbling turkey in, spring or whatever.
00:59:43:09 - 01:00:11:08
Unknown
That is, that is motivation that really doesn't have a, a definite price tag that gets you out there to get the ball rolling for, for conserving these things. But all that to say. Giant miscanthus, pampas grass, Egyptian wheat. You're going to bleep that out. Yeah. The the.
01:00:11:10 - 01:00:39:10
Unknown
The the those those those terms. Yeah. Those those things. They get used. By people who, who use the title, you know, on their business card, land manager, whitetail property manager. And I don't think they're used as much anymore, thankfully, because I think I had a gentleman just come up to me at the coffee shop. What? Maybe Tuesday, or last Friday something.
01:00:39:10 - 01:00:56:13
Unknown
And he was like, hey, can you get me this? And he showed me a picture of miscanthus on his, on his phone, and I said, hey, it's around, but, no. Yeah, yeah, we just stick with natives here. Yeah. And and you have people that will still argue till are blue in the face about. Yep. You can come to my farm.
01:00:56:13 - 01:01:34:02
Unknown
You can see how it's not a problem here. And you can, you, you're just responding to, an emotional outburst by tree huggers and people who really don't understand how this works. And, there's nothing wrong with it. It's a hybrid. It, you know, on and on the arguments. Can you just rehash your reasoning why you think it's a bad idea when where hunters can go from that super power that we just described of you can be the placeholder for something priceless.
01:01:35:00 - 01:02:04:22
Unknown
To then becoming almost damaging by, quote unquote, managing the land for hunt purely for hunting opportunity and taking some of these non-native shortcuts. Yeah. So we've made that mistake with so many other species already. In the South, sawtooth oaks are spreading everywhere. I mean, thousands of them regenerating under one tree. Autumn olive by colorless means.
01:02:05:10 - 01:02:45:10
Unknown
If you, it's just there's there's so many examples of us planting non-natives and it biting us in the butt in the long run, but that's one species. And what is and what does that one species do for wildlife? What does miscanthus do for wildlife? How is it going to benefit native wildlife? I mean, do you think if you think the cover, if you think cover is, is higher priority than something feeding a species or, or being a host plant for a species like it's not.
01:02:45:15 - 01:03:08:06
Unknown
There's 4000 plants in Alabama, 4000 different species. And a lot of those species provide cover. I mean, it doesn't have to be. We don't have to introduce something that's not from North America to get cover that. Tallapoosa cane I was just talking about earlier. It's like giant river cane. It gets tall, but its leaves are like.
01:03:08:08 - 01:03:32:04
Unknown
I mean, an inch and a half, two inches wide, and maybe 15, 16in long. I mean, they had these huge leaves and they make a great screen. So like an Alabama Tallapoosa cane would make an excellent screen. But yeah, why would you want a monoculture of a species as a screen? Oh, I think I think miscanthus adds as much value for wildlife as a wooden fence.
01:03:32:06 - 01:04:00:09
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. That's a that's a great way to say it that I mean, you might as well install a wooden fence. Yeah. You know. Yeah. But why would you want a monoculture that's a non-native when you could have diversity. You can have, you know, multiple species, plant a row of plums and hazelnuts and, you know, hawthorns or, you know, mulberries like native fruiting trees.
01:04:00:11 - 01:04:28:22
Unknown
Plant a row of, native grasses and forbs, in between there, plant a row of trees behind it, like, get you some diversity in there that's going to, you know, serve. I mean, I'm having a hard time of thinking of one purpose, that miscanthus, one role that it's going to feel for a species of wildlife. Yeah. Like as a host plant is, you know, something that a species can't get anywhere else.
01:04:29:00 - 01:05:03:23
Unknown
Yeah. Let's say you plant a row of oaks, you plant a row of plums, hazelnut, hawthorns, mulberries, you know, French tree, roasty black viburnum. I mean, we can go forever on shrubs. Dogwoods. Yeah. But, take a look, guys. I mean, there's like millions. There's tons of shrubs you can plant, and then you plant a row of grasses and forbs, which could be, you know, you know, 5800 species if you want it to be.
01:05:04:01 - 01:05:32:19
Unknown
Right. I mean, let's just say you plant ten species of wildflowers, three species of native shrubs, and three native tree species in a row. Yeah. I mean, the amount of insects and wildlife species that depend on those. I mean, we'd be here all day listing them off. And those insects that use those as host species are going to be food for turkey and quail and songbirds.
01:05:32:22 - 01:05:51:20
Unknown
And like it's just the fruit that they make is going to be food. Yeah. The cover they make is the type of cover that wildlife species have in North America have been adapted to for thousands of years. And so you don't have to worry about is it going to serve a function? It has served the function for these wildlife species for tens of thousands of years.
01:05:51:20 - 01:06:13:17
Unknown
What more proof do you need? Right? I mean, this is a species that isn't even from North America, and we think that it's going to fill a void that, you know, these species that have been here for tens of thousands of years aren't feeling they it's just it's just crazy to me, like it's it's just not even close to which one should I choose?
01:06:14:01 - 01:06:37:11
Unknown
Right. And then you got to talk about the aspect of, like, my worst critic is myself, but the worst critic, I mean, I don't know, this should be this is going to be like, the most Alabama redneck quote that will be like on my gravestone some day. Like my my worst critic for is myself. But for my best, my worst critic will be my grandchild one day.
01:06:37:11 - 01:06:54:07
Unknown
You know, it's make no sense, but it's going to. Y'all understand you? No, I know what you mean. Yeah, but the quote will make zero sense. As I said, you know, my, I don't want my grandkids to look at me one day and be like, why did you do this? You know why? Why what? Real? Well, that's just what everybody else was doing at the time.
01:06:54:11 - 01:07:16:01
Unknown
Yeah. You know, I thought, you know, we thought that it was gonna. They were all sold out. A wooden fence is at home, too. Yeah. They were all, you know, it was easier than planting a wooden. You is easier than digging post holes for wooden fence. Yeah. You know, I just I don't know, I don't want to. I want to be the best habitat manager I could possibly be for the landscape, because I think wild places deserve it.
01:07:16:01 - 01:07:41:09
Unknown
Wildlife deserves it. And I don't want to take a chance on being wrong. And. And I know I'll never be wrong by planting something native. Yeah, that's a great you won't be wrong. Like, yeah, maybe, I don't know, maybe you could be like a little bit wrong, but you're never going to be 100% wrong to where generations from now, people are going to be mad at you.
01:07:41:09 - 01:08:02:13
Unknown
I mean, I mean, it's like Aldo. Yeah. Aldo Leopold planted like pine trees on his farm. Like in what? Like too many pine trees and, like, a really large density, like, you know. Yeah. The, you know, that's not all. There's not the world's biggest mistake, you know, but introducing an invasive non-native that is going to affect your neighbors and affect future generations.
01:08:02:13 - 01:08:24:19
Unknown
That's a pretty big mistake that I'm not willing to make, you know. Yeah. So, well, everyone's, you know, our friend, a mutual friend for all of us on this podcast right now, Doug Dern, he. Oh, he said something that I think of almost every time I, you know. Yeah, every time I make a decision like this is he says, I know what the hunter gets.
01:08:24:21 - 01:08:55:17
Unknown
What is the land get. And and if you can't answer that. Yeah. That's like like, like reigned in our brains. Yeah, yeah. The the the the miscanthus. I can't answer that question. It literally cannot. What is the land get. It's silence. There's no there's no answer there. And and, I think that if we take that simple question and apply it to all these decisions, you know, and some of those things are much more.
01:08:55:17 - 01:09:13:06
Unknown
You plant a burr oak tree here in Iowa and say, what is the land? Get more cool. How long do you got? You know, whereas if you, if you plant, you know, a lead plant plug in your landscaping, you might only have like two answers, you know, but at least there's answers there for what the land's getting by.
01:09:13:06 - 01:09:35:01
Unknown
You doing that, you know, and. Oh, man, that's interesting. How long can you make that list with every decision, like a monoculture of switchgrass. Better than a monoculture of miscanthus. But I would argue not a very long list. One answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get cover. Yeah, yeah. There's this there's definitely tiers of, of how beneficial something is and.
01:09:35:15 - 01:09:56:13
Unknown
And the services it provides for an ecosystem. But you know I was, I was at, I find myself doing this all the time like I was up in your Knoxville in Clinton, Tennessee, a couple days ago looking at a planning that round stone had done on a, on a park, you know, just surrounded by trails and just solid butterfly weed.
01:09:56:13 - 01:10:18:13
Unknown
Solid, I mean, just burger and horsemen and and downy sunflowers and looks incredible like, looks really, really good. Like maybe one of the best wildlife plantings or wildflower plantings I've ever seen. And I also found myself like, well, here's what you could add. Like I'm like, I'm like, I'm already like, this is the best one I've ever seen.
01:10:18:13 - 01:10:41:01
Unknown
But I'm also trying to figure out how can we make it better. And I don't know, like, I always find myself doing that. Then I'm like, well, I hope I'm not offending this landowner, but like, well, you should actually be doing this too. Like, it's not that. It's just like I'm always trying to, like, how can we just continue to do better and make, like, a ten out of 10 or 11 out of ten, like, and you can absolutely do that.
01:10:41:01 - 01:10:57:19
Unknown
Like when you've got a species at 25, you got a 25 species mix. I think it'd be cool to go in later on with some plugs and, like, add in some clumps of, like, wild white indigo over here or, like, do a little, do a little patch of, you know, you know, Queen of the Prairie or whatever over here.
01:10:57:19 - 01:11:14:23
Unknown
Like there's, there's a bunch of I mean, there's a bunch of ways that you can, like, improve upon, you know, something that you've already made that's really great. And if you had a prairie like that, could you add, can you just, you know, early in the season before everything's up, you could just add in plugs and water for a little bit and.
01:11:15:01 - 01:11:38:04
Unknown
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, even if you have to go in and like peel off a little section just like stomp out the competition for a while, and then plant those plugs. Yeah. You can absolutely, absolutely do that. I've done that to most of my property. I mean, mine was, my three acre pasture was it was a cow pasture.
01:11:38:04 - 01:12:01:07
Unknown
And I've slowly been burning it and getting rid of a lot of the invasive, and now it's like mostly native grasses and meadow beauties and blue eyed grass and sage and, like, kind of like, not low quality, but things that kid, these aren't your, like, old growth prairie species that are these are like your short lived things that come back to the landscape really easy.
01:12:01:09 - 01:12:37:00
Unknown
And so now it's that. But I've gone in and added plugs of stuff over the years that have now spread like, man, I got I playing a rattlesnake Masters plugs wild. What Indigo. Different. Rebecca's Joe Pi weeds, gamma grass, blue stars. And like all of those milkweeds all of those are spreading. They, it's not just all of those have turned into not just one plug in the ground.
01:12:37:02 - 01:12:59:08
Unknown
They've grown and they've dropped seeds and have, like, reproduced. Yeah. And, and so it's like a way slower way of, of, planting up, prairie, but like, you know, I could have gone around stone and, and sprayed the whole thing and planted it around still mix and, and if it had enough invasives out there, that's what I would have done.
01:13:00:11 - 01:13:29:14
Unknown
But I saw, like, a glimmer of hope in the end. Like, I'm glad I did, because there's my pasture has, Tennessee yellow grass, which is federally endangered. It has Rebecca Lustrous, which is only like three populations in Alabama. Wow. And so, you know, it's one of those things where on your property find the lowest quality site, and that's maybe that's the site you make better make the make the best of your property better.
01:13:29:15 - 01:13:55:01
Unknown
Also make the lowest the worst of your property better. And, and and so. Oh, man, I just went in and added plugs and let things kind of spread around on their own. And it's all locally go top stuff that I've just collected off roadsides. But, you know, at my mom's place, her pasture is a hayfield, and it's got every invasive in the county on it because these hay farmers have just moved them around every field.
01:13:55:14 - 01:14:19:21
Unknown
Perilla mint and Johnson grass and hay and Dallas grass and, and every other type of invasive grass you can imagine and so on hers, there's no there's no chance. I mean, there's some good stuff in the seed banks on the edges. I mean, blue curls and different, Saint John's warts. And there's some good stuff on the edges, but in the middle of this hayfield is just just garbage.
01:14:19:21 - 01:14:41:04
Unknown
And it would. That's what I did to my pasture would be an option on hers. So we're we'll we'll be spraying the entire thing and killing it off and going in and drilling, natives. And which will be nice, because, your results are going to be a lot faster than mine. It's I've been working on mine for seven years, and it's not even close to where I want it, but wow wow, wow.
01:14:41:05 - 01:14:59:11
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, it's not a quick fix. I know some people, they they kind of like. Oh, when I tell them it won't come up for two years, you know. Yeah. So something I'm, I'm, I'm going to try out. You mentioned with the plugs Kyle I have a about a, Jared think here. I think it's a, yeah.
01:14:59:11 - 01:15:24:15
Unknown
5000 square foot prairie that I've done no chemical application to. I just start tarping a part of my yard and with the intention of trying to avoid, using chemical just to serve as a good example to people who are, who are, you know, committed to to doing so. But I've found that, you know, now that I got, I have a couple years in like there's these like Dutch white clover.
01:15:24:15 - 01:15:46:19
Unknown
I have a major problem with that right now. It's so tempting just to go in there with some guy and just kill it. But what I'm going to try and do is put like some, lead plant plugs, like in the middle of that clover, knowing that, you know, 5 or 6 years down the road, blood plant gets so big and and those bottom leaves.
01:15:47:01 - 01:16:17:19
Unknown
Yeah, I'm hoping it'll shade it out. And, and I think plugs can be a huge part of, of, having a successful, reconstructed prairie. Yeah. So I think that's a great point you make. I did a lot of that early on. I, I took a, I had a plug of blazing star of, like, scale blazing star, and I, I use these, like, container plugs or, like, ten inch plugs, and I just drill them into the ground.
01:16:17:19 - 01:16:36:06
Unknown
And, so I was out in this planning, and I drilled it into the ground and, planted this plug, and I came back like two months later, something had pulled the plug out of the ground. It was laying on top of the ground on its side. And, the plant just rooted and grew. Wow. I was like, what are those?
01:16:36:06 - 01:16:59:15
Unknown
It's crazy how tough some of those, grass and species are, but yeah, that's cool that that work like that, I know. And and the only other thing bad about plugs is if you got to do your problem, they they stiff them out, man. They stiff them out and they hammer them, on Allen's place in Tennessee, I traded him, my wife wanted chickens.
01:16:59:15 - 01:17:23:06
Unknown
We traded a bunch of chickens for a bunch of native plugs at one time, and, and he put the took those plugs to Tennessee and planted them on his farm. And, the deer eight is rattlesnake master. Well, I mean, which is like that would be the last one. I would think that. Yeah, but they ate the rattlesnake master, which is insane to me, but they they ate it all.
01:17:23:06 - 01:17:49:00
Unknown
So that is what this is. He said. So this is it's listed as a species that deer avoid to. Yeah. That's so deer eat anything. So is Indian. So it was pink root like Indian pink root. Okay. What is it is, is is shrinking. Shrinking. Maybe I can't really, I realize it's that species they, they, they eat the mass out of.
01:17:49:01 - 01:18:15:12
Unknown
It's like they say that it's deer resistant and the deer will eat it. Every single one of my places browsed right. Oh. So. Wow. Oh, dear. Will literally do anything. So do you. Yeah. Because people call about a, a deer resistant mix and specifically, I guess, can I I've talked about just using scent. Right. They don't like the strong scent, like the mints and stuff like that.
01:18:15:12 - 01:18:38:11
Unknown
But, they seem to just like life. So if you've got a bunch of life and it's surrounded by cornfields that they. It might not be that resistant, it might actually attractive. So I kind of I don't know. Yeah. That's where we need to plug the, the Hoxie wooden fence. Yeah. For they're resistant. They're resistant. Native plantings.
01:18:38:13 - 01:18:41:11
Unknown
Yeah.
01:18:41:13 - 01:19:04:11
Unknown
That's. Oh, man. That's so funny, man. Kyle I've got, like, 20 more things that, I need to ask you. So we'll do some time. Yeah, I'd be happy to go back on. Oh, absolutely. Maybe, this, winter, man, I'm, like, wide open, like, so I can. Yeah, that's the that's the last farmer, like, oh, don't worry, I'll get to it this winter.
01:19:04:11 - 01:19:21:10
Unknown
And then they're like, booked all winter. Yeah. Then I'm booked all winter. It's like, it's like, the what loggers do is like two weeks to death. They're like, hey, when are you going to move our place? It'll be about two weeks. Just talking about, like, this morning. The two weeks comes around. It's. Oh, it'll be two weeks.
01:19:21:12 - 01:19:44:10
Unknown
They just two weeks to death. And that's probably what I've done to y'all. But, man, I going know the spring. It's been. We totally got it. And I wanted to. And I also wanted to be, I got to like, man, I get drained pretty easy, like, just mentally and just driving and traveling does it, but just, working on these projects does it as well.
01:19:44:10 - 01:20:08:09
Unknown
And, Yeah, I didn't I didn't want to. I didn't want to come on here and record it when I wasn't at full capacity. So we we appreciate we appreciate you working this into your schedule, man. You've been so awesome. This has been fantastic, man. We didn't even get to the beginning of the podcast. Yeah, yeah, I still got my question, but I'm saving it for next time because it's a good it's a it's a good lead and I can I can try to answer it fast if you want me to.
01:20:08:10 - 01:20:26:14
Unknown
No, no we got a better we got a better one. It would be a long one. That would be kind of introspective and historic and everything else. So I can tell you what it was going to be after we, after we, we leave our audience hanging for a year. Right. Well, you know, here's what I'm here's what I'm here.
01:20:26:14 - 01:20:48:04
Unknown
And, Kyle lives in Alabama, and he said he is available this winter. Nicholas, I don't know if it's in the budget, buddy, but Alabama in the winter doesn't sound half bad. So, you know, I come down. I used to go to Alabama. I mean, for like five years. I went once or twice a year, and then all my friends moved, or I had a friend in Coleman, and then he moved to Birmingham.
01:20:48:04 - 01:21:05:07
Unknown
And then I had a friend in, Atmore. The friend in Atmore moved, Norway, which is the opposite. He hates the snow. He, like, called me like he got married to a girl from out there, and he, like, call me all the time. Just, like, complain about the snow and then, and then my other friend moved back to California.
01:21:05:07 - 01:21:27:17
Unknown
But Alabama, it's pretty awesome place. Yeah, I really like it. Like 15 minutes from Coleman, but, Oh, yeah. Alabama is awful. Do not move here. Yeah. Coleman Coleman is the most racist town. Yeah, I can edit that out, but they it. Yeah, that's what I tell everybody. And I'm not that far fetched either, so.
01:21:27:23 - 01:21:51:12
Unknown
Oh, Alabama is horrible. Don't come here. We're full. We're at full capacity with awful people. It's only the worst people that mispronounce a baker's. Yeah, that's why I went. Visited all the time. Yeah. Dude, that's so man. All right, so any question, if you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the world, what would you change?
01:21:51:12 - 01:22:05:01
Unknown
It doesn't have to be related to prayer. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. Oh, gosh. That's like too much power that I don't I never want to have,
01:22:05:03 - 01:22:43:23
Unknown
Oh, man. Yeah. This is probably not a good one. I could think of 20 that are better than this, but personally, I would like, I don't know, I just, I would, I would like to see I would like to see Alabama 250 years ago. 300 years ago. That would that would be play the that's probably the poorest use of that, that that gift like I would like to see Alabama 250 years ago, 300 years ago would you know, with bison and and I'll know how long it's been since prairie chicken were here.
01:22:43:23 - 01:23:05:09
Unknown
But we had prairie chicken at some point because they found bones and caves on the Tennessee River. But I would just love to see what it was like before it's all gone. And, because that's like, the biggest thing is, like, there is species that I feel like would have been here, like in the molten valley that I know or like on the Cumberland Plateau, like echinacea.
01:23:05:17 - 01:23:21:13
Unknown
But there's like, I found no examples of it in the whole valley, but I'm like, it had to be here, but it's just we've just probably farmed it to death. Like, it's just, it's probably you should probably just gone and used to be here, so, I don't know. There's a lot of answers I could answer for myself.
01:23:21:20 - 01:23:46:01
Unknown
Seeing what this place looked like, 300 years ago. So, it's not a bad answer at all. And I think it, I think there is some hubris, and I carry it to think like something that I know could fix this world, right? Instead of Kyle's. Just like, I just want my little part to be better, you know?
01:23:46:01 - 01:24:09:01
Unknown
My my little world here. I'm just doing my. And that is awesome. I think it speaks very, very highly of you. And is part of the reason you do make a huge influence in the world around you. And we really, really, really appreciate it. Well, I used to be in Alabama jealous of you guys out in the Midwest because y'all had felt like y'all had native plant like seed producers and.
01:24:09:03 - 01:24:23:15
Unknown
Oh, yeah, but like, books on native plants. And, like, if every time you looked up anything on native plants, it was, like, all from the Midwest. And, yeah. And I was like, there's nobody in Alabama doing it. Yeah. And so I just like, you got it figured it figured it out on my own for the most part.
01:24:23:15 - 01:24:46:02
Unknown
So yeah, we appreciate it. I think everybody I think everybody should, you know, do that for their, their region and the plant communities that exist there. It's worth worth the time and effort to figure out how to best manage your area and what natives existed there. We need more of that at a local skill thing. Yeah, absolutely.
01:24:46:08 - 01:25:06:09
Unknown
So that's real. Well, we really appreciate your time, Kyle. For anyone listening, don't forget that we are sponsored by Hawks native seeds. Dad pays all the bills. He's paying Kent Nye right now to, interview, a hero and a friend. So thank you, dad, for doing that. If you guys are looking for native seed in the Midwest.
01:25:06:10 - 01:25:30:08
Unknown
Hoxie native seeds, dot com native pasture, backyard prairies, CRP, all the stuff. But we appreciate it. Kyle, thank you so much. You've inspired so many people. Native habitat project. That's what it is, right? Native habitat project on Instagram TikTok. He's he's big deal. He's very funny on there and he's very informative. It's not to be overlooked. If you only follow 100 people, he should be one of them.
01:25:31:03 - 01:25:46:09
Unknown
And we had a great time for now. Thanks for joining. And don't forget, just like Kyle is making a huge difference, in a very thoughtful way, consider what happens one mind at a time.

Hoksey Native Seeds

Ep. 256 Forgotten Prairie Gems and How To Save Them with Kyle Lybarger

Podcast Transcript

Ep. 257 (Coffee Time) Bush Honeysuckle and How to Bring Back the Prairie Like It Was In 1491

Ep. 255 (Coffee Time) The Illinois Dust Storm, CRP Enrollment, and Public Land Sales