Ep. 325 (Coffee Time) Which Apps Are Good For Us and Secretary Burgum Pulls Grazing Permits
This week on The Prairie Farm Podcast we discuss which of the best 10 apps in the world are actually good for us, then Kent and Nicolas argue about BLM ground and the rights that American Prairie (the organization) has to grazing that ground. Secretary Burgum pulled the grazing rights away from the American Prairie for their bison. Was this justified? Who gets to decide.
We dive into these things and more on this episode.
Check out this episode of the Prairie Farm Podcast to find out more!
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Nicolas (00:00.056)
We're going to play a little game, ladies and gentlemen. And I'm calling this game.
Nicolas (00:10.572)
I don't know. GBAps, good, bad apps. GBAps, that's the name of this game. Came up with that. Copyright. Or yeah, copyright. This is according to three different websites that I found that they're very in sync with the top 10 apps ever downloaded. And this is, guess, across the world. The US is a little, the list varies a little bit, but this is across the world. Most downloaded apps, and you're going to tell me,
net negative or net positive on the world. All right.
Like, is the world better?
Is the world better because obviously every single app has pros or most have pros, know, apps, pros and cons on them, right? So it's easy to make arguments. You can pick just the pros or just the cons, but let's, let's think about it. Net negative net positive. Number one, tick tock, not the number one in the U S but number one in the world and you got to include China in there. Negative.
I say net negative.
Riley (01:11.182)
I'd agree.
I agree because TikTok is not a like the the pros of like social media or the social part, right? And this is just media. TikTok is not social media.
Well, there's there's yeah, good point. There's good information, I'm sure. Tons of good information on on TikTok, but it's a highly addictive, should we say substance?
There's good food for you at Walmart, but that's not what people buy.
Well, that's probably, you know, that might not be entirely fair, but you make a great point. Like there's a huge part. And plus what thing that is highly addictive is actually good for you. I think it's a very short list. I've heard people who get addicted to running, you know, the runner's high or whatever. And it's like, they literally are Jones. you know, if they aren't out there running, but even still,
Kent (02:09.494)
show me someone who's addicted to personal exercise and I'll show you a person who's got a rocky set of relationships in their life. That's a hot take, I know, but.
Well, no, Ken and I have talked about this. It's not about how much you work out. It's about how much of your workout is publicized.
Well, and is spent away from, you know, and the same thing could be, I love hunting, same could be true for bow hunting, you you're spending a lot of time away from your loved ones.
Yeah, that's fair.
Nicolas (02:37.134)
Alright, so we got a lot of somewhat repeats. Instagram.
I'd say the same as as tick-tock
Okay.
I'd argue it's somewhere closer to a net positive because there's still with with stuff like Instagram you can kind of curate what you're getting. TikTok is just like given.
And I really like on Instagram, the meta, something I really like about meta that they're trying to do is they're trying to keep their social media apps social. They're not trying to compete with YouTube and TikTok that just feed you garbage or whatever, feed you good, whatever, but they're feeding you. Instagram and Facebook, they're trying to be like, hey, you curate a little bit more, a little bit more, not fully. mean, Facebook, I,
Kent (02:56.539)
I really don't know TikTok cause I don't f***ing have it.
Nicolas (03:22.19)
Dude, I was a freshman, no, was a sophomore in high school and a classmate of mine made a Facebook post. I'm closing down my Facebook because if you go into the settings, blah, blah, you can pick to only see your friend stuff. And he said the fact that Facebook defaults to showing you what they want you to see. And I remember thinking, that's stupid. But now like that dude way ahead of, 15 years ahead of his time. mean, it was unbelievable. I would go net negative, but I would say it is almost a neutral except the effect it has on young women.
that it is like detrimental specifically.
I still I still I still say net negative simply because of the addiction factor. That's fair people are addicted to it Same really
Facebook.
I feel like the addiction isn't near the level on Facebook.
Kent (04:08.791)
I'm addicted to marketplace. I look for farm equipment several times a day.
Okay, all right, I think it's a net positive
falling somewhere in the middle because I see the point, then I also get the Facebook marketplace share listings that Kent sends me at like 530 in the morning. It's like a tractor at 530 in the morning. like, ooh, it's its hooks in them.
The benefit it is given to our community in Knoxville and then vice versa to Danielle and I's coffee shop, not by spamming with ads, but by just commenting in community pages. And like people call us, Hey, can we rent your space? heard it's up for rent. Where did they find that out? They literally go on these community pages and there's millions of examples. I say net positive because there's still a huge part of it is still community warranted even marketplace.
A thing that I often have noticed is when you have people that quit Facebook or quit social media, I find I talk to them less because a part of...
Nicolas (05:12.142)
he does not have a relationship outside of it
Part of a part of friendship now is being able to like share funny reels and yeah And if a person is not on there, you just like you don't connect to them as much
It's as much a part of our culture as like the Super Bowl at this point. Right. You know what mean? How many people participate in
So that part I can see as being a positive, but overall I still think it's just so addictive and it keeps people from doing other things they really should be doing.
That's fair. The number four, this shocked me, WhatsApp.
Kent (05:41.102)
I used WhatsApp for a short time when I was a part of a group chat for preparing for a bear hunt and that was like the easiest way for everybody to, because people had different, know, didn't have, everyone didn't have an iMessage or whatever I guess. And it was okay. I failed to see the advantage, but it may have changed since.
I last used it but...
Riley?
I think there's no measurable change, you know, like I don't, I don't think it provides us. I'd say it's closer to a negative. I mean, you can just text already. I don't use WhatsApp. don't understand.
Yeah, I
Kent (06:25.214)
So you're saying that the resources that are needed to run are not worthy of giving it a boost over what
Yeah, I see.
Riley (06:33.226)
In my mind it's a redundancy.
I think it's a net positive because, now today less so, but before Facebook Messenger, it was how you connected with people overseas. Like that was the way that. That's kind of part of its thing. Well Signal for sure is kind of the like encrypted.
it more encrypted too or something like that.
Kent (06:50.894)
Yeah, would say either net neutral or net net positive simply because it's competition for iMessage or other messaging apps. They gotta keep their game up.
Yep, yep. So there's telegram. I don't even know telegram. I was going to skip it. OK, zoom.
Um, whatever happened to skype was, I was just having this conversation last night with my friend, no Gandhi. When I first started my podcast back in 2020, I use Skype and I was like one of the last people to still be using it. Cause zoom got huge for whatever reason during the pandemic and Skype cost a subscription fee of two 99 a month. You know what zoom was back then? It was 30 bucks a month. Yeah.
I know.
Nicolas (07:32.994)
But I think they something about unlimited teams. They had better infrastructure for teams.
Maybe I saw no advantage. Plus with Skype, you could call regular phones. you couldn't. I was aware of. I didn't know what you could do that with Zoom. So I've never understood the craze over Zoom. And I think Google Meets is just as good. And it's free. And I think now other web chatting services are even better. So to me, it's like a, I know. I see no advantage. I don't know that it's a negative, but I'll go to.
think it advanced it. I'm sure there were technologies, small differences to us now, but like we're big deals that zoom helped innovate on because they were a big pusher. Have you seen Brett? know, Brendan Lee Mulligan, Brendan Lee Mulligan, he's from, what is it? College humor? Is that what it is? And he does the series of like interviews with the CEO. And one of them is Oreo where he goes, he's talking to the marketing team and they're all like, what do we want to do next? He's like, what do you
What do mean Oreos in every aisle everywhere find one person on earth that doesn't know what an Oreo is He's like just go home. He goes. I'm not gonna narc on you if you just cash your paycheck we won and then And then he does one about about Skype. He's a CEO of Skype and he goes Why did we do wrong? Crying about it. It's like you literally use this as a verb the only other thing in the world that is that is
Skype on zoom later.
Nicolas (09:00.458)
Yeah. I know. All right, all right. Snapchat.
There again, I never used Snapchat.
So I don't really feel super qualified to say. I know a lot of people have had a lot of good interaction with friends, kind of almost like the effect of Facebook that I was talking about earlier. But people also were very addicted to it back when, back 2018, 2019, 2020.
Young kids still, it's like they're preferred. You ask people, hey, how'd you meet? we snapped each other.
I'll go net negative for the reasons I did for the other social medias.
Riley (09:38.482)
I'd say it's somewhere close to the middle just because you could argue all these things, you know, take away from our real-world responsibilities, but in the same hand, they keep us in contact with friends, family, So I can see the cost benefit on it.
This one is definitely almost entirely communication.
Kent (10:03.36)
lot of students have ruined their life with Snapchat. will, do you remember that?
You know why Snapchat was started? I think he was at Stanford. It was a guy goes, I wish I could send an explicit picture of myself to this girl and it not be out in the world. It just disappeared. So I'm going net negative. That was literally why it was started. I'm going net negative. And I've got a friend named Chris and he talks a lot about, he's like, yeah, I understand like social media keeps us connected. Not that many people should have access to me. You move away, I love you.
I didn't have that,
Nicolas (10:35.214)
you lose some access to me. That's like part of the world and it should be part of the world. Whether you agree with him or not, his argument's pretty good, Spotify.
I would say net positive. It's I think podcasts have been the greatest thing to happen to Educating people. Yeah. Now, of course, there's tons of false information. I think rarely intentionally So just not well researched enough. There's I'm gonna I have a correction to make against myself. I lost a bet guy So there's there's times when there's times when you know, there is false information on
yeah
Kent (11:14.41)
on podcasts, but think overall more people know more things because of podcasts. I think Spotify has really pushed Apple to still be a good product and has raised the overall market of podcast streaming services out there. And then of course you have the music side as well, which I don't use Spotify for.
What about the negative part that artists get paid less?
on Spotify they do or?
yeah, they get paid hard the edge. She I remember seeing something like 2019 Ed Sheeran was the most downloaded like in the world and he made enough to buy a Camry, you know like 30 or 40 thousand dollars. really? Yeah That seems like a decent for for anybody, but you got to remember he's getting a thousand times more
didn't know that.
Kent (12:04.23)
How do they work that out with their licensing deals? don't know.
I'm sure when you're an artist and you're uploading and you're new, you're like, you know, it just got to get exposure. Yeah. But then all you have left is.
We were sitting here complaining that we have no money because people are buying our seed at too low of a price. Then at some point it's kind on us to just be like, you can't have our seed for that
Yeah, yeah, they'd have to have an organized strike of some sort and it would it would take someone at like a Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift level of influence to get something like that started
They already have the market share. Like if you want your music to be listened to, where do people go? Everybody's already got it on their phone, you know.
Nicolas (12:44.75)
I'm embarrassed to say I use Amazon music.
i use i use apple music and i think i'm a dinosaur
Yeah, that's a dinosaur thing to do. All that being said, do think Spotify is a net positive. But what about you,
I use Spotify, so I'm I'm biased. I think it's a net positive to a degree Like Ken said the podcasts I listened to a ton of podcasts on there And it's got a really good recommendation stream to for pods. Mm-hmm. You can find a lot of stuff
Alright, here's the last one.
Kent (13:17.41)
It's a way better search podcast search than Apple podcast.
Well, yeah, they started off before they had any idea what was going to happen. No, that was Pandora. Pandora kind of they spent millions and millions of dollars just paying artists to sit down and define songs and genres so that they could get the.
That's way more SEO friendly.
All right, last one. And then we got to start the actual podcast. Amazon. Uber is technically number nine and then goes Amazon, but I just want to do Amazon.
That's an interesting one. One of my beefs with companies like Amazon is, and honestly any kind of e-commerce, which includes us here at Hoxie, right? Is you depend on the taxpayer for your products getting to your consumer.
Nicolas (14:10.444)
Yeah, road infrastructure and stuff.
Yes, exactly. US Postal Service. Now you pay for shipping and handling, of course, but the
I don't know that the taxpayer wins out necessarily when it comes to the strain on the infrastructure. there's no doubt about it that if those systems weren't in place, e-commerce giants would not be what they are today if those publicly funded resources weren't in place. And so that to me is a big part of the
Of the drawback, however, and then the other obvious part is just consumerism. It has taken whatever materialistic, consumeristic, addicted to buying new things to fill a hole in our internal world, as you would say, Nicholas. It has strapped a rocket to that part of the fallen part of human nature and has
has magnified it an infinite amount to the point where it's still exponentially growing. mean, Luke Fritch once told me, he had heard from somebody who worked for a shipping company that their job was to run rural routes, and the company lost money sending that person out to work every day, but they just needed to keep that corner of the market of like.
Kent (15:53.464)
We're always available for whatever you want to buy. so that part of it has been a big negative. That being said, tons and tons of jobs have been created for people across the country working at these warehouses. They probably though have also destroyed jobs as far as how often do people go into a small main street shop, look at the item and then quick Google it up.
Nicolas (16:23.458)
between going to hang out and getting coffee as a culture versus running through the drive.
Right. Yeah. I'm kind of talking myself out of my net positive here. I'm
I've one big aspect I think you'll like, but Riley.
Yeah, I think I'm going to go with a negative actually now that I'm talking myself through it.
I think it's a positive for the impulsive side of us that leans on convenience, but it's a negative on obviously Main Street economies and negative on conscious consumption. know, you can just at the tap of a thumb, instead of going to a place and deciding, hey, do I need a new vacuum cleaner? It's like, well, I can buy a vacuum cleaner and it goes, if you don't order it in the next
Kent (16:58.85)
Good way to describe it.
Riley (17:11.758)
20 minutes it's going to be another day later. Your floors are going to be that much dirtier.
or running the inloader outside. I don't know if you guys can hear that. Alex is running around getting things going. Um, I think that, uh,
Nicolas (17:31.724)
I think it's a net.
I think it's a net positive. I think it's basically a net neutral for other things. But here's one ginormous.
I want to hear because I can be I I don't feel super comfortable with my net negative was I acknowledge There's a lot of good things
Everything you're saying is true. And I actually think we're on the cusp of there probably being some legal or some law passed about a new tax that of this company running, you know, on our infrastructure. But here's where here's where I think it is Wal-Mart's one and only competitor in rural and rural places and wealthy places on the East and West Coast. You got all these other options that literally there's something in business called
man, it's a power. It's considered a power. It's the law of counter positioning acquired talks about counter. You can make tons of money literally saying I am not that other company. Right. So if I sell buckets, I sell all these yellow buckets. Yeah. Literally, if you sell all these yellow buckets and then another person comes in, they would make a ton of money saying, hey, I just sell white buckets. They're just different. You know, and.
Nicolas (18:44.694)
So on the East and West coast, have that all the time. Hey, we're not Walmart. It's basically what Target is. Hey, we're not Walmart, right? Pajamas are not allowed here. You can't shop at your pajamas here. Target. Well, Amazon keeps Walmart's prices lower in rural United States because Walmart, as Amazon was coming on the scene, Walmart was just finishing up solidifying their monopoly in all these small towns. And they now have to compete with Amazon.
You know, point to that is when I was a young consumeristic lad, I remember my family went on vacation out west and I was like in ninth grade or something. And we drove across the Sandhills. It the first time I ever saw the Sandhills of Nebraska, one my most favorite places in the world now. And I remember thinking to myself as we were driving through just mile after mile of just country, you know what I mean? And I was like, where?
do these people get stuff? Like you need a new pair of shoes? How do you get it? Well, Amazon now gets new shoes to those people. so in that regard, certainly materialism and consumerism also comes in the mail, but also necessities for people that once lived far from a shopping center.
Well, Seattle a few years ago, they experimented with it. It's in Austin, Texas now. Same day drop off that you order, you know, just, just crazy stuff. Um, uh, but something that Amazon is doing is they have all the data on what are the most bought things. They didn't have to make any inventory. They didn't have to do anything. They said, what are the thousand most bought things? And then they said to all those people who are selling thousands or millions of staplers or pens or HD cart, you know, dog food, whatever Amazon went, well, we know that our customer base,
buys billions of dollars of these things every year, we'll just get our own. It's called Amazon Essentials, ladies and gentlemen. I know you've seen that. That is literally what they did. They said, well, we have all the information. and by the way, we can put this at the top of the search every time. So when you're buying Amazon Essentials, just keep that in mind. I'm not saying that it's a terrible thing and that they shouldn't do that. I'm just saying keep that in mind.
Nicolas (20:58.734)
There are no Amazon Essentials. I'd be happy to work a deal with Amazon if they want to do Amazon Essentials for native seed, because they ain't going to grow it. I'd be happy to sell Amazon. That's a joke. That was a joke. We like what we do around here. All right. We should actually get started. Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast. Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio with your favorite co-host, Kent Boucher.
Good morning, good afternoon, whatever time of day it is. Yeah, it's cold o'clock.
It's cold. Whatever time it is, it's cold. And, and I'd like to point out that they're wearing many layers. I'm just wearing a sweater. I just, don't know what that says about our character.
Yeah, mine even has the battery power going on to keep me warm. It's my new Christmas gift.
That was a whole ordeal because he got he had to get a different size from Tyson so he came back and he was so excited and he opens the box and Huxley They still have like the Ernie tag on it He was like stressed about it all morning and it was just all he to do was go back to Tyson's layer that yeah Principle All right and co-host to the co-host Riley Rosendahl
Kent (21:49.302)
Stupid security tag on there.
Kent (21:58.862)
but I already went once. Yes, it was so annoying.
Riley (22:07.202)
five o'clock somewhere but if that was the case my toes would not be so cold
Would you be at home having your feet in a nice warm foot bath?
I don't know. Have like one of those $20 foot bath heads.
Hey, if you are ever like, I don't know what to get my mom for Mother's Day.
Epsom salt.
Riley (22:25.758)
EBSOMESAU-
Just get her one those little foot baths. I see. It's a great gift. It's outside the box a little bit. It's something that no one's going to just go buy themselves a foot bath.
I, my mom says that the most pain she's ever seen my dad and keep in mind, she has seen him fall off of something and break his hand, not go to the doctor, fall off of a ladder and break his back and not go to the doctor. The most pain she had ever seen my dad. And do you know what story I'm to tell? Yeah. Yeah. So he burned his feet really bad in this field. He was trying to stomp out a fire. He burned his feet real bad. And my grandma was like, no,
the burned feet.
Nicolas (23:02.284)
Let me help you out. This is my mom's mom, not his mom. Let me, let me help you out with that. And she put Epson salt in the bath and he was in it for about a half second jumped out and started howling. And mom said he was rolling around on the bed, just howling and swearing. man. Terrible. All right. Who's got her topic today?
sting to it. Yeah.
Kent (23:25.515)
Both Riley and I do kind of
Alright, alright.
brought a subsection of the same kind of
Yeah, it's about grazing on, I guess we'll just generally say public land. Yeah. Riley will kind of, he's got the more broader part of the conversation than we'll hone in on a specific example. So take it away, Riley.
I'm bringing an article that was actually from Arizona State University the article is titled Overlooked decline in grazing livestock brings risks and opportunities so kind of an open-ended title there, but this article is kind of focusing on The fact that in certain parts of the world livestock populations have actually shrunk over time and in grazing it's commonly
Riley (24:17.538)
we're commonly talking about overgrazing because that's where a lot of damage happens and you'll see a lot of photos of like desertification in places like Africa out in the American West things like that that catch a lot of attention. But on the flip side, this article is kind of highlighting how there are disadvantages to overgrazing. There's also potential disadvantages for undergrazing. it's kind of
I know Dr. yeah, Dr. Pat Kaiser. He talked about that, but his I think are different than what you're about to bring up. But he was basically like, if you under graze, they'll just select certain things over and over again and destroy those plants from being in the ecosystem. And
They aren't forced to expand their power.
Yep, exactly, exactly. Even if you rotationally graze, you know, to a hyper extent. Yeah.
From his point of view, I saw it more as like if you're trying to get an even grazing on a certain area or like a certain pasture, then you needed to be selective with your timing. Yeah.
Nicolas (25:23.144)
And he said in the interview he said what he called it a cardinal sin or something. He's heresy He's like and I know I'm speaking heresy here And then I posted that thing online and by golly people did think he was I mean they can't have her for it, but man, all right so
Well, so the the article is basically saying it's not just as simple as we're overgrazing our our rangelands let's just stop grazing them and everything will be just fine and I think that messaging within conservation is is getting Adopted more used more which is it's you know conservation just isn't
as simple as just let it all go and we'll see how it works out. I know someone right now who's just bought some land and they want to, it was formerly a row crop land, as last year, as recent as last year. And they are wanting to convert it into perennial cover prairie and
You know, I'm kind of helping them navigate the process to make sure that they can get you know Cost share for the seed through you know, like either equip preferably CRP because it should qualify Once they jump through the land transfer hoops and CRP provides cost share benefits, but then it also you know that yearly stipend or lease payment for having it in
know, non-productive acres now. And in doing so, it's kind of awkward with the timing. And he has repeated, I just don't want it to go fallow for a year, because then I'm going to get all these weeds that get out of control that I don't want to have to be fighting. And I totally understand that. And that would be a good example of when you just back away and leave something alone, it doesn't necessarily give a better outcome, right?
Kent (27:36.076)
If that field filled up with a bunch of remnant prairie species, sure, yeah, great. But that doesn't happen here in Iowa anymore because everything go way back when we talk about what happened to the prairie is when the soil was turned and the soil column was totally destroyed. Then that's where we lost the chance of having a remnant seed bank reestablish. And since then, so many noxious weed species have been introduced to the ecosystem around here. And let's say now by...
letting that ground go fallow and it turns into a bunch of velvet leaf and giant foxtail and Canada thistle and stuff, you know, some really nasty stuff, is it really a better situation than when it was just row cropped? And the answer would be hard to say.
I totally think it would be better than if it was just row crop because that diversity alone
Yes, how, but that diverse things can live there and maybe you can even argue that it's holding soil in place better. however, if it's becoming the cesspool of noxious weeds that then are jumping across the road into a nice prairie. And now that nice prairie is disrupted with, Canada thistle cause we know Canada thistle will persist in that prayer prairie areas. It's, it's causing damage to
the surrounding ecosystem. so I don't think a net positive is necessarily always the case in that situation. so just, and the reason I'm hammering this out a little bit is because I have seen this complaint from conservation-based groups dogging on grazing on public lands and basically this idea of just take them off, take the animals off, let it go. I don't know that you would automatically get the response that you want.
Nicolas (29:28.398)
You gotta have grazing on prairie. You want hundred year old prairie? You gotta
Which takes Riley to another point that mentions some of the findings in other areas where grazing stock has been dramatically reduced, some of the downstream effects of that.
Yeah, so.
And what do you mean reduced just that because there's less animals on the landscape because beef is so high right now
Well, just through time, this article actually lays out...
Riley (29:52.654)
So in the article they actually cited that livestock populations have shrunk 12 % over the past 25 years in regions of the world's cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats. So 12 % decrease in an area that held 42 % of these world's animals. The largest decrease was in Europe, North America, Australia and parts of Africa and Asia.
That's like most of the world.
Yeah, isn't that interesting?
The steepest declines are in Eastern Europe where populations of livestock fell by 37%.
That's crazy.
Nicolas (30:32.568)
or what did, they have any indication as to why that is in Eastern Europe?
they didn't cite a specific.
It didn't. think it did call out that a lot of the world's wealthiest nations have had a decline in the number of grazing animals. But think of what the world's human population has done over that time. You know, it's I think it doesn't trace back those declines to 1999. I'm not mistaken. So that's a nice night. Yeah, 1999. I remember we were around six billion people. And so we have drastically. Well, they they talk about that now the average animal
I wonder if we're eating more garbage.
Kent (31:09.198)
produces 72 % more, we'll just call it product, right? Because they've switched to feedlot models for finishing grazing cattle. And so then the question is, we've maintained pounds of beef production, maybe even expanded that, probably have expanded that, right? I can't do the quick math in my head.
to know for sure, I would, yeah, 72 % per animal decline though. And what was it overall? it 42? No, it was 42%. 12 % decline. Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah. So definitely increased the amount of beef produced. But yeah, is it a quality quantity sacrifice situation? Yeah. Those shoes, you got shoes easier, but they aren't handmade by the cobbler.
It's like Amazon. a lot more quantity, but dude, it's just, yeah.
Nicolas (32:07.278)
Yeah, and is that a net positive or net negative? I don't know, but the toys for sure. Net negative on just the absolute garbage that you buy.
toys these days. some of the negatives to seeing those animals pulled off the land, do you remember what the article said Riley?
Well, you've got woody encroachment is obviously a huge deal. And then on top of that, when you remove grazers from an ecosystem, think Pat Kaiser said this too, Dr. Kaiser said this, that animals open things up. And when you take grazers off of a landscape, it's easier for a dominant species like an noxious weed to actually close in a canopy.
whether it be a giant fox tail or a velvet leaf. If there's no competition and you've got a degraded landscape, so we've got a degraded area that's been overgrazed, you pull the livestock off of it thinking, okay, well, we can try and fix this, but all you do is pull stuff off. You're just giving a runway to your problematic plants.
Yeah. I also talked about fire risk, you know, because they're keeping the vegetation down. It's kind of like, you know, we've talked about this before. Let's say you have a deadline to burn your CRP and you just look at the forecast like wind, wind, wind, wind, wind. One of the things you can do in a pinch is you can mow the whole thing and then burn it. And then you'll just have these low crawling flames.
Kent (33:45.966)
It might still go pretty fast in the wind like we saw when we burned our buffalo grass last year. that would imagine if that buffalo grass was four feet tall when we burned it.
we know is not how Buffalo grass is.
Right. Yeah.
Boy, like, yeah, like our Indian grass, five foot tall Indian grass. Yeah, I totally understand.
vertical fuel. so, and so, when you have an area that's grazed heavily, then you have less risk of fire. Now the flip side of that is we know that prairies are supposed to bird and we're talking about prairies here. And so are humans going to now, I would say most conservationists who may be criticized grazing on public land, they'd be like, sure, let it burn. and they're okay with the risks that come with that. However,
Kent (34:39.886)
People who don't know three facts about Prairie and live around it, which is, mean, go over to Illinois, the quote unquote Prairie state, and I bet you if you just grabbed 100 people from Illinois and said, me three facts about, tell me three true facts about Prairie, I bet you you'd get less than 25 % of them that could.
just three plants. Yeah.
Right. so people who don't know that the prairie is a fragile, critically important ecosystem, they're not going to be okay with the increased fire risk around their houses and around their livestock and their way of life. And so if you pull animals off the landscape, you now increase that risk technically, and you may see more people.
saying, we gotta do something about developing this land. But you can only develop land to the point of whatever the market says its usability is. So that might be a false assumption.
just think more cattle on the landscape is better. More grazers.
Kent (35:59.042)
Well, to an extent. Yeah.
historically, you know, these, it's possible. And I understand that livestock, when I say this example, a lot of people are going to say, well, here's a, here's something that it was in my community that was destroyed by livestock. But the only reason we've gotten here is because sensitive species have had some sort of disturbance consistently, you know, to what degree you can argue, but a lot of these remnant species,
can rely on open canopies or on some disturbance. if something like Brome or something else sneaks in or it's unmanaged, that might be the end for that species.
True.
I someone to is way out of our pay grade or capability. You know how they make those like 3D videos of like dinosaur like what the earth would have been like 50 million years ago. I need someone to make one of those videos of exactly what would happen over the net or what the experts think would happen over the next hundred years on the landscape if humans blinked out in the Midwest. Right. Like is there an elk population anywhere that
Nicolas (37:11.734)
would come in and take it, because there's no bison. Bison aren't getting here, you know, but wolves would. Wolves would get here. You know, what animals would the whitetail thrive? You know, what would go on? What would the cornfields look like in eight years? Because you can study that. You can find something that was a cornfield, even if it was only two acres, that was a cornfield. And then 10 years ago, the farmers are I'm messing with that thing anymore. You know, those, they're not common, but they exist. Now, here's another one. Grazing, CRP. talking about this a long time. We got to have grazing on CRP.
Here is my petition to the people of the big house who can make these decisions. You wrap three people together that are somewhat neighbors with CRP and then cows can go from one field one year and kind of rotate year by year. And then they kind of, they're in kind of one contract together or like a, they each have their own contract and then they're bundled in a separate contract to be able to have grazing, haying, you know, and then those three.
Producers should also help each other burn each year when it comes time to being their turn to burn I think CRP people kind of banding together To or CRP landowners band together to have grazing on their on their landscape. I'm here for it
So you're saying it should be required that they graze it or it should be on
I definitely think it should be required to grade, even if just like once every five years out of your tenure.
Kent (38:33.132)
The one major pushback for that would be fencing.
Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.
But and if someone's cow, if and just have enough cows to meet that demand for for all the for the neighborhood CRP graze, you know, is there are there enough cows to go around? if you if a cow gets if a cow gets stuck in the mud, who's who's the bill for that one? You couldn't totally get rid of feedlots because there's not much graze in the in the wintertime. You know, I mean, the palatability of that, those CRP grasses. Plus, there are certain times of the year when prairie plants
totally get
Kent (39:08.844)
are suitable for grazing and are they all gonna get grazed in that one window of time before the palatability drops?
Native Hamilton outpost talks about bailing and hang and and you know and that could be part of the CRP cycle I mean there's millions of acres of CRP. I feel like we
I it might be aggressive to say it should be required. I think it should be allowed. Now obviously you're right to walk a fine line where people will see this and go, well, we're going to pay the farmer to put it in CRP and then we're going to let them graze it to the ground. And then he gets to sell the cow and he gets the CRP money. but there's, there's gotta be some middle ground between.
Probably right.
Kent (39:48.618)
And it's another way like Ted Cook talks about, paying for the resources we want. If we want clean water, if we want carbon sequestration, if we want soil retention, we gotta pitch in to some extent to have those things, because they do have an outsized effect on everybody's life. And if we had more animals on the landscape, which I think would probably become a result of that, because the market would drive it, right? If you're able to...
to make money on producing animals off of those acres, then you might see less row crop and more livestock grazing operations come back, especially in areas that have highly erodible slopes and things like that that get row cropped.
And to Riley's point, it comes back to who benefits. Well, whoever benefits should pay and the people who benefit is everybody in that ecological region because the prairie is going to be higher quality because it was great. But also whoever selling the beef or whatever they. And so, yes, both should help pay for it. But it is just just so silly to me. It's such a net positive. You know, it's just such a win win. Yeah. Except for the fencing thing. Yeah, that sucks.
Yeah, once a classic, a great example of this would be I once taught at a school district that had no air conditioning in in the high school. The other two buildings is a small rural district. The school buildings were all right in a row and two of the buildings, the middle school and the elementary school did have air conditioning and there would be days, you know, in September where it would, you know, be a hundred degrees outside. No.
Window units?
Kent (41:37.134)
Wow. There were like a few rooms in the school, like the library I think had some air conditioning and the office had some air conditioning. Classic. And the teachers lounge did have a window unit. But everywhere else, everywhere else was, I mean, it would get so, you know, it'd be like 85 degrees in there and it would be so hot and humid that your feet would squeak on the floor when you're walking. should so what they would do is they would call it an early dismissal day.
point the
Kent (42:06.126)
so that kids could go home to their air conditioned houses. Well, the teachers in the other buildings would literally watch out the window to see if any high school vehicles, like teachers left early and then file a grievance with the teachers union that this is unfair. They get to leave the workday two hours earlier than we do, because we have to stay here in the air conditioning. And it's like, look.
that we get like two of these early dismissals a year, we would gladly trade you our two days of early dismissal for your air conditioning. But so the point being, like, because I can't have it, nobody can have it, mentality, it's just such a stupid way to structure society. You're literally building societal policy off of a negative emotion.
of a four year old.
Catering yeah, you're catering to a that's not fair Yeah, tight mentality and it's just a bad way to to do things you guys there's there's a great I want to I want to get into this last a little bit There's a great example of this going on right now Judd actually alerted it alerted us to it an article from I believe is the Daily, Montana Yeah, it was yep Just came out on Friday
Yeah.
Kent (43:35.092)
It talked about how BLM, Bureau of Land Management, is pulling seven bison grazing permits away from American Prairie, formerly known as American Prairie Reserve. We had Sean Garrity on the podcast. Man, that must have been two years ago. That's crazy. Yeah, I think it was January because I was shoveling snow at Carol's Airbnb when he called me.
We chatted for little while. American Prairie lost seven grazing permits from BLM Acres. So go back and listen to our interview with Sean Gary to hear how American Prairie works. But a quick summary is they are hoping to basically recreate American Serengeti, right? This idea of this vast amount of land.
that is able to function as it did pre-settlement. And so that includes tons of prairie, you know, restoration work, and it includes buying a lot of land, of course, to restore that prairie on, but they're buying it in strategic places that help, you know, network like almost like a checkerboard, right, with already publicly accessible acres. And they're trying to, with...
the public acres and now these purchase private acres create this giant, almost like a park, right? But there's no fences. In fact, they, another thing they do is they take out fencing all the time. That's, that's old on land that they, that they own, right? And, and, and that fencing inhibits like antelope migration and mule deer migration, stuff like that. So they have a part of their plan has been to have their own bison herd.
that they raise, but they don't enter into like a, you know, a meat production type of operation. They're essentially treating them like wild animals, right? They're, letting them graze on these areas. Now they aren't violating the terms of their lease as far as I know, or anything like that, but they're, they're not like, okay, you know, big Ted over there is, you know, 2000 pounds time to load them up and take them to the locker. They aren't doing that. And
Kent (46:02.914)
BLM has come in and said, do not have a domestic animal, you have a wild animal. And the Grazing Act, I think it's called the Grazing Act of 1934 or something. Yeah, Taylor Grazing Act from 1934 clearly states these are for domestic animals and you're raising wild animals. that really hasn't been, that's
there's no precedent as far as I know that that act has been interpreted that explicitly as to what defines the domestic versus a wild animal. so of course, American Prairie is like, hey, this doesn't jive with our plan. We're going to try and hold onto our permits. I think is what they're hoping they can hold onto them, right? And they're stating that
they actually allow the public to come and hunt their bison herd. These are wild animal or, you know, treated like wild animals. These aren't, this isn't like a pen, you know, a pen raised bison hunt where, you know, high fence bison hunt, not knocking that, but I know some people would might jump to that conclusion. That's not what this is. These are animals turn loose on where they're allowed to be and also on private land too, right? That they own that American prairie owns.
And they're essentially trying to help there be a bison herd that's present in that ecosystem again, right? Because as we just talked about, prairies are meant to be grazed and a big part of cows being on there, they don't perfectly fill the niche of bison and elk, of course, but they do some of the services that those big grazers had on the land. Well, what's even better is actually getting the animal that
does fill that niche, right? And they monitored them. I looked into the, what's it take to go hunt bison at American Prairie and your boy is going to be putting in. They opened up, I think in 2025, 2026, they had, how many permits was it? was 13 for Montana residents from anywhere. Five for indigenous.
Kent (48:26.008)
people from Montana, so that's 18. And then I think it was another, I want to say six, for if you were from one of the counties that they had a grazing permit in specifically, the permits that they're pulling is from Phillips County. so what does that take us to? That's like 24. And then I think they had two more for any. Two global tags they called them. Anyone in the world can apply.
Thank
And it's free. It's a free application. Wow. And you pay $300, you know, for the tag. If you draw, you pay $300, which is extremely cheap. Like if you go Grand Tetons, one of the few national parks that has a bison hunt, you can go there and the tag and like nobody ever fills a tag because the way because where you're allowed to hunt and where the bison are like at that time of year, do not jive well.
And it's like $2,000 for the tag, just the tag.
What I don't understand is why wouldn't they make those last? I like the local ones being cheap or free or whatever. Why not? I mean, make those. I mean, why not make it one hundred thousand dollars?
Kent (49:36.536)
Global.
Kent (49:40.45)
But how does that sound? Who does that limit it to then?
to wealthy people.
Right, you're making it so that only the elite can partake in this thing that...
I'm totally okay with that for this instance because it is so limited and the net pros.
But the beauty of it is, look, we're creating this thing that anyone can enjoy. that is what they're, what you just mentioned there is a big gate. And that is one of the biggest criticisms for organizations like that. Like we talked about with Chris Helzer, they get called anti-hunting all the time. No, anybody can go hunt at the Nature Conservancy. You just have a very specific process you have to go through to qualify.
Nicolas (50:04.78)
You could enjoy a not-hunting
Kent (50:27.394)
to be able to go and hunt. a low hanging fruit is to say, it's just for them and their friends, right?
Well, okay, but listen to this. Which one would you prefer? Which one would you prefer? In eight years, you get drawn and you get to go hunt, which is like probably a one in a million chance, right? But let's say that happens. Let's say you get to go. In eight years, you get to go. Or between now and then, they have $100,000 tags every single year and they are able to develop more prairie out there and then you get to go and visit more prairie, more landscape, and there's more bison.
more than that.
Nicolas (51:04.876)
Which one would you prefer?
Yeah, but the people you're selling, you're selling the prairie to more people. If you let anyone participate in that ecosystem.
selling it to two people a year.
But no, the idea.
The idea there more people are bought into the beauty of what they're doing if if it's attainable to them and and it matches well with what hunting with what hunting
Nicolas (51:28.371)
Lottery it's like there's a chance I could Okay, okay. I see I see what you're saying
Right. And, and that it's easy to just sum it up, sum it up and say, it's just optics, but those optics are pretty dang important optics. Right. That's a point. There's certain things that each of us as men, if that label got put on us, our entire lives would get, would be wrecked.
Yeah, yeah.
Nicolas (51:51.522)
Yeah, we were like taking money from bear or something.
Or even like you're a child abuser or something like that. It's just optics, Those are pretty bad optics.
They not struggle because they should but they're fighting PR in every direction all the time.
Exactly. if all you're doing is gobbling up land and then selling the fruit of the land back to the social elite and financial elite.
Anybody can visit the land.
Kent (52:23.022)
There's a difference in going and taking pictures and going and taking a bison home.
But you don't get to go and take a bison home you get to dream about That's the difference really that matters that much
Exactly and we
The dream is, has brought people across the ocean and wooden boats for eating nothing but it's all about the dream. Rats and moldy bread.
Yeah
Nicolas (52:47.522)
You're not about being able to hunt. mean, statistically, you're not talking about that. You're talking about the ability to dream about possibly being.
And plus, it's not like you can just go anywhere and get a bison tag. It's just as hard to draw one in Alaska. It's just as hard to draw one outside of Yellowstone. It's just as hard to draw one in the Tetons. If you want to hunt a free-range bison, your options
You're like this 10 % more bison a year for anybody to able to get it. Exactly.
And if you live in one of those places, then your odds are even higher. And that's who they really have to sell the project to because look, the governor of Montana is the one that got in Burgum's ear to pull these permits because they have a local PR problem. And I don't think that it's necessarily fair. We talked with somebody, not Sean, but somebody who knows, right? I won't say their name, somebody who knows.
I would attract, I can't even imagine.
Riley (53:37.282)
Well...
Kent (53:47.926)
I know you're talking about I said, what's the deal? I get that there's this tension here with American Prairie. What is it? And it's probably oversimplified. I meant to look on chat GPT. In fact, if you have service, that'd be great to type in and be like, why do people get mad about American Prairie? And the reasons that were said to me are people view them as this new big, giant, bottomless wallet.
No service
Kent (54:13.888)
entity because they do get some really big donors that have helped them buy that land. When there's a land auction, it used to be you were, know, rancher Jim was going against rancher Joe, but now rancher Jim and rancher Joe are going against this giant, nonprofit funded, you know, corporation who's also wanting to buy the land. And so that, so more, more competition for, for land. Right. And then also along with that, people say it, it kills rancher culture.
Just as we said, 42 % of the animals of grazing animals used to come from that part of the world. And that has gone down by 12%, right? Because it's not rancher land anymore. It's being restored to conservation land. It's being treated as conservation land instead of ranch land.
Does it kill ranch or culture?
Nicolas (55:00.21)
you're not as much.
Nicolas (55:07.404)
I'm not saying the locals are right, but those are too strong. Those are strong arguments.
They're fair. They are fair point. Mentioned that article is too, it's a lot easier to go in and because public land is a multiple use model. It's not just for hunting. It's not just for backpacking. It's not just for hang gliding. Although I have been hunting on public land while hang gliding was going on above me, it was super annoying. There's,
Yeah,
Kent (55:41.95)
it's a multiple use model. And one of those uses is extraction, right? And this administration has proven, it's one of my biggest criticisms of them to be very greedy with, with opening up extraction, right? And, it's easier if there's no grazing permits in the way that, that the nation is legally bound to honor to get in there and extract. and so,
It could be argued that that might be a little bit of the flavor of what's motivating these permits to be pulled. to me, if I had to take a side on it, I would say once again, just like the, I can't have fun, nobody can have fun mentality. Not that that's the same sentiment here, but it's kind of that idea of, we don't like this. It doesn't make us happy. Someone,
You know, they may not even be planning to buy that land, but because because of the principle of its harming rancher culture, it's hard. You know, it's another competitor at the land auction. I don't want them to be able to to have those grazing permits, even though I'm not necessarily going to try and get them myself. And then another thing, Riley, you can speak to this. Bison get blamed all the time for being a brucellosis risk. Yeah. And and ranchers get very
nervous about bison intermingling with their cattle and some lovemaking goes on because it's a, well, brucellosis is an STD.
Be flow.
Nicolas (57:22.858)
Yeah, but you get
they contract brucelosis from the fetus.
well, there's, two types. there, isn't there, one of them is at STD. know.
Okay, I'm not aware of this. something new. Go to ChadGPT.
Well, yeah, somebody, somebody fact check me on that. I mean, but, but I've always heard that was a, it was an STD for a bovine, a bovine STD. but, but, they're worried that, you know, bison will, will breed with their cows and give them brucellosis. But even on American prairies website, they list on there are bison, are brucellosis free. they're managed, they're, checking for that. They aren't, they aren't, it's not, and once again, that's where they function like an actual.
Nicolas (57:52.558)
So you're
Kent (58:07.842)
domesticated animal operation and maybe from a hunting standpoint where it might not feel as fun as these animals have probably all been handled by humans before. They're being checked for disease.
Yeah.
I gotta edit this podcast. Okay, so we don't have time to go through every PR thing that they're struggling with. But I wanna throw in one more point. I do not want people from Montana coming to Iowa and forcing prairie on our landscape. I want Iowans to say this is what we want. And I don't want us Midwesterners to go to Montana.
and start petitioning or doing that kind of thing. I think I think it is better for the world if we let those locals fight their ecological battles. Now, that being said, we've made it so that instead of being a state level, it's become a federal issue, right? Because the governor went. Yes, yeah. And and and but we the pros and cons of of what's going on there.
federal land.
Nicolas (59:17.836)
I don't know. I don't know what's, what's right or wrong. You know, I want to find, mean, it just comes down to, are a piece of the puzzle and our piece of the puzzle is way too big for the spot that we should be fitting in. And yeah, but Riley, he got anything before.
I'm gonna stand squarely between the two of you and say that I feel for ranchers whose operations have been their families for a long time and feel as if they're being boxed out of opportunity. However, I also think that there's untold value in expanding our ecosystems.
Everybody just was willing to take one for the team. I'm just looking for one person who would take one. That's not true. I know a bunch of people who have taken one for the team, but well, I get it. like, you know, my situation, this situation, see the situation I've got, this is my situation. So that's why it can't be me. I can't be the one to lose out in this situation. Right. And, and my wife and I, we got our coffee shop zoned commercial.
and residential because we have an apartment downstairs. They zoned it. The city zoned it. Part of the zoning thing is that you need a place to park. There is no place to park. So we park on the street. Nobody bothers us unless it snows. So when it snows, we have an option. We can park half a mile away or we can get a parking ticket. And but here's the deal. I went to the I went to the police station.
Hahaha
Nicolas (01:00:55.906)
And I had a conversation with them about it and the guy there, he was really nice. said, look, you could fight and you would probably win. You'd get an exemption that and just behind closed doors. He said, that would be really bad for Knoxville because now we have to make exceptions for everybody else being able to park on the street. And so that is, so I said, all right, we'll take one for the team. Now, many times I have not taken one for the team.
What is the term for what he's doing right now again? No, not nepotism.
Nepotism?
virtue signal. Virtue signal. no, no, but that's a tiny, small little thing. And if you said, well, if you said, Hey Nicholas, you know, it's, it's better for the earth. If the acres you have back here that your family owns, you just turned it to a really high level reconstruction Prairie and, and you didn't make money or as much money off and you figured out another way to pay the land mortgage. That'd be taken one for the team.
Be like Nicholas and the world will be better.
Nicolas (01:01:53.73)
That'd be losing my, well, but guys, gotta listen to my situation. This is why my situation, I'm not able to do it with this situation. And you go farmer or landowner after landowner after landowner doing that. And we just, I don't know, it's hard to find places to take, and we're all mortgage to hell and nobody can take it.
That's why, that's why a 100 % locally controlled thing is not always best because not, not everybody who's locally there, you might be like we've talked about with Minnesota. They've been, they've had their buffer, their buffer program since 2017 on their stream. So, so locally there's a lot of positive sentiment to, yeah, let's do this on every bit of waterfront property in our state. But.
Not everywhere has that has that mentality.
So federally we're just going to go in and tell them what the locals are going to do?
on a very small amount of land compared to the rest of the state.
Nicolas (01:02:49.742)
That's fine if at federal level we reimburse it.
And if you get the only way and the only way you're gonna get some of those benefits is if outside people are willing to invest. And I gotta imagine a lot of Montanans are a part of American Prairie.
And that's total. That is I totally agree with that. As long as the locals. I want the locals to agree with it. I want them to have a big enough benefit that they agree with.
Sure, but if the answer is there can be no positive traction because everybody only wants something that's not as good, then I don't know that that's a win.
I do not agree that we over here go tell them over there what to do. I don't agree with it. We're not in their community.
Kent (01:03:35.266)
But we also own the land. It's the American taxpayers land, the federal aspect of it. Not the private acres.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah
agree with the BLM part. think federally, we together as we get it decided, I'm specifically talking about going in and auctioning against the locals.
What do mean? Like the, the organization itself.
Showing up.
Kent (01:04:01.838)
So you would never be in favor then of like Nature Conservancy, Odin
I'm absolutely in favor of it. I'm saying the locals should have to write off on it. I believe that.
What are you talking about?
Kent (01:04:14.19)
Uh, then you, so that's a really heavily regulated market that no, no outside, no outside buying power. If unless they get everyone to sign the no cost at no cost to the people signing the.
No, they totally could.
Nicolas (01:04:27.374)
Here's an example.
Here's an example of an ecological. Here's a non ecological example. Data center, right? Data center goes to Knoxville. They hey, we want to you got the perfect place to build and we're like, no, you're not building a data center here. And then they go, we'll give each and every single one of you two million dollars. So if you have a household of four, you get eight million dollars. I will not you can.
I would say yes. So what I'm saying is the locals should get a huge benefit, you know, and, and it's a tiny thing that we're paying because there's so many more of us and we're funneling it into a specific place. I understand part of the benefit is they get the prairie. Totally understand that. But I think the locals should have a perceived benefit to themselves and it should come at the cost of everyone else who wants it there.
Yeah, I think they do get outsized benefit from it being there, especially if they, you know,
But it has to be a perceived benefit. They have to see it as a benefit.
Kent (01:05:29.632)
Yeah, well, mean, there again, you're leaving room to somebody who's refusing to acknowledge something that might be true. Yeah. And I don't know that you should always regulate in the favor of benefiting somebody who refuses to think correctly on something. That's fair.
That's a representative versus delegate theory.
Right. And, and also in this case, and in the case of the data center, that a data center has a much more hyper-focused disruption of, of a local's life. Yeah. The population density in Knoxville, Iowa is extremely higher than Eastern Montana. And, and, and the vast majority of that land, Eastern Montana's will never even see, even though they could go on it every day of their life if they wanted.
Yeah, I, I a hundred percent agree that there are pros to it. I think it is basically always a net negative when an outside force, enforced itself onto, onto a civilization or a community group. And Brad Sherman talked about this with us. He, cause I think about this, I'm like, man, not everybody should be able to, not everyone should be able to make decisions on their own behalf. Some people are just so dumb and, he totally changed my mind on that by, what was the quote from Thomas Jefferson? The answer to it.
is not enforcing something on the people, but education. And if they can't accept it through education, it is not better to enforce something on a group of people.
Kent (01:06:59.982)
And I would say that in American Prairies case, they are 100 % functioning as an educational resource and not a forcing resource. And to create legislation or regulation that says, they can't buy their land there and do their operation there, which is others focused, healthier ecosystem focused, would not be a helpful example. You're arguing in favor of regulation.
No, I'm arguing against Burgum. Because Burgum went in as a federal and started messing with
in circles at this point. You were arguing in favor of regulation. You were saying that that American Prairie should be able to do what they want. You're arguing in favor of regulation and I was not.
regulation
Nicolas (01:07:48.118)
Local regulation.
which is still regulation.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
so i say you're pro regulation on on a free economy
been an hour, hour and 10 minutes. We didn't even get to the podcast till 20 something minutes in everyone. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate Ken and I are just going to wrestle with this. We expect to see emails about this whenever we get.
Kent (01:08:08.386)
I have to say, so even though I'm right right now, I was not right recently when I talked about the surface water. We had a little bet, so I paid up this morning to Ryle and Nick. Turns out most nitrate does in fact funnel through tile lines. And it is a glaring hole in the buffer strip program. And I hate saying that because I'm still in favor of it. It does still provide a lot of benefits, especially for
for soil, you know, soil retention at the bottom of the hill we'll say, it's a soil snow fence. Soil is still largely lost to the surface of course, but as far as nitrate runoff and number of gallons leaving a field of water is coming through the tile line and not off the surface. those, because tiles are an enclosed,
structure, those prairie roots, which would take up the nitrate, are not able to access the nitrate. And even saturated buffers and bioreactors, this is all coming from Dr. Larry Weber, they are not always able to keep up with the amount of volume of water. so prairie buffer strips, although they do help when they can get access to the nitrate, lowering the nitrate,
because so much ground is tiled they actually are not a significant source of improvement I guess we could say for reducing nitrates.
Well, if you're looking for a prairie strip, buffer strip, of the sort. Check out hoxynativeseeds.com. If you got any questions, reach out at social at the prairiefarm.com. We really appreciate it. We've been posting more reels. We've been getting the social media going. Judd is kicking butt over there in Illinois. If you've ever got a question or anything, info at hoxynativeseeds.com. He will get you taken care of. And let me tell you, usually you would talk to me.
Kent (01:09:51.608)
For Habitat though.
Nicolas (01:10:17.442)
I know a lot about prairie, don't know a lot about white tailed deer, don't know a lot about turkey. This dude does. So if you're wanting to do some more wildlife management,
Nick knows a lot about Fez and so now because you Fez on yeah
Total expert believe me total expert I knew a lot more about business than I knew about deer and turkey coming into coming into working here But we really appreciate you apologies for anyone who comes here to listen to Riley because we
These two, these two, some days there's a little bit of combat. The sparks fly.
Yeah. yeah. yeah. It's exciting. It's good for us. It's exciting. man, we really appreciate you. We'll talk to you again next time.
