Ep. 339 (Coffee Time) Are You As Tough As A Pioneer Woman? And Using Fire To Eliminate Brome
Nicolas and Kent just wrapped up the Iowa Deer Classic and have plenty to say about it — from Iowa's declining whitetail herd to a guy with Amish hands who could absolutely flatten both of them. The episode gets into nuclear modular energy, pioneer life versus modern resilience, and closes with a genuinely useful answer to a listener question: his established prairie is overrun with brome. Should he burn now or wait until May? The answer depends on one thing.
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Nicolas Lirio (00:00.574)
Alrighty! Alrighty, caffeine of choice, Alan.
Coffee Black.
Okay. Same except for I would stipulate I want it to be room temperature or colder. Okay. Because as my dad says, I drink it for medicinal purposes.
So you're trying to chug it? Yeah.
I don't, nothing is more, yeah, you own a coffee shop. Nothing is more annoying or stupid, in my opinion. Yeah, I'm gonna pull that word out. It's like, wow, I'm tired. We're all tired. Nothing is more annoying or stupid than when I go to a coffee shop and get handed a drink that is not gonna be at a suitable temperature until tomorrow.
Kent Boucher (00:50.52)
for me to be able to drink it. Like it's like burning my hands through the cup. I hate that. I didn't buy coffee because you know, maybe I'd like to have some in two hours. I wanna drink it now. But it's so hot that it's like impossible to drink it. I just hate that.
There are a lot of old ladies who disagree with you because man those old ladies they want it piping hot. think it's because
real they have burned their tongue off
Yeah, all of their nerves have probably died off 20, 30 years ago. So they want to feel alive.
There are a bunch of older ladies that come and aspire
Kent Boucher (01:23.688)
It's also because crank it all the way up people dump so much milk and and stuff in their coffee that it brings attempt
No, they want lattes that are burning, because there's like a standard on what you're supposed to do milk to and pass that it kind of burns and it makes the milk worse. I've gotten to the point where when I'm making a drink for me, a lot, I like lattes. I feel the milk with my hand while I'm doing it. and that's how I like it. And I like it hot enough to comfortably. I don't want to sip and go, that's really hot. I better wait a little while.
Yeah, I hate that but that's like what you usually get when you order a black coffee It's usually just screaming hot. So I just order an iced coffee
man, Kent, the first time he came and ordered ice coffee at our place, wasn't prepared for cold brew. He was not prepared for the price. He wasn't prepared for the strength of the cold brew. He was like $6 for an iced coffee. was like, well, we don't technically have iced coffee. It's a cold brew. And I upcharged yours.
That's right. I made your bathroom pay for it afterwards. That's usually what happens when you drink a cold brew.
Nicolas Lirio (02:29.794)
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you
Nicolas Lirio (04:05.368)
Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast, Coffee Time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Lirio, with your favorite co-host, Kent Boucher. Favorite co-host to the coast, Alan Boucher.
Howdy, howdy.
Greetings one and all.
Very different than we had planned. We are currently in a tornado watch. Otherwise our good friend Luke Fritch would have been here. Yeah. Joining us. The reason we're not with Judd and Riley right now is, and or Riley is because we just got done with Iowa deer classic and, we were all pooped on Monday and, nobody worked a full day except Riley and, and Judd worked a double day.
So I guess just Ken.
Kent Boucher (04:48.334)
don't lump me in with you birthday party boy. I got up and went to work
It was my wife's birthday. was a great day. And by the way, I would your classic had a wonderful time.
think I'm on my ninth straight day of going to work. I'm tired.
I'm so tired, dude. I was so tired. But yeah, mean, shout out to a bunch of people we saw or met for the first time in the Iowa Deer Classic. That was really cool. Cooper, Zach. There was another Zach. There's Doug, Dan, Derek, Derek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, they were fun. I learned a lot about nuclear energy.
Yep, and his brother Darren.
Kent Boucher (05:30.808)
From Derek and Darren?
I believe it was Derek specifically told me that they're making these little modulars, these little like they're the size of two trash cans stacked on top of each other. And they drill like a well thousands of feet down, but not for water, just drill a hole and they'll do this little nuclear modular way down in there. And then when it's done and they put it like in a, in a like concrete container. And then when that is done giving out power, they just pour a bunch of concrete on top as a lid.
and then they do it again. Cause if you're going down thousands of feet, you can do it like a hundred times. You know these, so.
I don't I wonder what the long term ramifications are for that land, you know? It's just always got to be like there's isn't there such thing as condemned land where it's there's like chemical horrible chemical spill that happened there or something like that. It limits what you're well, they do that for PFAS.
yeah.
Nicolas Lirio (06:30.062)
Yeah, they do it for Chernobyl. And. Not here or Shima, what's the what's the?
Yeah.
Kent Boucher (06:37.26)
Yeah, this podcast, speaking of which, helped you make a good land decision with your farm, dad. Remember when you talked to your farm manager, you asked him about bio solids being used in fertilizer on your land. You're making some stipulations. Yeah.
Yes, and he was not in favor of that sort of thing. He said that people who have done that have then had the ire of other organizations and they weren't allowed to grow crops or to do anything with that land because it was considered contaminated.
Yeah, and when you brought it up to him, he's like, yeah, there's people that do that, but I will put it in your file that they are not to do that on your land, right? Right.
Interesting. Yeah, the the PFAS we were just joking, you know, like all of our grandmas who have like cool lip containers they've been using for decades and those cool lip containers have gotten like super thin. All that plastic went somewhere. Yeah, it either went down the dishwasher or into your mouth or.
probably deposited in your brain. Deep in your gray matter.
Nicolas Lirio (07:48.11)
Sitting there gently waiting for you to add to it Man, but honestly, I would your classic was awesome. The Iowa Sportsman Club was quite a highlight
It's because there were so many people there from your town.
Yeah, that was crazy. How many people from Spire were at this random?
has never networked so hard and it was at a deer hunting feast.
My wife did all the, yeah, my wife did all the networking for me. They all went like, hi, didn't know my name. Just knew me as Danielle's husband and the guy they're disappointed to see if I'm at the.
Kent Boucher (08:23.692)
Nick was his height of glory. He was just floating around the room and shaking everybody's hand. I had no
I love Knoxville.
You know Knoxville, Iowa is ranked in the top 50 of Knoxvilles in America.
I don't think there are 50 knots.
Judd says Knoxville, is better than Knoxville, Iowa.
Nicolas Lirio (08:44.664)
I don't think anybody would think that Knoxville, Illinois is better than Knoxville, If you ever been to their Casey's, you judge Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee doesn't even have a Casey's.
We're out of Knoxville's at that point.
Man, but shout out big shout out to Jace Elliott gave a fan tastic. what like state of the timber.
State of of the well the Iowa the state of Iowa state of the whitetail address man and the keyword decline I was deer herd is in decline and he he mapped that out for us and and We've had a couple of really bad years of EHD that we've talked about and we've had of course increasing habitat loss through time and As we have these big
carrying capacity related population decreasing events to recover, you need enough carrying capacity left to recover them too. But as habitat shrinks, you know, there's less and less for them to recover too. So we need to make some changes. We still have the best quality whitetail herd in the country.
Kent Boucher (10:09.966)
But we certainly need to take a look at what's been going on, especially with our years of drought. If there's anything we can do to make the land more efficient with water, that would be great.
You know, I heard something fascinating when I was at the Iowa Deer Classic and that was that Illinois I learned has, you know how they count like.
My parents dog is like going crazy right now in the background if you hear that.
He's doing good. Good old doggy. He knows that it's rain. It's about to rain. He's got that feel or tornado. So we're in Illinois and apparently there's tornado watch. But that, you know, Illinois counts their dear collisions. They do math on collisions. Listen to this kind of genius stroke of legislators. If you as.
as the zoomies.
Kent Boucher (10:50.872)
The last he's telling us something.
Nicolas Lirio (11:07.914)
A DNR representative or wildlife advocate or someone in the hunting organization want to go and say, Hey, we want more deer. You have to go to the legislation in Illinois and say, there weren't enough collisions last year. We need more. Isn't that a genius legislation for anyone who wants less wildlife?
Yeah, that's pretty terrible. Who told you this?
The I learned that the I would your classic they will not be named. but it is.
You looked it up, verified it, that's interesting. Yeah, that is not good.
Yeah. Nope. And so I mean, and they were kind of like,
Kent Boucher (11:45.838)
Not just deer, but any wildlife. would not want it to have to be, hey, how many negative human interactions have there been? We got enough.
Yeah, yeah, I mean think about like if that was how we counted great white sharks
Yeah, you know what I mean? Jaws would have really done a number on the shark population.
Well, the guy's doing the Prairie documentary. He before this did a Great White Shark documentary and I guess South Africa, South African government was killing a bunch of the great white sharks because it was bad for tourism. So it was costing them money, but they were literally like obliterating the population. You ever seen one?
That's Great white shark? Yeah. Other than maybe like at a zoo or something.
Nicolas Lirio (12:27.416)
What about you, Alan? No, you haven't swam- swam-
No, never have.
Do you watch Jaws in the theater when you were a kid?
Not on the theater, I saw it on television.
That's that movie used to freak me out and I watched the scene the other day. I was like.
Kent Boucher (12:41.334)
That's gotta be a form of claustrophobia. Like the feeling of being stuck in this giant endless body of water and you can only swim so fast to like get away from this terrible danger and terrible death. I think they play on that pretty heavily in that film.
Bye.
Nicolas Lirio (13:00.324)
man. All right, Ken, we're supposed to be arguing about something.
Yeah, we are very we're out of zip for tonight, but we so I came across this post this actually the second time I've seen it and it makes me smile every time I read it and I am suspicious that it's just made up like I am suspicious that AI made it or Somebody typed it up themselves and attributed it to this lady specifically because of the usage of mush I think they might have just gone a little too far, but maybe not it's it is
It is purported through social media to be a true diary entry. So we'll pretend that it is. So this is, there's a picture of, know, black and white picture from, you know, 1800s. It says the diary entry of a pioneer woman from March 16th, 1842. And the diary entry reads, Wednesday the 16th, rose about five o'clock, had an early breakfast.
Got my housework done up about nine. Baked six more loaves of bread. Made a kettle of mush and have now a suet pudding and some beef boiling. My girl has ironed and I have made out to put my clothes away and set my house in order. May the mercy of the merciful be with me through the expected scene. Nine o'clock p.m. was delivered of a son.
Okay, it's got to be fake because there's nowhere in the US on March 16th that the sun goes down at nine, right?
Kent Boucher (14:36.718)
where does it say that?
Well, it 9 p.m. delivered of a son and it's March 16th.
Why does that have to do with the sun? I see.
You know, it's because they like it sets at the same time every, you know, every day of each year.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I thought you were joking.
Nicolas Lirio (14:54.382)
No, no, no. She said was delivered of a son. SU in or S.O.A? S.O.A.
Nicolas Lirio (15:05.87)
I thought she was saying delivered of a son as in the Sun finally went down and I don't have to work
no, no. After all that work, she then gave birth. A little more significant day. Yeah.
I just thought it was when you first told me that I thought it was funny that she was delivered of a son by meaning that like the Lord delivered her out of the bondage of having to work.
Delivered her out of the bondage of pregnancy.
Maybe she should have said Chuck the pup.
Kent Boucher (15:39.986)
Yeah, right.
You know how they talk in the 1940s.
Anyways, whether it's true or not, know that pioneer life, especially in that era, was with the technology that existed and just the realities of frontier life. Actually, there's great episode coming out where we interviewed a historian on Mark Twain and he talked about how the Midwest, you know, we look at America as the great melting pot, but the Midwest is like the melting pot within the melting pot because when you think of neighborhoods in our large cities, especially back East,
know, cultures kind of stuck together for a while, right? You had like Irish neighborhoods and German neighborhoods and even Chinese neighborhoods and on and on, right? But when it got to the Midwest, it was, you know, a handful of people that decided to migrate west and you had to just make it work with whoever your neighbor was.
work together there's lot higher chance you died.
Kent Boucher (16:42.486)
Right, yeah, or you'd have to go back. And so, you know, it just talked about the harshness of that reality. And so, whether this is true or not, it started a debate in our family. I sent this out to my family, a group chat, and I started off with, we are such babies now, such pitiful, whiny little babies, but man, those comments were hilarious.
Because here's here here were two comments that I highlighted First was 2026 woke at 9 late in bed to watch sourdough videos until one bought $37 of sourdough loaf from farmers market to support local business wild day Exhausted headed to bed to watch sourdough videos again wiped and then someone else said I threw my back out sneezing the other day And so
And so, you know, we were commenting on that and then dad, you said, we all need to read that once a week to keep our perspectives in line. And then my brother Jake, who was the lone voice of opposition to the statement.
He said, I have no pity for them if they were ironing their clothes on the prairie. You know, like just a needless task to throw into the day. And then he said, I think we would be just as resilient given the same circumstances. Our resilience just looks different today. After getting our jobs done for the day and housework and teaching done, we go to PTA meetings and events, run board meetings, do podcasts, make apps.
Do tutoring visit people in the hospitals go to church meetings and events teach CPR He goes on and on the list about all things that he knows go on in our own family, right? He's and He said whereas they had the benefit of never having to go to work because they worked around the homestead Yes, they had it far worse off physically, but I believe we would be just as resilient given the same circumstances
Kent Boucher (18:56.11)
However, I would like to believe I would call my children by their names in my diary. So, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no. So, there's the debate. What do you think? Do you think people on the prairie in the 1840s, pioneers, was their life harder?
So your response is a book you were
Kent Boucher (19:25.679)
Well, even we'll say significantly harder than what life is today
What do think, Alan?
I think they had tapeworms. They only had four teeth left. They didn't have aspirin or Tylenol. They didn't have air conditioning. The heat that came out of the fireplace in the winter only, you know, heated probably three feet around that fireplace. didn't get to the other corners of the house. So maybe the tasks that they did weren't any harder or were just as busy as they were.
But I think the overall feeling of wellness was probably less because they had no, no, medical addressing of their maladies. know, they, probably had, I mean, if you had athlete's foot back then, what are you going to do now? You know, you go buy a spray, some spray and spray it away, but.
Yeah, what do you do if you have athlete's foot? Nick, you have lot of experience.
Nicolas Lirio (20:25.591)
I just saw him once in high school before I learned how to shower properly.
So they probably felt miserable or if you had a bad tooth, an abscessed tooth, now you go and get it lanced or you get antibiotics or something. But back then you just put up with it until you finally pulled the tooth.
That's real. I have some family members that just like discredit doctors and dentists and professionals. I was like, I kind of jokingly said, next you're going to tell me I don't brush my teeth every day. And they're like, well, they did it for thousands of years. I'm like, people died from tooth infections for thousands of years.
Yeah, tell them to go ahead and put their money where their mouth is and they will literally be putting their money where their mouth is.
That was clever.
Alan Boucher (21:13.166)
No hearing aids. hearing aids. I'm sure that when your prescription for your glasses changed, didn't get new glasses very often, if at all. yeah, so I think there is, or if you had eczema or psoriatic arthritis, just all of those things I think would be much worse.
Were you?
to me about like everybody's death certificate because it's true everyone's death certificate till like the 50s just said like old age and now they have like a very
It was just it was just it wasn't necessarily the death certificate was just I remember when I was a kid and you probably remember this too when somebody old died It was just yeah, Ed died of old age
Yeah. A hardening of the arteries. That was also said a lot.
Kent Boucher (22:01.186)
back then. But now it's like, acute renal failure or something, you know, it's like,
Not that 94 year old shouldn't be wonderfully healthy That's interesting. I think here's what I'll say. Do I think it was harder? Yes, but I totally agree with Jake humans rise to the occasion We are ability to habituate is why we are the top the top dog amongst predators and and I mean people even habituate to just
horrendous situation pretty quickly. And do I think we're pretty like, do I think we would habituate? No, like we would die. But our kids who have not fully formed their brains, they would live, you know, they'd habituate.
Yeah, I imagine there were, you know, where I think it would get real interesting. This is where the controversy is.
The toughness of the people who went versus the toughness of the people who stayed.
Nicolas Lirio (23:06.005)
interesting.
You know that like why did why did you choose to stay back east and not not go out on the frontier? Was it just simply because you were financially secure? So why would you leave your financial security? And was the only people that were not financially secure that made that trip because they were just it was kind of a you know, they were throwing the haymaker. It was a Hail Mary type of of gamble, you know where you're going for.
you know, you're trying to hit it big or, or was it just, no, you're a little more adventurous and a little more durable of a person. And, uh, that's where it'd be interesting. I don't, I think it's probably all those things. Right. But I agree that I agree from the standpoint, this is, this is where I weighed in in my book response. I agree with him that humans do rise to the occasion. Do you remember that show we used to watch all the time? I shouldn't be alive. Oh yeah.
And you'd see things like, uh, what was the name of that guy? There's a movie about it called like 27 hours or something. Or 127 hours. Man. Yeah. where the guy was, uh, running a trail running in the back country and he jumped from one boulder to the next and was like getting ready to drop down into this little gap. But when he had jumped off that bold boulder that he to drop down that gap.
27.
Kent Boucher (24:36.45)
He realize it but he dislodged the boulder and when he's dropping down the gap he had his arms up above his head and one of them got pinned in between the two boulders and he was stuck hanging there by his arms.
I don't think he was hanging. Yeah, was like his feet were on the ground.
He was just stuck.
Okay, I didn't see the movie. Yeah, I don't just know enough of the story and uh that may have made it slightly better that he was uh, um Standing on the well definitely better standing on the ground but but uh, in fact the matter was the dude had to cut his own arm off Yeah with a pocket knife To survive and so and I don't think everybody could do that. Um, I guess is where I would differ I don't think I I don't think everybody could
He rose to the occasion.
Kent Boucher (25:21.038)
could handle those stresses. And I think that there's probably fewer people today because we have grown so accustomed to our comfort. mean, since 1842, we have put the, aside from medical, which in a way can be grouped in with this, we have put the bulk of our efforts into advancing
ease and comfort, right? Things like all the manner of different ways you can air condition your house.
the ability to sit more often.
Yeah, the ability to sit more often, you know, the the the expansion of white collar jobs compared to blue collar jobs, the, you know, the beds that match a certain setting for you to sleep in heated and massaging reclining chairs, you know, on and on. We we have softened what life is to a point that, you know, I really I really don't think that that the ratio of people that could handle it.
today would come even near the ratio of people that could handle those conditions back then. But I do think that a lot of people, if put under those stresses, would find themselves rising to the occasion.
Nicolas Lirio (26:45.738)
When you say, when you say, could they handle it? You don't mean from birth. You mean right now as we are having been having adapted to.
Right, that's where the debate was. We're just as tough today as we were then, and I just don't think that's true.
Okay, but if we were born. But if you were born.
some people
Okay, yeah, you go back and be born back then. Yeah, think people I think yeah. Yeah, I mean if that's all you ever knew.
Nicolas Lirio (27:12.174)
They're a lot taller, you know.
Well, you wouldn't be if you You'd be malnourished. Yeah, you'd be malnourished.
man, what I wouldn't give to be malnourished.
I think it's good though to have some of those aspects, bring some, invite some of those aspects back into your life. And there's all manner of ways to do that. You know, some of it's simulated like working out, right? You're simulating work and you're putting that strain and that stress into your life. And people who really get into it, I mean, they become quite disciplined. same with like running. You know, if you have a, if you
video games I feel like we
Kent Boucher (27:50.862)
Really tough thumbs Do you remember that time when we were at the there's the first time we were at the deer classic and This Amish guy came and talked to us and old Nicholas was just staring at his hands That's what I talked about yesterday on the podcast with Mills about how You were staring at Mills and his brother thinking how badly he could he could injure you with
man's a monster. He's a huge monster. And I didn't even say anything about it. I know Kent was thinking about it because Kent's the one who brought it up. like, that dude could just wrestle us to the ground. And I agreed.
Kent Boucher (28:31.682)
knew you were, I could tell how you were looking at him. was like, Nick's thinking the exact same thing.
I was born with the ability to size people up and then realize I would lose. He's a monster.
But that guy with that Amish guy his hands were just like like you could like crush concrete with his hands And Nick just goes the second he walks away. Well, that's what we're supposed to look like and it was very clearly like an example of you know health and and You know somebody who's used to doing a lot of the same chores that this lady was talking
I also would like to, I think it's important to caveat cause people are going to roast us for this. Uh, my good friend who grew up Amish said that there is an issue with the lack of genetic diversity with Amish. So specifically their hands are very healthy. think in some regard, I, I'm like worried an office person would hear this, they never would. This is, this is coming from a friend who grew up Amish till he was 14 or 15 years old. He said,
You're scaring me right now buddy.
Nicolas Lirio (29:35.778)
They really struggle with the lack of genetic diversity. It's an issue because nobody converts to the obvious way of living anymore. You know what I mean? And so they're kind of their genetic gene pools, like shrinking.
Yeah, that's that's that's interesting. Yeah, the but point being some of that that hard physical life I think is it's not all bad. Right? There's some good that comes from that. And we could probably all do with a little dose of tougher. I like your point about it not ever getting warm in your house. I've experienced that a few times while like, remember that time when we slept out in a pop up camper?
Hmm.
Kent Boucher (30:16.214)
and it was two degrees out that night and we had like a propane heater going in there and then we just piled on the sleeping bags and I think the warmest we could get it in there was maybe around when that when the propane tank was still full it could maybe get what 30 degrees. That was 30 degrees. Wow. And it's just this feeling of man I just cannot get warm. I went. We were ice.
I think the highest it got.
Nicolas Lirio (30:40.587)
you're doing that.
ice fishing
I thought you meant just like outside of your house. You just all
No, no, no it was is on the farm that we're talking about earlier We went ice fishing and I went deer hunting that morning. It was it was it was cold But you know that I think that would just be kind of a regular thing. I
Did that for months. I think they did. I my house. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. And it was miserable. We would Danielle and I would pull our car into the driveway and literally sit there like eight o'clock at night. Like I do not want to go in our house because we would have to warm up the bed with our body heat and then have we had a couple of links. And so you stayed moat and then we used Danielle's heating pad. She had an electric heating pad that we would turn on and what?
Kent Boucher (31:30.476)
get like a heated mattress pad.
that would have been smart. don't know. We were out of money because we were putting all our money into this. Yeah, Casey's food. Yeah, we didn't have a kitchen. man. Yeah, I think definitely they were tougher and I think that we would rise to the occasion put into a terrible situation depending on how.
And Casey's.
Kent Boucher (31:53.494)
I like how you pitched that if we had to be reborn into them then yes. But I think there's even people now that you could just take them even if they let's say they don't do anything outdoors they don't you know like they just they're living in the middle of New York City they work a white-collar job I just think some people have the mentality you know like the mental toughness and mental fortitude.
Well, I think it'd be very
Nicolas Lirio (32:16.244)
But they'd still die early. They'd still like have a crooked neck or crooked back at 48 years old. You know what I mean? Yeah, maybe. You fix that stuff. So a lot of companies talk about conservation, but I want to tell you about a company that actually puts their money where their mouth is. BirdHunterSupply.com is a great company. I know the owner, Joe. He's a great dude. We've had the privilege of working with him and
Let's just say he really puts his money where his mouth is. A large percentage of his profits from Bird Hunter Supply go to a conservation organization of your choice at checkout. So your purchase actually puts money towards conservation and it's not just a roundup. It's not just asking you to donate on top of your purchase. This is included with your purchase. This man is running his very own small business version of Pitman Robertson, except without all the government stuff. I'm a big fan of that.
So whether you're buying hunting apparel, decoys, dog training gear, you are actually going to be giving back to conservation. That is my friend Joe at birdhuntersupply.com. We love that company. We love what they have going on. and they do a really great job with their website. Makes it very easy. Birdhuntersupply.com. Man, all right. So we got one more thing before we go. I got a good text from a good friend. I'm not going to out him, but from a friend.
pod.
Listener of the pod, dear listener pod. Love that listener of the pod. Texted a great question that's going on right now that we should be thinking about. He has a field that he's planted prairie and he's dealing with a lot of brome in it because he's got invading brome from outside. And he said, do I burn now? What's now March 10th? Do I burn now and then spray the brome or do I wait until May, early May and burn it then to kill off the brome? And Kent said, well,
Kent Boucher (34:09.293)
Wait, but he added one little piece of information. He said he's got a lot of wrong. Because that changes my answer.
He did. Yes, he's got a lot of. Yep. So if there was a little bit of room, you could just control with fire and may wouldn't be that big of a deal. But you thought.
Yeah, with it being such a big problem and it's an already established prairie, I would go ahead, burn now. We're at the very tail end of the dormant season. Things are greening up rapidly here in Illinois where we're at today. We saw temps all the way up to 83 degrees around Peoria. so spring is, those soil temps are going to be rising quickly. Cool season grasses and spring ephemerals, cool season.
you flowers that are that you do want natives, right, are going to be starting to pop here soon. So it'd be good to get things burned and that soil will blacken and it'll with that that blackened soil, it'll absorb more sunlight. Soil temps will spike a little bit. It'll get brome greening up and hopefully you can get some herbicide on it quickly to once you feel like it's greened up enough.
Mean you do run the risk of losing some of your Forbes, but we talked to Ray Gareth today who does But on he's he fears he's burned about a hundred thousand acres his career for the Illinois DNR and He said yeah, you might when you do that method you might hit some of your desirables With herbicide, but if you let the problem go on unchecked, it's gonna choke out those desirables
Nicolas Lirio (35:30.486)
Brilliant, dude
Kent Boucher (35:53.304)
those desirable species as well. And so it is a trade off, but I think in this case, because the brome sounds like it's such a high pressure on his prairie, I would go ahead and go that route. If it was just a little bit of brome maybe coming in around the edges, yeah, do a late April, early May burn, set the brome back with fire and allow the warm season grasses to come in right behind them and dominate. But in this case, burn then spray.
Alan, when are you gonna rip up your yard and put in a little backyard prairie?
soon
Oh, nice. I really wasn't expecting that. I would go outside of the tornado. Oh man. That's funny. All right. Well, I'm trying to go to bed. I got to edit this podcast, so I'm going to go to bed. What is it? It's eight o'clock now. I'll let you guys know what time I made it to bed. Uh, I'm hoping to hit, the sack for 11, getting all this edited. So we're going to take off for now, but, uh, thank you for hanging out with us at the Iowa deer classic. That was a big deal. Every single conversation I had with some of the lists in the podcast was really wonderful. I, I,
That's the best, we have to go on.
Nicolas Lirio (36:56.876)
Genuinely enjoyed it and I either if Kent wasn't there I would text him or whatever and just like I had a great time
Yeah, it was a great time. Thanks for coming to see us and thanks for tuning into the podcast. Talk to you next week.
