The Prairie Farm Podcast

Ep. 408 Do Virtual Collars ACTUALLY Make Sense for Livestock??

Matt Vermeersch of Root and Raise Land and Livestock joins us to talk virtual fencing, Highland cattle, and grazing sheep under solar panels. We dig into whether Nofence

Ep. 407 (Coffee Time) 1 Million Trees Cut Down for POLITICAL AD MAILERS

Election day at the shop, and the crew is drowning in political mailers. Nicolas, Kent, and Riley dig into the billions of pieces mailed this election season, how many tr

Ep. 406 $20M Non-Profit, HOAs, Data Centers, and The Future of Land Ownership

Hannah Inman, CEO of the Great Outdoors Foundation, joins Nicolas and Judd to talk about how a small Iowa nonprofit moves tens of millions of dollars into wetlands and wa

Ep. 405 (Coffee Time) Balancing Hunting and Family, EcoData Centers, and Judd's Big Bucks

When does a hobby cross the line into selfishness? The Coffee Time crew digs into hunting, family, and sacrifice, then takes on EcoGPT, data centers, and whether we’d und

Ep. 404 What Do Trout Need for Habitat and The New Hoksey Marketing Manager

Pierce Nelles, Hoksey Native Seeds’ new marketing manager and a Driftless fly fishing guide, joins the crew to talk trout. Why cold water matters, how a prairie stretch r

Ep. 403 (Coffee Time) 17 Ag Grants and Programs You've Never Heard Of

Kent tells the story of the cleanest kill of his life, a muzzleloader buck stalked through standing corn on the wind. Then Nicolas runs through 17 little-known programs t

Ep. 402 Why Walmart Will Never Tell You Where Your Food's From And Why Food Hubs Fail or Succeed

Tommy Hexter bought a tiny local food market at 20 and grew it to nearly seventy Iowa producers. We talk food hubs, pay-what-you-can groceries, why Walmart can’t tell you

Ep. 401 (Coffee Time) What Happened to All The Different Tractor Companies??

Harvest has the Hoksey crew running on fumes and fighting old combines, so naturally we’re talking tractors. Nicolas, Kent, and Judd dig into how John Deere, Case IH, All

Ep. 400 Iowa's New Trail Camera Rule, Cross Bows, Drones, CWD, and Is Iowa REALLY The Trophy Buck State?

Iowa DNR state deer biologist Jace Elliott sits down with Nicolas and Kent to talk about the new trail camera ban on public land, drones for deer recovery, nonresident ta

Ep. 399 (Coffee Time) Harvest Week is Stressful! And Noise Pollution for People and Animals

Harvest is here and the crew is running on fumes. Nicolas, Kent, Riley, and Judd talk through a stacked week of native seed harvest, then dig into the science of sound: h

Ep. 398 Hunting Trail Cameras, The Upcoming CRP Cliff, and Why Land Prices Are Stagnant

Realtor and CRP planter Steve Hansen joins Nicolas and Kent to test a new Friday format: a rolodex of topics. They cover Iowa's public land trail camera ban, drones in hu

Ep. 397 (Coffee Time) Should Cover Crops Be Subsidized? A Review of the National Cover Crop Survey

Coffee Time Wednesday with Kent and Riley. We dig into the National Cover Crop Survey: who's planting covers, what it costs, why so many farmers quit after one year, and

Ep. 396 How We Run Our Prairie Farm and What It Takes To Start One

Kent Boucher turns the mic on Nicolas Lirio for a look back at Hoksey Native Seeds' first year after Carroll. They cover an auction gone sideways, a lost recording, stubb

Ep. 395 (Coffee Time) Do Prairie Fires Keep Flies and Ticks Away And Wendell Berry Tribute

Fire may be the cheapest pest control tool on the prairie. Nicolas, Kent, and Riley break down research showing burned pastures cut horn flies on cattle by 41% and slash

Ep. 394 How Big Meat Packer and Giant Grocery Stores Are Ruining Agriculture

Barons author Austin Frerick joins Nicolas and Kent to unpack why American butter turned white, how JBS and Cargill captured the food system, what a chicken contract actu

Ep. 393 (Coffee Time) TRIVIA!! How much have you learned the past 100 episodes??

Riley takes the host chair for a Prairie Farm Podcast trivia showdown. Nicolas and Kent face 20 questions pulled from past guest episodes, covering prairie food plants, p

Ep. 392 What This Weather Scientist's Studies Tell us of The Midwest's Climate Future

Iowa State agronomy professor Dr. Brian Hornbuckle joins Nicolas and Kent to talk weather, water, and the Iowa landscape. We get into corn sweat, why rain is coming in bi

Ep. 391 (Coffee Time) Which Prairie Species Are Invasive to The Rest of The World

Nicolas and Riley dig into milkweed banned in the EU, broomsedge, ragweed's 7.4 billion euro allergy bill, and the 2016 Palmer amaranth scare. Plus bare soil temperatures

Ep. 390 What Pesticide Companies Are Doing In Washington to Make Billions

Sarah Starman of Friends of the Earth joins Nicolas and Kent to break down pesticide tort immunity: who is lobbying for it, how the EPA got captured, and why only 1.4% of

Ep. 389 (Coffee Time) Should We Use Farmland for Solar and Who Wins... A Bison or Bull?

Nicolas is back from three weeks off, and the crew digs into solar on farmland: how many acres each Midwest state would need, whether panels wreck the soil, and the hard