Val Van Kooten, administrator at the State of Iowa Historical Society, returns for her third episode. The conversation digs into pioneer journal entries, pre-tractor farm life, an April Fool's fact-or-fiction game, the phenomenon of declinism, claim jumper clubs, and what autonomous tractors might do to Midwest culture.

This week on Coffee Time Wednesday Nicolas breaks down what would actually happen if the Corn Belt set aside 10% of its acres for conservation. Using over 40 sources, he walks through the county level economics of lost grain sales, higher commodity prices, hunting revenue, and CRP payments. The math might surprise you.

BirdHunterSupply.com (to give back to conservation while purchasing your bird hunting supplies)

Thomas Mlsna is a habitat consultant and biologist who's spent 16 years rethinking how hunters manage land. In this episode, he breaks down the deer food pyramid, makes the case for smaller food plots in smarter locations, connects native plant diversity to EHD prevention, and challenges the entire model of chemical-heavy whitetail land management.

Grab your coffee folks, it's time for another Coffee Time Wednesday!

This week Nicolas, Kent, and Riley kick off Coffee Time debating whether Nicolas's cargo pocket jeans are fashion-forward or a complete disaster. From there the guys swap their best farm mistakes. Tractors buried in mud, discs wrapped around power poles, and $5,000 worth of hand-collected seed dumped on gravel. Then the crew digs into the US Forest Service's move from DC to Salt Lake City and what it might really mean for conservation.

hokseynativeseeds.com (for CRP, backyard pollinator, native pasture mixes and more!)

McKay Insurance (for all your insurance and financial advising needs)

birdhuntersupply.com (for all your bird hunter supplies)

Molly Pickering, Policy Director for Illinois Stewardship Alliance, joins Nicolas and Kent for a wide-ranging conversation on what's actually broken in America's food system. From monopoly meat packers to cottage food laws to pesticide drift hitting small farms, Molly brings the policy perspective that most farmers never get to hear.

hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, native pastures, native habitat mixes, and more)

BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supply needs)

Welcome back to another riveting episode of Coffee Time Wednesday!

Then the conversation shifts to Iowa's water. Two new reports just tied nitrates and pesticides to Iowa's extremely high cancer rate. Who's responsible? Who pays?

Iowa Cover Crop (for all your cover crop and alternative crop needs)

McKay Insurance (for all your insurance and financial planning needs)

Ray Geroff is a district heritage biologist for the Illinois DNR and has burned over 100,000 acres of prairie. 3,900 were just the day before the podcast. In Episode 344, Kent and Nicolas break down burn safety, proper weather windows, what each season of fire does to your landscape, using fire against sericea and brome, and what happens when a prairie never burns. This is burning 101 from someone who does it for a living every single year.

Nicolas and Kent start this one recanting how a man tried to steal two tractors from them through their recent farm auction. Tim Brown, The Bearded Uplander, is back, and this one gets real fast. His bird dog Mac nearly died from a grass awn that migrated through his body — and it happens way more than people think. The guys break down which wild ryes are dangerous for hunting dogs, how to protect them at the tailgate, and then get into building pheasant habitat that actually works. Informative, honest, and a little terrifying if you run a bird dog.

hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your CRP, backyard prairie, and pollinator mixes)

Iowa Cover Crop (for all your cover crop and alternative crop needs)

Eddie Andrews joins us to discuss the riff between republicans and democrats in Iowa, property taxes, school ESA's, and of course water quality. We enjoyed this conversation and believe you will as well!

Kent, Riley, and Nicolas talk about what's going on with the Farm Bill today, and what status it has in the legislative pipeline. They also discuss what would need to happen for Iowa to have a higher tax bracket for out of state land owners.