The Prairie Farm Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 354 The Man Who Manages the Most Diverse Prairie We’ve Ever Seen May 01, 2026

Show notes

Keith Horn stopped for coffee and a donut on his way mushroom hunting. A real estate sign a block away changed the course of his life. The 50 acres he bought in 2001 turned out to be the most diverse prairie we have ever seen, hosting 665 native species across five prairie types.
Hoksey Native Seeds (for all your backyard prairie, CRP mixes, and more)
BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting supplies and bird dog supplies needs)

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

2:00 Meet Keith Horn

3:05 First Call on the Real Estate Sign

9:10 Ground Full of Wildflowers

15:15 Wildlife Interacting With Rare Species

21:18 Blue-Eyed Grass Takes Eight Years

24:21 Elliott's Bluestem vs Side-Oats Grama

27:24 Ticktrefoils and Midwest Native Plant Society

30:25 366 Species in 4.5 Hours

33:26 Tours When Prairie Blazing Star Blooms

36:28 Road Ditch Prairies Disappearing Since 2001

39:31 Bird and Bee Numbers Down

45:35 Milkweeds Along Roadsides When He Was a Kid

Ep. 353 (Coffee Time) How Trees Affect Mental Health and A New Study on Agrochemicals and Cancer Apr 29, 2026

Show notes

Trees cut depression by a third, reduce crime, and make people spend more money. That's what the research says. Then the team brings a brand new Nature Medicine study linking Tordon herbicide to early-onset colorectal cancer, and the maps are nearly identical.

hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your prairie, CRP, hunting mixes, and native seed needs)
Iowa Cover Crop (for all your grains, cover crops, forage mixes, and more)
Mckayinsagency.com (for all your financial planning and insurance needs)

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

12:18 Getting Away From Work in Water

15:21 Trees and Mental Health We Don't Fully Value

21:24 Agrochemicals in Environment and Diet

24:27 Natural Death Process vs Environmental Exposure

30:34 Scientists Speaking Out on the Study

33:35 Picloram — No Study Since the Mid-90s

36:36 Broadcast Herbicide History

39:40 Big Change Comes in Phases

Ep. 352 How to ACTUALLY Fix the Water Quality and Are Data Centers Good for Rural America Apr 24, 2026

Show notes

Johnathon Swanson from Polk County Conservation joins Nicolas and Kent talk about Iowa's water quality crisis. They dig into tile drainage, nitrates, saturated buffers, constructed wetlands, and what's actually working on the ground. Plus data centers, farm diversification, and quail nostalgia.

Hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your backyard prairie, hunting habitat mixes, CRP mixes, pollinator mixes, and more)

Mckayinsagency.com (for all your insurance and financial advising needs)

BirdHunterSupply.com (for all your bird hunting needs, and for your bird dogs' supplies as well)

Ep. 351 (Coffee Time) The Pollinator Prairie Death Spiral and the Details on The Boundary Waters Apr 22, 2026

Show notes

A new ISU study is shaking up how we think about prairies. It turns out pollinators don't just need the prairie, the prairie needs them back. Kent, Nicolas, and Riley dig into what declining pollinator populations mean for plant diversity, then shift to the Boundary Waters mining fight and what's actually at stake ecologically.

Hoksey Native Seeds (for all your backyard prairie, CRP, Prairie Strip Mixes, Hunting Habitat and More)

IowaCoverCrop.com (for all your cover crop and small grain needs)

Ep. 350 She's Read More Midwest Pioneer Journals Than Almost Anyone Apr 17, 2026

Show notes

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.
hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your CRP mixes, backyard prairie mixes, hunting habitat mixes, and more)
Oh and check out our new Prairie Farm Forum!
Iowa Cover Crop (for all your cover crop needs)
McKay Insurance (for all your insurance and financial planning needs)

Chapters:

0:00:00 Welcome

0:02:00 Meet Valerie Van Kooten

0:06:06 UFO Calls About Cows Acting Strange

0:12:11 Five Minutes From Good Morning America

0:15:12 Romance of Going Back to Pioneer Days

0:21:18 If This Were 1952

0:24:20 Downtime That Still Included Work

0:27:22 Long Skirts, Woodcutting, and Air Conditioning

0:30:23 What Journals Never Mention — Fights and Feelings

0:33:26 Closing the Loop With Carol on Farm Work

0:36:27 Era of Deconstructionism

0:39:30 Weather Journals Next to the Bible

0:42:32 Writing Memoirs for Elders

0:45:34 Filtering Painful Days From the Record

0:51:37 An 1836 Barn — Ten Years Pre-Statehood

0:54:42 Hospitality Between Tribes and Beadwork Gifts

Ep. 349 (Coffee Time) How Would Mandatory Set Aside Acres Economically Affect Your Rural County Today? Apr 15, 2026

Show notes

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.
hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your CRP, native mixes, butterfly wildflower patches, hunting habitat mixes, and more!)

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

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

3:05 Long-Range TSS Loads on Birds

9:08 Jed in Suspenders and Jorts

12:11 Iowa Understanding of Diversity Needs

15:13 Finding Markets Is the Hard Part

18:17 $11 Million Per County — Co-op Employment Hit

24:19 Reduced Operating Losses From Set-Aside

27:19 Jobs Weighed Against Water Quality Gains

30:20 Compromise Points After a Certain Age

33:23 More Acres Where They Matter

36:26 Getting Prairie Talk Indexed on Google

Ep. 348 Why Native Plants and Few Chemicals Grow Better Deer Apr 10, 2026

Show notes

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.
hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your native seed, habitat mixes, perennial food plot, CRP, backyard prairie, and native pasture mixes)
Iowa Cover Crop (for all your cover crop and small grain needs)

Chapters:

0:00:00 Welcome

0:02:00 Meet Thomas Mlsna

0:15:13 Topography as the Greatest Form of Cover

0:18:17 Shrink Food Plots — Plant the Rest to Natives

0:21:18 Nutrition Coming Through Native Vegetation

0:24:19 Quality Over Quantity of Deer

0:27:22 Three Years of EHD at the Same Water Hole

0:30:22 Predators Moving Deer Around the Landscape

0:33:24 CWD — Hunters Already Mad

0:36:27 Where Not to Rub Tick Repellent

0:39:31 Why Deer Prefer Stagnant Water

0:42:32 Chemicals Tying Up Soil Minerals

0:48:36 Depression Habits — Saving Butter Containers

0:51:38 Who Still Makes Money When Farmers Lose

0:54:39 Efficient Food Plot Blends

Ep. 347 (Coffee Time) Our Worst Days In The Field! And Why Is The US Forest Service Moving Out of DC? Apr 08, 2026

Show notes

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)

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

9:07 Worst Days — The White Four-Wheeler

12:08 Auger Mishap Back at the Yard

15:11 Gang Pulled Between Guy Wire and Pole

18:12 Asking the Power Company to Remove Branches

21:14 Little Wet Spot That Got Worse

24:16 Two-Minute Decision Young People Make

27:18 Forest Service Cuts Out West and Southeast

30:22 Real Work Schedule vs Official Hours

33:24 Stuff Slipping Through Transition Cracks

Ep. 346 Why We Can't Buy Our Way Out of a Broken Food System Apr 03, 2026

Show notes

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)

Chapters:

0:00:00 Welcome

0:02:00 Meet Molly Pickering

0:03:06 Subsidize Food Like We Subsidize Commodity Grain

0:06:09 Farmers vs Corporate Monopolies

0:09:15 Aggregating Small Farms to Feed Institutions

0:12:17 Sheep and Meat Processing Barriers

0:15:20 Health Safety vs Normalizing Local Meat

0:21:26 Fighting Food Insecurity and Scaling Farms

0:27:30 Dream of More Small Farms Popping Up

0:30:33 Local Produce Met by Huge Companies

0:33:35 Time Budget — Cooking vs Getting Food Fast

0:39:42 Policy and Democratic Function Changes Needed

0:42:44 Motivated to Make It a Better Place

Ep. 345 (Coffee Time) Nebraska Fires' Long Term Affects and Who Pays for Water Quality? Apr 01, 2026

Show notes

Welcome back to another riveting episode of Coffee Time Wednesday!

The Nebraska Sandhills just went through the largest wildfire in state history. What does that mean for the prairie and the cattle on that prairie?

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?
hokseynativeseeds.com (for all your backyard prairie, native pasture, and native seed mixes)

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

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

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome

3:04 Pay-to-Play Hunting System Warning

9:15 Nebraska Fires — Most Cows Escaped

12:17 Why Prairie Won't Just Roar Back

15:23 Bounce Back vs Implications for Ranchers

21:26 Good Grazing Ground That Survived

24:28 Harkin Report and Iowa Environmental Council

27:31 Double-Checking Water Safety Psyche

30:37 Thousands of Acres Getting First Spray