Having a field day again with Lee Tesdell

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Paul Yeager   Hi everybody, I'm Paul Yeager. This is the MtoM Show podcast, a production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. That's what the swag says, Hey, if you are interested in this program, we do a new MToM podcast each and every Tuesday. Like subscribe, watch, download, listen, share, you can do any of those things. I don't really care. I actually, I do care and would love to hear from you. If you have any feedback for me. Send it to me at Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.org. We'd love to hear from you about where you watch or listen to this podcast what topics you'd like to see. This is part of the Market to Market TV Show New episodes come out every Friday. If you subscribe to YouTube, you already know the show comes out before it airs, likely on your PBS station. So keep that in mind the next time you want to impress your inlaws and say, Well, why wait until Sunday morning to watch Market to Market. We're gonna watch it right now. And right now we're going to talk about a field day, we're gonna go into the field with Lee Tesdell. He's a returning guest to the podcast. He is a farmer in North Polk County/ southern Story County in that area, and he has adopted a lot of conservation practices around clean water. He's now on the Soil and Water Commission of Polk County. So we're gonna go out to his field, he's going to give us a tour of the different strips that go from one field to another and what he is trying to do and hopes others are doing or we'll consider to do. He's actually having a field day. There's been four of them throughout the state of Iowa through the month of May. This is coming out after all of those field days are done. But here's the thing. If you want a tour from Lee, you just have to contact him and he'll gladly show you around and talk to you about clean water at any point. That's this week's episode of the MtoM. I noticed on your email li it says emeritus. Are you done doing that commute to Minnesota?

Lee Tesdell   Yeah. You know, Paul, I worked till I was 70. And I thought well, it's time to come home and spend more time with Cindy and doing farm stuff and gardening. So yeah, I retired May 2021.

Paul Yeager   And you were teaching English right?

Lee Tesdell   Right Technical Communication. Was there a 19 years at Mankato, Minnesota State Mankato. And I had graduated with my doctorate from Iowa State in 1999.

Paul Yeager   You always were one that would stop and I'm guessing you kind of miss the trip a little bit at times when you can't see the you always you always intrigued me on that. Well, that looks pretty good here and looks good. There. You missed that part of the drive where you can see how all the crops looked.

Lee Tesdell   I do actually I really enjoyed driving up Highway 17 I could go west from our house on 158 over 217 South imagine and then I took 17 all the way up through Webster City, Eagle Grove all the way up to Northern Iowa. And then got on 169 into Mankato, and it is an interesting drive. Yes.

Paul Yeager   But this has allowed you now to what you say be at home more have you actually been at home more are you one of those retired guys that's always gone in retirement.

Lee Tesdell   No, I'm actually at home a lot more. Cindy appreciates that that. Now I pick up the eggs and wash them daily.

Paul Yeager   Got to pull your weight around here.

Lee Tesdell   That's right. And at lambing time and the big advantage now Paul is I can lamb at a normal time and in the spring instead of waiting till the semester is over. So we're lambing first of April now a lot better.

Paul Yeager   Than the first of June or middle of May or something like that. Right. I keep reading your name in the newspaper. You're still writing some letters about clean water what you're not shedding the writing side of your brain.

Lee Tesdell   Well, yeah, I probably should be writing more but you're right. I've written a few things. I I try to stay up on conservation topics and follow the legislature. I did get elected to the Polk County SWCD, soil and water conservation district last fall and And so we have monthly meetings and other activities. So I guess you could say I'm more immersed in conservation now than it was before.

Paul Yeager   Are there still people interested in serving on the Soil and Water Commission? Or is this a look around? Who can we get with a pulse?

Lee Tesdell   Well, it was a little bit more of the latter. They really appreciated the fact that that I stepped up because they needed that one last candidate. And of course, I had no opponent. But I did get 80 I think 81,000 votes or something, which, you know, pump my ego up a little bit. nonpartisan and No, no opponents. So it's pretty easy.

Paul Yeager   But I'm not trying to make light of the office, I just know that there are some elected spots right now, you could argue it's probably the most important time that this office has ever had.

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, you could. And I appreciate that. And I, it has been good for connections, I've been a little dismayed. That's a little bit more about long meetings and a little less about, let's get more cover crops on the ground in Polk County. But I guess I should have understood that, right. Because there has to be a body that has meetings and directs policy, and makes connections. And so I'm, I'm learning as I go. And we're this field day, coming up next week is an example of something that we're helping to sponsor. And so we're doing as well as talking I guess, we'll leave

Paul Yeager   we were interrupted. There, you have all sorts of people, you're used to people stopping to ask what you're doing around your place. Right?

Lee Tesdell   Right. Yeah, these people are running an experiment. They're putting honey bee hives out and one of my prairie strips, and they're just, I think that it collect data on on the honeybee activity in Prairie flowers this summer. And it was you heard me say I expect some free honey.

Paul Yeager   Exactly. It's all one for the other, we'll go out into your field in a minute and see if they have those bees have anything to work with? You go Polk County Water is a topic that there are some that are extremely passionate about, and others that give you a shoulder shrug. How do you get the shoulder shrugs to be less and less?

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, well, you know, I think about my grandchildren, you know, and I and everyone else's grandchildren, we definitely want them to have clean water and abundant water to drink down the road. And so we need to be working today to change our farming practices so that we are releasing fewer nutrients into our water or into our streams and rivers. And we need to do our part out here on the on the on the farm acres, right. For water quality.

Paul Yeager   We had a story recently on the show about water quality, and I the front of it was mentioning that may is going to be some field days in in your area. You're one of the stop sites on the field days. Why are those field days important?

Lee Tesdell   Well, I think you were just talking about the folks who give a shoulder shrug about water quality. I think it does help to convince some folks who are don't know much or little skeptical that there really are practices out here on on the acres that we farm and Polk County that can be put into place that do improve water quality. So and it also gives the chance for politicians or policymakers to mix with citizen farmers and and so they can listen to each other. I'm a little skeptical of what our friend of mine calls happy talk about conservation. You know, we'll get some of that next week. But but you know, we have to be talking with each other. We can't ignore each other. And even if we don't agree on on, you know, the $500,000 He got moved around for the water testing the sensors. We still have to be talking with each other.

Paul Yeager   Well, we could do the whole political side of that discussion. But let's talk politics here. How'd the Iowa legislature do this year on water quality? You've mentioned? They're there. They're closing down one monitor site. Right and moving that money elsewhere.

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, I think there are a bunch of sites and they're moving the money, I think, to the Iowa Nutrient Center. There are actually legislators, I think, who deny that we have a problem. There are others that understand that we do. And I did not follow all the bills that that were concerned with water quality. And to be honest with you, Paul, it's a little hard to keep track of all the bills and their the various iterations amendments, and then they how they end up and whether or not they move on or not to the governor's desk. But generally speaking, I would say that the legislature could have done a lot more to protect our water quality, from pollution. And I think we need to, you know, keep after our legislators, for better policy,

Paul Yeager   any lawmakers going on these field days so far?

Lee Tesdell   There may well be we see. The Secretary of Ag Mike Naig is confirmed for next week. I know that Representative Zach Nunn is interested, he's on the House Ag Committee in Washington. And he's been invited. In the past, I have had lead state legislators out here for farm tours, don't know if any of them have confirmed or not.

Paul Yeager   Do you move the needle more when the legislators come? Or do you move the needle when you have somebody from off the farm that? Or I shouldn't even say off the farm? Someone who doesn't maybe it adhere to as much water quality standards as you hold?

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, well, like I said, we have to dialogue with each other and whether or not we agree, and we and we really have to listen to the scientists with the data and the research that they're providing. And then, and then we just have to keep keep after these practices that we know work. Like cover crop, no till edge of field practices. And then critically, we have to keep testing to see if our practices are in fact influencing the quality of the water in the streams and rivers. Right. So I can I can tell you how much nitrate I'm taking out of one of my tiles on my farm with a saturated buffer. I can't give you exact data. But I can't tell you that for my creek where it enters the Des Moines River, southeast of Des Moines, I can't tell you if it's any cleaner or not than it was, you know, before I put in the saturated buffers, so that's a critical part.

Paul Yeager   And when the monitors go away, I mean, they weren't really where their monitors that were duplicated by these three different groups. Or are we just losing another data point when we remove these monitors statewide?

Lee Tesdell   Right, I think we're losing data points. I have been assured that the director of the Center at the University of Iowa is a good fundraiser, and we may well be able to continue testing with with sensors. So even though the funding for for those 30 sensors or whatever they are went away. We may be able to continue with with new sensors. So we'll have to wait and see how that shakes out. But as far as testing goes, it's difficult for an individual landowner to actually put in place a systematic regime of water testing even on our own tiles. That's a service that's not readily available in Iowa. I'm lucky because I have a PhD student from Iowa State who's doing some research and so Gabe comes out and pulls water samples on my farm regularly. But when he graduates that's that goes away right so

Paul Yeager   what is are we to the point yet that you feel like there has been victories and water quality?

Lee Tesdell   Well, there's definitely been victories on individual tiles on individual farms. You know, I can attest to that with my own data. I have a widget bioreactor that's been the nitrifying. It 58% It's been going for about 10 years, that data represents only four of those 10 years. And then I have a saturated buffer. That was denitrifying at 92%. But again, that was only two years of data. So I can't tell you what the average has been over five years. So I can confirm those small victories. But again, you know, is Four Mile Creek any cleaner for what I'm doing? I can't prove that. Yeah, not yet.

Paul Yeager   Anyway. Do you I had a longtime farm broadcaster tell me the other day that or I heard him say, farmers, especially before the inputs went as high as they did there in the last couple of years, that no farmer was putting excess nitrates on or fertilizer onto the field that need to be, they're only putting on what the land is supposed to in there. And this notion of die, you're just blasting it on and letting it fly willy nilly. Is that still a valid argument that there are farmers who might be not good stewards?

Lee Tesdell   Well, I don't, I don't have evidence to back that up. I know, I know that my neighbors are not all the same, right? So I know. So for example, when corn follows soybeans, usually, you usually give maybe a 4045 pound per acre credit to the soybeans. So maybe you just put on 140 pounds, or 150 pounds on the corn that year. I know, Tom Eisenhart. at Iowa State says the average for Iowa for nitrate nitrogen fertilizer, 180 pounds an acre. So that means some people are putting on over 200. There's also naturally occurring nitrate, right. And so some of that escapes through the tiles and some of what we apply escapes to the tiles. So because the corn just doesn't use it all. If you have a dry year, it's not even going to flow through the tiles because there's no water in the tiles. And then you have what we call a nitrate flush. Maybe the next spring right before the current is even growing. And then we lose we lose a lot. A situation like that. So I can't I can't tell you what exactly what my neighbors are doing. i Some are still putting on night anhydrous in the fall, but if you are and some are putting on dry and and liquid in the spring. And I'm sure there's I'm sure they're not all the same. I'm sure some are putting on 200 and some reporting on 120 130.

Paul Yeager   Did the high prices of anhydrous Do you think in the results that the farmers may have had go? Maybe I don't need to put on was that? Is that going to be a needle mover?

Lee Tesdell   I don't know if it's going to be a needle mover. I mean, I know I have neighbors that were were much more careful about how much they ordered. So I'm sure the input price made a difference at the same time they realized I can't make 240 250 bushel corn without a fair amount of nitrogen fertilizer. And that's everybody's goal. And I was to 40 to 50 at least.

Paul Yeager   Yeah, that's what the bank wants to keep your note moving. Yeah. All right. Let's go for a tour. You're in your you're in your pickup now. Grab the phone. So if you're watching this on YouTube, just be with us. We tested this. This should all work. He's been in his pickup. He's already been stopped once by the B folks and you are on some land in northern Polk County. You're almost this is a I guess just narrate what it is that we have.

Lee Tesdell   Right. So I'm just That's my my farmstead up there. I'm just a mile south of the story. Polk line. And we're on this 80 acre farm. It's a testable century farm. And my grandpa Great Grandpa bought this in 1884. And you can see to the west here that we've got 53 acres of cereal rye. that's either going to be for cover crop seed, or we might plant soybeans into it depends on what Nick wants to do. And you can see the Iowa State beekeeper people that are putting the bees out in their, in their suits down there.

Paul Yeager   When did that rye go in?

Lee Tesdell   That rye went in after harvest last fall. And Nick put, put it in with John Deere air seeder 40 foot, John Deere air seeder, it's the same machine they use to plant soybeans with. And you can see where are you getting a pretty good? I get a good picture here. Yeah. Great. And you can see we've got pretty nice growth here. We're on the end rows here. Right. And then the rows run north and south here on my farm. And you can see we've got pretty decent growth in there. And a little bit of a heading out here a little bit. Right in there.

Paul Yeager   So when you say they might go to seed, but so that would mean you would cut it? Or would you turn you're gonna let it grow fall to term.

Lee Tesdell   Right. Right. And that you'd probably harvest in July with a with probably with it being had to take the grain for cover crop seed, then you need to clean it and and then store it for the fall.

Paul Yeager   And would anything else you said soybeans after when would you plant those beans?

Lee Tesdell   Well, when I said soybeans, they might decide to plant beans here in the next week or two. Oh, I saw. Right. So they would do in that case, they'd be doing what we call planning green, we just pull in here with that same soybean with that air cedar and plant the beans right into this and then kill it maybe 10 days later with herbicides.

Paul Yeager   And that's special equipment, little different equipment, I should say than a traditional you need to some of the things need to change a little bit there. Right?

Lee Tesdell   Well, the, I mean, it's the same, the same plant or cedar that they used to plant this last fall. So it's, you know, same piece of equipment. And they've had good success. Several years ago, we planted green like this. And you know, the rye was way up here and they pulled in and planted it right into the sky. So it works pretty well. Beans are pretty forgiving. Corn. Corn doesn't like that so much. And then no like the competition. Yeah, that's competition and corn. The people that do corn this way plant green, they they put on, I don't know, maybe 40 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer. When they plant they say corn needs that little boost.

Paul Yeager   Okay, then so now this is some of your your edge of field, I think you're gonna get back into what I would call a waterway. But what do you call it?

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, so this, just showing you the head of a prairie plant here. So this is one of my terraces. I've got four terraces on this farm. And we seeded three of them down five years ago to Prairie. You can see a volunteer mulberry down there. I got some of those too. But there's loads of prairie plants in here. And they're just greening up they're starting to show up here. And in July, this is just going to be a it's going to be beautiful with yellow and purple out here and white flowers. I have 60 to 70 Different species in here. Every year we find new ones so

Paul Yeager   so that is how long has it been in that state where it's been a prairie?

Lee Tesdell   This is five years now.

Paul Yeager   And how long do you expect to keep it that way?

Lee Tesdell   Well, I just want to leave it forever. You can see kind of a 40 foot strip here. And I I did seed each one of my three terraces with with privacy. So I have basically three three acres of but each one is a separate structure. We we had hoped to burn them this spring, but we didn't get out. Didn't get it figured out in time. So we'll probably burn these strips as well.

Paul Yeager   Well, up until about a week ago. It was pretty dry. You missed that spring window to burn. Wasn't there this year.

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, it was. Well we had a window here on there but getting the Huxley Fire Department together with the weather and my presence turned out to be a little bit of a question so well, we'll get it this fall.

Paul Yeager   Yeah. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. And the importance of the burning is what?

Lee Tesdell   Well, Prairie likes to burn every several years. So that invigorates the prairie. And as you know, back, back in the old days before Europeans came here, the prey would burn from time to time. And it's, it does invigorate the prairie itself. So got to do it.

Paul Yeager   And as you keep walking, how far back does this 40 foot wide prairie go.

Lee Tesdell   So my farm is a half mile east west and a quarter miles north south. So this is a quarter mile. And and then there's two more down that way, same thing. So the prairie goes all the way across to the south edge of the farm that terraces don't go all the way. So we extended beyond the terrace on receded. So

Paul Yeager   and then off to the left there. If I get my bearings, what do we have here on the other side?

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, so going east here to the left, like say, this is seven acres of Kernza. And you can see we have a pretty decent crop of dandelions in here too. But Kernza is a is an intermediate wheat grass. And it's been bred by the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas as a as a grain crop and a grazing crop. And so it's kind of an experiment. And we grazed it a little bit last fall, we didn't get any grain last year, we just bailed it for cattle feed, I sold the bales. And this year, we hope to get some grain. So here's a clump of Kernza right there and kind of blue green.

Paul Yeager   And when would the harvest of that be?

Lee Tesdell   Should be early August, okay. And it'll look kind of like oats or wheat, you know, and, and we think we're gonna swap it. And then you let it let it cure a day or two in a swath, and then you combine it off the ground.

Paul Yeager   And then who buys that seed.

Lee Tesdell   So my plan is, we actually get anything, my plan is to clean it. Hire someone to clean it, D haul it and bag it. I can sell it to local brewers I can sell it to bakers, they might need to ground and in the flour as well. Has a lot of uses. Brewers like it, they mix it in with malted barley and oats and wheat and Triticale and, and create their own beers for that. And hot cereal is good pancake mix. We've had any number of products from Kernza that are quite tasty.

Paul Yeager   And if someone drives by, I mean, you talk about your neighbors and your dialogue and they see this and they go. We'll leave that just looks like a bunch of stuff I don't want that doesn't look clean. Yeah, that's your opening line and conversation back to someone when they say that.

Lee Tesdell   Yeah, that's right. And also Lee, why wouldn't you want to maximize your dollars on every acre? plant corn man, but I'm doing it as an experiment. This is it's called a perennial crop. So it'll go for several years, I can graze My sheep out here a lot next fall, which I did last fall. And you know, it's I'm I'm interested in in how it turns out, I guess I'm a little bit curious about these things. And I'd like to see us growing more. Oh, that goes to monarch. Oh, first monarch of the year. Yeah. I like to, you know, I like to see more diversification on our farm ground in Iowa. And this is one possible crop Kernza that would allow us to make some money and treat the soil a little bit better. And, again, improve the water quality a little bit rather than having annual crops. Yeah.

Paul Yeager   You always have something going on I and oh, we got one more here are we? What are we coming up to?

Lee Tesdell   Now we're moving into my alfalfa. This is alfalfa, Orchard grass, five acres and we'll hopefully be bailing this. The day after the field day we'll try not to run too much over But over next next week, right? Yeah, but alfalfa looks beautiful this year you can see you can see the growth here. And you can see the orchard grass here is a little bit orchard grass in weather. And this is what I feed my sheep all year. So we were big bale two or three cuttings, and then we small Bale, usually the second cutting what in the barn?

Paul Yeager   And this is how many how many acres? Do you are you covering here with these three fields, the right, that waterway or that prairie and your herd and your alfalfa? What are we talking here?

Lee Tesdell   Well, that's the whole farm, and then include the CRP down along the creek. I've got about eight acres of CRP. So that's the whole farm that's 80 acres. So I got five acres of alfalfa. Seven have Kernza, three acres of prairie strips, and 53 acres of cereal rye, and then CRP down along the creek. So

Paul Yeager   Lee, I guess I asked you what you would ask your neighbor if they came up. But if I've got somebody that feels like they're on an island, and they just don't think that this is something they can do on their own, and I think I asked you this the last time we visited, give someone the boldness to try something new. What's what give me the elevator pitch here and how you do that?

Lee Tesdell   Well, yeah, good question. So so I'm a landowner and a part time farmer. The way I look at it is owning a piece of this beautiful Iowa farmland is it's a lot like owning a business. And any rental income you have off your. off your acres, you know, you should be reinvesting not not just buying a new pickup, you know, you shouldn't be reinvesting every year. And and I see this as reinvestment trying new crops. Sure, I'm not going to make much money on this Kernza I know that already. But to me, it's an investment in the future. And as landowners, I think we need to be doing that. So that makes sense. It does.

Paul Yeager   Lee, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I guess we should put you back on camera so we can get you outstanding in your field. We want to make sure we get that last shot there. So. Okay, well, Lee, thank you. Thank you so much. And we'll get your hand away there and then I can get you a big smile at the end and looking good. Lee, thank you so much and have fun at your field day.

Lee Tesdell   Alright, thanks. 

Paul Yeager   Thanks to Lee. Good to have a conversation with him and see what he has cooking on his farm. New episode comes out next Tuesday. We'll see you then. Bye bye.