ASCEND by Ducks Unlimited

Learn how farming and conservation practices directly shape wildlife habitat, water quality, and the future of the outdoors.

 Ascend host Adrian Jessen sits down with Joy Van Wyngarden—an Iowa farm‑raised conservation specialist and former watershed coordinator—to unpack how planting, soil management, and land stewardship influence everything from deer and ducks to clean water and food systems.
Joy brings a rare blend of real‑world farming experience, conservation science, and hunting perspective. Together, they explain cover crops, wetlands, edge‑of‑field practices, soil health, and how small changes on private land can create massive downstream benefits for wildlife and people alike.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
  • How conventional farming practices impact wildlife habitat
  • What cover crops are and why they matter
  • How soil health affects water, food, and animal populations
  • Why wetlands are critical for ducks, deer, and water quality
  • Simple ways landowners can assess and improve their property
  • The connection between agriculture, conservation, and hunting success
  • Why soil loss threatens the future of food and wildlife
Follow @duascend or visit ducks.org/ascend
Presented by Ducks Unlimited.


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Creators and Guests

Host
Adrian Jessen
Adrian Jessen is a reviewer, writer, and adult-onset hunter best known as co-founder and on-camera host of the YouTube channel Review This Thing. Since 2020, she and her husband Robbie have published thorough, real‑world reviews and tutorials on optics, firearms, archery, and outdoor gear—built around a promise to be complete, honest, and unbiased. Adrian also contributes to titles such as North American Deer Hunter and Crossbow Magazine. When she isn’t testing new kit, she’s likely chasing spring gobblers or helping new hunters choose reliable gear and build safe, ethical skills.

What is ASCEND by Ducks Unlimited?

Ascend is a multimedia platform that spotlights the millions of outdoorswomen across our country who go hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, biking, running, and perform important conservation work every day.

Our web series and podcast feature guests who share their experiences with a focus on entertainment, education, and authenticity. Our viewers and listeners will get to know them and learn all about their passion for the outdoors. Whether you've been in outdoor communities all your life or are just getting started, Ascend is the place for you to follow your story!

Brought to you by Ducks Unlimited.

VO:

Welcome to the ASCEND podcast, a podcast by and for women in the outdoors. Every episode delivers real stories, practical how to's, and a welcoming community to help you start, sharpen, or rediscover your passion for the outdoors. Authentic women, real stories, outdoor adventures, ASCEND. Presented by Ducks Unlimited, the leader in wetlands conservation. Your next adventure starts here, the ASCEND podcast. Don't forget to rate and review the ASCEND podcast. It's the best way to grow the podcast and help other women discover the next step on their outdoors journey.

Adrian Jessen:

Welcome to the ASCEND podcast by Ducks Unlimited. I'm Adrian, and today we're gonna talk about how your planting and farming practices affect wildlife. I'm joined today by Joy Van Wengarden who grew up in Iowa on a row crop farm. So she has quite a bit of experience with this. She also previously worked in conservation and agriculture as a watershed coordinator.

Adrian Jessen:

So in that role, she helped landowners implement conservation practices for their farms as well. And now she works on the digital media side as a small business owner. And as if all that's not enough, for fun, she enjoys cooking and reading and working out and hunting, of course, and water recreation, being with her dogs and dancing and jujitsu. So I'm definitely definitely not messing with you, Joy. But thank you so much for being here.

Adrian Jessen:

We really, really appreciate it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Adrian.

Adrian Jessen:

Now, Joy and I actually have met in person. We met a couple years ago at the NWTF convention. We have some mutual friends, so we got connected that way. And then over I probably I guess it was two or three years ago. So over that time have I've just followed along on her Instagram journey and really enjoyed hearing her perspectives on especially this topic that we're going to be talking about.

Adrian Jessen:

So definitely looking forward to today. I know basically nothing about farming practices, planting, water movement, and how the all that is going to, directly and secondarily affect wildlife. So I'm excited to learn a lot today, and I hope that you guys are also excited to learn a lot. If you, as you're watching this, have any questions that we maybe don't get to or whatnot, just comment below the YouTube video, and we'll make sure that we get that answered as best as we can as soon as we can. So also, while you're watching, go ahead and hit that like button and share us with your friends.

Adrian Jessen:

Alright, Joy. Before we dig into our topic, I'd wanna give you just a few minutes. Tell everybody a little bit about yourself, what drives you, and and how you got interested in all of this.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Well, I thought you did a great job with the intro. Thank you again, for having me. Like you said, I grew up in Iowa on a row crop farm. I have my degree in agriculture. Right out of college, I worked for what we call a soil water conservation district.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

We have them all across the state of Iowa in just about every county. And I worked with local farmers, landowners in a specific watershed, helping them implement any practice that really helps with either the issue of water quality, soil erosion, wildlife habitat. Really anything under those umbrellas was things that I was able to help cost share and help both with the financial and technical support for farmers and landowners to implement on their ground, which was super rewarding. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about just the impact that these conservation practices have, both for us humans and also for wildlife. And, I share that love for wildlife.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I didn't start hunting till I was probably middle school. I think my uncle took me out when I was somewhere in middle school, and that was my first experience bird hunting. And then from there, I kinda just grew more of a passion for the conservation wildlife side. So I have both sides of that stick that, I've just grown to love and really appreciate and recognize the connection between the two and the importance and the value of general conservation. It, is quite literally the best way of explaining the term downstream effects because everything goes somewhere.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Everything ends up somewhere. Everything has an impact, and it typically doesn't just stay on your farm or on the the ground that you own. It impacts your neighbors. It impacts things down the line. So, yeah, that was a really rewarding thing to do, especially right out of college.

Adrian Jessen:

And that's cool. So how did how did you was it growing up on a farm? Is that kinda what steered you that way, or what really made you say, hey, this this has to matter. I'm gonna figure out how it matters and how to fix it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I really wasn't into conservation until probably some point in college when I started recognizing what the impacts were of different conservation practices. I grew up with a very conventional father that I remember coming home from ag class in high school one time and asking him about cover crops. I was like, cover crops. Why don't we do those? Like, what's what's and he was just, like, straight up, like, yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

They don't work. Like, it was very straight, nope. We don't do those. And I was like, okay.

Adrian Jessen:

You know? I I you believe

Joy Van Wyngarden:

your dad. So it really wasn't something that I grew up a ton around. I was familiar with some things, though, because, my grandfather on one side both my grandpas were farmers, and my grandpa on one of my family's sides was a very big conservationist. He was into organic farming before that was cool. He was just very aware of the impacts that farming practices had.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So I kinda have a little bit in my blood without me being aware of it to a to a point, but I just gained more interest in it as as I gained more interest in the outdoors and wildlife, and I started to realize that they affect each other a 100%. And it's very important how we we treat the landscape and how we properly manage it if we are wanting to care about not only the future of farming, but the future of wildlife in the state of Iowa.

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah. That makes really good sense. And so as we get into that topic, there obviously, you're coming from several perspectives from having seen it, having seen it done well, having seen it done not maybe as well as you would like, and then how things have have switched. So before we get into that though, obviously, following along on Instagrams, I saw that you have just killed your first deer with a bow. Yes.

Adrian Jessen:

So I need to hear this story. I saw the pictures, but I haven't heard the story.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So I killed my first archery buck this fall here on November 5. It was a rising full moon. It was what they call a beaver moon. It was the brightest full moon of the year. And I wasn't even for sure planning on going hunting that afternoon, but Josh went out that morning, and he called me that morning.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I think it was seven, 07:30, somewhere around there. He called me and said, hey. I gotta buck down. And I was like, what?

Adrian Jessen:

Let's go. You know?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's that phone call that you want. Oh, and I was just so happy for him. And then I went out where he killed his buck at and helped him with the recovery. And I brought all my camo with me in my truck because I was like, you know what? This full moon just feels good.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. Like, it wasn't a cold front at the there was a cold front coming that weekend, but it just felt like there was something happening in the air that day. There was something kinda weird going on, and I was like, you know what? I'm going hunting. And I just, like, him, was like, I'm gonna go kill something.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Like, I don't know what it is. I don't know who it's gonna but I'm gonna kill something. And, I've gotten my stand, and there was some good movement. Not long after I was in my stand, yeah, I watched some small bucks play around. I had a forecorn beneath me for a while.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

There's does around me for a while because I was kind of, probably thirteen, fourteen yards from a scrape tree. And, yeah, he just he topped this fence, and I was just kinda in my mind. I'm like, okay. If he gives me the opportunity, am I gonna do this? Like, is this, you know, is this who I wanna shoot, whatever?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And I'm, like, thinking at the time, and I'm like, I want I want to. Like, it was, if he gives me the opportunity, I'm taking it. And he came in just perfect. He got broadside. He started messing with that scrape one there, and I was like, oh, buddy.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And I just tried to remember all my mechanics and all the things that Josh reminds me of when we're out shooting our bows of, like, the things I need to remember because in the moment, you're probably gonna forget some of the mechanics. And Oh, yeah. I just tried to do my best and calm my heart rate. And sure enough, I shot him, and I watched him go down. So that was that was the cool thing.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

To be able to watch him go down was, was awesome. I think I would have been a lot more disheartened if I just didn't have that opportunity because

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Oh my gosh. I can understand how people are just heartbroken when they shoot a deer, and then they don't watch it go down, or they start questioning their shot. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, my heart would break. You know? So being able to watch them go down, that was really cool.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And, yeah. Then I called Josh. I was freaking out. And, yeah, it was a heck of a day for both of us. No kidding.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It was not a, a

Adrian Jessen:

scrub buck by any stretch of the imagination.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. He was kinda he was kinda funky. He had a a third beam going on, and, yeah, he was just kinda fun. But I was just so glad he came in and gave me the opportunity because I couldn't have asked for a better situation for shooting my first archery buck, really. You know?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Because he was perfectly broadside, and he was at a distance that was more than manageable, you know, so I felt very confident taking the shot. And that's what really mattered to me when I was like, when I go in for my first archery buck, I want to feel really confident. That's why I practiced so much in the summer and the fall. I did not wanna go in there and injure a deer. I wanted to take a shot that I felt confident taking, and it was just, like, I mean, it couldn't have been better than that.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Like, I'm just really grateful for that as my, like, first opportunity to to harvest my first archery book.

Adrian Jessen:

And that's cool too. Because like you said, he was, you know, relaxed enough to be, like, messing with the tree, the licking branch and all that, and he wasn't, like, on edge, you know, the Nope. So that's perfect. And like you said, when you see him go down, you are free to begin the celebration. There's not like a Yes.

Adrian Jessen:

Oh, I hope I made a good shot and how long should I wait and all that stuff. So, yeah, that's pretty dang awesome.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I was freaking out. Awesome. I bet. I bet. And then,

Adrian Jessen:

you know, whenever then Josh comes or whoever else comes and it's just like pandemonium.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. That's so cool.

Adrian Jessen:

And y'all y'all were able to take a picture together, weren't you, with both of your guests?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. Yeah. I thought so. We got pictures of his deer in the morning, then we got pictures of my deer that night.

Adrian Jessen:

So That's fun. That's super fun. And you said we won't get to see it, though. Right?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

No. Yes. Because I did not film it. That's probably filmed the recovery, but, I didn't have Josh with me, and I I really just I did not care. I was like, I'm killing something tonight.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's happening. I had my GoPro in my truck, and I still didn't bring it with me. I was like, nope. I was like, one more thing I don't even wanna have to think about. I just wanna I just wanna be in this tree, and I'm I'm just ready.

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah. Yeah. I think sometimes, obviously, you know well about the filming and all that stuff that like, sometimes we try to film and then it is stressful because you're like, you gotta worry about the camera, you gotta worry about microphones, all this stuff, and it's like, you know what? Let's just Let's just go and have fun and not worry about it and enjoy it. Yeah.

Adrian Jessen:

So that's pretty awesome. Anyway, that's not our topic. But, I probably can parlay because you've managed this property that you were hunting. So you you've been practicing these these practices, so you have quality deer to take care of. So I think with managing agricultural practices and food plots and water and all that stuff, there's a I feel like you can probably confirm or deny, but there are a lot of directions you could go with that topic.

Adrian Jessen:

I think first, what would you say how do you assess your property and and if if you need to make changes?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You mean from, like, a conservation standpoint, like, impact that it has?

Adrian Jessen:

Mhmm.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I mean, it really also depends on your property. Because every every property is a little different. Every farm's a little different. If it's a 100% row crop and it's flat as can be, that's a whole different situation than someone in Southern Iowa who has rolling hills, and some of it's in alfalfa, but then some of the deslope fields are in CRP. You know, it it it's totally different depending on what the landscape, what the topography is.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And then you can get even more into the nitty gritty and start getting into, like, what's the soil type? You know? Certain soil types, will drain differently. They'll have different soil organic matter content. I mean, you can get really into the weeds with it, but it's kinda just like, taking everything as as it is.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So just going to a property, recognizing what the situation is, and just assessing it kind of objectively just to see what problems this particular piece of ground has. And that's typically what I would do with the landowners when I went out with them. It's like, let's go out and let's see it. Because if you have a big erosive goalie going on, that's different than maybe, an ephemeral gully that's in a row crop field versus one that's in a timber piece that's, 10 foot deep and 15 feet wide. Right?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So it kinda depends on each piece of property. And then the second half of that is always just what are the goals of the landowner? You know, what are they concerned about? That was always my question. It's like, what are you concerned about?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

What's what are you seeing? What are you not happy with? What are you worried about maybe now? And what are you worried about in ten, fifteen years from now when we look at a specific piece of ground? And with a lot of farming practices, soil erosion is is a concern for a lot of people.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

That's your that's your moneymaker in farming. That beautiful six to 10 inches of topsoil is is the gold that runs this state, and we're losing a lot of it every year. A lot of it is getting washed away because of some farming practices that we just have in our conventional model, unfortunately, and people are worried about that. They're concerned about that, and they wanna know, well, what can I do? And then there's lots of different practices that address that, both on an infield infield practice standpoint and what we call edge of field, which means it's not directly in the row crop field, but you can put practices on an edge of a field, like a field buffer or a field border, different things like that that can also help with some of those same problems.

Adrian Jessen:

So what if somebody was like, hey, Joy, which they wouldn't because you don't do this now, but, come out to my farm. I've noticed, you know, this year, soil issues yada yada yada. What's the first thing you would look for? Like, what's the kinda what are your, let's say this, what are the top three, like, assess this, then we'll assess this, then we'll assess this. So soil health is, kind of

Joy Van Wyngarden:

a new buzzword that keeps coming up in the world of agriculture and definitely, the sustainability world of agriculture, and that's one thing that you can test. You can do soil health tests, soil health checks, essentially, and look at things like, what is the soil organic matter in the soil? What is your water infiltration rate? How much field debris do you have going on? So how much of the top matter is covering your field?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

How much cover do you have? Do you have roots growing throughout the year? Are you doing a cover crop? Are you not planning a cover crop? That's, something that you can measurably look at.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I would also look at erosion signs of erosion in the field. So things that you call an ephemeral goalie essentially means ephemeral, by definition, is, you know, it kinda, like, comes and goes. But, really, I always think of ephemeral goalies as not really that ephemeral. They they're there almost every year because water goes where water goes. Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Right? We can't tell the water where water will go

Adrian Jessen:

where it wants to go

Joy Van Wyngarden:

based off of topography and other factors. So looking at things like that, we're okay. Where are we having washouts year after year and seeing where that soil's going? That's another thing you can look at. But, again, it it really depends on what the goals are.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

There's some landowners that are much more concerned about profit on the crop side, and there's some landowners that are worried about that. But, also, they do want to help with wildlife because maybe they themselves are hunters or outdoorsmen of some sort. And then there's people that are purely in it from the outdoors perspective. They're maybe if they have any row crop on a farm, they're leasing that out to someone else. They're they're hiring someone to farm that, but they're way more concerned about quality of wildlife habitat.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So it really depends because there's specialists in all those areas, and I had access to all those different professionals in this space. So if it was a question that I'm like, I don't know enough about that, but I can bring out the forester, and they can help you with these issues. Or I'm no I'm not a soil health expert, but I have the soil scientist that we can bring out, and we can look at certain components that you're worried about. But I was kind of, like, more of the liaison and point person. So I got I got a little bit of everything within that space, but I also had access to more technical support and people that specialize in certain fields.

Adrian Jessen:

That's cool. Talk a little bit. So if you guys out there know the answers to my questions, then great. I don't know anything, as I said. So these questions may be very basic to you.

Adrian Jessen:

I know they will be to eat, Joy, but what are examples of a cover crop, and how is it used?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. So a cover crop is essentially a crop that goes in after a cash crop comes out of the field for harvest. So here in Iowa, we have anywhere from, like, 25, 26,000,000 acres of row crop, mainly soybeans and corn. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So when soybeans and corn come out in the fall for harvest, you have the ability or the option to put in what we call a cover crop. And there's a ton of species of cover crops. There's cereal rye, winter wheat, camelina, triticale, or triticale, depending on where you are in the state. There's a ton of different options out there, and, essentially, you have the ability then to decide which one works best for you. The most popular one here in the state of Iowa is definitely cereal rye.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It, it just grows. It's really good at just establishing and growing. You could throw it in cracks in the sidewalk, and it'll come up. It's just it's very effective. There's been a lot of studies on it in Iowa.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

That's probably the cover crop species of choice for a lot of people. We really like cereal right here. But, essentially, you just plant that cover crop that you choose into the ground after you take after you harvest bee beans or corn, and then it hopefully establishes that fall, and we get some root growth. Most of the the growth, though, is underground. So if you don't see a ton of biomass growing up top and you're like, oh, they're not very big, don't worry.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

They put all their energy in the roots first. They're sowing. They're getting those roots deep. They're trying to, you know, survive, essentially. And then in the spring, when the weather greens up, you get that flush and they start greening up and they start coming back and growing.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And essentially, what it's doing is several different conservation things in terms of water quality, soil erosion, and soil health. So when those roots are growing underneath the ground, they are keeping the soil in place. When there are no roots actively growing in soil, the soil is much more likely to be able to slough off and erode, so it's helping with that problem. Second, big one it improves is water quality because cover crops, especially in case of cereal rye, are nitrogen fixators. So they are fixing the nitrogen in the soil there.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

They're keeping that nitrogen from running off with the water because nitrogen is water bound, molecularly speaking, not to get too in the weeds. But then if we get those heavy rains, the snow melt, nitrogen goes with it. That's a problem for our water quality. So cover crops help keep that nitrogen there in the field where it belongs, because that's where we want it. We need it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's good stuff. It's fertilizer, but we really don't wanna be losing it, and we really don't wanna get it into our water systems. And then the third thing that cover crops are really good at is improving soil health. So just think of soil as kind of like the monster underneath your feet. It needs fed, and it gets fed by what?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It gets fed by having roots. It gets fed by fertilizer. It needs something growing in it throughout the year. So if you harvest a field and you remove the the corn and beans from it and you leave it barren without anything growing in it, it's it's killing some of the soil biology. Nothing is able to feed the biology underneath the ground if you do not have active roots in it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So by having a cover crop, by having something that's quite literally covering the ground and protecting it over the wintertime, you are feeding your soil microbes, and it is improving your soil biology. It's also very beneficial to just have a different type of root, a different crop growing in the ground because in Iowa here, we're a monoculture. A lot of people are corn bean, corn bean rotation, and some people are corn on corn on corn. Soil doesn't want to just eat cheeseburgers every day out of the year. It likes tacos, and it likes pizza, and it wants different things as well.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So that's that's always how I would explain it to, like, children when we would talk about soil health is that the soil doesn't just want one food. How would you like cheeseburgers every single day out of the year? Probably not as much. Right? So by giving more variety to your soil, by planting another crop, even if it's not a cash crop, is super beneficial for your soil health and speaking longevity wise.

Adrian Jessen:

Like you said, maybe the the rye doesn't produce income, but I would assume by keeping the nitrogen in, making sure the water doesn't wash off your best topsoil, feeding into that soil that your next cash crop has a better chance of being a better producer. Is that is that accurate?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And as the the more years that you implement cover crops, the better your soil health improves. So the better your water infiltration is, the higher your soil organic matter, and all these things make an impact on the health of your crop. So my favorite thing that I would always see with farmers that have been doing cover crops for five, ten plus years is they use way less pesticides because their crops are healthier. They don't see as many issues with, different pests that we have here in Iowa. Their fields dry out way better when we have heavy rains in the spring because that soil is able to infiltrate water.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And a little fun fact is for every 1% increase in soil organic matter that the soil has, it then has anywhere from a 10,000 to 25,000 gallon water increase

Adrian Jessen:

Oh, wow.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Per acre, which is huge because water's a big it's not a problem, but farmers oftentimes look at it as a problem because you either have too little or you have too much. But the true answer to helping with the water problems is just absorbing it. You want your soil you want it to infiltrate your soil. You don't want it to run off the top in the creeks. You want it to infiltrate, and you want your soil to retain it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And with more soil organic matter present in the soil, your soil is able to hold on to that water so much more effectively. And that is such an important thing, whether we're dealing with a flood year or a drought year. It's just very important to have good water infiltration. And that's one thing that over time, continually doing cover crops will improve your soil organic matter.

Adrian Jessen:

I mean, it makes sense when you say it. It's just not something that I think if you're not in it that you would really think to plant something extra because it's not like, oh, plant more stuff. Like, wow, we planted the thing that's making us money. I don't to plant more stuff, but that makes Right. Now, so I feel like this is something you would have looked into in terms of is there any way to correlate, like, the nutrient density of the food in in the soils that have been better taken care of?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So there there are studies being done on that. I don't think there's anything overly conclusive. I'm sure there's probably some soil health nerds out there that will say, no. There there are. There here's the studies.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Because that is a belief that I have personally. I think that from my small scale, like, garden vegetable production, I can do soil tests, and I can look at the nutrients that are in my soil, and I have enough of an understanding to know that's where the nutrients in your food are coming from. They're coming from the soil they're grown in. So if you do not have nutrient dense, rich, healthy soils, why would you expect the food you're harvesting for them to be nutrient dense? Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So that's a personal belief I have from the little things I have seen. I don't think there's one big study out there that's been, like, peer reviewed that everyone is in agreeance that, like, yep. This is for sure a fact. But they they have done some studies on it and even some with livestock. Like, with beef, They've looked at beef that are fed in a conventional feedlot system, just grains their whole life.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Right? As soon as they're weaned, they're thrown into a feedlot. They're consuming grains. First, pasture raised, grass fed, grass finished cattle that are grazing on a variety of things. They're maybe in a prairie setting where they're having several different grass native species and forbs.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

They're getting a wide variety of of grasses, legumes, etcetera. And those studies are showing that there are completely different levels of omegas in comparing the feedlot cattle with the pasture raised on a, diverse pasture system. So I I think there there will be more studies that will be coming out about it just because more people are aware that the nutrient density of your food is a more important factor than just the macros, just the carbs and the fats and the protein. It's like, yeah, but your body needs nutrients. There's is it 37 or 37 or forty, forty five essential nutrients that your body does not produce or doesn't produce enough of them that you have to get them from your food.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. And, I think we're kind of in a health crisis right now where people aren't getting those nutrients, and they're saying, well, I'm getting enough protein, and I'm getting, you know, some fats in, and I'm like, but where are your vitamins? Where are your minerals? Like, are you are you looking at those things when you're picking out food on a shelf? And I think it it all comes back to the soil.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I know it's it's such a trivial thing to say because no one gives a crap about the dirt underneath their feet, but it really does. There's a quote by someone, I can't remember for sure who it is, so maybe I shouldn't even quote it. But, an individual that has said, our human species is just so, what's the word? We're just not insignificant, but we're so fragile because our entire existence relies upon the fact that we have six inches of topsoil, and it rains every year. Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You know, like, without those two very simple things, life would not exist. And, we kinda take both of those resources for granted, unfortunately.

Adrian Jessen:

Talk about you mentioned so we talked about cover crops, the edge crop, or the edge the you were talking about the edge of the fields.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yep. Edge field practices.

Adrian Jessen:

So what talk about that. Like, what does that look like? And I know, like you say, talk about, like, flatter area, rolling hills. Talk about both of those.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So there's lots of different edge of field practices, field borders, buffer strips. Field borders are just things you can put on the edge of field to stop some of that soil loss. They're also great for you can plant, like, a a prairie mix on them, and then that just allows you to have some diversity. Right? Then now all of a sudden, you're tying into the habitat component where you're improving that as well.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

There are water quality specific practices like bioreactors and saturated buffer strips, and there are specific practices that tie in field tile. Not to get too into the weeds about it, but most of I don't know what the total percent is, but a lot of row crop ground here in Iowa is field tiled because, like I said earlier, everyone's worried about water. We either got too little or too much. So when we have too much, this field tile concept allows the water to enter these perforated tubes and then shoots into, like, a nearby ditch or a stream, which I think is part of the problem we're dealing with with poor water quality is because those nutrients that are supposed to stay in the field now tying in with the water, and then they're shooting out into our creeks, and our creeks are running into the river. And where do you think your water comes from?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Right? It's pulled from the river. So practices like bioreactors and saturated buffer strips are using that field tile. They're tying field tile into it, and then through the process of denitrification, they're allowing some of those nitrates to be removed before they enter the stream systems. And those are practices that are quite literally, like I said, on the edge of a field.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So they're not, like, in the field, they're on the side. Really effective practices, there's more and more of them going in the ground every year in Iowa, and there's more research being done. As we put more in the ground, there's more data that's able to be collected to show, percent wise, how much nitrogen is being removed with these practices. So that's really cool to see just because in the grand scheme of things, they're newer practices. They're not that new, but they didn't exist in the seventies or the eighties.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So people are becoming more aware of different ways that we can mitigate this problem here in Iowa, and we're now able to actually implement them and put them in the ground. Edge of field practices, also, this is a good one for ducks, is, wetlands. Iowa used to have a crap ton of wetlands. We used to have so many wetlands in the state of Iowa because we used be a prairie state, so we had a lot of all our ground was, you know, short grass prairie. We had a little bit of tall grass prairie, but there was a ton of wetlands.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

That was kind of the typical water reservoir that animals would utilize, waterfowl would utilize. So using wetlands as a denitrifying basin, they're extremely effective. So can you take the water coming that comes in those tiles in the field, tie those tiles into a wetland, they're very, very effective, like 90% effective and upwards at denitrifying water. Very effective. And then also, it's it's helping wildlife.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's in it's improving their habitat. And typically, where wetlands go in, it's usually farm ground or ground in general that's very marginal. It's not profitable. The soils maybe aren't the best. It is in a location that's hard to farm.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Whatever it is, they're just such a great practice that improves water quality, and then animals love them as well. So I'm a big fan of wetlands. I would love to see more wetlands going in the state of Iowa because I think, overarchingly, they could make a very large impact, and they're a permanent structure. Mhmm. You know?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So that part of it really gives me a lot of drive to push that practice and talk about that practice as well.

Adrian Jessen:

And that I think is going to, tie very well into we're gonna take a little break, so we can hear from our sponsors. But when we come back, let's dig even more into practices that will benefit wildlife, all the wildlife. So let's take a quick break. Welcome back, everybody. As we left before the break, we were talking about how, building I I would assume we'll talk more about that in a second.

Adrian Jessen:

But creating wetlands on your property is a great way not only to help soil health, water health, but also improve wildlife wildlife habitat. So first, talk a little bit about how someone could, I guess, build is the best word, but like build a wetland on their property.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. So there's actually a lot of people, farmers included, that have what you call wetland soils. They're hydric soils already on their property, and, typically, it was just a wetland that was drained years ago in the the farming era of the seventies and eighties. There was a lot of wetlands, and a lot of people drained them because of tile because they wanted to farm that ground. So there's actually a lot of people who have, like, former wetlands on their ground, and they

Adrian Jessen:

don't even know it. So I

Joy Van Wyngarden:

always just tell people, look at a soil map. There's a website called Web Soil Survey, where literally anywhere in the entire United States, you can put your your tier and range, your township, figure out exactly where your land is, and it will tell you exactly what your soil types are. And if they are wetland soil types, if they're hydric, you'll be able to see that from this web soil survey map, this online map. And then in that case, you're talking about a wetland restoration because there was already a wetland there. It was just drained.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So at that point, you're talking about a wetland restoration. Now if you're wanting a wetland creation, you have to look at your soils, you have to look at some different factors, like your drainage area. Is it viable? You know, not all practices can just fit wherever you want them, but it's just something where you have to assess the topography, you have to bring out an engineer, someone has to look at the soils and decide, yep, this is a great spot for a wetland. This will work here, or nope, this isn't gonna work, but you know what?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

There's another practice that we can implement that will improve water quality, or you can maybe just put in a buffer strip here or some native grasses to help, reduce the soil erosion and help with wildlife habitat, etcetera. So that's kind of the fun thing about all these practices is if someone comes to you and they want a wetland and it doesn't work, there's other practices that can maybe meet those same needs and help you achieve those same goals. But I think a lot of people in the state of Iowa would be surprised at ground that they have or ground that they're neighboring that was at one time a wetland.

Adrian Jessen:

And what was the that website again?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Web soil survey.

Adrian Jessen:

Web soil survey. So we'll put that we'll put a, that link in the description too. So and is it pretty easy? Oh, okay.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yes. It's free, and it's it's pretty easy to navigate. Okay. It could use a little bit of a facelift, like the website design. It could use a little bit of a TLC, but it's it's open to the public.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's free. And I always just send that to people when they're asking questions about, like, soil types and whatnot because it has all that information. It's a very good resource to have in your tool belt.

Adrian Jessen:

And, this may be a remedial question, but what is a the buffer strip that you you mentioned? What does that entail?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. So, like, just a classic buffer strip, like a stream strip. So, unfortunately, we have a lot of people that will farm right up to a stream or a ditch Mhmm. And that just causes it to slough over time. So being able to put in a field, border or a buffer strip, something right along a stream, you can plant native species in it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You don't have to. You can do introduced species. I'm biased. I think native is a no brainer because there's a lot of benefits with it and has really deep roots. But just establishing permanent vegetation on the edge bordering up to a stream is a great practice just to prevent some of that soil loss from being as great, especially if you're farming or you're trying to farm right up against a river or stream or a ditch.

Adrian Jessen:

And that makes sense. Like, as you're talking about that, I think about it seems like every year there's, like in California, when they have a bunch of wildfires, then very soon it's gonna rain and then they have mudslides. Because now the the roots of the trees and all the stuff that was keeping the dirt still is now gone. Yep. So it makes sense.

Adrian Jessen:

If you aren't if you don't have something in the ground to keep water from running, then eventually, the the ground is also gonna wash off. Yep. That makes sense for sure. How big does a wetland need to be to be effective?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I wouldn't say the efficacy is changed by the size of it. Because a small wetland is still denitrifying the water that comes into it as much as a bigger wetland is. It's more of a matter of the drainage area. So you just have to have a big enough sized wetland to accommodate all the water that's gonna be draining into it, which is a structural thing. That's an engineering and a structural thing, and it depends on how much how many acres of drainage we're talking when it comes to the size of your wetland.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So, really, they don't have to be these big, huge wetlands. I've seen I've seen, like, an acre size wetland before. I mean, they're effective. They're great. You just have to fit them to what the needs are for that specific location.

Adrian Jessen:

Okay. Yeah. And then the the engineers that you mentioned, and I will obviously other states probably have different situations, but is that a, state? Like, you could contact the state and they could come, or is that like a paid contracted service?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So there are both engineers that can help with projects like this in the public side and the private sector. So NRCS, you guys have those where you're at. I mean, the whole the whole country has natural resource conservation services. But, there are state programs as well, and then there are private dollars that also go towards these things. And as it's becoming more popular to implement these conservation practices, as people are becoming more aware that these are an option, we're seeing more and more private dollars go to it as well.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So sometimes you can get the technical support from your local NRCS office, and you're able to get their engineering help, and you don't always necessarily have to also get public funding for it. There are private funding options out there available as well. So when it comes to the engineering side, though, the answer is both. There's people on both sides of the spectrum that are able to help with engineering needs for practices like that.

Adrian Jessen:

So, hopefully, if you have a property that you've been farming and you you were like, gosh, this all sounds great. I haven't been doing this. I wanna start doing it. There's at least a route that would be, I don't wanna say free because there's work to be done, but there'd be a route to get started that isn't necessarily gonna cost an arm and a leg to figure out how to how to get things moving.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yes. Yep. Just finding who those local people are, whether that's an SWCD, that's an NRCS office. You just ask around and find those people and get connected.

Adrian Jessen:

It's neat to think because I know I I have some friends that do, like, land management sort of stuff and or, like, come out to your property and assess, like, oh, you need to put this here, this, you know, you need to trim these trees and da da da. And those can be, I mean, this it's a lot of lot of work, a lot of knowledge, so that's not cheap. So it's good to know there's a route that at least to get started, isn't Mhmm. Isn't gonna cost a ton.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. And typically, if you just find that right contact at a local office, they can then help you organize meetings with a forester if that's what you need, or if you do need a soil health specialist. Whatever the needs are that you're needing for a specific concern, there are specialists. You just gotta find the first person to kinda connect you.

Adrian Jessen:

There you go. Like you. Like you were. Are there any negatives, I guess? Like, is it cost more to do these things, or does there is there any potential negative impact to any of these improvements in in the soil or the water?

Adrian Jessen:

Or

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I wouldn't say negative impacts. There's just trade offs, if that makes sense. Mhmm. Like, with cover crops, something you will commonly hear when people do them for the first year is they take a yield hit. So their crops that they're growing, their cash crop didn't yield as well the following year.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Okay. And it's simply because it is just an adjustment period. It is a change in the soil, and typically, is true. I've definitely seen cases where it's not. And and that's all just dependent on rainfall that year and the soil types as well.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Like, there's so many factors that go into it. But if people are asking, like, oh, what could a negative impact be if like, yeah, you might take a yield hit the first year with cover crops. That's a trade off that maybe you have to be okay with the first year, the first two years. When it comes to permanent practices, you're losing some farm ground potentially. So a lot of people don't like to hear that.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

They think I need more. I don't want less.

Adrian Jessen:

Right.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So that's a trade off in that case. When you put in field borders or field strips, same thing. Maybe you're removing some ground out of production. You know, maybe it was marginal ground. It wasn't yielding very well anyway, but still it's ground, or some people will find it inconvenient having to farm around certain things because equipment's not getting smaller.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's getting bigger. So when you have something in the middle of a field that now you have to go around, that's maybe an inconvenience. So, absolutely, I would say more so than anything, it's just different trade offs that you have to be okay with for the the long term impacts of these practices.

Adrian Jessen:

And that makes sense too. Like, even, cost wise, running your tractor and fuel and to to go back in and do another crop, like, it makes sense that there would be cost to it. But long term is the benefit, you know, risk reward. Does the outcome better than than the cost? This is probably a dumb question.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Never a dumb question.

Adrian Jessen:

Don't do that. It's probably

Joy Van Wyngarden:

good. Come on.

Adrian Jessen:

So you've planted your rye, and now it's time to plant your corn. Is is there a process is it a different process? Because I know you still have to get your land ready to plant your crop. Is it the same, or do you have to do something to the rye prior to prepping the land?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You do want to terminate your rye. Now the method of termination is different for different people. It's whatever fits their needs. Some people terminate it with a herbicide. Some people will crimp it, which is quite literally, like, snapping it, and then it it kills itself.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

There's different methods, and it also depends on if you're just wanting to terminate your rye. So something that's been growing in popularity here in Iowa, because cattle love cereal rye, cattle love cover crops, is putting up temporary fencing, and then come that early spring, moving cattle onto that field and letting them graze it. So then you're, you know, you're getting two birds down at once, I guess. It's a it's just a great method that we're seeing more cattle farmers try to implement if they also have row crop themselves, or they have a neighbor who's doing cover crops. That's really honestly, that that right there is the best system.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

If you wanna talk about soil health and efficiency, that is the way to go. Get animals back on the landscape. It is so beneficial. Their manure and what they do to the ground, it just completes the loop that we need in our system, and it's essentially what it used to be a long, long time ago when bisons were roaming the state.

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. So that is that is really the one of the best methods to go. But then after that, even if you took off the cattle and you still have some regrowth or not all the cover crops are dead, you can do a pass with herbicide and just kill whatever's left over. Because, yeah, you you have to, you have to have that cover crop dead. Not necessarily before you plant.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

There's a lot of people that are doing what we call planting green, planting into green, where they will literally plant their cash crop into standing rye. The rye will be maybe knee high or shorter or whatever, and they are planting into it. And then afterward, they go over top with their herbicide. There's there's so many different methods of the madness. There's there I know very few people that do the same thing even every year on their farm.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Every they're trying different things. Everyone has their own preferences on how they do things, and a lot of people are willing to experiment and and try something and just see how it works here and there. So there's there's no one method to the madness.

Adrian Jessen:

And I really like the the picture of either if you yourself have a couple like you have cattle and you have a property that's mainly cattle ground, and then you have that, then you just, you know, move your cattle to your ground. Yep. But or like you said, co op sort of deal, like you get together with farmers and now you're providing food for their cows, but they're also providing a service for your land. So that just seems like, again, like you said, kinda how things how things were meant to be.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. So that's really closing the nutrient cycle. Yeah. It's really the most efficient way, and it's when you start looking at it from, a soil health perspective, it is the biggest no brainer. It just makes so much sense, and it's very efficient, and it's yeah.

Adrian Jessen:

They bring it back desert. To

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Exactly. Exactly. And the soil reacts really well to that. It is just it's crazy to to look at soil that has just been conventionally cropped. Maybe it's been tilled, never had cover crops on it, hasn't had animals on it for decades, then to convert it into a more regenerative system and have cover crops on it to not disrupt the soil with tillage practices to then bring animals back to landscape.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You can transform soil within a matter of a few years by just how you manage it and practices like that.

Adrian Jessen:

And and then again, hopefully, that translates into more crop production, better crop production, you know, bigger ears of corn or bigger beans, bigger stands, and then it's all, like, trade off, trickle down, all well worth it after those potentially few years, four or five potential years of of difficulty.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And just adjustment. Yeah. It's it's a shock to the soil. It's been only getting cheeseburgers and tacos back and forth for the last twenty some years. You know, it doesn't doesn't know what's going on when you shock it with some new practices.

Adrian Jessen:

You give it some vegetables. It's like, what

Joy Van Wyngarden:

is that? It's like, what? Get

Adrian Jessen:

this mess away from me. Exactly. I feel like there's so many more questions I have, but let's talk about farming is one one thing. Some people some of those farmers are hunters as well. So how or people just buy the land to hunt.

Adrian Jessen:

What would you say of those things we kind of already talked about would be top, like, critical for improving habitat for your let's focus on deer first. But habitat for your deer, so they stay, so they grow, that you're, you know, you're getting the big bucks you want or whatever. What would you say kind of the top things to be thinking about there are?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So it totally depends on the species that you're prioritizing. So in this case, if it's deer Mhmm. You have to look at the landscape and see what you're working with. Is there row crop ground? Is there marginal ground that you can put in the CRP, put some native plant species out there?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

What does the timber look like? Is there timber? You know, how much timber? Because there's timber stand improvement as well, just improving a timber stand so that it is better habitat for specifically deer hunting or bow hunting or whatever it is. When it comes to, like, what those best practices are, I think you have to look at what resources are currently on a tract of land and then evaluate it from there, which is what consultants obviously are really good at.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

But probably things like timber stand improvement, and that's that's more so with deer. You could also look at that with turkeys. Mhmm. But then if you wanna get into ground nesting birds, cover crops are a great one because they have something to go to over different months of the year when normally that ground would be bare. I don't know.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I don't know if there's, like, a one single practice where I'm like, this has the biggest impact because species, the different wildlife species, they're diverse in their needs. You know? Clean water is important to them too. They just don't have a voice to tell us that. Like, having a good nesting habitat, having good timber to shelter them, it really just kinda depends on what's on the ground and what your goals are species wise.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

That makes sense.

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah. That makes complete sense. Because what what a turkey needs is not necessarily the same as what a mule deer needs. Right. So that makes sense.

Adrian Jessen:

And you gotta look at, you know, are there is there a water source? Is there food? Is there bedding? Is there safe transitions?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

What needs aren't being met of theirs that we can make an adjustment and make sure they are getting those things? But, ultimately, conservation practices in general in the ag space positively impact resources that wildlife species need. Improving water quality is good for every species. Applying less herbicide on the ground is good for every species. Not having bare soil is good for every species.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You know what I mean? You start looking at these different practices, and you're like, it helps it helps wildlife. It's not just beneficial for soil health, but really all those things that are helping improve soil health, they're also improving wildlife.

Adrian Jessen:

Right. And that makes sense too, like, even thinking about the cover crops. So you you you know, the deer have been in eating the soybeans before they get harvested, you know, before they die and all that and then or the corn or whatever. Well then, now you're looking into the December colder months where if you've got that cover crop, then you have food to feed the the deer or any, I mean, basically, any wildlife at that point. You have food for them, so they're gonna grow better if you've been taking care of your water and and your soil has higher nitrogen content and the other nutrients.

Adrian Jessen:

Then ideally, the like you're talking about the cattle, the food they're eating is gonna be better for them. So that, in theory, helps them become bigger, healthier, stronger animals, deer, produce better, healthier animals reproduce better. So it just seems like it all definitely is correlated to or has to be. I'm sure there's not, like, proof per se, but it makes Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's it's just a cycle and a system. And when we disrupt it to a certain degree, we can really put a wrench in the resiliency of the resource of these animals and long term longevity. You know? I think there's been studies that have done have been done on turkeys about their shells being like, they crack easier, or they're not able to reach maturity before the hatchlings are ready to come out. And some of that, they're trying to see if it gets tied back to certain aspects of modern farming practices.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You know? Like, the turkeys eating the seeds that have a coating on them when they go in the ground, that they have all sorts of stuff, and then it depends what kind of seeds you're planting and and what you're doing as a farmer. But then if those turkeys are eating those seeds that are in the ground, and then they're digesting it, and then it's somehow affecting the reproductive system, like, there's just there's nothing that we're doing in, like, conventional farming that doesn't impact something. Yeah. It like, we can't just think we're in this own our own little echo chamber of, well, it only affects what's on the ground here and it only affects me.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's like, no. The animals that travel across this ground and the water that leaves this ground, like, it has an impact. All the decisions you're making on your farm have a downstream impact now and ten years from now. Yeah. So, like, with that in mind, I just think it's it's really important that we we recognize the value of conservation practices on the landscape, edge of field, infield wise, just for everyone's sake, ours and the wildlife included.

Adrian Jessen:

And one thing, and this may not even be a it may be just more of the same, but so if you're not on big scale farm, and let's just say you have a small plot of property and you wanna plant a acre or two food plot, like you really don't have a ton of of land, what what would you say? And again, it may just be the same stuff, but what are kind of the things that people need to consider just food plot wise?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Well, one thing that's always kind of fun when people ask about food plots, I'll I'll throw back at them. Like, have you done a soil test? You know? Because when you're looking at food plots, soil is a big indicator of the acidity. You know, if you're looking at the acidity of your soil, of what that food plot's gonna be like when you have brassicas saying it, recognizing that what the history is of that specific piece of ground, you know, has it been barren?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Was it row crop, corn bean rotation? Was it CRP at one point? Like, if you're trying to have the most banger food plot you can get out there, check your soil. It's worth it. It's worth having the co op come out there and do it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

It's worth doing a kit yourself just because oftentimes, the soil health of your food plot will will be the the indicator of how well it does, because you're either gonna get too much rain or gonna get too little rain. Right. So what's the water infiltration in your soil? Don't have enough soil organic matter. The health of your soil is gonna be a big indicator if the pests that are trying to consume or or destroy your food plot.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Mhmm. How resilient are your plants gonna be? Not very resilient if they're in crap soil and just dead soil is what I call it, where there's just there's no biology. There's nothing going on underneath the ground. Because if you're gonna do all that work to improve a piece of property and you're trying to kill a big deer, you wanna have a kick ass food plot.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You know? Excuse me. Kick butt food plot. You want it to be worth your time. You have that investment in there.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So I always encourage people, we'll just take the invest make the investment on doing a soil health test on that food plot. And then, of course, you have to look at resources like water. Do you have a creek running through your property? What is what is, getting drained into that creek? You know, are you completely surrounded and isolated on your own little island with row crop everywhere around you?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Well, then you kinda have to use that to your advantage of what you have, you know, and just it really just depends

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I would say.

Adrian Jessen:

Right. So what this is, again, probably a question that has a simple answer that I should know. But so let's say you do a soil test and it's just trash. Like, people have been

Joy Van Wyngarden:

deformed and saved.

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah. It's just trash. So what how do you easily improve? Like, what is the best first step to start getting the soil health back to where it needs to be?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So the there's, like, different rules of soil health and things that you have to to implement in order to improve your soil health, and one of those things is to not disturb the soil or not disrupt it. So if a ground's been tilled historically and it's been cultivated, that's one thing you remove from that cycle. No longer disrupt that soil. So it does not want to be ravaged, so you leave it be. Then there's things that you can put on it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So if you do a soil health test and you can recognize where the pH is, you can, you know, add lime, or you can add different components to it to even out those parameters. Then if you wanna look at soil organic matter, you can apply compost. I'm a huge fan of compost at a large scale. You can get the compost, you can put that on the ground. That's gonna break down.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

That's gonna help improve soil organic matter over time. And then, putting a a living root system in there. So depending on what time of year you're acquiring the property, you're depending on what the cycle is that you're that you're working with, get a living root in that soil as soon as you can. Get something growing because the soil needs active growing roots in order to feed off that. That's how you feed your soil biology.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

So really looking at it as, like, something that needs healed. It's not gonna be great within a year or even two. It needs healed. It needs time, but just implementing those different practices, recognizing what those soil health practices are, getting manure on the ground, you know, if you can not necessarily, you don't have to graze it, but, like, bringing compost and manure on that Mhmm. Specific field plot.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Those are all things that you have to implement that will take time to improve if you were just dealing with, like, a crap spot, but they will work, and it just takes time. But recognizing the soil health principles and then implementing them.

Adrian Jessen:

That's huge. Yeah. Cool. That makes so much sense.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Because because so many people are dealing with that. They're just like, man, nothing's growing. Yeah. It's just crap, or it's really sandy. And it's like, okay, you know, hop on web soil survey, see at least what your soil types are, get a soil test done on it, see where you're at with nutrients, and then just recognize that, like, this poor thing has been used and abused.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

That's right. It needs some love. It's gonna take some time to get it back where it needs to be, but you would be amazed at how quickly you can improve soil health by just applying those soil health principles. Quit tilling it. Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Put covers on it. Don't don't let that thing be naked over the winter. It doesn't wanna be naked in the winter any more than you and I would. Like, get that thing covered. Put some compost on it.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Get a living root in it. I mean, people have taken really bad situations and and poor soil types as well, and really improve them with just implementing those principles.

Adrian Jessen:

That's it's very interesting. Here in North Carolina, it's you know, we have mostly just red clay. Like, the dirt is awful. So it would be really cool to experiment with that. Like, just find some awful red dirt that has nothing going for it anymore and just try to, like, pour into it.

Adrian Jessen:

Like you say, figure out what what is not working well, what's what's broken, and and work toward healing that just to see how well it could it could turn out. That'd be really neat. That may be a project that I find to work on somewhere.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Sorry. Just giving you more stuff

Adrian Jessen:

out in your

Joy Van Wyngarden:

your winner list now.

Adrian Jessen:

That's okay. That's okay. I can get it gives me more things to review, so that works out.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. So I'll send you some books.

Adrian Jessen:

That's right. This has been so informative for me. Hopefully, it has been for you guys. Is if there is one lasting final piece of information advice you would give, what would that be?

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Soil health doesn't interest a lot of people, and a lot of people aren't even aware of why it matters or why it's important. I would just encourage everyone to look into soil and soil health because we're on a really bad trajectory right now currently in this country and a lot of countries across the world right now for massive soil loss. And we are projected to not have topsoil, like most of our majority of our topsoil to be gone in the next 60 harvests.

Adrian Jessen:

Oh, wow.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

That fact alone is extremely alarming because the very thing that our food grows out of and that our food eats that grows out of is reliant upon soil. And once we lose that topsoil, it's gone. We're able to create it somewhat, but it takes a long time. I would rather just not lose it in the first place Mhmm. Than have to worry about building it and creating topsoil that will take decades and decades Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

To do so. And it's it impacts everyone. You know? You don't have to be a farmer to recognize the importance of it. You don't have to be a conservationist or a wildlife advocate.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

You have to be a human being that eats food on this planet and drinks water to recognize that it is a humongously important resource, and it's currently eroding away

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

At an alarming rate. And it's concerning, and I'm not trying to be all doomsday about it. But until enough people recognize the importance of the resource and start properly advocating for it, it will continue to go in the wrong direction.

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

And that's one of the reasons I talk about it on my social platform like I do, because if you're not in the ag farming soil space, a lot of people don't know about this problem. Yeah. They're completely unaware of it, and it's a concerning problem. So I guess I would just encourage anyone to look into it. There's some really great books out there.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

There's a lot of great podcasts out there you can listen to that will just bring up the importance of the most life giving resource on the planet, and that is soil.

Adrian Jessen:

Yeah. Well, speaking of that, go ahead, tell everybody where they can find you, follow you, any other resources like that that you'd like to share.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. So I am on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok as joy of all trades. Those are the main platforms I'm on. I also have YouTube, but I'm not as active on that. But, yeah, I post about all the stuff that we've talked about today and more, hence the name joy of all trades.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

I just don't really hold back. I just share a lot of different stuff that I'm passionate and interested about. But, yeah, follow along if you guys are at all more curious about the stuff that we talked about.

Adrian Jessen:

For sure. And we'll put some links to that below. Also, I'll try to we'll put the survey website. We'll try to get a lot of the things we mentioned and and put those below so people can just link straight to that. This has been, again, truly just super interesting for me because it's not something that I have dealt with in my life.

Adrian Jessen:

So thanks for being here. Thanks for all of your information being great great guests, great resource. It's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you today. So thank you so much for being here.

Joy Van Wyngarden:

Yeah. Thank you, Adrian.

Adrian Jessen:

It's been fun. Yep. And guys, thank you for being here with us. Make sure you like this episode, especially if you're on YouTube. Go ahead and comment, share it.

Adrian Jessen:

I I say this every single week that you hear me, but we want ASCEND to be this just huge community of women and men who love the outdoors and wanna learn as much as we can to make it better and to make it where, you know, our kids, grandkids, great grandkids have this beautiful resource to enjoy and share like we have. So make sure that you comment, join in, head over to all of your social media platforms, and also follow ASCEND there. Thank you again for tuning in. Thank you, Joy, for being here. And I'm Adrian, encouraging you to follow your story wherever it takes you.

VO:

Thank you for listening to the ASCEND podcast. New every week, the conservation driven podcast one week, and our adventure video series the next. Watch the ASCEND adventure episodes on the Ducks Unlimited YouTube channel, and be sure to like, share, and subscribe. Opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, follow your outdoor story wherever it leads you. ASCEND. Don't forget to rate and review the ASCEND podcast. It's the best way to grow the podcast and help other women discover the next step on their outdoors journey.