 All right. My name is Mark Brannon. It's a pleasure to be here at the Great Plains Growers Conference with everybody. My wife, Michelle, and I own a acre-and-a-half farm up in Omaha, Nebraska, sort of urban farm in central Omaha. Pretty typical diversified vegetable farm. We have about a 30-member CSA, sell the restaurants. Historically, we've done a couple farmers markets. We got away from that in the last past couple years. Our project that I'm going to talk about today was an NCR-SAR funded farmer rancher grant project back in 2019. It was a year-long project titled, Planting a Profitable, Pollinator Habitat with Native Nebraska Plants. I will note that many of the plants we use in the project are native to the region that I assume most everybody in this room and listening is from. It should be applicable to most everybody here, and I hope you can take something from it. Before I get into the project specifically, I'll give you a little background on myself and the farm so you can decide whether or not you want to trust me. I like to say my wife, Michelle, and I are accidental farmers. We have no formal training. We grew up in the city, but a dream was sparked in us back in 2012. We were backpacking around Central and South America, and then one of our stops was in an organic vegetable farm in Panama. So we grew everything from carrots, tomatoes, peppers, typical anything you can grow here. We made it work there. And also, as you can see there with the bananas, there was mangoes, you name avocados, you name it. It was a truly wonderful experience for us. And we left that coming back to the states, not knowing exactly what we wanted to do, but knowing that we wanted to grow more of our own food because we fell in love with the lifestyle. We know we wanted to have children and stay home with those kids. So blindly, we lived with my aunt for a couple months until we found the acre and a half, and then jumped into it. But again, we didn't really have an intention to have this be a business or even a full-time business. I will say, right now we both do work full-time at the farm, and we're able to make it work. We just paid off our mortgages this year after seven years living there. So it's working well enough. And I'm going to share some of that story, how we got there. As you can see, we have three wonderful boys that takes up the majority of our time, farming's really the second job. That's why I was a little late getting here. Thanks for putting up with me. I'd like to say that it was, as any farmer, diversified vegetable farmer knows, it was a very steep learning curve, not having had years of experience in the field. Even after one or two years, you think you got it nailed. Different weather pattern or different pests will come up, and you realize you don't know as nearly as much as you knew. So it's been a learning experience, to be sure. We sort of went at it. I like to say a lot of, the same way a lot of people go at it with Gooster, reading all the books we can, all the latest magazines, Mother of News, this, that, the other, bought a BCS, started doing diversified vegetables because, well, that's what we wanted to eat. As we grew, first I took it on as a full-time job, then Michelle moved away from her job. That's what we've done the last few years. It's been fantastic, but we realized what we wanted and what fit with our farm, we don't have any employees, it's just the two of us. We wouldn't necessarily become rich doing it the typical way, competing against, doing the same thing that everybody else is doing, competing, offering the same vegetables. And so, one thing Michelle, she's always been great with value-added products. We began to diversify our value-added products. As you can see there on our table, we've got some beeswax candles. We keep bees, but she began to, it wasn't our idea. Other people at Market were doing the same, offering candles with herbs and infused, not just essential oils, but infused with herbs and herbs. We began to do that and everybody else that was doing that was buying the herbs from us or from somebody similar to us. We really found that that was sort of a niche for us. In addition to that, up in Omaha, north of Omaha in Blair, Nebraska, there's wonderful botanical shop, Prairie Star Botanicals. They do wonderful work, do nationwide sales. They began buying from us stuff that I, when we started out, didn't even know you could grow for profit like echinacea, coneflower, common yaro, some stuff that Michelle was already using in some of our products, but we realized there was potentially more opportunity there. And that's when we began to discover the NCR Ceregrant. It was a pretty modest grant where we only got $2,900 and hindsight, I wish I would ask for more, but it's a wonderful grant. Anybody that has looked at it is afraid to apply, whether it be a farmer rancher grant or a partnership grant, just go for it. We had a simple idea and that was just that we could sell more native perennials. It would be good for our farm, generate more revenue, also be good for our farm environmentally, ecologically. We presented that idea and it was funded. This is, the title again, was planting a profitable pollinator habitat with native Nebraska plants. And this is our project grief was we will assess the potential for small diversified farmers to generate profit through the establishment of permanent pollinator habitat that consists of a variety of native plants that can be marketed as high value alternative crops. And we plan to show that there are a number of pollinator friendly plants native Nebraska that can be utilized to build a stronger, healthier farm ecosystem while simultaneously providing an additional revenue stream. And then that part was important to us, not just providing the additional revenue stream, something that we could rely on year after year, but we plan to be at our house forever, turn to our kids if they want to farm it, they can do that if not they can sell it, but we want this area to be an oasis in the city and improving the land as the years went on farm and we realized that improving the land was needed to be a more important aspect of our operation. We're excited about the opportunity that native plants offered to do so. Anytime you do a NCR, SARE grant, you're charged with measuring the benefits and the impacts of the project. And they really want you to focus on one specific benefit, whether it be economic sustainability, social sustainability, or environmental sustainability, show that your project can make strides demonstrating that not just on your farm, but potentially on other farms can make a difference in one of these areas. It doesn't need to meet every area. I am currently on the NCR SARE review committee for the region, so I know that you really only need to hit one of these. When we applied, our aim was to show the obviously the economic sustainability of the project, but also we really wanted to focus on the social sustainability project. We really didn't even mention the environmental sustainability in our application. It obviously has clear environmental implications, as far as improving biodiversity and providing a place for beneficial insects. There's many ways you can focus on one area and don't make it too complicated, I guess, when you're applying. I'll talk quickly about each one of these, though. With the economic sustainability was clearly just to have improved income or profitability and improved market opportunities. So as far as profitability, I can tell you the project was a total success. I can tell you how many times in the past I planted an entire three by 40 foot bed of radishes. I only got three quarters of that bed sold. Well, because in early April, where we're from, everybody has radishes. That's one thing you can have at that time. You're competing against a lot of similar operations. So for us, but ultimately, square footage, it did prove to be certain plants were more profitable per square foot. I'll talk more in detail about that in a little bit. And then improved market opportunities. Obviously, at a farmer's market or even going out to restaurants, whatever it may be, there's only so many customers and it seems like nowadays there's more and more farmers. So we wanted to find untapped market opportunities in our area. And that's, you know, with Prairie Star Botanicals really opened our eyes. The botanical industry is really fast-frying industry. And after connecting with them, there's lots of people that they work with that then reach out to us for, you know, for similar product. And then also, I mean, some other stuff that really opened our eyes. You know, a couple ice cream shots in town, wanting native herbs, a nice hyssop or even purple cone flower, putting stuff like that to make, you know, have their value added ice cream, you know, using our product. So in that aspect, it was a successful project. And the social sustainability, like I said, for us, that was a big deal. The improved quality of life. Sarah outlines that, you know, if you can, if you can spend less time on the farm and more time with your family or time doing things outside the farm that you enjoy, whether it be bowling, like to disc golf, well, you're going to have, you're going to be a better farmer because you're going to be happier. And so that goes along with, you know, the profitability, but also I'll talk about how the maintenance of the native plants for us was a big, a big change of pace, as far as being less maintenance and day to day maintenance and turnover year to year. And then environmental sustainability. I think that's pretty clear. You know, offering, you know, planting native plants is, it's good for biological diversity. I really like to highlight a couple of books, building soils for, for better crops with Sarah, my friend Mad Goff and Harold Banas. It really talks about no matter what type of farmer, if you're a row crop farmer here, there are benefits to incorporating native plants in your operation. Getting better pollination on whatever crops, whatever your cash crops are, but also pest control. You don't want to underestimate the value of pest control. Many of those, many of those native flowers are uniquely shaped for insects and pests that have been, pests that have been around for a long time that may not have a place on our farm right now. But if we give them a place, their numbers increase and then they can be a form of pest control on your farm. And then also decreased water use. As far as economic sustainability, you know, I've got a chart here comparing native perennials versus the typical annual annual vegetables, at least in our experience. There's very little competition, at least where we're from as far as marketing these crops. The flowers and herbs and roots that we, we grown, I've got, you may be wondering exactly what, what, what plants I'm talking about. Common Yarl, purple cone flower, lead plant, Solomon seal, blue verbane, any, a lot of plants, any plants you find on the, on the plains here in the natural prairies. But again, getting back to, to the difference between the typical annual vegetables and we still, we haven't gotten away from that. We still, obviously, we're not going to sustain our entire farm through the marketing of these, of these native plants, but it has provided a nice additional revenue stream, like I said, one that with less work and frankly is more satisfying. So again, there's not that many people growing this type of stuff where we're from. I think you might find the same thing around here or anywhere, wherever you're from. Whereas, typical annual vegetables, it's a race to the bottom. So, I have to charge $1.50 at market for my radishes per bunch. Why? Well, because there's 30 other people charging the exact same thing. I charge $2, they're not going to get by it, even though it costs me $2.25 or $2.35 or who knows how much to produce them. So again, going along with that, you become a price setter versus a price taker. If you're the only one who has that individual product and you'll find that there generally is, there's people willing to pay. For us, you know, this is a big thing is it's a one-time investment versus yearly expenditures. And you can do it a lot cheaper than we did. We set it up in a 2000 square foot perennial garden. And we set it up to be able to compare the production of the perennials versus the annuals we set up in the same sort of scheme that we do our annual vegetables, which is raised beds about 36 inches wide with heavy mulch in the aisles. And then we bought plants, established plants, you know, four-inch or quart pots from a variety of native plant suppliers in our region. And that was because the time constraints of the project we wanted to get in and be able to have it have it established to the point where we could then start selling the product. Whereas, but there is a much cheaper alternative. And you know, and that would be seeding, you know, if you have the patients seeding perennial plant perennial natives in the fall is a fantastic, cheaper way to do it. You know, you're going to wait, if you're looking to market it, you know, you're going to wait another year, at least under a year and a half before you see the fruits of that labor. But, you know, there's, if you're going to look, if you're looking to get strips or, you know, anything in a larger scale, I'd say that would be the way to go. But again, it's a one-time expense and versus, you know, looking through the seed catalogs every year. And then, you know, with the native perennials, there are multiple marketing channels. You know, you can sell them fresh, you can sell them dried, put them in, use them in value-added products. Of course, that's the same thing in tip-pointing vegetables. We do a lot of dried peppers and the like, so not quite much of a difference there. As far as social sustainability, I think that's what we found was the biggest difference. With the native perennials, we had that one-time installation. And then, you know, we've laid mulch one-time since then in the aisles, but it's just a tremendous difference between the amount of, you know, weekly maintenance that these, this area, this same 2000 square foot takes compared to 2000 square foot that we have, you know, whether it be in tomatoes or whatever, what have you. Obviously, for us, being a small farm, we want to get at least two cycles of crop, you know, per year in any given bed, usually three. And so, we're constantly prepping those beds, getting compost on those beds, you know, shaping them, seeding them. And then, you know, if you're seeding, the competition with weeds when you're seeding is the vein in my existence. And that's part of the reason why this project appealed to me. Of course, the goal is every year you're competing less and less with weeds, but it seems like it's a losing battle sometimes. And so, that one-time installation really appealed to us. And then, the minimal maintenance versus the endless outkeep, not only the weeding, but the watering was a big deal. And then, as far as if you want to talk about taking care of the beds versus being all the way to harvesting, post-harvest storage, it's generally easy on the back, clipping flowers, clipping seed heads, digging up roots. So, a lot of the plants that we grow are for the roots. The botanical industry uses the roots. Don't ask me to explain it. I just grow it in tinctures and whatnot, but it's really, it's a lot easier on the back versus hauling 60 pounds of cucumbers from our back 40 in the two days. And then, one thing we were surprised about, we didn't expect going in was the beauty that it provides all four seasons. We knew it would provide beneficial habitat, but the beds that we had our tomatoes in right now, this year, there's mulch right now with leaf and straw mulch. So, they don't look ugly, but they're not beautiful and they're not inspiring. You go out in the perennial garden right now, and it is. Those seed heads are still there. The birds are fluttering around. It's still an active farm all four seasons. So much so that we enjoyed the space. We carved out another area next to the perennial garden and then expanded the perennial garden in that area in between. We built a flagstone patio. Spent a good deal of money to invest more in that space because we found that we host with our CSA members and, again, we got away from farmers markets. So, a big thing for us was we had people pick up vegetables weekly on the farm, neighbors and when that would come. We'd have our pick up date. A lot of them, especially during the pandemic, we found to me under around the farm and get outside away from everybody, obviously, but enjoy a beautiful space. And that was clearly obvious that that became the favorite of everybody who visited the farm in a focal point. So, we built around that and that was just this fall. So, we hope to host events there in the future, possibly another revenue-generated opportunity. Environmental sustainability, like I said, minimal water use. That was really a tremendous surprise. I mean, I guess I should have seen it coming. But with our annual vegetables, we typically, whether it be on drip or sprinkler, we got both systems going. It's about an inch a week. Some crops is a lot less or a little bit less. Some crops is a little bit more, especially the last couple of summers in Omaha. It's been dry and hot and dry and dry. And so, I call it hauling hoses. The kids say, you're going to go haul hose, dad? And I say, yeah, I'm moving it from one hose, one drip system to the other. And that becomes an expense over time, obviously. But with the native perennials, we had a drip system. When we first installed it, we installed the drip system and we used it about what we normally would, how we normally use it on other crops for that first season. But again, found out, we really didn't need that. And we took that drip system out. And ever since then, we have not watered that one time. So, I mean, they're native to this region for a reason. They survive years of drought, years of too much water, this, that, the other. But it's been, that's been a really great reprieve, not having to water. So, cutting out the time, but also the cost. Zero soil disturbance. That's when building soils for better crops, less soil disturbance, you have the more the microbiome can improve. And again, with these perennial crops, we planted them. The beds are established. And we don't do anything with them. Some of them I do mow over depends on the, on the, on the crop, the, like the yard I'll mow over. But for the most part, I mean, again, the soil is not being disturbed. But with typical any vegetables, you know, you're generally, one way or another, you're disturbing the soil. And so I find that you know, just by anecdotal evidence, the soil is after a few years, the soil is better in that area than in the, in the other more intensely farmed areas of our farm. And then, you know, environmentally provides you around habitat for beneficial insects, birds, mammals and more. I think, well, what else could be there, but there was a tortoise, tortoise that was burrowing in and making a nest, burying some eggs recently. So that was a surprise. But, you know, with the typical any vegetables, if you do want to provide your own habitat or your own cover, you know, you're having to, you're having to use cover crops, which is, that's, you know, that's what we do in our other beds. It's a great practice. But again, that, that adds just one more step in the process of planting the cover crop of ultimately terminate two tumor steps, terminating the cover crop, and then additional costs. So you might be wondering how, you know, how do we market some of those native plants? Cut flower arrangements is a big one, something for us. Again, we don't do the market so much anymore, but we were really surprised how successful the cut flower, the native flowers did at market. You know, they're less ubiquitous than, than the zinnias that everybody has, and that we have to fill out, fill out our arrangements. But, you know, you get some unique flowers that people have never seen, but they haven't seen since they used to live on their grandmas, you know, they used to visit their grandmother's farm. It really brings them to the table. They buy the flowers and they, they buy our radishes instead of somebody else's radishes. And florists too, you know, they, they have their typical sheets that they get from people that, you know, the imported flowers that they get, and it's not going to vary. They can distinguish themselves with your flowers, and that's something to, to highlight to them. Yeah, they, they're a little, some of, a lot of them are doubtful at first, or not sure that the flowers are going to hold up. You might have to give them some stems for free, but a lot of the native flowers do really hold up well. And so that, you know, if you get it in their hands, I think you'll find that they'll love it. And then the additional herbs that, you know, like I said, there's a surging demand for the botanical products. Just a few years ago is that one botanical shop in Blair, Nebraska that was buying from us. And now there's three or four in Omaha and another in Lincoln. So it's a growing industry, and really an industry that's willing to pay top dollar for product. And then value added products, we do a lot of that, you know, both at the markets, but also online. For us, it's been great to, you know, have a diverse revenue stream, but you know, not, you know, spread that revenue out over, throughout the winter. Michelle does a lot of body products. She's a pasty redhead that has always had skin problems. And she found that there was nothing that could ever do it, you know, treat her skin right. And so she, years ago, she, you know, before even had her far, she began making her own products. And so she uses a lot of these products in the lip balm and salms and soaps that we sell at market. And again, there's, there's a few other soap sellers and, and, you know, four or five other people that do salms or something similar, but we distinguish ourselves in the fact that we take the product from the beginning and bring it all the way into the end product. Great for potpourri. I mean, you know, anise, tessa, yarrow, lead plant. I mean, any, any, any native flower is gonna, gonna have some smell to it. So just throw it in that potpourri. And if it doesn't have much smell, that's fine. It's gonna bulk up the product. But again, like I said, it has, it has year round, year round revenue for us. So that's good. Less pressure to get all of our revenue in the summer months. Although it's the growing season is getting longer up in Omaha. We're basically down to almost down to four. We were in 5B when I started, or 5A, 5B. By the time I'm done, we'll be in, I don't know, Oklahoma City or Kansas City, whatever you guys are in 4B. Or excuse me, going the wrong way, getting colder. Marketing channels, again, here's just an example of, you know, some of the cut flowers that we do. That's that white is common yarrow. That's the native plant. There's also Colorado yarrow, which is that pink, pink flower. But that also comes in pink, purple, yellow. And yarrow is fantastic. It has one of the longest shelf lives of any flower. You know, the last, I mean, it'll last fresh. As long as any other flower in the bouquet will last fresh. And then when the rest of the bouquet is done, you can stick the yarrow up in your, you know, wherever you'd like. And it keeps its color, keeps its shape for years and years and years and years. We have some yellow, yeah. And it's a really good shape to fill out the bouquet. So if you're, you know, if you may make bouquets, you know that that's important to have a product like that. Also, it's an early bloomer and it blooms all throughout the year. And most flowers that we work with, the native flowers, they do that, right? Because that's what they want to do. You cut off their flower and their seeds. They're going to send out more seeds trying to continue their gene pool and get that into the ground. So they'll provide for you in a much longer window I found than most of the other flowers that we grow for bouquets. The green one on the edge there, that's Solomon seal, which we never, we never, it's Solomon seal. We never considered for cut flowers. We were growing that specifically for Prairie started for the roots for them to use. But it's a plant that grows in a real, it prefers a shady location. You'll find it in a lot of the, like the oak forest around Omaha and, you know, throughout Missouri. And it has these tiny little bell flowers, which are beautiful, but really it's just, it's a great foliage for bouquets. And then there's just a few pictures of, you know, our potpourri and not everything in there is entirely native. You mix it with a variety of other nice milling herbs that we grow. But we did, we did create a new, a new line of products called Nebraska wildflower or Nebraska wildflower series. And so we had a Nebraska wildflower soap and Nebraska wildflower candles. Just over time, we found there are some people who do not like essential oils, whether it be in their soap or their candles want it more, more pure. And so we, you know, we found that there was a, there was a market for that and began creating these essential essential oil free products specifically from wild bergamot and cone flower. And, you know, that's again, this is the only, we're the only ones on earth offering that product. I know that and it's been a, you know, it's been a good seller. So I encourage you to try and we know whether or not you're going to incorporate native plants on your farm, whatever it may be, try and find your own niche, something that sets you apart. Um, some of the native, again, we tried over, we tried 12 different varieties and then again, we've, we've, uh, we've expanded our perennial garden and, um, tried others since the, since the project for us, the ones that work best for cupflowers are common URL. Again, for that filling, that ability to fill out and also the shelf life purple cone flower. It doesn't last as long as far as vase life goes, but that's one that everybody, uh, recognizes, you know, and, and it's just, it's striking throughout the season. And no one, no one is, no one is, uh, identical. You know, you'll, the, that's one of one thing I love about purple cone flowers, the sizes of the, of the seed heads vary, shapes of them do the petals. Um, and so they're, they're popular at market lead plant, uh, again, another one that we were growing for the root, uh, but we found that, and that's more of a, more of a shrub. I have a picture of that. Sorry for that, but it's more of a low growing shrub. Again, that grows well in shaded areas. Solomon seal is that arching plant. Uh, and there's, uh, with a lot of these, there's, there's a whole bunch, you know, there's a whole variety of Solomon seal plants, uh, some that might be better suited for Missouri, some, some that might be better suited for, uh, uh, more of, uh, you know, a drier habitat versus a wet habitat. So, um, you know, the possibilities are endless. Uh, my favorite plant that we grow there, you can see up on top is the purple, this purple one here. Um, it's, that's hoary vervane, uh, but any plant in the vervane family is just fantastic. Uh, you might find the one drawback is it's almost like it is a weed. Uh, you know, if you, if you, we've, we found it 20, 30 feet away from the beds that we have it where, where, where plants are popping up. Who knows exactly how they got there. But, um, it's sort of a, it's not woody. It can become woody later in the season, I suppose, but it, uh, it sends up these tall flout, these tall spikes. And again, it, like most of the others, you cut it and it just sends out more and more and more and more. It's just a tremendous accent to any bouquet. You know, it's, it stands up, you know, in, you know, several inches above any other flower. Um, and again, it has, has a tremendous shelf life, uh, base life, excuse me. Um, so any of the vervanes and they thrive, again, they, they thrive in dry conditions. So poor conditions, poor soil. Um, when we tried it, um, you know, when we set up our printer garden, uh, not everything grew, what, you know, some of them weren't, frankly, some of, some of it was a loss. Uh, you know, we had a couple milkweeds that, you know, never, never really flourished. And economically it made no sense to, you know, we thought they might be good and cut flowers, but it just didn't work. Um, so this is why I'm going to highlight, highlight, highlight these that did spiderwort. Uh, we had Ohio spiderwort. For us, spiderwort was fantastic because of the, uh, the blooming window. It's the earliest flower to bloom on our farm. Um, and so, uh, you know, along with like chai flowers and some other stuff really early in the season. Um, so it allows you to, we were able, you know, building around the big patch of spiderwort, we were able to, you know, we were able to, to market a good month, month and a half earlier, as far as cut flowers go, than we normally would have. You know, any loop, lupine variety is going to be great. And then there's just a whole wide variety of woody ornamentals that especially I think are popular with, with forests. Medicinally, um, you know, one thing I'd like to say is that you'll, you'll notice that the plants that we market as medicinal herbs, a good number of them were also on that last list, as far as flower bouquets. So that's the great thing about it is there's two, you know, with, with any given product, there's plenty of marketing channels, um, and avenues that you can go down. How many are, like I said, it was a fantastic cut flower, but that's, we sell, that's probably our, by weight, that's probably what we sell most of. Um, and, and you utilize most of it. Again, it, um, it's an early bloomer, comes again, we use it in all our poperies, candle, the, the Nebraska wildflower series. Um, but again, the botanical industry, um, they use it in tea, uh, uh, just straight, straight up your ROT, but also then, you know, tinctures and, and the like purple cone flowers, same kind of the same story, uh, lead plant is, is used for, for, you know, again, you can harvest the roots and, you know, you want to do it last year was the first year we did it after, you know, after two years, we didn't, we didn't want to over harvest it or, or doing damage to the plants. So, uh, Solomon seal though, again, it was great for a cut flower, but we harvest that for the roots as well. Wild bergamot is fantastic for teas, uh, you know, any other, any other thing that you're going to use Yara for as well. Uh, mulling root is, is one that thrives in kind of wet conditions. Elderberry and elderflower, that was the one that was part of our project, but we, that was one that when we, when we expanded, we incorporated, um, you know, a patch of, of elderberries. We'd already been selling, you know, we had a friend that had a, had a, had a big patch and so we would always go there and harvest and so we already had a market for them. Uh, but they established themselves incredibly quickly, you know, within probably a year, if not, you know, year and a half, you can start harvesting, whether it be the flowers or the berries. We, you know, we sell the flowers in the spring when they're in bloom to, you know, to Prairie Star, also to the ice cream shops. Um, also quite a few restaurants will enjoy making their own, um, you know, like fancy cocktails, uh, old fashioned cocktails. And that's one, that's one, both elderflower and elderberry that they love to utilize. It's a lot of old fashioned recipes. That's, um, you'll always see them driving down Iowa or Nebraska, those, in the spring, one of those big, big white flowers that grow along the train tracks and the dishes, that's them. They love the, they love the ditches and that wet, those wet feet. Anise Hissop is just a workhorse for us. Um, you know, it, uh, you know, use it in a potpourri, a lot, in a lot of the, uh, the candles and soaps. It just is one of the most fantastic smelling plants you'll come across. Anything in the, in the Hissop family, I suppose, but, um, the Anise Hissop does well for us. One that wasn't in our project, but we, you know, we came across, um, you know, we'd always had a little Jerusalem archeroke patch, but, uh, we really expanded production of that when we, uh, were trying to get away from annual vegetables. And that was one of the best things we ever did, uh, was put a lot of space into that. Uh, it's a native to, it's pretty much all in North America. And, you know, it, it grows up tremendous amount of, of biomass. If you're looking to grow something for biomass, um, you know, we have a, like a chipper that end of the season after we harvest the roots, just got thousands of pounds of stalks and leaves and, and flowers. You know, that's great. You know, put that back into the soil. Exactly, livestock. You know, it's a, I've got a friend that uses his first pigs, right? And it's, it's, it's tremendously healthy for him, great for him. And just no matter what you think, oh boy, they ravaged the patch and it's gone, it'll come back year after year after year. That's, I mean, don't get scared. It says that it spreads like crazy, but if you're truly harvesting it for like we do, um, you know, you harvest it and then it comes back about the same strength from the year before. Yeah. And it's, it's like magic. And we get, like what we're selling it for, who we're selling it to, we get $68 a pound with yields up to $2 a square foot. Now I'll tell you, I don't know, I don't care, I don't know how much you sell your radishes for, but we will never get that with our radishes. And again, this, the Jerusalem March out, we don't, we do not water. It's in the farthest stretch of our property, sort of as a, as a fence line almost. We've got a car dealership right next to our property. So it helps block the F 150s. But you know, we again, we don't water it. I don't think about it until it comes time to harvesting it. And then we can't, you know, this is, this is just one of the loads recently that we were taken to, to a restaurant. They, they, you know, they buy as much as you can produce, at least around, around Omaha. And then, I mean, again, maybe not everybody's going to be interested in this, but then once we were selling to some of these botanical places, they started asking us for certain things we never heard of, or certain things that we thought had no value, right? Like dandelion root. I mean, every year we, I never really cared about dandelions. We never tried to get them out. They're just there. But we have plenty of them. And so that price are by, you know, buys as many as we can get them in the fall. They want it, you know, they don't want it until it gets cold. And there's some chemical transition in the properties of the roots. But, you know, when I'm done, basically done with almost everything else in the farm, I just go out with my Hori Hori and dig as many dandelions as I can for 18 to pound. Stinging nettles, you know, the same thing. Like we were trying to, there was just this one little patch on our property and we were trying to battle it back here after year. And then there were people that wanted it. So we just let that patch be and then make a little money off of it. Wild raspberry leaf using tea. We use some of our teas, but also sell to a couple of different companies. And then black willow would, you know, they use it, the apothecary, but also, you know, we make our own homemade root stimulant out of it. And again, anecdotally, it works. It works just as well as the stuff we buy. You know, if anybody isn't interested in incorporating native plants on their farm, you know, whether it be for revenue, but like I said, it doesn't have to be for that. There are social benefits. There's environmental benefits. But also, you know, again, your cash crap may benefit from native plants on your farm. Some great businesses in our area, most of them I've worked with. Prairie Legacy is in western Nebraska, not way out in western Nebraska, but the town of western Nebraska is by far, I think, the best. She's got a tremendous operation there. It's a little, it's kind of far out, but it's worth it if you're in the area. And then Missouri Wildflowers Nursery in Jeff's, Jeff City, Missouri. The Nebraska Statewide Arboretum in Lincoln has an annual plant sale. So if you're from Nebraska, check them out in the spring. City Roots Nursery is not one that I've been to. I used to live in Kansas City. That's where I went to college. But as I was searching for more, you know, places that offer these, these type of products, you know, these type of plants and seeds, you know, for potential farmers that might be here listening, it seemed like they have a great thing going down there in Kansas City, Missouri. Prairie Moon Nurseries, I've never bought anything from them, but their websites fantastic. If you want to learn more about growing conditions and the like, I found them to be a great resource. And then Midwest Native Nursery is in Lincoln, Nebraska as well. They're, you know, have been around just a couple of years, but I think they're doing really good things. And if you're from Lincoln, I'm sure it'll be Nebraska or Iowa would be great to support them. I don't know where I'm at with time, over or under, but that's about what I had.