Planthropology

26. Grasslands, Grad School, and The Prairie Fairy w/ Dr. Kat Radicke

September 01, 2020 Episode 26
Planthropology
26. Grasslands, Grad School, and The Prairie Fairy w/ Dr. Kat Radicke
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Show Notes Transcript

Prairies and grasslands are great, and so are people who study them. I chatted with the recently doctored Dr. Kat Radicke. We met in grad school and were pretty fast friends. She's charming, funny, and super smart and I think you're really going to enjoy hearing from her. We talk about everything from the stress and challenges of graduate school, to collecting cow burps and it was a lot of fun! This episode also contains trailers for the Plants and Pipettes and Bald Scientist podcasts at the end.

Dr. Kat Radicke and The Ecological Academic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ButThatIsMyBusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-radicke-2375a559/

Plant and Pipettes Podcast
Website: https://plantsandpipettes.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/plantspipettes

BaldScientist Podcast
Website: https://baldscientist.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Baldscientist


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As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It really helps the show keep growing and reaching more people! Also, check out Planthropology on our website an

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As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It really helps the show keep growing and reaching more people! Also, check out Planthropology on our website and various social media pages, all listed below. As an added bonus, if you review Planthropology on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser and send me a screenshot of it, I'll send you an awesome sticker pack!

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Website: www.planthropologypodcast.com


Vikram Baliga :

What is up plant people. Today is Tuesday, September 1, which doesn't even seem remotely possible that it's already September, but it's September 1, and we are back for another episode of the plant topology podcast The show where we dive into the lives careers and ambitions and passions of some really cool plant nature people and try to figure out what keeps them coming back for more and why they do what they do. I'm Vikram Baliga, your host and as always, I'm so excited to be with you today. Do you like cows? Do you? I know you do. You have thought cows cows are awesome. How about cow burps and cow farts? And and do and walk around? Well, we're going to talk about that a little bit. Also prairies and fairies and prairie fairies and everything in between. Don't know what that means. That's okay. Stick around a little bit and you will figure it out. A couple of things. First, thanks so much to everyone that's been rating and reviewing the show. I really appreciate it. If you have a couple of minutes and want to rate and review on pod chaser, or Apple podcasts or castbox. And castbox, by the way, is the player that I normally use, and I'm listed as an indie pick on the castbox platform, so go support them. But go leave a review wherever you can, and a rating and it really helps out, helps me know that I'm on the right track and doing the right things. And it also helps keep us up in the ratings and gives us a little more visibility and all of those fun things. So I would much appreciate that. You know, for a little while, I'd been doing a really good job of remembering to put trailers and stuff for different shows at the end of the episodes and then I'm a big dumb dumb. Cotton headed ninny. muggins just say cotton headed ninny. muggins Oh my goodness. Anyway, I'm a big dummy. And so I keep forgetting to do it. But today I've got two for you. The first one is for a really great show. Also a fellow plants show called plants and pipettes or plants and pets, as they say, I probably butchered both eorum and tieghan. 's accent. So I'm really sorry for that. I'm a dumb American, I can't help but that's what we do. I'm so sorry. But it's a great show that really dives into some of the science of plants and botany and everything that goes into that. And the other one is a new show by on a our polygon, who is a planarian. Wait, no, he himself is not a planarian. He is a planarian scientist. He studies worms and science. He's a great biological scientist. But he's got a cool show called the bald scientist podcast, which is just launched, and it's a lot of fun, and I guarantee that you will love it. He's just a wonderfully charming and lovely human. So you need to listen to both of those shows. Again, stick around at the end after the outro or credits or whatever you want to call it. Make sure you listen to those two trailers and go check out their shows the links will be in the bio. Also, again, I want to mention our podcast partners, our partners, the first of which is pecan Ridge, which is a local company here in the Lubbock, USA. And even if you live somewhere else and you like pecans, and you like candy and fun and joy and sunshine and puppies, go hit them up at pecan ridge.com. Use the promo code plant people all one word all lowercase at checkout, and get 10% off your order. The other one also a local Lubbock business literally is local lbk local ob k.com and has a great affiliate program where you can go to a number of businesses, restaurants, movie theaters, really anything and everything that has to do with a business here in Lubbock, get great discounts, get great deals, and support the local economy here. Lubbock America. So this may be more for my Lubbock listeners or Texas listeners that come through sometimes, but for just five bucks a month, you get a membership for this great organization and $1 that goes back into local businesses in the local community. So local ob k.com. I'll have a link in the in the show notes that you can use and go and sign up and get discounts on stuff.

Unknown Speaker :

I'm probably forgetting something, but it's already been about five minutes. So I'm going to stop yammering at you and jump into the episode. So today's guest is Dr. Kat Radke, who is a friend of mine that I went to grad school with. Just recently during my I'm still kind of in grad school. I don't know what I'm saying. But she just finished her PhD. She is a wonderful arrange land and prairie scientist sometimes known as the prairie fairy. More on that later but she's smart and charming and funny and wonderful. I think you're really going to enjoy this fun conversation about everything from soil microorganisms to designing headgear for cows, and diapers for cows and all kinds of other fun stuff. So buckle up, grab a beverage, hopefully a locally roasted caffeinated, being a bass beverage, or really whatever you want, and get ready for Episode 26 of the planet typology podcast with Dr. Kat Radke.

Unknown Speaker :

All right, well, we are up and running and I'm here with cat Radke. Today, who is a newly minted Dr. Radke. So congrats start off and say congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. How does that feel?

Kat Radicke :

Um, I sometimes forget

Unknown Speaker :

Like, walking out,

Kat Radicke :

I just keep forgetting that to that it's a thing.

Unknown Speaker :

Does it like surprise you people call you Dr. Radke? And like, Does that surprise you sometimes.

Unknown Speaker :

I'm the only people who have called me Dr. Radke. so far. We're everybody on the Congratulations, email with Dr. West. And I'm in my interview last week, but that was the first time people have called me doctor. Okay, most everybody refuses to acknowledge it. Oh, well in my life.

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. No. My fiance's

Unknown Speaker :

like, never know doing Hi. Oh,

Unknown Speaker :

yeah, no, that's funny. I, I tried to get my or I told my brother. I was gonna make him call me doctor. And he just looked at me like, Yeah, okay. No, that's I mean,

Unknown Speaker :

my brother in law and I have a very love hate relationship. So when we were in Colorado, last week, it Why don't you have a doctorate? It was like over. Love. Yeah, pick what restaurant we want to eat.

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, no.

Unknown Speaker :

So he does those things. Oh, no. I mean, he's in my dissertation in my acknowledgments in parentheses in my thank yous, as I guess, TJ

Unknown Speaker :

That's fantastic.

Unknown Speaker :

And it's copyrighted. So those words will forever be there. That's really

Unknown Speaker :

amazing. Actually, you know, what good is a dissertation if you can't be a little snarky in it, right.

Kat Radicke :

Yeah. And I was, I was snarky with TJ in my thank yous during my defense and in my dissertation, so

Unknown Speaker :

no, I watched your defense and I heard you say that and like I didn't, you know, obviously didn't know the backstory. That's hilarious. That's

Unknown Speaker :

my, that's my brother in law, who is the character so there's a lot of love hate relationship.

Unknown Speaker :

That's really great. Um, so we'll get into I think some of the specifics about kind of what you study, do you? Well, what was the title of your project?

Unknown Speaker :

Um, so basically, it was the inclusion of alfalfa in stocker cattle systems and its effect on water footprint. Okay, carbon footprint I think was in the title but it's really more in Terek methane emissions, and then an economic analysis. Okay, there was a lot of data a lot with data. And yeah,

Unknown Speaker :

that sounds like a lot. Just like, I don't even know what all those words mean. And like, the, it sounds like a lot of data.

Unknown Speaker :

It was it was I there's gonna be

Unknown Speaker :

at least six solid publications coming out of the dissertation. Wow. There's probably about four more publications worth of data just sitting on my computer that I will probably it'll take probably a year before I get to, but there's a lot of data.

Unknown Speaker :

That's amazing. I that I mean, that's a girl. Really productive project then like, I'm if I get like two or three I'm gonna be super happy. super happy.

Unknown Speaker :

I'm sure that's why I've been sleeping a lot lately.

Unknown Speaker :

Trying to catch up from the past however many Yeah, so yeah,

Unknown Speaker :

I've been sleep deprived for a good three years so

Unknown Speaker :

Sebastian Yeah, no, I understand that. So tell me a little bit about your background what what got you into wanting to study the carbon footprint and water footprint and economics of cattle? What did you study in school, all that kind of stuff.

Unknown Speaker :

So I've got like this really weird background. I grew up on a ranch, but I really when I came to wt the The goal was to be on the horse judging team because I'd been around horses my whole life. And I was pre vet. And so I've got an uncle who is a veterinarian in San Antonio, and I'd worked for him for a little while. While and so that was really the main goal in life. And that was pretty steady a goal up until probably my junior year. And we were in a surgery. And I mean, I was pretty good in the operating room, and we were taking out a tumor off of a femur. And I don't know why but I got sick to my stomach and I had to go to the corner and put my head between my legs and the particular veterinarian that was doing the operation so that she did the same thing while she was in vet school. And she eventually got over it. Except like, every time we did something really nasty. We did a necropsy, and I nearly like just spewed everywhere. I decided I was like, you know, it's probably best if I just dropped down the animal science. So I went ahead, dropped down to animal science. I was never on the worst reading team. I was actually a cheerleader in college. Okay, I

Unknown Speaker :

didn't know that. Okay.

Unknown Speaker :

And so I cheered in college. I am dropped from pre vet to animal science graduated in 2014 and went to work in a heifer barn for a few months. And we were at a show and somebody asked who wants to be the one that breaks down the heifers and I got the short end of the stick about through the fifth Heffer with spray paint everywhere. I was like, you know, as much as I love being a steer jock. I don't want to do this rest of my life. So I contacted my major professor at wt who before I left told me that if I ever wanted to come into range management and be a prairie fairy to contact him and so I came back with my tail between my legs. In 2015, graduated from WT and I an email popped up from Tim sent me this email and it was Chuck looking for Somebody who had had grazing experience. And I came and interviewed with Dr. West and he gave me an offer that day. And that was not my intent. When I came, I was going to meet with a few other professors on Tech's campus Well, in the range ecology department. And I went ahead and took it. And I kind of got conned into my project. Like it really wasn't, it wasn't something that I would I wanted to do different variable stocking rates and more prairie Fairy type of things. And so the agronomy side of it was kind of kind of dumped in front of me and they were like, do with this what you will Yeah, kind of just escalated from there really, but a lot of my project was more like handed to me. This is what we'd like to do. Can you can you get it done kind of deal?

Unknown Speaker :

Sure. And and any of that, to those out there listening that's more common than you may think. Because like in some places, and in some fields, it's, it's interesting because I'm, I'm pretty involved in like academic Twitter and I see people post all the time like, oh, what should I study and all this stuff? And I'm like, cool. That's not what my graduate school experience has been like, it's like, here's a project, have fun, you know? Yeah. And you do get to, I think steer it a little bit, but it's so dependent on funding and like, the research directions of your pie and all of that. But in some cases, you're kind of you're kind of set.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah. Well, and so the thing with Dr. West was, he gave me the outline of what he wanted, but he really wanted me to kind of fill the holes. And so, like on the economics portion of it, he had never really done an economics paper and Dr. McAllister, I was taking a class with her we had like, I think, two lectures, and then she was like, okay, just you know, write me a paper and let's see how it goes. And so that chapter was kind of, I created it based off of what I thought would be applicable in a real world situation with producers. Like, I didn't go in thinking that that was going to be more of an academic based paper but more of a Why do cattle producers in Texas High Plains care, and they ended up really liking it. And so it made it into being a chapter in my dissertation. So that was nice.

Unknown Speaker :

Okay, that's pretty cool.

Unknown Speaker :

So I it was all pretty much dumped on me. I know that, you know, I we talked that one time about a graduate school experience on one of your posts, and I had said, I have a friend who ran away to the mountains. Uh huh. And I wasn't joking. She ran away to the mountains. Wow. her PhD. She all she lacked was a dissertation. I mean, she qualified everything. I mean, she was done. She had already done the project, taking all of the data and everything. And she was so scared. To write that dissertation because she had created the project from scratch herself. And she just never finished her PhD. She literally ran away to the mountains. And we haven't talked to her since she can't talk to anybody. Yeah. So that's, that was that that's the other end of the graduate school experience.

Unknown Speaker :

And I think that's important. And you know, this is this podcast has never been like, anti academia. But I think it is important for us to be honest about some of these things. Because in some ways, there's so much pressure and there's so much I don't know, there's just such a burden that goes into earning a PhD, any kind of graduate degree, I'm not trying to downplay even the Masters experience because that is or an undergraduate experience. All of it's a lot of work. Yeah, um, but you get to this level and and I've I've had conversations People before and not to be a downer, but like the, the attrition rate at the PhD level is like 50%. And that's people that either quit or you know, drop down to a Master's or something else and a variety of reasons. Some people get a job offer, and they're like, that's the job I want. I'm gonna go do it. And that's fine, right? Some people decide, well, my data, my project, whatever, is really more suited for a master's degree. And they go and they get a second Master's or a first Master's in some cases, but I think there is that that element of this is just too much and I can't and I don't want to do it anymore.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah. And you get that

Unknown Speaker :

you get that roadblock where you get to a point and you're like, Am I smart enough to be considered an expert in this like, yeah, and then that imposter syndrome really sets in and it got me pretty good. In fact, I was I've been extremely blessed with both my masters and my PhD committees because I mean, 30 minutes before I went into my qualifying exams, Dr. West basically texted to let me know how proud he was of me. Wow. I mean, he just said, don't let that imposter syndrome get you like, you know, these answers, there's nothing they can ask that you won't be able to answer. And that was quite the experience because I know, there's probably not very many major advisors that would make it a point to they know, hey, my student really struggles with imposter syndrome. But uh, he that was one of that was one of the nicest nicest things I think has ever happened to me knowing that I had got to that point where I was like, I'm not smart enough to pass.

Unknown Speaker :

No, that's and that's Gosh, and it's it's funny because I'm just you know, right now I'm in the finished revision. get it signed off on and send it to the grad school stage, right? Like, there's stuff I'm cleaning up. And even now, even after my defense, even after all this stuff, I look it like I pull up my marked up dissertation. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing, how am I going to do this? And I've also had a good experience with a doctor young, my advisor, who's just been so encouraging and helpful and kind through the whole process. And, you know, I read a thread on Twitter earlier today, just talking about what an impact a good mentor and a good advisor has on the graduate school experience in general. And, you know, as a someone wanting to go forward in academia, what are what are your thoughts on the way that you white might one day approach that position? And I didn't prep you for this, but

Unknown Speaker :

well, and this was actually a question that was asked to me last week. So I can answer this um, When thinking of grad as a mentor to a graduate student, well let me back up so I had a mentor as an undergraduate in the department was the only and he was my academic advisor so every every professor in the department at West Texas a&m is an academic advisor so you don't have like a Diane Merryman brings your holy grail of people. She is like the most amazing person ever because she does everything for plants well, science and and so we don't have one of those that will we do have a couple of those at wt but they give a lot of academic advisory, advising on like, you know, a handful of students has to go do everything with a perfect particular professor or they did back then sure, because we had a pretty small ad department back then. And so he I quit palm squad. He knew I came to be on horse judging team. I never tried out for horse judging and I quit bomb squad, like my sophomore year, and he got mad at me.

Unknown Speaker :

And

Unknown Speaker :

I went home and I cried. I cried in his office, and I went home and cried, and he remembers this. He got really mad at me. And I came back. And his whole thing was, you're fully capable of doing all of these things. Why are you quitting? And I kept saying, well, there's so much on my plate, I can't do this, I can't do this, I just I'm second guessing my ability to be able to, you know, graduate and be able to stack all of these things on my plate. And he basically said, Look, if you don't, I'm going to be extremely mad at you. And I might be mean to you the rest of your academic career. And I'm always really thankful to have somebody kind of talked me off the ledge, and like, you know, put me back on my feet and encouraged me just as an undergraduate alone. And then so for my master's, I had an advisor that was really hands off

Unknown Speaker :

and

Unknown Speaker :

Apparently, his graduate school experience was awful. Hmm. And so that kind of, you know, was brought up, you know, he gave me the horror stories of PhD life before I came to Texas Tech when I got here and my advisor was nothing like those horror stories. And so I think like that is and nobody on my committee was really like those horror stories. I mean, everybody was had doctor slaughter doctor seeing I mean, those are all people that are they motivate their students pretty good. Yeah. Even being the smartest people in the room. Right? It's which is you know, your imposter syndrome setting in and you've got derrius Malinowski, which is this genius hibiscus breeder in Vernon, Lindsay slaughter sitting in your room, you've got Dr. Singh, you've got Darren Henry, who is a genius when it comes to animal science and statistics and so I've got this whole Dr. McCulloh And then Dr. West who I've been told is like the God of tall fescue. He wrote if you look up any papers on this, yeah, he is the I mean, like he's all over the place. And so I am I'm imposter syndrome is setting in and the walls are closing in and I've got the smart, I'm surrounded by the smartest people in the whole world and they're about to butcher me on questions. And my major advisor says, You're one of the smartest people in the room. And I want you to know that and I want you to keep that kind of confidence. And I don't think I've ever like I've I wasn't expecting that. Because I've been told that in a preliminary exam, you know, your committees just out to get you. Yeah, there was not a person in that room. That was really not a single one of them. Yeah, ask a question that I wasn't capable of answering. And it looked like you know, everybody in the room. I Shut down at one point. Uh huh. And they were very encouraging. like Dr. Malinowski said, You answered this perfectly in the written like, answer it perfectly, you know, out loud. Tell me show everybody what you answered, because this is a phenomenal answer. And that was just I don't know, I hope that as an advisor that I can project that on to graduate students in the future.

Unknown Speaker :

Well, and that's such a good I think that's such a good goal. And I had, I had a similar experiment, experience in my prelims where Dr. Yang my advisor tossed me like an underhanded right over the plate, you know, slowpitch and I like swung and missed hard, like, I just totally whipped it. It was pretty it wasn't exactly this, but it was pretty much what's photosynthesis. And like, I've studied this for, you know, 12 years at this point, and like, I know what the difference between a C three and c four plant is I know how photosynthesis works, and my brain was just like, nope, how Yeah. And so like, I'm like sweating, and I don't get I generally don't get like test anxiety or like, you know, performance anxiety in that way. And it was like, your brain was just like, my brain was just like, no, you're done. And so it was like, I think one of my committee members is even, like, take a deep breath. Take a second, you're okay, let's work through this. And so, again, and I know this, that this is not everyone's experience, I know that there are the situations where, gosh, they they beat the crap out of you at one of these exams, and, and all of that, but I think, you know, at this institution, at the very least, and I think maybe maybe in our field, I don't know, but at least at this institution, we have some high quality, just kind and I think practical and just, you know, really, advisors and committee members and faculty that really care about the students and I, I've always appreciated that about being a part of This place.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah. And it was that way it was texting them to everybody knew each other. Everybody's super encouraging. They were encouraging during interview. Yeah. faculty member so I mean I, I hope to help to project that on on at least graduate students and I think I think with the undergraduates

Unknown Speaker :

I think that I'm pretty

Unknown Speaker :

I'm pretty well the same way like I like to see undergraduate succeed because plant soil science is so it really is hard. Like it really does take a lot of memorization of these processes and stuff. And so I get it like I get when undergraduates are like, yeah. Yeah, especially with some of these concepts, at least in range ecology. Some of these concepts are like They're just

Unknown Speaker :

yeah.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, they're complex. They're complex, incredibly important ecosystems and bio systems. And that actually leads me into I think what I kind of want to talk about for the next little bit is prairies. Let's talk about prairies, because you've studied prairies and you've studied foraging and Flan grasslands, right. So the first thing I wrote this, so if if you didn't notice, and if people out there don't know, I listened for like, Okay, what am I going to call this episode The whole time through? And you said prairie for prairie fairy pretty early on them? I go. Yeah, that's going in the title for sure. Tell me what a prairie fairy is.

Unknown Speaker :

Tim calls me the prairie fairy.

Unknown Speaker :

Fantastic.

Unknown Speaker :

And you know, really, it's more he he he called me a prey fairy because so when I was getting my master's degree with him, so the range ecology department at West Texas a&m is A 20 by 20 office. Oh, okay. So it is not a department. It is one man. And he is. He is unlike any human I've ever met before. I have said I told him the other day he needed to be on a he need. He needs to start his own podcast is what he needs to do. Yeah. And he is unlike any he is just so interesting. And I'm so we were frolicking around in a field and we were playing, idling and I can't remember exactly what I did, but I was like, like leaping over stuff. And so he kept he would laugh at me. And so then he turned around and just he was like, you know, you were the fairest prairie fairy I've ever seen before in my life. And so that's what started that. I'm, I think on it was I think it was grasshoppers. Those big massive hoppers scare me. Uh huh. They'll sound

Unknown Speaker :

like helicopters when they fly by you. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker :

yeah. And they were at that was the year it was 2016 I think where there was so many grasshoppers a year. And so I was like hitting them like baseball bats with a baseball bat. I was like, No, like, don't fly in my face and those leaping over him and uh, yeah, he was he was quite entertained. So that's where we got the prairie fairy

Unknown Speaker :

from. That's all pretty hilarious. Yeah, I love that

Unknown Speaker :

ecology range ecologist that frolics through apparently.

Unknown Speaker :

So that's and again, that for me that tells me about how excited you are about even if you're running from grasshoppers, right? Because we we've talked about grasslands and prairies before and I know how much like how strongly you feel about them. So this may be not an easy question to answer, because it's going to be so broad but is there a way that you could sum up for us why grasslands and prairies are so important?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, ecologically, the carbon sequestering is probably one of the biggest things that I think I have. And I advocate for, really, all biogeochemical processes are important and ecologically. I mean, a lot of the world is covered by grasslands and that we have a lot of semi arid, arid environments. Some of those more arid environments are more desert regions, but they still, you know, have some bunch grasses here and there and they're considered they're still considered a their grasslands are considered a brittle environment. Yeah. And so desert lands are as well. And so, I mean, it's so important for us to preserve our grasslands and to manage our grasslands. correctly and so, uh, grasslands are just super important they're important to basically I think the foundation of most all life really

Unknown Speaker :

yeah and i would i would agree with you and and not that they shouldn't but like forests tend to get all the press right trees get all the press and you know I'm a tree guy, I love my trees, whatever. But when we talk about the prairies of the world, they're producing as much oxygen as all the trees if not more sequestering probably more carbon than than a lot the most of the forests on the planet. And and like you say they serve as the basis for this like vast ecosystem, this vast global ecosystem that unfortunately gets ignored a lot. I think we ignore grasslands and prairies and just, I don't know put Walmarts on them and and yeah, it's like that,

Unknown Speaker :

and and wonder why more carbons being trapped in the atmosphere. It's just, it's amazing to me, like so forests are wonderful, you know in their own world. Guard but if you think about how quick carbon turnover is in a grassland, I mean you've got animals harvesting that carbon then it photosynthesizing carbons being you know,

Unknown Speaker :

carbons basically being

Unknown Speaker :

created and you know, consumed all at the same time. And so, and then those soul micro organisms are utilizing carbon and respiring. And it's just, it's such a complex and yet hard ecosystem to manage. And we manage it like it's easy, and think that there's a one size fits all kind of, I guess, formula for it. And yeah, well, they're just really, we consider in an ecological succession, that forests are at the end of that ecological succession. And so they're very stable environments. So they're they don't shifting from one type of ecological stable state to another is much harder to do in a forest ecosystem. So you'd basically have to burn it down. Yeah, start that ecological process over. And so grasslands are not, I mean, we can shift a stable state quickly, really, and degrade things in an instant, really, in a matter of years. And so, I don't know, they're just they're so fascinating to me, just because they're so dynamic. They really are.

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And and like up here on the, you know, I plains and South Plains kind of in this part of the world where we live. And I think you almost have to just kind of see it to understand what this part of the world is like. Like you can, we always joke that like, you know, you can watch your dog run away for two days here because like, 200 plus miles north to south, it drops off at like a foot per mile. That's the slope slope. Yeah. Which is pretty much not a slope, right? And, and so, you know, if you were to go back 500 years, and just stand and look all around you, it would be grassland like, you know, waist high grass with, you know, maybe some taller, taller plants, the occasional mesquite tree, and that's, you know, brought up from somewhere and some forbs. But pretty much you would see a sea of grass as far as you could look at it. But but it's so complex even in that and I think that is not something I think in our head. I say this, I'm trying to figure out the best way to say this is I think people don't experience grasslands, like we experienced other ecosystems. And what I mean by that is like, we're so urban today in our world, that when people think, Oh, I'm going to go get out into nature, they're not going to go stand in an empty field.

Unknown Speaker :

They're going into the mountains. They're the one beach or

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, somewhere that's like, you know, maybe a little more scenic.

Unknown Speaker :

Yes. Right? That's like charismatic he is. Yeah. You know, one of my I interviewed an animal Person A while back and we talked a little bit about like charismatic megafauna, right? Like all the big animals that we think are like super cool and then we ignore the little guy sometimes and I feel bad for prairies a little bit because they get ignored.

Unknown Speaker :

We do ignore them quite a bit.

Unknown Speaker :

But but I think

Unknown Speaker :

it and again, this sounds kind of this sounds how it sounds, but like, there is a type of like peace and quiet on the prairie in a grassland that you can't get pretty much anywhere else. It's it's unique in the skies are big and the stars are right. And it's like, it's kind of amazing.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, I would agree with that.

Unknown Speaker :

Um, so just to talk a little bit more about your work. have just whatever you know, parts of it you're most excited about you want to discuss. And and you've talked about some of that already, but, you know, you you talked about and you studied grazing to a certain extent, right? And like how So can you tell me a little bit more about some of these interactions that you looked at between cattle and other animals and the land on which they live?

Unknown Speaker :

Um, so directly with my project and visit my PhD work was not so range ecology type of work, and I was studying what we, what we would say is an improved pasture. So it's a non native forage species, okay. And to non native forage species to this area, so alfalfa and WW beetle, which is from Asia, and so, are those old world bluestones are from Asia and so my PhD work was kind of So there's the range ecology world. There's the agronomist, and then the forage scientists and they're like in a whole nother realm of their own and they are a special breed of people they really are. And so I mean, I was the black sheep of the PSS department. And, and so it was kind of like in between agronomy and range ecology, okay, and so I was still I was not dry land, I was not on natives, which is what my like, I love it. Sometimes, like paying me just little that we were, you know, still irrigating the grasses and adding nitrogen fertilizer to the system and all of those kinds of things. But I mean, that's kind of how you manage a forage system when you're hating and grazing with stocker cattle. And so I'm really I think the biggest aim of the study was and I kind of had to come to terms with this is That, you know, we're I think that it's like in our department, and maybe not just our department, but really, with Texas Alliance for water conservation, that small little office, I think everybody's dissertation and theses has, has started with this. And it's we are depleting the Ogallala Aquifer faster than the recharge. And so I was coming up with an alternative, less water intensive grazing system that can still be lucrative for producers in the Texas High Plains. And so that was the main goal, and I had to come to terms with it and embrace it. And so I just looked at it from a systems approach, you know, how did these plants and animals interact with each other? How do they, how did those animal How did these plants what kind of impact Do they have on the animals, not with just gain, which is what we care about, but in terms of methane emissions? Like, let's talk environmental, you know, and so the entire methane emissions was very interesting coming from an animal science ruminant nutrition background, but I didn't ever want to be a ruminant nutritionist. So I still got forced into doing that. Honestly, it was fun, like, sure I pushed back at first, but then at the end, I was like, ah, they got me like, they knew how to get to me. I was a recovering animal scientist. me anyway. And so I did, I did the entire methane emissions, and that was fine. And then I got to help Dr. Slaughter with her sole gas fluxes, which was super interesting. So, um, and then, you know, Billy Gene, that's the project that she's doing. And so I hope that I can continue doing those soil gas fluxes with them in her little group because that's extremely interesting, you know, thinking about organisms you can't see Yeah, utilizing methane and then utilizing methane that's coming out of these animals that were so worried about impacting the environment and

Unknown Speaker :

yeah, so yeah and and again, it's just, there's so many levels of complexity to these ecosystems and these biological systems that I think for people wanting to get so one of the reasons we do this show and I bring this up from time to time is that you know, I think sometimes we do such a good job of giving information and knowledge to students right it's like here's the facts here's the things about things and maybe what we don't tell them is like, Okay, look, but where do you go from here? Right like what what do you study what other like avenues can you run down and I think, like just talking to you the past little bit, like even in just this one like corner of the green industry, the natural sciences industry, they're all these things. You Do there's all this fascinating biology you can study in ecology you can study. And and sometimes it's like, hey, pick, I kind of love being in a field where the hardest thing sometimes is to pick what is the most interesting thing of all these interesting things.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah. Yeah. And so they got me they got me I think the most interesting thing about my project was probably the entire methane emissions. Okay. You know, it was not the goal with projects to be the most interesting thing, but it was the most labor intensive. And now that, you know, Burger King has decided to come out with their controversy, oh, man, feeding lemon grass to reduce methane emissions when UC Davis didn't even see a statistical difference. You know, it's just one of those where now I'm in that world. And those scientists are crazy. It's just so much fun. Like, it's so much fun to be in that world. It's so much fun to dip my toes into those things.

Unknown Speaker :

And it's like, once you know about It's like you cannot help but care. Right? I, you know, I think it's easy if you're uninformed for like that commercial to go by on TV and be like, okay, whatever. But once you know even just a little bit, it's like a gateway science, right? Like,

Unknown Speaker :

just like a gateway drug. Yeah, it's the gateway science. I'm gonna, I will look at in tech guy. I love cattle. I do, right. I love ruminants. And, you know, that was that was my big thing when I went and got my master's degree because Tim loves ruminants. And so, you know, he projected that onto me. So coming here, I was like, Oh, I love them so much. But I thought I was just going to do grazing research. And then I was putting PVC pipe around their neck and strapping it on them for a week and I was like, Yes. For me.

Unknown Speaker :

I want to know what that burp is. Tell me Oh my God. That's nitric oxide. No, there's not. That's right.

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, so much fun. It just it really they did. They got me.

Unknown Speaker :

That's, that's pretty amazing.

Unknown Speaker :

That part of my project I got conned into that because it was, Oh, it's not that much work and oh, you know, it won't take you that much time and

Unknown Speaker :

yeah, so for all of you out there listening, that's a trap. If you are told, oh, it's just a little work this one add much. Don't don't believe them. They're lying.

Unknown Speaker :

It took Oh, there were there were some people that were very upset with that project just because of how much labor it took a lot. A lot of man hours. Yeah, a lot of man hours. I mean, I would. I woke up at four o'clock every morning and I would get home about 10 o'clock every night before I could lay my head down. It was 11 or midnight, started over 10 days, twice a summer. And it would and that was just that was just the actual collection period. I mean, I had to build everything I strapped onto those animals. Yeah. And another you know, like that blew my mind because I Have the standards to build these PVC pipes for. And like the whole time I'm thinking, who came up with this method? Like who was smart enough to put a PVC canister on an animal with a negative pressure that's going to take a sample of their breath for 24 hours? And then we're gonna run that through a GC. Yeah. And then we're gonna see what they were expelling for that 24 hour period. Like, that's way above my paygrade that's,

Unknown Speaker :

that's never wild, right? Yeah, it's wild.

Unknown Speaker :

There's some smarter people out there than me

Unknown Speaker :

where I'm just thinking of like the the the pitch meeting, right where the scientist like, sits down in front of his, you know, peers or whatever. I was like, y'all, I have an idea. Like, what? And then I think of the poor grad student that at one point was told, hey, I've got this thing. I want you to figure out So you're gonna go need to go catch a cow?

Unknown Speaker :

What? I need you to strap this to this animal and what happens?

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, that's great. That's really great.

Unknown Speaker :

Somebody was just and then, you know, total fecal collections. Let's just put a whole bag on their back end. Yeah, sure, why not? And it's like, how did you design that for them to not rip it off?

Unknown Speaker :

Right? So essentially, you've got a cow with like a diaper and a breath and a breathalyzer running around a field and all his friends are like, what? And

Unknown Speaker :

they're grazing? Yeah. And they and they're so smart. Like, they know how to take it off. That was one thing that I'd be like, please put it on the dumbest animal. If not, we're not going to have a good week and I'm not going to have a good collection period. Because they would they would like grab the end of that. And they'd be like, if I put this on the fence and pool. I'll just, you know, snap the plastic in half and just make it explode. Yeah, and you could see like, there was a few of them that were like Yeah, I did that. I take off running. Yeah, weird. Like, oh,

Unknown Speaker :

yeah, that one that one cow comes back into the herd and they're like, what did you do? What are you?

Unknown Speaker :

Like? Why are you so excited?

Unknown Speaker :

How did that happen? Have you seen Sally? Oh my goodness. Um, anyway. Oh, that's funny, um, that you know that there's so there's so much there. There's I felt like I could talk about cows wearing headgear for quite a while but um, so just to kind of start wrapping up a little bit. One thing I asked all my guests that come in and if you need a second to think about that this because again, I didn't prep you for it, that's fine. But if there was a piece of advice you could give out whether that is like to a student or to just anyone it can. It can be about your study. It can be about really whatever you want. What What advice would you like our listeners to kind of take home with them?

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, well I think and this is this is probably more for just anybody, but the only person holding you back in life is you. And that's with any goal that you set. the only the only person who's going to tell you you can't do something is you, if you want to do something, you will find a way to do that, whatever that may be. So that's anything you know financially. It seems like so many students are coming out of college with so much student debt and and they think, Oh, well, I can't you know, I can't go through school without pulling out student loans. And that might be in some instances, but really, the only person that's really stopping you from achieving anything is going to be you by yourself. Yeah, and I I hate to say that but i do i sit back a lot and I read where people just say, Oh, that's impossible to do. It's not impossible at all to do it. Yeah. Just can't sleep for a while. Yeah, sure achieve it. So it's one of those what I mean, what, what means more to you sleep, or, or family time or that goal you're chasing. So that's probably the biggest advice. And there's end with that. I have to be reminded of all of the people who made those sacrifices along the way with me, you know, because I, I have no debt. And I worked three jobs with my master's degree on top of getting my master's degree, which is what took me so long to get a master's degree. And then, you know, I still worked a side job while I was getting the PhD. And so, I mean, there were a lot of people that made sacrifices, my family was one of them didn't see me as often I couldn't go home and see mom and dad as much and so a lot of people made sacrifices including my dogs.

Unknown Speaker :

Dogs. Yeah, no, I agree, though. I agree. There's, there's, you know, we don't we don't any of us exist in a vacuum in life or in academia and, and sometimes it's easy for I think us as we're kind of struggling through this process to kind of insulate, right and be like, No, I'm, I, you know, I have to just bear down and just do it myself. But there's the people that hold us up through the whole process that that pay a lot of the dues along with this. And yeah, you know, I definitely, I definitely feel that as well. But gosh, that was I really enjoyed that. I could talk about this for a long time. Um, and we may have to talk again sometime about cows, but um, because our personalities

Unknown Speaker :

they're hilarious.

Unknown Speaker :

I tell you, I like cows. Um, so are there I mean, is there is there anything you want to plug? Normally I give my guests the chance to like if you want people to find you on social media to tell them where if you don't, that's okay, too. Um,

Unknown Speaker :

well, you know, I have that Facebook page that I really haven't done like keeping up with, um, but I, I've been, what is it called? Hold on, let me see if I can I don't even remember what my page is called, I think I think it's ecological academic. And I'm planning on like, getting on there and being able to post more soon. Okay. Because I really like I you know, I was going to start like a blog. Didn't that didn't go over so well. Yeah, the ecological academic. That's my Facebook page, okay, that I've been not keeping up with but people can go follow me. I think I have like five followers.

Unknown Speaker :

There you go. Well, maybe you'll pick up a few more.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, well, and with my master's degree, I had a fan page for Tim and it was amazing. And we got all kinds of people that just love to follow Tim, and I was I'll start one two so it is Kermit the Frog and he does have a black shirt on that says take me to your cedar

Unknown Speaker :

that that is the page that's

Unknown Speaker :

I love that so

Unknown Speaker :

with the match it's the has a match and it says take me to your cedar. Yeah, down the cedar trees really funny.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah. Woody species encroachment. It's a real problem on the High Plains or

Unknown Speaker :

on those trees. I know.

Unknown Speaker :

trees and shrubs. I know

Unknown Speaker :

he's in shrubs. Yeah. So anyway, yeah. So if you come across the ecological academic it as Kermit and he does have the famous Take me to your theater.

Unknown Speaker :

It's fantastic. That's fantastic. Okay, I really appreciate you talking to me. I really enjoyed that a lot. So I wish you all the best in your interviews and all the the posts, the sleeping, getting the sleep.

Unknown Speaker :

thing, my whole thing now Now that you know unemployment is approaching on me, come September 1.

Unknown Speaker :

I always just like went back to school when I thought I was going to be unemployed.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, no, I've done the same thing.

Unknown Speaker :

I'm at the end of that rope. So what do I do?

Unknown Speaker :

Maybe you should you should go into business like actually, you know, building and selling cow breath collectors, you know how to do it.

Unknown Speaker :

Maybe I already maybe I could really get on that blog and make some money. But you know, just writing papers right now.

Unknown Speaker :

So I hear you. Yeah. Well, uh, thanks so much again. And thanks to everyone for listening, I think I hope you had as much fun with that as I did, because I really enjoyed that. And we will talk to you next time.

Unknown Speaker :

All right, thanks. See you later.

Unknown Speaker :

If you're having a rough day, at the very least, just be grateful that no one has had to build a plastic contraption to strap onto your neck to evaluate Wait the contents of your lunch, y'all. Thanks so much for listening. I really enjoyed that episode I could talk about grasslands and prairies a lot. I think they're important and I think it's something that we need to be spending more time discussing and more time focusing on. Thanks so much as always to the dark texas tech department of plant and soil science for supporting and sponsoring the show and just giving me the freedom to do it and to talk to so many really cool plant people. I hope all of you out there listening are still doing well. I know the world is exploding and crazy and weird, but y'all it is still beautiful cows are still hilarious and smart. And there are things that are still worth living for and fighting for. I don't want you to ever forget that. You people hang in there and we will all get through this. Find us on social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, search for plant topology. It's anthropology with a PL slapped haphazardly on the front Look for the little green background with the little white tree and that'll be me. Again, rate review. If you want to support the show, hit us up@patreon.com slash plan topology, join the plant apologies cool plant people Facebook group, it's a lot of fun. And the folks in that group really live up to their name. Thanks for listening. Stick around after the credits again for trailers from plants and pipettes as well as the bald scientist podcast. And join me back here same bat time same bat Channel Four, Episode 27 where we will talk about the wild world of algae. You guys keep being cool and listen to these trailers starting in 543. Go

Unknown Speaker :

do you like plants

Unknown Speaker :

I'd really really like them to initially get a glimpse at how they work on the inside how they grow flower avoid problems like drought and heat, and how they defend themselves against attacks. Well, we do too. That's why we are planting for pets explore the fascinating inner workings of plant molecular biology in our podcast, and on our blog. Did you know that bumblebees can control the flowering time of plants by gently biting on them all that so bubbles are great for plant pollination. We are Teagan and Yoram to plant scientists who escaped the lab to bring you the hot new research without all the scientific jargon. Plus we talk about topics of diversity and equality in the academic system. And bring fun science back from the last week. Oh, and we talk about cats. And sometimes also we rant. You can read our stuff on plants and pets.com or search for plants and pets in your favorite podcast app.

Unknown Speaker :

We talk plant science

Unknown Speaker :

This is the vault scientists Podcast, where we talk about science, from the factual to the fictional and sometimes a beta.

Unknown Speaker :

With me, your host, doctor or nay, our plugin. For more information please go to all scientists.com doctors soon. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker :

This has been a transmission of the pod fix network. For more about this show and other great pod fix programs go to pod fix network.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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