Erin Garrett: 00:07

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment podcast, where we explore the environment we see every day. I'm your host, Erin Garrett.

Amy Lefringhouse: 00:15

And I'm your co host, Amy Lefringhouse.

Erin Garrett: 00:18

And today, we are really excited to be chatting with Karla Griesbaum. Welcome, Karla. How are you doing today?

Karla Griesbaum: 00:25

Thanks. I'm doing well. It's beautiful outside. I'm really happy to be here.

Karla Griesbaum: 00:29

Awesome. Well, Karla Karla's one of us. She is a natural resource, environment, and energy educator, just like Amy, Abigail, and myself, but she is based in Champaign County. And Karla, what are the other counties that you cover?

Karla Griesbaum: 00:45

Vermilion, Ford, and Iroquois.

Erin Garrett: 00:47

Okay. I can't remember them all off the top of my head. But we're really excited to have you. Karla is relatively new to Extension, right? How long have you been with us?

Karla Griesbaum: 00:57

Let's see, almost half a year now, almost 6 months.

Amy Lefringhouse: 01:01

Oh, my gosh, time flies.

Karla Griesbaum: 01:03

Yeah.

Erin Garrett: 01:03

It really does. It really does.

Amy Lefringhouse: 01:05

Especially when you're trying to figure out what's going on, right?

Karla Griesbaum: 01:08

Yes.

Erin Garrett: 01:09

It's a learning curve, but we believe in you. You will get there.

Karla Griesbaum: 01:13

Thank you.

Erin Garrett: 01:14

But we're super excited to have you on the podcast today. Continuing on with our theme of climate change, we're gonna be talking, with you today about how plants respond to climate change. So as a fellow plant nerd, I'm particularly excited to have you on, to chat today. As we get started, you know, there's a lot of different environmental impacts that we're predicting are gonna happen with climate change, things that we're already seeing changing in our environment. Obviously, rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Right? That's the big one we hear about all the time. But kind of if you could just go through real quickly, what are those main changes that we're seeing that are having that direct impact on our plants in particular?

Karla Griesbaum: 01:58

Sure. So like you said, carbon dioxide concentrations is the big one. There are so it's a greenhouse gas. That means that it's trapping, radiation in our atmosphere, effectively warming it up. There are other greenhouse gases as well, but carbon dioxide has the biggest impact, and we are pumping that into our atmosphere with our burning of fossil fuels, and we've been doing that for a long time now, and our the sinks in our Earth, so, like, our forests, all these plants that are taking out carbon dioxide can't do it fast enough. We're just pumping too much into the atmosphere, and so that's what's, you know, warming up our temperature. So, yeah, carbon dioxide is a big one that affects plants, and then kind of the side of that is then the heat that results from that. So as you can imagine, plants are affected by temperature, whether that's cold, hot, but especially, you know, we reach, you know, 100 degree days sometimes here in Central Illinois, but they're not that frequent. It's kind of off and on, but it's more this gradual, steady increase that we're seeing, you know, this one degree increase in temperature of our average, and that's really where plants are being affected.

Karla Griesbaum: 03:09

Then we have water availability. So as you probably learned at the last podcast, climate change is causing these shifts in our weather patterns, so you can see these really intense rain events followed by periods of drought, and plants don't like either of those. They don't like either extreme. And overall, Illinois is getting more water, which you would think would be a good thing for plants, but because it's happening in these extreme events, it really it's not beneficial to them. And then there's one that isn't exactly related to climate change and the heating of the Earth, but it's another effect of the fossil fuels that we're burning and the chemicals that we're putting into the atmosphere, and that's increased ozone levels. We all know that we have our ozone layer that kind of protects our atmosphere, but then when that ozone comes down to Earth level, to plant level, it can actually really damage leaf tissue and cause a problem for them when it comes to photosynthesizing.

Amy Lefringhouse: 04:12

I love that, term that you use when it comes down to plant level. I've never heard that before. I like that. Oh, it's coming down to plant level, down to the level of plants. I like to be at that level.

Erin Garrett: 04:26

Me too. It's an intense level, though. I mean, plants are

Amy Lefringhouse: 04:29

That's true.

Karla Griesbaum: 04:30

It's a lot going on.

Amy Lefringhouse: 04:31

Well and they're out there they're out there competing at all times. Right? It's a it's probably a really cutthroat world in the world of plants.

Karla Griesbaum: 04:40

No kidding.

Amy Lefringhouse: 04:42

So our understanding, of course, of plants and photosynthesis tells us that more carbon dioxide, more sunlight, you know, more water, we're making they're making more food, so it seems like a good thing. What are the actual upsides to having more of this in our atmosphere?

Karla Griesbaum: 05:02

Yeah. Well, that's why plants are so great because they take sunlight, carbon dioxide, water, and turn it into food or sugars. As though, totally, like, plants love this extra carbon dioxide in the air now. They they photosynthesize with it. They can be more efficient with it. So plants have something called stomata on their leaves, and they open up these stomata. They're like little holes on the other side of the leaf that they can close and open, and when there's more carbon dioxide in the air, they can open these less often and still get the same amount of carbon dioxide. And so that's really great for the plant because, not only is it getting more of what it needs to make food, but it can also close those stomata to hold on to water, which is another thing that they need for photosynthesis, so they can be more efficient with their water use especially when it comes to those dry periods. Plants even like the heat a little bit. Increased temperatures can increase the reactions at which photosynthesis is taking place, so, you know, high school biology, we learned that at hotter temperatures, molecules move faster, and that's what's happening in the plant as well.

Karla Griesbaum: 06:10

So even increased temperatures isn't all bad for the plant. So right now and that's one of the reasons why a lot of farmers aren't too worried about climate change right now because they're seeing a benefit to their plants. Their soybeans are growing like crazy. Not so much corn. Corn isn't really benefited by increased carbon dioxide levels because they photosynthesize a little differently. There's different types of photosynthesis, and I'll put a link in the show notes that kind of explains those.

Erin Garrett: 06:39

Yeah. Corn is a grass. Right? Grasses have a different way of photosynthesizing. It's fascinating, but we won't go into it right now. But yeah. So it sounds good. Right? It sounds like in the short term, plants might have, some benefits, but there's always a downside too. So what are we gonna see? What's the downside for plants when it comes to climate change?

Karla Griesbaum: 07:03

Of course. Yeah. It can't all be good. That would be too easy. So first, plants, like everything else on Earth, even humans, is they're always trying to reach an equilibrium. They're always trying to find balance. So kind of like we see this in humans with, medication tolerance. You know, you start taking medication, and it affects your body, but slowly you lose you build up your tolerance to it because your body is trying to get back to that homeostasis that it was at originally, and so you need to take more medication, and plants kind of do the same thing, so it's called a negative feedback loop where the plant's now making more glucose, and it's storing it, you know, in its root system. It's storing in its leaves, its stems, and eventually, the plant is going to tell itself, okay, I have enough glucose now. We don't need to make any more.

Karla Griesbaum: 07:54

Like, if we make too much glucose, our leaves are gonna get too big, we won't be able to put energy into our seeds, and so the plant is going to tell itself enough glucose. Don't need to photosynthesize anymore right now, and that's called acclimation. So what you're seeing is that even though the plant can make more glucose with carbon dioxide, it's gonna eventually tell itself to stop anyway. And then also, when with this increase of carbon dioxide, we get the heat and, you know, there is that small beneficial part where it speeds up reactions, but, if it gets too hot, some of those enzymes start to break down. So enzymes are proteins. They at certain temperatures, they're just going to completely fall apart. So that's one of the things that heat does to plants is it can destroy the proteins that are helping them photosynthesize, that are sort of starting photosynthesis, And then also, we talked earlier about how plants don't have to open their stomata as often, and so they can hold on to water, but you'll see where I'm going with this. Like, humans, we sweat to cool down. Well, plants kind of do the same thing. When they lose water from their leaves, it effectively cools them, and if plants aren't opening those stomatas and releasing that water, it just makes them even hotter. So it's, again, kind of this piling on snowball effect where it's gonna be detrimental to the plant.

Erin Garrett: 09:25

I feel like I'm like a plant because I get to the certain point of the temperatures where I'm like, yep, I want it a little bit warmer. It's great. And then

Amy Lefringhouse: 09:35

Yeah.

Erin Garrett: 09:35

Get into a 100 degree days and I'm like, nope. Stop. I can't do it. I fall apart. I'm done. I can't do it anymore. So there's always those, like, levels, right, where you can get a little bit of a benefit, but then if we go too far, right, we can see where that kind of starts to unravel and, what might be good in the short term isn't good for the plant in the long term. Right? If we look at that happening over a longer amount of time.

Karla Griesbaum: 09:58

Yes. Exactly.

Amy Lefringhouse: 10:00

Right. And then, like, I'm just thinking of the nature of plants and that they're stationary. You know? They're not like our wildlife, right, that can travel and move. I mean, obviously, there's some movement of plants through their seeds and everything, but, you know, individually, they're they're not able to pick up and pick up their bags and move to Florida in the winter like we do. So,

Karla Griesbaum: 10:30

Yeah stressed too, you know? Like like, humans get stressed. Plants get stressed under these conditions. So if you have a plant that's like, oh, it's really hot and it's dry, they're stressed, and so that makes them even less able to defend themselves against herbivores. So they're doing all they can to conserve their energy and just just survive. And then here comes a little insect that wants to eat their leaves, and the plant is just like, oh, I can't I just can't deal with this right now. Go ahead and eat my leaf because I just I don't have the energy to defend myself.

Amy Lefringhouse: 11:06

Interesting.

Erin Garrett: 11:07

Yeah. I feel like we see that a lot in If you're a home gardener, right, you'll see that a lot in the summertime when the heat really sets in. And I know in my home garden, right, when we get to these temperatures and, like we talked about, I reached my limit. I don't wanna be outside watering. So I'll, like, I'll skip a day or 2. The plants will be fine. And then you start to see more yellowing of leaves, then you have more diseases show up and more pests because those plants, right, they they're trying so hard to just conserve that water that they can't focus on anything else. And so, it's something we can even see in our backyard. Right? Even, on the landscape scale, this is happening. But, you know, we can see evidence evidence of it close to home, too. And that kind of helps explain to what's going on. Why is it hard sometimes when we get to the 100 degree days for my garden to be producing right and stay stay lush and green and be doing really well? We can kind of see that up close to.

Amy Lefringhouse: 12:03

Yeah. Well, you touched on this, Karla. And then last podcast episode we talked about we learned, you know, the weather patterns that are changing, that here in Illinois we're getting large amounts of rainfall in a short period of time, followed by those longer drought periods without any, precipitation, so elaborate a little bit more, Karla, on how that those patterns, those changes in weather patterns affect plants.

Amy Lefringhouse: 12:34

Sure, yeah. So with those heavy rainfall events, typically, we get flooding. You know, there's more water coming down the watersheds, into the river systems, everything else. You're just seeing more water that's standing, and plants are kind of enveloped in it. And they don't like that because, first of all, it can introduce disease, like, especially fungal diseases like those really wet, moist environments. And also when you get a plant sitting in water for a really long time, it stops airflow to their roots and, you know, you don't really think about roots needing air, but they do.

Karla Griesbaum: 13:10

They need air within the soil for gas exchange, and if the soil is saturated in water, it's hard for roots to get that that gas exchange that they need. And then on the other hand, we have drought, and I think we all kind of know that plants don't like it dry. There are some plants, and again, you can see at the link, you know, like cactuses, they photosynthesize differently. They're able to do certain processes during the day and certain at night and so that they can hold on to water better, but when we're talking about Illinois plants, we're talking more about the plants that don't tolerate that really well. They're used to having a constant supply of water in well drained soils, and, so that intense drought, as they start to they have, coping mechanisms, like, they can curl their leaves to try to keep water kind of around their leaf system so that it's not escaping as easily. They can also, like, kill off certain parts of the plant, so that's why you see, like, the edges of leaves start to yellow because the plant is saying, I cannot send water to that part of the plant. I'm gonna keep it kind of in the middle of the plant, so hopefully I still survive at the very least. But, yeah, those longer drought periods can really do a plant in.

Amy Lefringhouse: 14:31

I would love to know more just about root growth and the paths that root roots take to to get to whatever the plant needs, I don't know. That would be a really cool visual to see, how those how the how they choose their path, you know? All plants probably, choose their paths differently or roots choose their paths differently, but I don't know. That just sounds like something interesting to look into.

Karla Griesbaum: 15:02

They all have kind of different mechanisms. Like, some of them have these tap roots that are curly, some of them keep their roots near the surface in order to get any water they can.

Amy Lefringhouse: 15:12

Yeah. And environmental conditions probably play a big role in that.

Karla Griesbaum: 15:17

Yes.

Erin Garrett: 15:17

Well, on the theme of asking questions and wondering how things work, we know there's a lot of research being done when it comes to climate change. Right. But if we want to focus on plant adaptations with climate change, can you share a little bit about the current research that's being done?

Karla Griesbaum: 15:39

Sure. So some research that I was involved in involved how mycorrhizae, which are funguses that live in the soil and are mutualistic plants, so they develop these relationships with plant roots and actually help the plant access nutrients and water deeper in the soil profile. A lot of research is being done about how that can help make plants more resilient to climate change. There's one type of mycorrhizae, it's called ectomycorrhizal fungus, and only certain woody species associate with this fungus, but it is looking like trees that do associate with ectomycorrhizal fungi have more resiliency to these to drought and flooding, and so it's almost like this mutualistic partner is is helping it adapt. It's also been shown that if you grow tree seedlings in an area that's hotter or drier and they develop these mutualistic relationships with the soil that they're in, with those mycorrhizae, and then you move that tree to a different area with its mycorrhizae that's starting to see those climate change effects, it'll survive longer than the ones that aren't. So it is you know, some research is starting to show that with the correct mutualists,

Amy Lefringhouse: 16:56

Right.

Karla Griesbaum: 16:57

Mutualistic fungi, especially, I'm sure there's bacteria as well that's helping out these plants that, you know, can help mitigate climate factors for the plant. It can be sort of a resiliency factor for plants but then we come to this part where, you know, like, natural areas are being destroyed, and these soil microorganisms are having a hard time surviving just because of what we're doing to the soil, so that's a whole another whole another story.

Amy Lefringhouse: 17:26

Yeah.

Karla Griesbaum: 17:27

There's also a lot of research going on on the plant itself and how to structurally, change the path of photosynthesis. So removing that enzyme that breaks down at certain temperatures, if we can change the pathway that these molecules take to to make glucose, then we can maybe effectively, like, change the way the plant photosynthesizes, taking away that heat factor where those enzymes break down. And then, of course, there's just climate change mitigation, so research into renewable energy, research into how we as individuals and as corporations can do better just mitigating climate change so that doesn't get as bad.

Erin Garrett: 18:11

Well, if our listeners are really interested in learning more about mycorrhizal fungi , we're gonna have another, guest speaker on to chat all about that and go way in-depth, later this season. So Karla set us up, and we're gonna look more into that in a future episode. So stay tuned if that was something that really sparked your interest. We're gonna learn more. It's fascinating, but it's also interesting, right, to remember. It's not just about the plants. Right? We think we can collect seeds and start plants and then plant them out, but, like, we really overlook the importance of the soil.

Amy Lefringhouse: 18:48

Thinking about, the landscape scale and just thinking about the changes in the USDA plant hardiness map, you know, can you speak to that, Karla, from that standpoint and how, you know, plants are moving in the landscape just and and, you know, adapting, I guess, you know, along the way as these changes are happening in our climate?

Karla Griesbaum: 19:11

Yeah. So the plant hardiness zones, it's it's from climate changes because, like, you know, warmer weather is moving up and we're seeing more species that may have only resided down in southern Illinois. We're seeing those in central Illinois now, and I think this was exciting for a lot of folks. They're like, oh, I can I can plant this? This can survive in my yard now. How exciting. But there really there's a lot of other factors that go into that, like, the plant hardiness zones focuses on temperature, but like Erin was saying, there's our soil factor, and if there's not the right mutualist in the soil or it's not the right type of soil, it doesn't have enough air in it or or the opposite, it doesn't hold on to enough water, that can affect plants as well.

Amy Lefringhouse: 20:00

Yeah. Plants aren't going to move, right? If they don't have the right soil conditions, they're not. Their seeds, their reproduction is not going to move to different areas because they don't have the right environmental conditions as they're as they're trying to move and trying to get to, you know, places where they can survive, those environmental conditions won't in the soil.

Karla Griesbaum: 20:23

Right. When you look at a map of the United States, you kinda see our climate moving where, like, you know, we're in the corn belt. So central Illinois, great for growing corn and soybean. Well, that's gonna slowly move northwest. And so but that's just the climate. That's just, you know, the air temperature, water. But then the problem with the northwest is they have soils that are not like Illinois, that are not as nutrient rich, they're drier, just they're a different structure, and so that's kind of the issue we're seeing, especially where agriculture, you know

Amy Lefringhouse: 21:00

is concerned, yeah.

Karla Griesbaum: 21:01

Yeah. Like, we're not just gonna be able to move corn and soybeans up Right. West. That's just not gonna work.

Amy Lefringhouse: 21:06

Right.

Erin Garrett: 21:07

I just wanna add one really cool resource because we've been talking about, research that's been happening. And as plants are moving, I know, University of Minnesota Extension has put together this awesome resource. Right? They're obviously further north than we are, but it's, focused on creating climate ready woods. So they put together plant lists for, like, all of their, like, natural divisions and areas across Minnesota to kind of look at how plants are moving and what might be suitable for planting as climate change is happening. So, just kinda cool to look at and explore as a resource, and something that, right, would be cool to see happen in Illinois as things start to shift. You know, I'm in the cypress tupelo swamps down here and kind of like the northern edge of that range, and how are those species gonna adapt as they move up. So it's just kinda interesting, but they've done a huge amount of work and it's really, it's a really cool resource. So if you like just exploring, and looking at things like that, check it out. We'll put it in the show notes too because it's pretty awesome.

Amy Lefringhouse: 22:12

Awesome.

Karla Griesbaum: 22:12

Yeah.

Amy Lefringhouse: 22:14

Well, Karla, tell us what we can do as consumers and as, you know, just community members, what can we do to help our plants?

Karla Griesbaum: 22:25

Okay. So the tips I have for the plants that you already have is to avoid using pesticides and fungicides.

Amy Lefringhouse: 22:33

Ok.

Karla Griesbaum: 22:35

And that's kind of it's kind of an oxymoron because with climate change, pests are getting worse. You know, they're they love the warmer weather. Plants are vulnerable because they're stressed, and so plants, are more likely to not have their defenses up and they're more likely to have pest infections. However, when you put those pesticides and fungicides down, you're killing off some of the soil microbes. And when you do that, it kind of ruins that that mutualistic relationship with the plant, and it weakens them even more. So taking an organic approach to pest control and fungus, like disease control, That's something that you can do for your plants that are already established. And then if you're willing to plant new plants and plant trees, you wanna go with natives. And there's several components to that. First of all, most of our native, like, prairie plants or woodland plants have really deep rooted systems. They're perennials. So they come up every year, their roots go down really deep, they're sucking carbon out of the air, and they do create those mutualistic relationships, with the microbia in the soil. So they're gonna be a little more hardy. They're gonna be more long lived.

Karla Griesbaum: 23:54

And then another component to that is what we're seeing with climate change also is kind of this pollinator plants, they're starting to miss each other. Mhmm. They're you know? Because pollinators and plants are in sync, kind of, like, when they flower and when the the insects or the pollinators, the birds, when they start to to need that nutrition from the nectar, and so that syncing is kind of starting to waver with these temperature changes, like when the insects are hatching, when birds migrate. It's all connected. And by planting natives, we're assisting our native pollinators, and they can try you know, they can keep in sync a little bit better. So if you're planting non natives and the bloom time is a lot different than our native pollinators, you know, there's there's a miss there. So if you plant native plants, native trees, you're you're more likely to hit that that synced up time between the pollinators and the plants.

Amy Lefringhouse: 24:59

It's kind of like what we were, you know, talking about earlier in the podcast with it's more than just the plant itself by itself. Right? It's that soil, it's the ecology of everything happening around it, for its entire life cycle. So the roots in the soil, the blooms, the pollination, the pollinators that help that. So, again, like you said, it's all connected.

Karla Griesbaum: 25:22

It is. It's hard to not go up on tangents and think about, like, you know, like, yeah, this really large picture and start talking about something else that's related to climate change. Because, yeah, there's several components that go into how plants are affected as as well as everything else.

Amy Lefringhouse: 25:39

But that's simple. I mean, just, you know, plant native. Try to, you know, avoid using pesticides or fungicides as, you know, as much as possible and looking into organic. I mean, those are simple simple things that people can do, you know, every season. Right?

Karla Griesbaum: 25:59

Right. And if you're a gardener, you can look into companion planting. So planting those, like, really strong, like, peppermints or dills, insects kind of stay away from those. So plant those next to your squashes or your cucumbers to try to keep the pests away. And dill, like, sometimes they attract the good pollinators. Yeah. You know? Like, the swallowtails, like dill or, I don't know.

Amy Lefringhouse: 26:28

I have some dill planted this year for my daughter's 4-H project, and I'm, like, waiting to see anything.

Karla Griesbaum: 26:36

I used to get a ton, and lately, I haven't gotten so many yet. Maybe the climate change has something to do with that. I'm not sure.

Amy Lefringhouse: 26:43

Well, maybe so.

Karla Griesbaum: 26:44

Some other tips, would be if you're experiencing higher levels of water coming into your yard or your space because of these large weather events would be to put in, like, a rain garden type situation where you have water loving plants that are gonna suck that water out of the ground and kind of avoid erosion so that, you know, it's not eroding your soil and washing it all away. And there's a lot of great resources for how to do a rain garden. We've got our Illinois pollinator website that has a lot of designs. Mhmm. Just different resources for for that. And you can put in grasses that will slow down the flow of the water. You can put in, yeah, just those water loving plants. And you don't need to fertilize natives. That's another great thing about natives is that they don't wanna be fertilized. They they're used to Illinois soils, and so you're also avoiding putting excess nutrients into the whole system.

Amy Lefringhouse: 27:46

Right. Right. We have yeah. Extension has a ton of rain garden, resources and just rainscaping resources. We have an entire rainfall management website. You know, if you have too much water in your yard, if you have too little water in your yard, what, green based landscaping plants and practices can you do in your yard? And that website's a real helpful tool for homeowners to use to, you know, make those plans that can help help with those decisions in your landscaping. So you know? And

Karla Griesbaum: 28:21

Perfect. Yeah.

Amy Lefringhouse: 28:22

Yeah. Rainscaping, I thought I think is really neat. I've done a little bit of, you know, reading, and and what we're trying to do is keep that raindrop as close to where it landed on the ground in your yard. Yeah. You know? As close to where it landed as possible. So don't let it, you know, don't let it run around or, yeah, run around your your yard. But,

Karla Griesbaum: 28:45

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's just gonna take soil with it.

Amy Lefringhouse: 28:48

Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Karla Griesbaum: 28:50

And same thing for farmers. If you're a farmer, look into cover cropping and no till.

Amy Lefringhouse: 28:56

Mhmm.

Karla Griesbaum: 28:56

Talk to your local NRCS or solid water district folks about the programs that they have for cost share, and maybe just try a little bit. I know I have a friend that works for ADM Archer Daniels Midland.

Amy Lefringhouse: 29:11

Mhmm.

Karla Griesbaum: 29:11

And she does the sustainability program. And she's always saying, like, just try a little bit. You don't have to do your whole field right away. Just try, you know, maybe, like, 40 acres. See how it goes.

Amy Lefringhouse: 29:25

Agreed. And same with your yard too, you know, with planting natives, you know, maybe try just a little tiny part of your yard with, you know, putting in a few natives. And and, you know, native plant availability sometimes is hard to come by depending on where you live in Illinois, but asking those questions of your, local nursery and maybe looking online or looking for those catalogs that that sell native plants. But, yeah, trying just a few native plants here and there and and

Karla Griesbaum: 30:01

Yeah. And if the demand goes up for them, maybe nurseries will sell more.

Amy Lefringhouse: 30:05

Absolutely. Exactly. Exactly.

Karla Griesbaum: 30:08

If you're a farmer and you really want to try to get into sustainable farming, you look into alley cropping and silviculture, those type of practices that are really kind of the up and coming trends, like, for those those early adopters. And that's another thing you can there's lots of resources for how to do that successfully, how to transition into it. We can talk to, yeah, your local Extension or your Natural Resource Conservation Service. Those those folks should be able to help.

Amy Lefringhouse: 30:41

Right. That agroforestry kind of approach to, farming is, yeah. They're doing a lot of research. There's a lot of research out there on on what practices can be implemented within systems that are out there on landscape level. Right?

Karla Griesbaum: 31:00

Yeah. And kind of like how everything is connected with an ecosystem, all of these practices are also gonna help mitigate climate change, which, you know, is kind of the snowball effect where you're planting more trees. Oh, that's sucking more carbon out of the air. So, yeah, you're protecting your whole landscape or your farm, but you're also helping to help solve the problem.

Amy Lefringhouse: 31:23

Right. Right. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Karla.

Karla Griesbaum: 31:26

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Erin Garrett: 31:29

So we're gonna finish our episode today with our everyday observations. So this is the point in the show where we highlight more of the mundane and normal of our environment that's actually really interesting. So, Amy, I'm gonna pick on you first. What's your everyday observation?

Amy Lefringhouse: 31:47

Well, in the news lately, there has been a lot of flash flooding, lots of heavy rains up north of us, and I think the Dakotas, Iowa, possibly Minnesota, and I live in a river town, and it's like, you know, I don't know. It's just one of those things that you're always thinking about and always looking up. I mean, we put the river levels on the news every night over here, and and folks are very in tune with the river level at each of the lock and dams along our area. But anyway, there was the lots of flooding up there, and and I looked up our river levels, and we're gonna crest at, you know, I think 19, 19 foot at the dam that I was looking at, and I don't know, I guess that's just my everyday observation is first of all, river levels in our communities over here on the west side of the state is really important and just how that those flash floods and that heavy rainfall in a short period of time north of us affects us, you know, down here, and we've already seen the Army Corps of Engineers closing some public sites, that affect us down here, our recreational sites that affect us down here, and then those landowners and and communities that are right, you know, riverfront communities, you know, can affect those. So that's my everyday observation today.

Erin Garrett: 33:22

Awesome. Thanks, Amy. Karla, what about you?

Karla Griesbaum: 33:26

Yeah. Mine's a little more positive. And I've been nerding out about this at home, and I when I go to talk to my normal friends, I'm like, they probably don't want to hear about this. But you guys probably

Erin Garrett: 33:38

Yes

Karla Griesbaum: 33:39

About 5 years ago, we decided to convert a portion of our lawn to prairie. There's about an acre that we have been converting to prairie, and at the same time, we had this little, like, 12 by 4 plot by our house that I had no idea what to do with, so we just threw some of the seed in there. And over the past 5 years, it's become this, like, super diverse, tiny little prairie plot.

Amy Lefringhouse: 34:02

Okay.

Karla Griesbaum: 34:02

And I'm so happy with it. But what's been making me so happy this year is the 1st year that these seeds sprouted, we had a little compass plant in there. You know, the 1st year, they're just this tiny little tiny little leaf, like, sticking around. Right. And over the past 5 years, we've seen this thing get bigger and bigger every year, and this year, it's blooming.

Amy Lefringhouse: 34:26

Yay.

Karla Griesbaum: 34:29

And I I have been watching it every single day this spring, just I'm, like, oh, my gosh. It has buds, and this is you know, this was 5 years in the making, and this thing is majestic. It's, like, 10 feet tall. It's got, like, 15 blooms on it. I imagine its root system is just, like, breaking up the concrete under, like, the area that it's by because I this is right by my house, and I'm just like, oh, this root system that it's been putting down for the past 5 years has got to be extraordinary. And that's what it just makes me think about prairie plants and how awesome they are. And, yes, they take some time, you know, like 5 years we waited for this thing to bloom, and but now it's just so exciting.

Amy Lefringhouse: 35:11

Like, worth the wait.

Karla Griesbaum: 35:12

Yes, Exactly. Yeah.

Amy Lefringhouse: 35:14

But did you say it was 12 by 4, 12 foot by 4 foot?

Karla Griesbaum: 35:18

Yeah.

Amy Lefringhouse: 35:18

And then you just, like, broadcast?

Karla Griesbaum: 35:21

Yeah. So

Amy Lefringhouse: 35:22

That's cool. It was in the winter, and I just put a bunch of it was seed that we got from the Department of Natural Resources that we put in our prairie. Yeah. And our kids, like, took snow and covered it with snow so that it wouldn't blow away or get eaten by animals, and, you know, it's just got it's got milkweed, false sunflower, New England aster, golden you know, this, like sometimes when you have a small plot like that, it can end up being a monoculture of something because one thing takes over, and we do maintain it. We do, like when the golden Alexander gets out of hand, we pull a lot of it. But, yeah, it's just kind of this tiny little

Amy Lefringhouse: 36:00

It's an experiment. .

Karla Griesbaum: 36:01

Ecosystem, and the bees love it. There's bee balm in it. Yeah. It's just it makes me so happy.

Amy Lefringhouse: 36:06

That's cool.

Erin Garrett: 36:07

I love that. I love I'm a fan of compass plant. We have I don't know if I've talked about it on the pond, but I manage a food donation garden, as part of my job. And we have a little pollinator plot in it, and we have a sensory garden in the middle. And we have compass plant growing in, like, the touch bed. Right? Because the sandpapery leaves. But it is a 6 inch tall bed on top of a gravel lot, on top of concrete. And we have compass plant. Now we even started from a plug not seed, and it bloomed the 3rd year. And I couldn't believe it. We're in year 4, and it is still I I have dug up some of the other prairie plants to kinda divide them out, and I have seen, like, our New England aster, like, into the concrete, like, it is down. So, that I mean, it's not going anywhere, but, like, it was kind of an experiment or, like, is it gonna grow? It's only a 6 inch bed. That root can get, you know, multiple, multiple feet deep. This has just been really interesting to see it over the years, so it's yeah. It's fascinating always.

Karla Griesbaum: 37:08

It is. And talking about climate change, like, the New England asters are blooming in my yard already, which What? For those that don't know, it's it's early for New England Aster. So that's another kind of, like, oh, man,

Erin Garrett: 37:19

this we're in June right now. We're recording early. We're releasing this later. But, yes, for those listening, June, we had New England Aster blooming in June too, which I couldn't believe it. It's crazy.

Amy Lefringhouse: 37:33

Typically a fall bloomer.

Karla Griesbaum: 37:35

Right? Yeah. That's what you think of when you think of New England aster is it's a fall bloomer, but and it's blooming in June.

Amy Lefringhouse: 37:41

What about you, Erin? What's your everyday observation?

Erin Garrett: 37:45

Mine's usually about plants. My native plants at my house, but I'm gonna digress and move into something different. So I know I'm late to the game, but I have recently started getting into birding just a tiny bit, just a little bit. So as a plant person, you know, when I go outside, I like to look at things that don't move and that stay in one spot because you could actually, like, take good pictures, see it up close. So typically, like, animals and birds is hard for me to identify, and especially sound. I'm not good with sound, but I have downloaded the Merlin Bird ID app. I just put it on the little recording where it listens, and it tells you all the birds that you hear. And I've just been fascinated, and it's been really fun, just, again, open up a whole new world, right, of things that are around me that I'm not seeing, that I am hearing. And then when I'm able to see a bird fly and look at it, I get really excited, so that's been my, my everyday observation. It's just in my backyard. See, like, it's, you know, the things that you expect to find in a backyard, but it's still cool, like, the diversity of things, and I I now know the the mockingbird that sounds like catbird. I know what you are. You're not fooling me anymore. So just like those those everyday things, but it it is really fun just to, open up that whole other world for me. So I've been enjoying that a lot.

Amy Lefringhouse: 39:08

Yeah. That's great.

Erin Garrett: 39:09

Alright. Well, this has been another episode on the Everyday Environment podcast. Check us out next week, and we are going to be chatting with Justin Vozzo all about urban forestry and the relationship with climate change. So stick around and join us next week.

Abigail Garofalo: 39:29

This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension production, hosted and edited by Abigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett, and Amy Lefringhouse.

Matt Wiley: 39:39

University of Illinois Extension.