As I write this our late season plants are in full bloom with sunflowers and goldenrods probably the most noticeable. They make for a lot of yellow in the grasslands this time of year. I’m not just talking about the annual sunflower that you might consider a weed; most native sunflower species are actually perennials. There are quite a few of these as well as goldenrod that bloom in the last dance of the growing season. I don’t know this for a fact, but I would guess the strong late season bloom is nature’s way of beefing up the food supply before winter.
If you drive by a grassland, whether it be CRP or pasture, it should have quite a bit of yellow color to it right now maybe a little purple if your’re lucky, who knew nature was a Vikings fan! If you are like me, you notice there are many places where the color is a dull brown or tan, devoid of those vibrant colors that are attractive to us for their beauty and to bugs as food. The more consistent the dull color the less diverse the grassland. Even when forbs are lacking, we should still see varying colors from the diversity of grass species. Maybe there is just cool season grasses, or maybe predominantly warm season grasses like switch or big bluestem. In any event these areas low in plant diversity are low in wildlife numbers as well.
I don’t have to just play devils advocate here, I know there are many who will read that last bit and go I have lots of birds, or deer, or whatever. I’m never going to say that the way you or anyone else has been managing their grasslands, results in no wildlife. The point I am making each week is that we aren’t maximizing the potential this land holds whether it’s wildlife populations or farm profit. If it’s grass, there will be something because it’s not dirt for two-thirds of the year. With step one covered (cover any cover) there is a noticeable jump from little wildlife to “Hey, would you look at all those birds!”
Here’s the meat and potatoes question I want to rattle around in your head, “Is this where you want to dust your hands and say the job’s finished on step 1?” Yes, just by seeding a low diverse or monoculture grass planting you will have something show up. Build it and they will come, but are they all here? There isn’t a question in my career field of if more plant diversity creates a healthier, more productive, more valuable grassland. It’s universal, the real-world application is where we have a hill (mountain) to climb.
One of the habitat philosophies we have clung to the hardest is that of winter cover, the idea that Switchgrass and Cedars will create pheasant heaven. Having winter cover is important, after all the more hens you get through the winter the more potential broods, right? If we only focus on winter cover, we leave no thought to nesting or brood rearing cover. I’m focusing on pheasants here but every animal has the basic habitat needs of food, protection, areas to nest, and areas to raise their young. The thick areas of cover are great for the howling winds of winter, not so great for a ground bird to nest or raise chicks in.
There are a great deal of you under a certain age that never got to see what the acres of CRP did for wildlife numbers (especially pheasant), but I suspect there are even older folks that maybe didn’t have the opportunity to experience what we could have if the habitat is there. From stories I hear Soil Bank provided a similar boost and in some opinions a bigger one. When I tell you I grew up in a hunter’s eden, I’m not being dramatic. I am a CRP baby; I was born the same year it was created so by the time I was aware of my surroundings I couldn’t walk a mile in any direction and not hit a CRP field. I know many of you think you have seen great numbers of birds, but imagine approaching a solid quarter of grass around Thanksgiving and watching several hundred (always seemed like thousands) take flight before you enter and then have them spring from under your foot every other step when you couldn’t possibly think there were more. I always had the most interaction with CRP during deer season. I would spend the days of this season walking the thick (idle) grass with my brothers having a heart attack every 5 feet because a damn bird would spring up even though you didn’t think it possible there could be more all while trying to concentrate to listen, and see if an old buck was trying to give us the slip. If the field was Switchgrass, which most were, you might only be able to see just above it. I’ve been in some that you might not see out of. It’s shameful to admit it, but there were times I would cuss all those birds as they made it difficult to detect that which I was after. (Much like you might cuss squirrels in a tree stand) Were all of those CRP acres high in plant diversity? Heck no, they were terrible, but our landscape was much more diverse to make up for it. We had those blasted weeds that we have since done such a great job of ridding from our crop fields, the wet areas were left because we didn’t have the horsepower to get near them (not that we all didn’t try), there were more small grains, more forage crop acres. There were just a great many things that were different on the landscape before the Corn-beans model that allowed the crap CRP plantings to seem productive. CRP acres were overwhelming in quantity, which always seems to be presented as a choice of quality or quantity, why not both? It blows my mind to think what it would have looked like if we had quality to go along with all those CRP acres.
One other habitat (hunting) philosophy that I occasionally like to poke the bear with is the importance of food plots. Ah, I can already hear the name calling. It wasn’t that long ago I touched on it so I won’t go too far into it here, but nesting and brood rearing habitat are often overlooked in our fascination with food plots, cedar belts, and solid switchgrass stands. I plant food plots too, I’m not saying don’t plant them, but we need to understand what purpose they serve (to make hunting easier) and not romanticize them in a way that makes them seem more important than they are. I want to do a brain teaser. If I give you a choice between three types of habitat consisting of only a grassland (no crop or woody cover), only a crop field (corn and soybeans), or only woody cover (cedars) in each scenario the other two types don’t exist, which would produce the most pheasants? I’m not going to give you what I think the answer is, I just want to leave it there for you like a worm on a hook.
With my writing I am hoping to get information or ideas out there that might get you thinking. I’m not under any illusion that I can change anyone’s mind in one sitting or have magical revelations that will cause an overnight change, but if we in conservation are silent, nothing will ever have the potential to change. I don’t know if I’m getting your wheels turning but hopefully, I’m at least giving them a little grease.