You may not want them in your field, your garden, or especially your house but bugs are essential to a healthy grassland ecosystem. I don’t think most of us give it much thought, but are you aware of the sheer number of insects that should be in our grassland environments? If you guessed 10 million you are today’s winner.
When it comes to giving credit for high pheasant numbers there’s usually one that most will identify with. “Must be all those grasshoppers!” While obviously being flush with grasshoppers is great for all the growing broods it’s stopping way short to think depending on a few species of one type of bug is the direct path to success. If you have been around enough you know there are years when grasshoppers come in swarms and years you hardly notice them. Insect populations can be very cyclical with weather being a huge driver in that.
In the bug and pheasant relationship the pheasant is a predator. Some predators are very specialized, and their populations rise and fall with that of their prey. Pheasants obviously aren’t specialized; they are omnivores just like your back yard chickens and they won’t have a problem eating whatever insects are available. If they are available.
When we tie our hopes of clouds of pheasants in the sky to grass only fields, our hopes are just as fleeting as the clouds. We are severely inhibiting our habitat’s ability to support wildlife when our plant diversity doesn’t include anything but grass. We will have things like grasshoppers whose population will rise and fall just like that of their predator. Sure, this year when things are flush, we are going to have a good number of birds, but what happens when our limited species of insects takes a downturn?
You don’t put all your eggs in one, or even a handful of baskets when it comes to your financial investments. Right, you diversify, you might use mutual funds or some other tools to minimize risk by having wide ranging diversity in investments so that even when some take a downturn the majority will continue to grow your money. Well, change the investment from financial products to plants and I think the comparison makes sense. The greater plant diversity you have the greater insect diversity you are going to have. The greater plant diversity you have the less risk you have. The risk here is a downturn in pheasant numbers. (This obviously goes for all species that depend on the grasslands, but one focus at a time!) If we invest in increased plant diversity, we will lessen the chances of having a pheasant recession. Increasing your plant diversity is the best way to manage your wildlife risk.
The gut check we have to take is if we can change our approach to herbicide use on these fields. If your main objective is to have a sea of monoculture grass then there’s no need to change your approach. If your objective is to raise wildlife (or livestock) is spraying in your best interest? There’s the more direct cost of the herbicide and application and if they are providing a return (Do you think about if spraying “weeds” is providing a return?), then there are the opportunity costs associated with that application (lost plant diversity). Yes, if there are noxious weeds, law says you must control them. Control does not automatically mean spray. Nor does it mean eradication. We have been at this chemical weed control game for generations, where has it gotten us? Seems like the only “weeds” we are controlling are collateral damage, the good native plants that would create returns for us. Returns in wildlife and returns in livestock production that we aren’t realizing because we spray without the thought of what it is costing us.