There are moments in our lives that stay with us until the day we die. For Randy Hudson, such memories include quail hunting as a child with his dad. "Those are moments very dear to me," he says. "I'll never forget Jiggs and Joe, my bird dogs, and the time we were quail hunting and a rat chased up my dad's pants."
Today Hudson is an entomologist and emerging crops specialist with the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He hopes to recreate such moments, if not for himself, then for his two sons.
With quail populations having declined by 70% since the 1960s, Hudson leads an ambitious project to prove that with slight changes in management bobwhite quail can thrive on row-crop farms and regain the special place they hold on many Southern farms.
These changes can be as simple as using thinning and prescribed burning on timber stands or creating soft edges between crop fields and dense woods. These buffer or transitional zones can consist of native plants, weeds and cover crops.
Hudson and his colleagues are successfully using such practices on Wolf Creek Farm, a 2,200-acre crop and timber tract owned by L.O. "Hobbs" Peebles in Turner County, Ga.
Four years ago, only three coveys could be counted. University of Georgia wildlife students now estimate that about 40 live on the farm. William Palmer, game bird research fellow at Tall Timbers Research Station at Tallahassee, Fla., says Wolf Creek should be able to support up to 60 coveys within the next few years.
"Converting to conservation tillage, thinning forests and managing field edges would go a long way toward building up quail on this farm and on most farms," Palmer says.
INSECTS FROM RAGWEED. Hudson calls the Wolf Creek Project a work in progress. He has learned that young quail depend on insects for survival. Denise Maidens, a graduate student at the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forest Resources, plays a key role. She is investigating the numbers and availability of insects for quail from various cover crops. She also releases newly hatched chicks and later determines which insects they eat. This work shows the young quail prefer beetles, flies, larvae and true bugs.
Peebles learned that creating a habitat rich in insect life begins with using a disk harrow in the winter. "Harrow a strip of land, plant a thin stand of wheat and let the wheat mature," he says. "Then leave it idle and allow ragweed to come up in the wheat. That is simple, and it makes the best feed for quail."
Hudson says the wheat provides seed for adult birds, and the ragweed provides a good canopy that is clean on the ground level yet dense overhead so the young birds can escape predators.
LEASE OBJECTIVES. In Iola, Kan., Tom Cannon is using similar techniques on his 860-acre Mockingbird Farm. "Southeast Kansas used to be known for quail hunting," says Cannon. "Now our habitat is fragmented, and the quail population has declined."
One of Cannon's best tools is a written lease, which spells out management objectives for fisheries, big game, waterfowl and upland game. He requires lessees to leave 20- to 30-foot border strips around crop fields. Cannon plants strips of warm-season grasses and native prairie plants around the field edges.
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"I disk odd areas and field borders to bring up annual weeds like giant ragweed, common sunflowers and foxtail. You can get a lot of diversity by disking. If you let field borders go too long, fescue takes over and becomes too thick for quail," he says.
Wheat stubble isn't burned, and Cannon leaves some at the ends of fields for year-round cover. Prairie hay meadows are mowed only during specified periods to protect ground-nesting birds. Crop residue and stubble left on the surface provide winter feed and cover. Native grasses are rotationally burned early in the year to promote new growth and keep grasses from becoming too dense.
Cannon's land still has hedgerows between crop fields. Tom and his wife, Jerilyn, protect the old hedgerows and thicken them by planting plum trees, honeysuckle, autumn olive and other mast-producing species. (Before planting any nonnative species, however, check with an Extension specialist to make sure it is suitable for your area and isn't invasive.)
Although the border strips on Cannon's farm do reduce the acreage for crops, yields are often poor along field borders, especially near tree lines and fencerows.
That's true on Southern farms as well. "We know from precision farming that some border areas and other locations in crop fields are low yielding and not profitable," says wildlife biologist Reggie Thackston, who heads a state initiative to restore bobwhite quail on Georgia farms.
"Light winter disking is all that's needed to get started," he adds. "A 10-foot field border may provide an increase in quail, and 30 feet is probably much better. In general, the wider the better."
Thackston says to base border width on the width of your disk. "If you have a 20-foot-wide disk, put in a 40-foot border; then disk 20 feet every other year. You want native grasses and weeds, which provide insects, seed and the type of vegetation structure quail need."
NO-TILL BENEFITS. "The good news is that we can use new technology to enhance quail habitat," says Thackston. New farming technology that can boost quail populations includes converting to conservation tillage for crops such as peanuts, corn, cotton and soybeans. Palmer at Tall Timbers cites research in North Carolina showing that chicks meet their nutritional needs in less than six hours in no-till soybean fields, compared with more than 20 hours in clean-tilled soybeans.
Roundup Ready and Bt systems also help. "New herbicides, Bt cotton varieties and judicious use of insecticides at planting can give weed and insect control that is ideal for quail establishment," says Hudson."Bt cotton lets us get away from using insecticides and allows us to use softer chemistry." In past years, farmers used cotton insecticides by the ton. "As safe as those materials are, I believe they adversely impacted the bird population," adds Hudson.
Thick grasses such as bermuda and fescue aren't conducive to quail. "We're taking Roundup and killing the bermudagrass in the field borders," says Hudson.
Field roads at Wolf Creek have been relocated from borders near the woods to out in the fields. Doing this allows the field borders to be managed for quail habitat.
BURNING BELIEVERS. Peebles is a big fan of longleaf pine on his timber tracts. "Native longleaf was here to start with, and it is appropriate to replace harvested timber with longleaf," he says. John Carroll, wildlife biologist at the Warnell School of Forest Resources, gives Peebles credit for using longleaf pine at low stocking densities long before this became fashionable.
"You will have quail feed with controlled burning, pine mast and an open canopy," Peebles says. "People can afford to use prescribed burning, and that will do more for quail in your woods than anything else you can do."
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Another big fan of prescribed burning is Bill Ashburn of Elizabeth City, N.C. "Certain plants don't proliferate without fire," he says. As a landowner and chairman of North Carolina Quail Unlimited, Ashburn is in tune with practices such as prescribed burning and herbicide treatments that help both timber growth and wildlife.
Herbicides and controlled burns eliminate thick, woody vegetation and promote the growth of native plants. Thinning the understory reduces competition for water and nutrients needed for pine growth. After a prescribed burn, quail thrive on the combination of bare ground and overhead protection from avian predators. Fire creates new insect foraging areas for chicks and controls nonnative plant species.
Ashburn also works with farmers who rent his cropland to improve quail habitat. Instead of mowing, he asks them to use herbicides to control woody vegetation near ditches and field borders. North Carolina State University has helped develop a weed sweep herbicide applicator, which is cheaper than mowing and leaves plants for bird cover.
As Quail Unlimited chairman, Ashburn travels around the state to tell others what they can do to help the bobwhite recovery. "We can wring our hands about the loss of quail populations, or we can get out and do something about it," says Ashburn. "Controlled fires in pine woods are one of the best tools we have to help quail."
OVERCOMING APPEARANCES. William Palmer often hears from farmers who complain that quail habitat is not clean and that it looks ugly. "That is the No. 1 stumbling block to getting good quail habitat," he says.
There's no getting around the fact that weeds make the best quail habitat. Ragweed, briers, broomsedge during nesting, dogfennel and partridge peas are among the plants that can bring back quail. Palmer says these plants can be contained along field edges without threatening crops. "If you manage just 5% of your farm landscape for wildlife, you will get a good response in the quail population," he adds.
Although Peebles does not lease out Wolf Creek Farm for hunting, this is a potential source of income that should more than cover the cost of habitat manipulation. Turner County Extension Agent Scott Utley has estimated that Wolf Creek Farm could be leased out for hunting at a price of about $20,000 per year. That may seem high, but Utley says the demand for quail hunting is strong, and the price is in line with what commercial hunting plantations charge for shooting pen-raised quail.
Peebles hopes the Wolf Creek Project will one day become a model that can be used over the state and the region to manage farmland and bring back quail. "It is just amazing," he says. "They have done this in a practical way and have made great progress so far."
Hudson now tells his sons what it was like to go out to a farm like Wolf Creek and see 20 to 30 coveys. He hopes they'll soon see such quail numbers for themselves and create the kind of memories that last a lifetime.