Last weekend I finished planting the food plots at the farm. Most of the plots are a mix of forage sorghum, milo and soybeans. I have one large plot of glyphosate resistant corn and beans mixed together – better known as the succotash plot. Today’s rain should get the sorghum plots going and we need some warm weather for the corn. I have a suspicion the sorghum plots were once again seeded too heavy. I do it every year. A little extra seed here and a little extra there. I can’t even listen to my own advice on following seeding rates. I’ll have to find a way to thin out the plots. It would have been easier to seed them at the right rate.

I have a feeling over the weekend several other landowners were busy planting food plots. It’s late May which means turkey season is over (at least in Missouri), the crappie spawn is almost over, the mushrooms have disappeared, and the fields have finally dried out enough to work (at least in parts of the state). Some landowners will work feverishly into the night – in dry fields and wet fields – to plant their food plots before returning home.

Some landowners and hunters will tell you food plots are essential if you want to have good quail habitat. The truth is a well-managed warm-season grass field with a variety of forbs and legumes and shrubby cover is much more attractive to quail than a grass field with only a food plot. I admit planting food plots is fun, but planting food plots is probably the last thing you should do for quail on your property. Making sure you will have good brooding, nesting and shrubby cover is more important than planting food plots each spring. Below is an average food plot on the farm. Notice the forage sorghum in the background with ragweed in the foreground and downed cedars (shrubby/woody cover) to the left. Pros to Planting Food Plots

• Grain food plots can provide a dependable food source for wildlife when native food sources are scarce. No surprise here. If you plant food plots, wildlife will likely use them. It is like putting a pizza in front of a bunch of high school boys. Give them food and they will eat it!
• Grain food plots create an annual disturbance, which produces good brooding cover for quail. By disking the soil, you will encourage plants like foxtail, pigweed and ragweed to germinate. Consider disking and planting only one-half of the plot in the spring. Leave the other half idle as it will provide excellent brooding cover and food over the next year. The next year, plant the idle half and rest the other half – flip flop that food plot! Below is a great picture of an idled food plot on a conservation area in northeast Missouri. The old food plot was intentionally left idle. As you can see, the plot is full of partridge pea and other annuals. Typically you don’t see this much partridge pea in an idled food plot, but when you do, there’s usually a lot.

• Establishing food plots can create good hunting and viewing opportunities. This is the real benefit to planting food plots. Look at the back shelf at the local feed store. I bet there’s a lot of specialty clover mixes for deer.
• Food plots are fun to plant and fun to watch grow.
• Long linear food plots around the edge or through a field can double as firebreaks when it is time to burn. Plan ahead. If you plan on burning in the fall or winter, plant the food plot to wheat that fall or only disk up half of the fire line/food plot. If you burn in the spring, the disked fire line will be ready for planting that spring.

Cons to Planting Food Plots

• Food plots are of no value to quail if the basic habitat requirements of bobwhite quail are not nearby. Planting a food plot is a waste of time if you do not have shrubby, nesting and brooding cover in the area. Look at the picture below. Will this food plot be of much value to quail during the winter? Probably not since there is no shrubby/low-growing woody cover nearby. There’s not much nesting or brooding cover around either. I wouldn’t count the food plot as being good brooding cover because there’s not a lot of plant diversity in the food plot (my guess is clean tilled and heavy herbicide usage). Read about brooding cover on page 7 and 8 in the Missouri Bobwhite Quail Habitat Appraisal Guide.

• Food plots will not make up for poor habitat. Realize time spent planting food plots could be better spent improving habitat on the rest of the farm. Create good habitat first and plant food plots second. Does the food plot in the picture below improve this fescue field and tall trees for bobwhites? The answer is no. The field could easily be improved by ignoring the food plots until the fescue is eradicated and established to little bluestem and wildflowers. I’d also cutdown most of the trees and leave them where they fall in the field. Then, and only then, should the food plots be planted.

• Quail will only occasionally use food plots in the middle of large grassland fields where there is little shrubby cover. Establish food plots next to good shrubby and grassland cover.
• Food plots will not provide as much food or variety as a well managed grassland. Ragweed, grass seeds, annual lespedeza, beggars lice, and other seed producing plants thrive in frequently disturbed fields. Establish only ¼ to 4 acres of food plots on each 40 acres of habitat and focus on improving your grassland habitat around your food plots.
• Small food plots (less than ¼ acre) or less than 30 feet wide are often over browsed by deer in the summer or early fall; well before late winter when quail and other wildlife might need a supplemental food source. Make sure your food plots are at least ¼ acre and 30 feet wide.
• Food plots that are not fertilized usually produce little grain. Consider taking a soil test to determine the condition of the soil. Fertilize and lime if the test calls for it.
• Food plots sprayed to control “weeds” will contain very little ragweed, foxtail, prickly sida and pigweed (some of the top quail foods). You are not trying to produce 50-bushel beans or 200 bushels of corn per acre, just enough grain for the plot to be beneficial throughout the winter. The ragweed, foxtail, sida and pigweed are just as good, if not better than the grain growing in the plot. Only spray a food plot if the annual plants start to out-compete the planted grain or if you have problem weeds like Johnson grass or cocklebur (to name a few). I do spray my glyphosate resistant succotash plot, but with a light rate of glypohsate and only once in early June. I still end up with a good seedy plant crop. The picture above is a great example of a “barren food plot”. There’s not much brooding cover. However, there are exceptions. The picture below is of a few biologists next to a sunflower food plot they couldn’t spray because of wet fields. As you can see the Johnson grass has taken over the plot. I think these were the only sunflowers in the entire field. Not the best for attracting doves, but still decent quail cover. We had a good laugh over the “big” sunflower crop.

• Corn, soybean, milo and sunflower plots are often over browsed in areas with high deer populations. Try forage sorghum or millet in areas with high deer populations.

Food plots do provide a dependable food source to quail, but are worthless if there is not already good nesting, brooding and shrubby cover nearby. Focus on providing good nesting, brooding, and shrubby cover first and then plant your food plots.

Habitat is the Key!

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Every spring I get a few contacts about a strange object in someone’s yard. Sometimes a photo is sent and other times just a description. Because it is so unusual, it is easy to identify with or without a photo. It’s a type of fungus called a stinkhorn, of which there are several species. The one that is commonly reported from Missouri is the “elegant stinkhorn.” Although related to mushrooms, puffballs and shelf fungi ;it is different enough from those groups that observers often don’t recognize it as a fungus.

It grows as a narrow, pink to orange tube that is six to seven inches long and tapers to a blunt point. At the tip of the hollow tube is a greenish-brown slime, which contains the reproductive spores. The stinkhorn’s foul-smelling odor attracts flies, which eat the slime and spores and also pick it up on their feet. They spread the spores when they fly off. Although stinkhorns do have a disagreeable odor, I’ve had to get my nose close to them to smell it.

This stinkhorn can be found in lawns or in woods or cultivated fields. Most of the reports I’ve received were from lawns or flower beds in urban areas. I’ve had them in the grass of my own lawn a couple of times; appearing overnight when the ground is moist and disappearing after a day or two. Like mushrooms, they don’t necessarily reappear again in the same location.

Stinkhorns are a good reminder of the diversity in the natural world – something odd that we didn’t know existed. Several observers have remarked to me that they’ve lived many years and have never seen one before. Keep your eyes open – there may be something new to you just outside!

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Missourians care about the outdoors, whether they focus on its water, nature, soil, wildlife, air, fish, forests, natural communities, outdoor recreation or some mix of these. It’s their strong concern that brought us back  from the brink of destruction of forests,  pollution of rivers, erosion of rich farmland soil, decimation of deer, turkey, and eagles.

At the Summit on the Future of Missouri Outdoors held last week in Columbia, people gathered from across the state to translate their interests into a renewed, unified call. I sat there marveling at the mix of interests—urban, rural, farm, business, recreation, education. And yet, as most agreed, those attending still didn’t represent the diversity that Missouri is now or even less what it will be 75 years from now. Nonetheless, it’s a start.

As he opened the Summit, Governor Nixon noted the importance of the outdoors to the quality of our lives. Directors of Missouri Departments of Conservation, Natural Resources, Agriculture and from the US Forest Service/Mark Twain National Forest and US Fish and Wildlife Service in Missouri shared their views on what it will take to work together and involve all Missourians. (Missouri agency people in photo from left: Agriculture, Conservation, USFWS, USFS, Natural Resources)

By looking ahead at what our future could be and then stepping back to the present, the group was able to suggest what actions now are most important to bring that vision of quality outdoors to life. Here are some of the priority goals the group picked (as I recall from my notes):

1) Get the message out that a healthy outdoors is essential for quality of life.

2) Conserve plants, animals and natural communities on public and private land so they are diverse, healthy and resilient.

3) Create stable funding for quality outdoors

4) Have an up-to-date state water plan and make it widely available

5) Next time you go outdoors, take someone with you (Help others connect to nature/the outdoors)

Sharing a passion for something is the best way to keep it alive and well in the hearts and minds of others. The Conservation Federation of Missouri served as an catalyst to pull people with a passion for the outdoors together. (Video from the opening talks will be posted on their website as soon as we get the digital files transferred to them.) There is plenty to do to ensure healthy nature/outdoors in the future.  The next step will be to give that passion some form so it’s not just ideas but also actions.

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A while back, I had a poll on food plots. The survey question asked what’s your favorite type of food plot to plant for bobwhites.

The results are in, and there was a tie between milo and forage sorghum for the most popular food crops. I don’t think there was any election fraud or hanging chats. I hoped no one voted twice or let their bird dog vote.

Here are the results for favorite bobwhite food plots:

• 16 votes forage sorghum
• 16 votes milo
• 7 votes millet
• 1 vote corn
• 1 vote soybean
• 1 vote sunflower

I thought the clear winner would have been milo with forage sorghum coming in a distant second. Either way, both are excellent choices for bobwhites. I often mix the two together to get the best of both crops.

Forage sorghum grows 6 to 9 feet tall (picture below) and does well in a variety of soil types. Forage sorghum will lodge over in the the winter. The jumbled mess of stems is excellent cover and food for rabbits, quail and pheasants. Forage sorghum will last well into late winter and is an excellent emergency food source after heavy snow or ice. Egyptian wheat is very similar to forage sorghum and tends to stay upright during the winter. Forage sorghum will not produce as much seed as milo, but more than makes up for it by providing excellent winter cover and a late winter food source. I recommend forage sorghum in areas with high deer populations. Deer will devour milo seedheads in the doughy stage, but not forage sorghum.

The other top food plot crop was milo (picture below). Grain sorghum (milo) produces large seedheads and does well in a variety of soil types. The only real downfall for milo is deer relish the seedheads during the dough stage. I’ve seen small milo food plots striped clean by deer. To outsmart deer, try mixing forage sorghum and milo together to get the best of both crops. The taller forage sorghum will help hide the larger milo seedheads (at least in theory). They still seem to find some of it.

I was surprised to see millet in third place. Maybe that’s because I prefer milo and forage sorghum over millet. Generally, millets are good seed producers and are easy to establish. Millets can be broadcasted into July and still mature before the first frost (most varieties mature in 90 days). Whether it is proso, pearl, German or brown top, millet provides good brooding cover and food for bobwhites.

I thought sunflowers would get a few more votes since I frequently find coveys next to sunflower fields. I usually see coveys next to sunflower fields in the summer and early fall. I think quail like sunflower fields in the summer for loafing cover and brooding cover if left weedy. If left unmowed, sunflower plots can provide a good food source for bobwhites, pheasants and other wildlife. However, most sunflower fields are planted for dove hunting so by early August the fields are mowed or disked, leaving little food or cover for bobwhites. Any seed left on the ground will germinate in September leaving little food for the long winter ahead. Sunflower fields managed for doves are usually sprayed with herbicides a few times to control weeds (annual seedy plants) and to keep the fields “clean”. A weedy food plot is better for quail, but not for doves. If you want sunflowers for doves then be happy with providing some brooding and loafing cover for bobwhites in July and August. If you want the sunflower field to benefit bobwhites consider reducing the number of herbicide treatments and/or disk only the interior of the field while leaving a 30 to 60 foot strip of unmowed sunflowers around the edge.

I wasn’t surprised to see corn near the bottom of the list for bobwhite food plots. Generally, corn can only be grown in fertile soils and must be drilled with a planter. Most other grains can be broadcasted. Corn has high fertility requirements, especially compared to other food plot crops. Corn is a very good food and cover source for a variety of wildlife, especially deer and turkey and that might be one reason why corn wasn’t too popular on the quail food plot poll. I’ve learned over the years that corn food plots must be at least 1 acre in size to feed all the deer, turkey, squirrels and raccoons. On the plus side, corn is a high energy source and provides excellent cover for bobwhites. I like to plant corn in a succotash food plot (glyphosate resistant corn and soybeans mixed together). I normally idle the plot the second year. In fact, last year’s corn/soybean food plot on our farm still has quite a bit of corn left (picture below). I’ll leave this plot idle until next year to provide ideal brooding cover this summer.

Also at the bottom was soybeans. Soybeans are relished by most wildlife and that might be their downfall as a quail food plot. Small soybean plots are quickly overbrowsed by deer, groundhogs and rabbits. Experience has taught me that soybean food plots should be planted in large blocks and must be at least 1 acre (sometimes even large). Generally, we recommend long, linear food plots for bobwhites and that usually doesn’t work for soybean plots. Another problem with soybeans is the seeds often shatter on the ground and are inaccessible to quail after a heavy snow or ice storm. Soybeans aren’t my favorite food plot for quail, but I usually plant some each year. Cowpeas are similar to soybeans. Cowpeas are often planted in the southeast United States for deer browse or as a grain plot for bobwhites. Soybeans do well in a variety of soil types and don’t require much fertility. Quail will use soybean food plots for summer brooding cover and for roosting cover if left weedy (few herbicide treatments). I’ve shot a lot of quail out of weedy soybean food plots and in unharvested soybean fields. That’s one reason why I still plant beans.

Thanks to those who voted for their favorite food plot. I don’t think we need a recount or special election. Take a look at my new poll on what’s your favorite type of covey headquarters.

Take a look at some of my older blogs on food plots and the University of Tennessee Extension publication on food plots. All 168 pages are full of great information on food plots and so much more.

The Pros and Cons to Food Plots – Think Outside the Food Plot!
What else you should consider before planting food plots.

Flip Flop That Food Plot
Sometimes the best food plot hasn’t been planted.

Food Plot Management
Good information on when and where to plant food plots.

Habitat is the Key!

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If you haven’t been in the Missouri outdoors recently, I can tell you that natural events are happening at a frenzied pace. Turtles are laying their eggs in holes in the ground, especially in sandy areas where digging is easy. Young coyotes and woodchucks are leaving their dens. Bald eagle young are fledging. Tarantulas are on the move in Southwest Missouri and may be seen crossing the roads. Gray squirrels are beginning their second breeding and spending lots of time in mulberry trees, harvesting the ripening fruits. Catfish fry are leaving the nest. Carpenter bees are laying their eggs in tunnels they’ve excavated in wood. Red fox kits are hunting with their parents.

Plants are also making that transition from spring towards summer. The spring woodland wildflowers have mostly faded as the leafed-out tree canopy has brought shade to the forest floor. Open areas with native vegetation, like glades and prairies, remain rich with color. The earliest blooming violets, yellow star grass, blue-eyed grass, lousewort, Indian paintbrush and shooting stars have faded and now are maturing their fruits. Now butterfly weed is coming into flower to join the coneflowers, coreopsis, beardtongue, roses, spiderwort, sensitive briar, Missouri primrose and many others.

Wild strawberries already have ripe fruits, providing sweet treats for box turtles on the move. Quail, turkey and prairie chicken eggs are hatching and young chicks are feeding on the great variety of insects found in areas where plant diversity is high. Those areas with some bare ground as well as woody escape cover are best meeting the needs of all ground nesting birds.

Hummingbirds are becoming less common at feeders as they disperse to nest and tend their young. They should return to feeders later in the summer, along with this year’s production of young birds.

Late June and July should bring drier and hotter weather that will greatly reduce the lush growth and rapid succession of flowering plant species. Before the dog days of summer arrive, consider taking a hike at a nearby conservation area or a state park . Unfortunately, the chiggers are joining the ticks and mosquitoes to the discomfort of unprotected explorers, so dress appropriately and use bug spray as needed.

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OSAGE BEACH–A little caution by boaters over the Memorial Day weekend could save a lot of trouble and expense for Missourians in the long run. The thumbnail-sized invader from Eurasia has galloped across much of North America in two decades and now has footholds in several Missouri waters. The only hope of slowing its spread lies in caution by boaters.
Zebra mussels cause several kinds of trouble. For one thing, they alter the ecology of waters they infest by competing with native fish and other animals for food. Their habit of attaching themselves to any solid object dooms native mussels, which are smothered by dense encrustations of the prolific invaders.Zebra mussels have a hefty price tag for property owners, too. They weigh down docks, buoys and other objects exposed to water. Large numbers of mussels attached to boat hulls increase water drag, leading to higher fuel costs. Their tiny larvae, called “veligers,” get inside marine engines, live wells and water lines, requiring maintenance and creating a danger of damage due to overheating.Zebra mussels also drive up utility bills by clogging water intakes of public and private utilities. Keeping those pipes open requires millions of dollars of maintenance annually.And zebra mussels are only one of a growing number of invasive aquatic plants and animals that can hitch rides to previously uninfested waters on boats and other marine equipment. An alert marina worker averted a zebra mussel infestation at Lake of the Ozarks in 2000 when he spotted thousands of tiny zebra mussels on the hull of a cabin cruiser brought to Missouri from out of state. Not everyone was so vigilant, however, for in 2006 marina workers, boaters and Conservation Department workers discovered zebra mussels at several locations in Lake of the Ozarks.

Today, Lake of the Ozarks has dozens of known infestation sites. The pests also have turned up in Lake Taneycomo, Bull Shoals Lake and in the Osage River below Bagnell Dam. Most recently, zebra mussels have been discovered in the Missouri River in the Kansas City and Chamois areas. No one has discovered an affordable way to eradicate the mussels once they are established in a lake or stream. Consequently, state officials can only hope to contain their spread to where they already exist and monitor other waters for new infestations. Boaters are in a position to do more, however. Measures every Missouri angler and boater can take prevent the further spread of zebra mussel include:

· Thoroughly inspecting hulls, drive units, trim plates, transducers and other submerged portions of boats for adult zebra mussels after each use. Adults are fingernail sized with dark and light stripes. Small zebra mussels give hard surfaces a sandpapery feel.

· Examining crevices and recessed areas around motor housings, trim tabs and behind water intake screens on motors’ lower units.

· Checking trailers, ropes, minnow buckets and anything else that was in the water. Report any suspected zebra mussels to the nearest Conservation Department office.

· Removing all suspected zebra mussels, along with vegetation or other material clinging to boats and trailers and put it in a trash container.

· Rinsing boat bilges, trailers, motor drive units and live wells before launching them in another location helps prevent transferring microscopic zebra mussel larvae. Use water at least 104 degrees if live zebra mussels are found, or if your craft has been in waters known to be infested with zebra mussels. Most commercial car washes meet this standard.

· After rinsing, allow boats and other equipment to dry in the sun for at least five days before re-launching in a different lake or stream. Some measures that help prevent the spread of zebra mussels also aid in stopping other aquatic pests, including the rusty crayfish and Asian carp. One of the best things anglers can do is dispose of live bait properly. Put unused bait in trash bags and deposit it in trash receptacles away from water. Never release unused bait – whether fish, worms, crayfish or anything else – into lakes or streams.

Boaters can prevent invasive plants and animals from hitching a ride by draining all water from bilges and live wells and removing vegetation and other trash from boats and trailers when they move them from one body of water to another. More information about invasive aquatic species prevention is available at visit www.protectyourwaters.net/.
-Jim Low-

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Trees across the Ozarks that stood tall weeks ago now lie scattered like so many matchsticks in the wake of straight-line winds and tornadoes. Some of the areas hit hard included Shannon, Dent, Reynolds, Madison, Bollinger, Perry, and Ste. Genevieve counties.

Lots of news stories focused understandably on the personal and immediate challenges caused by having a 100 year-old tree crash into a house or by having roads closed due to trees down.

What most people didn’t hear about is what it means for the long-term quality of our forests—those larger acres of trees. Missouri’s forests provide a lot of great things: habitat for all sorts of wildlife, wood for many uses, scenic beauty, outdoor recreation, better water quality, and carbon storage.

The Missouri Department of Conservation manages many acres of forests with an eye to sustaining those benefits for years to come. Just a few weeks ago, State Forester Lisa Allen (who is head of the Missouri Conservation Department’s forestry division) described an upcoming planned harvest of selected trees on one of our conservation areas.

In that case, it would have meant a “selective” or “uneven-aged cut.” In forestry terms, that would have meant taking certain trees out and leaving a mix of other trees still standing. (In some cases, though, when the plan is to help the forest grow back in trees that need lots of sunlight to get started naturally, they might prescribe an even-age cut to leave a more open patch in the woods. Technically, that would be a clearcut. That’s a term often associated in people’s minds with very large areas, but on Conservation Areas clearcuts are relatively small (20 acres or less). They’re intended to mimic Mother Nature’s activities such as tornadoes that favor growth of native sun-loving trees like oaks and shortleaf pines. Clearcuts also help wildlife that need open brushy areas for food and cover.)

Well, the winds of last week changed the plan—significantly. Taking care of whole forests in Missouri  means taking a really long-term view of when you can harvest trees—think in terms of a 80 to 100 years. Nature just did one heck of a mess of “clearcuts” in a way that made getting useful wood out a whole lot harder. And the piles of dead tree limbs, branches and trunks scattered about could lead to hotter wildfires that are more intense and harder to put out.

I asked Lisa what this widespread storm means in terms of how they care for the forests. “Natural events like tornadoes and fires have always had an impact on the landscape,” she said. “In a way, what we do is just copy those actions, but in a more controlled way. It will be good for some kinds of trees like oaks and pines with all that sunlight coming in now. But in terms of getting value out of all those now dead trees it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The demand for wood products is down because the economy is down. So Missourians won’t get the value that they might have gotten out of the trees if had been harvested while still standing or the economy was better. But it’s still important to remove trees on the ground if possible because they create a fire hazard and ripe ground for insect and disease issues. Unfortunately, the trees knocked down won’t all be where and what we would have chosen to cut.”

On the plus side, wildlife that thrive in more open, brushy areas will have a lot of habitat in the next decade or two until the forests grow up again. And if it’s not practical to remove many of the trees, at least the nutrients of the decaying wood will slowly—very slowly—return to the soil. But for anyone planning to hunt, hike or otherwise enjoy moving easily through the woods on some of those hard-hit Conservation Areas, it will be some years before they’re so walkable again.

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The Northern bobwhite quail has declined in Missouri since the mid-1950s, by more than seventy percent in the last thirty years. The long-term decline resulted from changes in land management. The landscape has changed from a patchwork of small farms with small fields, brushy areas and open woodlands to fewer, larger farms with larger fields, clean fencerows and dense forests. Other factors leading to declining habitat quality are the increased use of densely-growing cool-season pasture grasses and the chemical control of insect and plant pests.

Quail need patchy habitats with a mix of bare ground and more dense cover, along with seed-bearing plants and insects. They must have suitable areas for nest sites and brood-rearing and cover to protect the birds from predators. Without suitable habitat available, the quail’s plight is made worse by extended periods of winter ice and snow. Unusually wet periods during spring and early summer, such as we had last year, also take a toll on young quail chicks.

Quail nesting in Missouri should be in full swing right now. After a 23-day incubation period for the eggs, young quail will be hatching later in May. The newly hatched chicks can easily succumb to exposure from frequent rains and cool temperatures. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for some warm and drier conditions during late May and June. We’ll need good habitat and a little luck with the weather to see good numbers of quail chicks fledged this year.

Today there are multiple efforts underway to reverse the long decline in the quail population. Quail respond well to certain habitat management practices . These practices are increasingly being implemented on public and private property in Missouri. “Habitat is the Key” is the slogan for the growing body of information on restoring quail populations. What we do to improve quail populations will, at the same time, help a host of other ground-nesting Missouri birds that share the same needs as quail.

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