Scott County first in U.S. to reach goal in boosting quail habitat

BLODGETT, Mo. -- The wheat field behind Bob Laseter's farmhouse was drying quickly as a warm west wind swirled through the ripening grain.

In about a week, Laseter will start harvesting. But on this day, he wasn't showing visitors the grain, of which he is rightfully proud. Instead, he was showing off the land he no longer uses for crops -- marginal acres on the edge of the field, beyond the reach of his irrigation system, that he has sown with switchgrass, flowering broadleaf plants and short woody shrubs.

The 67-year-old farmer is participating in a 22-state effort to restore quail populations. The Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative is a partnership of public agencies and private organizations, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Missouri Department of Conservation and Quail Unlimited, to create and protect habitat attractive to the popular game birds. The initiative sets goals for states and counties. Scott County farmers have embraced the program, which piggybacks on programs that pay farmers to implement conservation efforts.

Scott County recently won certification as the first county in the nation to meet its program goal. Farmers in the county enrolled 7,000 acres; designers of the initiative wanted 4,500.

And at Laseter's farm, the effort is paying off.

"I saw two pair of quail in my backyard this morning," he said Friday. "I saw another pair on the birdbath. Until we put these plots in, quail were just about extinct around here. I am tickled to death to get this game back in here."

The conservation initiative began in earnest in 2002 after the participating agencies developed a plan to respond to population surveys that showed a 65 percent decline in quail populations across its range, which includes most of the United States from the East Coast to the Great Plains. The autumn population of quail was pegged at 20.1 million in the fall of 1999, down from 58.9 million in 1980. The breeding population was estimated at 6.7 million, down from 19.6 million in 1980.

Missouri Department of Conservation The Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative wants to increase the quail by 18.9 million birds.

The goal is to increase the population by 2.7 million coveys, or 18.9 million birds. The plan does not specify a target year.

"Basically since the early 1980s we have seen a steady decline, not just in Missouri but the whole southeast United States," said Larry Heggemann, a private land conservationist with the Department of Conservation who works out of the USDA Farm Service Center in Jackson. "Apparently something has changed out there, and it is not localized."

That something, biologists and wildlife officials concluded, was habitat. Food near quail was plentiful; waste grain falling during the harvest supplements the bugs and wild seeds that are the main staples of the birds' diet.

Quail aren't big, impressive birds like wild turkeys or Canada geese. But many hunters prefer them as sport, using dogs to flush the 6-ounce brown birds from their cover. And the areas the birds prefer also support nongame species, Heggemann said, making quail a good indicator of a habitat's overall quality.

AARON EISENHAUER ~ aeisenhauer@semissourian.com A sign marks a quail habitat buffer on a farm off Highway 91 in Scott County on Monday. Scott County is the first county in a 22-state area to achieve its goals for quail habitat restoration.

"If quail are doing well, it means good things for a whole suite of bird species," Heggemann said.

Several factors came together to make Scott County fertile ground for the quail initiative. During the period the program was getting started and farmers were enrolling ground in the payment programs that support it, crop prices were depressed. Corn, which today is bringing more than $6 a bushel, yielded about $1.75 per bushel during the 2005 harvest.

Much of Scott County farmland is sandy, quick-draining soil that must be irrigated to yield its true potential. Center-pivot irrigation systems commonly in use move in large circles, leaving field corners dry. Planting, fertilizing and harvesting those corners even in better years is a break-even proposition.

"They are more than happy to lay them out if they get a rental payment on them," Heggemann said. "That is what inhibits us in a lot of different counties without these marginal acres. Farming the edges is more lucrative now with high grain prices."

Dunklin County is close to meeting its goal as well, Heggemann said.

The farm-support programs in the 2002 farm bill included funding for programs like the initiative through the Conservation Security Program. Acres enrolled in older programs, such as the Conservation Reserve Program, were also eligible to take part. Missouri has smaller programs funded through state taxes that supplement the federal money.

The best habitat for quail, he said, is grass that grows as clumps, about 2 feet tall, with bare ground patches interspersed with broadleaf plants, or forbs, that have the added benefit of giving the habitat areas the look of a wildflower patch. Purple coneflower, coreopsis, Illinois bundleflower and black-eyed Susans all add their blossoms to the mix.

Noticing the difference between a field in the program and a field that is not can take a keen eye at times, but a sure clue is if a strip of grass and flowers stand between the grain field and a roadside ditch.

On the acres Jason Whitten farms west of Morley along Highway 91, the habitat restoration effort is a 1 1/4-mile long strip between his field and a drainage ditch. Whitten farms a total of 4,000 acres in Scott County, and the locations he set aside are marginal.

"If you take an area that is not real high production, it should be in something like this," Whitten said. "And I like running my dogs and watching them work."

Like any government program, there are rules for the farmers who enroll. The enrolled acres must be planted with the proper mix of vegetation, and guidelines must be followed for keeping it from becoming overgrown in a way that makes life difficult for the quail. Inspectors make sure the rules are followed.

"They need to maintain it correctly for the life of the program," Heggemann said. "We hope it will instill an ethic and they will keep it in place."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126

On the Net:

Missouri Department of Conservation: www.mdc.mo.gov

Quail Unlimited: www.qu.org

Southeast Quail Study Group: seqsg.org/