This updated article is based on content originally published in the Tall Timbers Bobwhite Quail Management Handbook
The history of agriculture has had a profound effect on bobwhite populations over much of their range.
As the forests of the east were cleared to make way for patch agriculture — before pesticides or commercial fertilizer — bobwhite flourished.
There was a stretch of several decades from the late 1800s up through the mid-20th century where bobwhites were a byproduct of this predominant land use that consisted of small scattered fields, crop rotations, fallow land, inefficient harvesting, and brushy field edges.
As farming became more mechanized, all this began to change. Fields became larger to make way for bigger equipment and center pivot irrigation systems. Chemicals and commercial fertilizers reduced the need for crop rotations and fallow land, while genetic engineering and equipment advances did away with weeds, pest insects, and waste grain.
Quail densities dropped in these landscapes to a point where numbers of birds were not huntable and may not have yielded population persistence. There was a widespread feeling of pessimism about the ability to even have huntable quail numbers in this landscape any more.
A decade ago, Tall Timbers and our Albany Quail Project finished several projects that were determined to reverse these trends and dispel this pessimism, at least on a local scale.
They ranged from complete reclamation of large pivot fields, to minor modification of uncompromised agriculture, and everything in between.
The underlying theme of each of these projects has been to intensively manage all usable upland woodland acreage on the property, and then to modify the crop land to the extent possible, depending on the landowner’s goals and resources.
In addition, each of these projects initiated and/or intensified a nest predator management and year-round supplemental feeding program.
A common-sense approach has been taken to be as unobtrusive as possible to the farming operation, and to use the least productive crop land for bobwhite habitat.
In most cases, this meant taking non-irrigated, wet areas, field borders and odd corners, and poor fertility land out of production. An easy win for quail is converting working field margins (where crop yields are often lower due to competition from surrounding woodlands and inefficient irrigation).
Breaking up large crop fields with hedgerows (shrubby vegetation) can be made less obtrusive by having fewer but wider strips and running them parallel to the existing row patterns. Providing wide hedgerows allows more of the field to be used by quail as they can escape heat, cold, and predators by moving into the dense shrub cover.
Further north, natural shrub regeneration may be slower than in the South so planting may need to occur to provide habitat for quail, especially in areas that see regular snowfall.
Solid timber management consists of pine thinning (< 50 Basal Area) and hardwood thinning (<40 canopy cover) along with rotational prescribed fire every 2-3 years. It is critical to have some of this component as the crop fields provide limited nesting or winter cover.
Crop field modification includes field border and hedgerow establishment on irrigated land, and in some cases complete conversion of non-irrigated land back to bobwhite cover.
There is no cookbook recipe for this kind of work, but it does require imagination and a working knowledge of local farming practices and bobwhite habitat. The following are some lessons we have learned along the way:
- More is better. Make your field borders and hedgerows as wide as you can. Studies have shown that as little as 5% of a field put into quail habitat can help, but the more you do the better the results. The projects mentioned above took about 20% of the crop land out of production, on average, most of which was on non-irrigated land or around the edges of fields where production is lower.
- Don’t underestimate Bermuda grass and other exotic grasses. Treat them first before any land is fallowed out or trees or shrubs planted.
- Take advantage of existing cover/structure where you can. Often there are ditches, rock beds, fencerows, bottoms, or other irregularities in existing fields that can be incorporated into hedgerows. These often have some hard cover already on them and will allow quail to use these areas sooner.
- Manage “encroachment” by the farming operation onto new habitat. While often not intentional, this is a very common issue, especially with big equipment. You have to draw a line in the sand and keep the habitat you created intact.
- In the Southeastern Coastal Plain use pine trees in hedgerows where possible. The structure they provide seems to encourage quail to use them sooner. This will also allow them to be more easily managed with fire later. Where this is not an option (such as under irrigation systems), use a lot of shrub plantings, such as plums, or wax myrtle, and make hedgerows as wide as possible.
- Make hedgerows wide. A few wide hedgerows (100-200 ft.) are better than a bunch of narrow ones, especially when it comes time to hunt them (more so if hunting is done by horseback). Quail will stay out on them better and dogs will not tend to break out and run down the edges while hunting. This is also less obtrusive on the farmer.
- Manage field borders with rotational disking. This keeps them weedy for brood habitat and keeps the trees out of them. A common mistake is to just let them go, and they turn into hard cover and trees.
- Manage as much of the woodland acreage around the fields as possible. This is where quail will have to spend the winter, and where you will hunt once crops are out of the field.
- Manage nest predators and feed. This is at least as important on an Ag landscape as it is in a more wooded situation.
When more acres are converted into cropland, at least some of the impacts are at the expense of bobwhite and other wildlife. This is just the reality of land conversion. However, at least on a local scale, these trends can and have been reversed to provide some good quail numbers on what once was an inhospitable landscape.
