At Albany’s Nonami Plantation, quail management is all about fallow fields.
The realization that quail gravitated toward weed-filled fields came after years of breakthrough bobwhite quail telemetry research by Clay Sisson, Tall Timbers’ Albany Quail Project director.
Read more about our quail research
Nonami’s manager for the past 30 years, Ray Pearce, took notice that telemetry showed bobwhite spent much of the summer months in fallow fields and started to manage the 9,000-acre property owned by Ted Turner to create quality habitat where research showed the quail wanted to be.
“One of the secrets to Nonami’s success is the percentage of fallow fields we have in our property,” said Pearce. “With the telemetry, we found out in the Albany area that these quail utilize these fallow fields a lot more than they do the burned or unburned woods cover.”
Of the 6,000 huntable acres of quail woods, interspersed with mostly longleaf pine trees, right around 1,500 acres is all fields that are managed with a disking routine designed to promote herbaceous weeds that attract insects and provide vital habitat for quail during the breeding season.
Walk through one of those fields of ragweed and camphorweed and you’re greeted by clouds of grasshoppers. A relative buffet for adult and young quail.
It should be noted that in other regions of the Southeast, it may not be necessary to create brood fields by disking as the burned woods are full of ragweed and other desirable plants without soil disturbance.
Pearce and his team disk the fields in fall and winter, one, to reset the clock on next year’s weedy cover, and two, to concentrate quail into hunt courses come hunting season.
They found the right timing for everything through trial and error.
They’ll come back in spring and re-disk only half of a field to knock back winter weeds and promote ragweed then fertilize it mid-summer. That creates a thick overhead canopy and can split a field to ensure it still has some good cover if drought conditions prevail.
It also provides fantastic brooding habitat for young chicks with an overhead canopy to protect from avian predators.
But field management wasn’t the only practice that Pearce implemented based in research when he started in 1993.
He began to refocus on predator control and hardwood management, both of which had significant impact on the property’s quail population.
“The combination of thinning the property, our summertime management change and refocusing on predator control; all of that kind of came together,” he said. “In ‘98 I think we got the quail population up to 14.5 coveys per hour. When I started here in ‘93 it was 4.6 coveys per hour.”
During the 2022-23 season, a new property record was set with nearly 18 coveys per hour moved.
“I’ve never seen a place that can produce birds like this property can,” he said. “It’s just the most natural piece of property for quail that I’ve ever been on.”
Side Note: The Albany Quail Project has been conducting a fall covey census at Nonami for over 20 years. It is not uncommon for the property to average over 3 birds/acre with the 2022-23 season having the highest density recorded here. Researchers added a census plot that fall to capture the best part of the best hunt course on the place and documented 6.3 birds/acre, which is phenomenal.
Growing up with dogs
Pearce was born into the quail world. He grew up on the Elsoma property in Thomasville where his father was the manager.
He worked for Tim Ireland on Hines Hill Plantation and at Mandalay before starting at Nonami.
In those early years though, his interest in dogs and dog training grew into a passion he still kindles today.
He also heads the dog training program at Nonami.
He’s had a lot of great dogs over the years, but one in particular, Nonami’s Johnny Come Lately, is a current favorite.
He and Pearce have won three Shooting Dog Championships, the Masters, Southeastern and Gulf Coast in 2023. He was also the high point dog in the Dixie Trace Field Trial Association for the 2022-23 field trial season.
Whether dogs are in the field hunting or competing, there is something about watching them work – their nose, their instincts and style – that continues to be a draw.
“To see a dog run really big and do it honestly and stay with you because they want to and point birds honestly, is a thrill,” Pearce said. “That’s the lure I think that keeps me interested in this business, is the dog. I never get tired of watching a good dog work.”
Most of his field trail dogs spend just as much time in the field pointing birds for hunters and for him, the dog trainer is the perfect fit to double as quail manager.
“That person needs to be in control of the quail management, because he has the most gain or lose if you’ve got birds,” he said. “In other words, he’s the one that’s the most motivated to do what the quail needs.”
Burn technique and new EPA standards
Because a quarter of Nonami’s is fields, and pine trees are interspersed in pockets throughout, it makes it hard to do large-scale block burning.
Pearce uses the ring-around method for annual burning with the goal to burn 60% of the property each year.
Each ring is between an acre to 3 acres and in the fire lines Pearce plants winter wheat, which provides seeds once it browns off in early summer and is replaced by beneficial weeds.
Although it may add to the cost of management, the technique works at Nonami and has produced some impressive quail numbers.
But Nonami and other properties in the Albany area are in the epicenter of the debate about air quality regulations and prescribed fire.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency passed new annual air quality standards that could restrict the use of prescribed fire due to reduced particulate emissions thresholds.
Albany is within annual attainment but sits right on the edge of surpassing standards set by the changes.
Pearce and others are part of regular conversations about how to manage smoke emissions within the new standards to continue the use of prescribed fire as a primary habitat management tool while also maintaining air quality for the surrounding area.
But he recognizes the need for long-term solutions to keep Nonami and other properties in the business of quail management.
“Fire is one thing that, if we can’t burn, we’re out of business here. There’s nothing that you can do to replicate fire,” Pearce said. “The ecology of the wild quail is driven by fire. I think everybody understands that. They understand a lot of these properties wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for quail. It’d be agriculture center pivots.”
