Managing Habitat for Wildlife: Using Cover Crops to Build Healthy Ecosystems

0:08 So like he said, I grew up in south central Nebraska, been hunting ever since. I probably could walk, so you name it, I've probably hunted or caught in my lifetime. But what I'd like to talk about is managing ecosystems to enhance wildlife. I feel that, you know, not just looking at a particular species to attract an animal, but looking at the whole system. And that's what we're here for today with the cover crops—not just to benefit our livestock, the livestock in our soil, but also to enhance wildlife and natural habitat that has been degraded over the years.

0:57 So what is an ecosystem? An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with nonliving components such as air, water, your typical minerals of their environment, interacting in a system. And you can kind of see this is a basic picture that I put up there, what an ecosystem will kind of consist of—kind of a basic start, a balanced ecosystem involves solar energy. We have primary producers: grasses, legumes, and non-legume forbs. There's also trees, shrubs that we can also include in the primary producers, algae's, other producing plants out there that will convert that solar energy into sugars, as Keith talked about before in primary and secondary consumers. Follow that—they're going to be eating the forbs, eating the grass, consuming those species. And the predators are going to be consuming your primary consumer. And then following deep, decomposers: worms, bacteria, fungi.

2:18 I am not a soil biologist, so I'm not going to get into the depth of the decomposers. But my primary studies have been with wildlife nutrition, which correlates a lot with our livestock nutrition as well out on the landscape. So first question I wanted to bring up is: what happens when we remove primary producers? And this is just kind of a basic look at the tillage system, high chemical inputs, removing a lot of our species out of the system. So when we remove the primary.

2:59 Producers, the plants, or if the grass is for a certain amount of time, those primary and secondary consumers, they get up, they leave. The decomposers, they don't have that option to leave, so they starve out. In monocultures, this is another system that we often see in this part of the country.

3:23 Ecosystem bottlenecks is what I call monocultures. Basically, what we have here is a big solar unit for producing a lot of energy, but we only have one species out there that can capture only a certain amount of that energy output. So we have all that energy inflow into that primary producer, and we caused a bottleneck or a pinch point on that energy flow through that ecosystem. So with the limited diversity of the primary producers, we limit primary and secondary consumers.

4:01 Deer, elk, quail, they are only going to be utilizing those areas, those ecosystems, part of the time. The other parts of the time, they're leaving the property. They're going to the neighbors. They may be starving out. They may be more susceptible to presentation. And then that in turn also limits your decomposers on that property and in that ecosystem.

4:32 Some of the local ecosystem bottlenecks that we have in this area—I work a lot around Apache, but I travel from Arkansas out to Lubbock, Texas Panhandle, Texas, a little bit in New Mexico, northern parts of Texas, and some in southern Kansas. But in general, Oklahoma, Texas, we see a lot of wheat, a lot of cotton, and very, very long fallow periods. Pastures and rangeland, typical grassland, is probably Bermuda grass or what you would call native grass. But it's been sprayed where there's hardly any forbs, hardly any legume, so it's still a grass monoculture in my mind in that ecosystem.

5:16 Ponds, rivers, and streams, those are something that we don't typically talk about in the soil health movement so much. But that pond ecosystem that you manage is a micro ecosystem. And when we have the cattle out on that pasture, continuously grazing, they can

5:37 Graze all the pond vegetation off. What's probably the most common thing you see in Oklahoma and ponds is probably muddy water, and that's because there is no pond vegetation. There's a lot of bank erosion, co-occurring cloudy water that affects both wildlife performance and livestock performance. So there's been a lot of research done on how much quality water affects your livestock. That in my mind is also just as important as the top two.

6:15 I did a little bit of a social experiment here. You guys are all victims, fall into my experiment. You're probably wondering who the heck laid out all this odd candy. Some guys just received mints, some people received the diversity of chocolates. I didn't—I wasn't a sucker enough to not give you anything. You lucked out. But with the mints, you know, we're mimicking monocultures, and you're probably looking around like, looking at the neighbors like, wow, I wish I had some chocolates over there. Your wildlife, your livestock, they're doing the same thing. Each one of these tables is like an ecosystem. When we have diversity in that ecosystem, you're pretty content. But when you just had mints and you see everybody's got like a Hershey's bar or kiss, you're probably looking over there like, wish I had that.

7:12 Sharon also pointed out at the salad bar, you know, if we just gave you celery, I bet that line would have been pretty short. So you know, it happens all the time with us, and we select for diversity. And so that's what the wildlife and livestock really prefers.

7:35 I'm going to talk about two main wildlife for Texas and Oklahoma: that's the northern bobwhite and the whitetail deer. Sorry, mixing deer and quail together. And then the whitetail deer. So these two are probably the most attractive species for wildlife, what people really try to encourage. And I'm going to talk about what they require for a habitat, some species that help keep them around, keep populations healthy.

8:08 Going to talk about the bobwhite quail. In a healthy ecosystem breeding can be anywhere from March to October and that sounds like a big stretch because we hardly ever see quail and coveys with small chicks in the later part of that season, primarily because our systems are monoculture long fallow periods going on during that July, August, September, so there's no vegetation there. But they can produce two or more broods per season or twenty-five-plus chicks per season. Available water is a large factor with the quail.

8:51 In a healthy ecosystem with growing living vegetation all year round and good diversity in plants, you're gonna see lower mortality rates on the bobwhite quail. I just put a fact in there that the average lifespan of quail is only six months. So when we allow for that system to function normally and healthy, it really expands that lifespan of that quail. When we're in a fallow period monoculture, they have to move more to find what they need, which really shortens their lifespan and makes them vulnerable to predation.

9:34 In a bottleneck ecosystem—I'll use wheat summer fallow wheat as my example here—the breeding season squeezes down from March to July because they have no vegetation. They still may breed but the chicks are going to require living vegetation to get dew off the leaves for water, insects, and plant materials for the adults and juveniles to consume as well. So you're looking at only one brood per season, which literally cuts your brood numbers in half. With no living plants during the summer, they have to migrate to where they can get shade and recover, and your mortality rate becomes a lot higher. It's been recorded as high as 80 percent annually in systems like that.

10:33 As I mentioned, providing food for bobwhite quail—85% of the juveniles' diet consists of insects. Chicks feed exclusively on insects for the first two weeks, which is very important. So if you don't have insects, really it's

10:50 Because you do not have living plants, you're not going to end up with the quail or the extra broods in your ecosystem. So during summer, 85% of the adults' food source is green vegetation. In the winter months, they require higher energy to overwinter. They're gonna start feeding more on seeds, weed seeds, small energy seeds such as sesame. But what's really required for quail is green, growing vegetation all year round.

11:26 Here's a few of the food items that I've listed. As you can see, insects, wild fruits, cultivated plants and seeds that they really feed on. I was in on Allen's fields this summer. We did have an army worm infestation and that sounded like a chicken coop walking into that field because there's tons of quail. So I took a step back and looked at, okay, we spent how many dollars per year trying to spray army worms as a state or states across the middle of the nation trying to eliminate the pesky army worm, when really the answer is in the ecosystem. That ecosystem wasn't quite supporting quail all year round, but when the food source showed up, they—the quail really flocked to that field. They came from neighboring fields and it was really impressive to see.

12:25 Some of the seeds that they're gonna eat: ragweed, Johnson grass, crabgrass. So they also will, in a no-till system, you're gonna have a lot more seeds exposed for predation by birds. And it's not just quail I'm talking about. Metal songbirds, they all support the same system. So quail's just a really good example because a lot of people like to hunt them.

12:53 Here's a kind of a picture in the background: quail habitat. They really like the edge effect and I'll talk a little bit more about what the edge effect is in our system. Jimmy Evans' companion strips or your pollinator strips, those are a really good example of an edge effect. And while the deer preferred those strips, for quail they like 25 to 75 percent of the ground should be shaded at midday so that eliminates a lot of continuous grazing.

13:30 Ground y continuous grazing ground is not very good habitat for quail. 40 to 70% of the soil surface coverage should be at 8 inches or less. That actually should be more—that's a mistake. 8 inches or more, so it should be taller. Most of your shade canopy should come from higher than 8 inches. Reason for that: when it's lower than 8 inches, quail can't run through it, they can't escape predators, they become vulnerable.

14:05 Particular species that rules out is Bermuda grass. Bermuda grass does not support small upland birds, songbirds, meadowlarks. A big pest of Bermuda grass is armyworms. Me and Dale went over to Arkansas six weeks ago and it was unreal—there was no doves, there was no meadowlarks, there was no quail that we saw. I think the only thing I saw was a roadrunner standing on a hedge post, but absolutely no birds. They were spraying for armyworms five to six times per year. So that shows how an improved variety had such impact on that habitat for quail. These improved varieties may not be such a great thing because there's this chain reaction occurring in that ecosystem that just disrupted a lot of that bird habitat.

15:07 Good brood rearing cover should be anywhere from 16 to 24 inches or taller. That allows them to maneuver easily under the cover, they can duck in and out to get food, and it prevents predation from hogs. Distance separating food and cover—this is a big one: 90 yards or less. Quail really do not prefer to travel anywhere longer than a hundred yards to where they have their recommendations of what they need. So if you're in a monoculture, the reason why you never find quail in the middle of a wheat field is because there's not a pond in the middle of a wheat field, there's no weeds, there's no other insects or something like that. They cannot find anything in the middle of a wheat field if you're always harvesting the wheat field.

16:07 You may see quail but they're always on the edges and that's because there's a grass strip. There's annuals growing there, there may be water nearby, there's trees, there's cover, but in the middle of the wheat field does not support quail systems. So that really exposes the middle of your wheat field to armyworms.

16:30 Long-term survival in an area with habitat, five thousand acres for long term, ten years or more of guaranteed survival, really requires 5,000 acres. And I know what you're all thinking is like, well I don't have that. You know, it's kind of a bad shape for the oil. That's why it's important to get on board with your neighbors, start inviting some of these events, help them realize, you know, they may be tillage people or people that kind of scoff at the cover crop, no-till, but there's a big avenue for guys that love wildlife, love seeing the birds, love seeing the deer. This is a great example why they really need to support the system. So bring your neighbors to events like this. This really helps get everything on board.

17:20 So 500 birds, it is kind of a number that has been released for long-term survival in an area. This was done as a study done in Texas. This has been the decline of the quail population. So you see 1978 to 1988 and 1998. So over time, I find it fascinating that the habitat and the quail populations, along with increased tillage, heavier equipment, higher monoculture, higher input farming, we're also seeing the same. With an increase of that, we're seeing declines on the other end of quail populations.

18:03 So benefits of quail, you know, why should we support wildlife? Or, you know, may not be quail, maybe just meadowlark, songbirds, other things. There's economic returns, you know, hunting, birds, watching. In times like now, with wheat only being, you know, three, 350 a bushel, there's, you gotta start looking for other opportunities for economic return. I did a quick range, I've seen hunts for quail, hundred to 500 dollars.

21:12 Economic return on hunting if you have a lot of deer per square mile, you probably have a healthy ecosystem that you can capitalize on for a net returned nutrition has maintained all year-round, healthier deer organ equals larger deer. There's more money in that, so the deer industry is a very large industry that ranges all over the Midwest. The Midwest is well known for whitetail deer hunting.

21:40 Food sources in a bottleneck ecosystem: wheat, fallow wheat, again something that's very common. So November to March, April, we have a good food source for deer, not great, limited in diversity. So they have to find other forbs out there, they have to find legumes and non-legumes, they have to find species that have higher mineral. Trees are dropping their leaves during that timeframe, so that's where they're also picking up a lot of their mineral sources on dead leaves dropping. So maybe leaving us a tree strip or a hedgerow in the fence line, leaving some other species on that property can help maintain that diet for the deer.

22:33 In a bottleneck ecosystem, the home range for deer become larger. That's the big issue that I always had when I was younger is I always saw the deer that I was chasing on the neighbors, and I think that's a big problem for a lot of people trying to chase a whitetail deer. But once you get into the healthy ecosystem pattern, you notice that their zones become much smaller because they don't find the need to travel, so you have less deer per square mile.

23:08 Deer have to find nutrition source while lactating in new Ann through antler growth. That is really big if you're looking to improve the nutrition of your whitetail deer herd. That is huge. In the wheat fallow wheat, most of the nutrition occurs just for overwintering. There's no nutrition in that system or your font lactating. They're not getting the mineral consumption in the does and in return the fawns aren't getting as.

23:41 Healthy as milk from the dough's in that time frame and also that time frame we're looking at bucks growing new antlers so essentially you see smaller deer and we also see excessive bone loss from predation providing food for whitetail deer.

24:05 Whitetails, this is pretty shocking to me and to a lot of other people. Whitetails lose six to eight percent of their body weight. So this is another thing that you might want to figure out in your system. Jimmy's pollinator strip that we watched or we went to your place, there wasn't much left of that strip. They, I'm guessing there's probably ten to twelve deer visiting that strip on average. One deer will consume about 2,000 pounds of food, so that's pretty large. If you only have one little strip like that and you have a lot of deer in that area, it's not going to take long for them to figure that out.

24:49 Some of the summer annuals that we typically see for attraction in to put into that week follow week period: cow peas, mung beans, grain sorghum. Does well, they eat more of the grain at soft dough than they do the actual leaf or grass. Sunhemp, soybeans, lab lab is another one that has been used in the deer market.

25:14 Winter annuals: triticale, winter oats. Winter oats, I can testify that Allen's been growing winter oats and from all the wheat fields around those winter oats, all the deer end up in those winter oats in the middle of the night. So winter oats is a really big one for deer for nutrition. They will pick it out over wheat if you're looking to bring deer in for attraction. Vetch, clover is another good one. In my plots I saw a lot of deer browse on vetch in clovers. Winter peas, radishes, turnips, and collards, they're all going to prefer the radishes or the Brassica family after a hard freeze when the carbohydrates in the plant turn to sugars. So you'll go from a hot starchy taste to a sweet taste and that's what the deer are tasting, that's what they're going after in the wintertime. Also very high in protein so perennial.

26:12 Strips for wildlife, you know Gabe Brown talks about this. We're running more into this, not just perennials but annual strips. They provide the edge effect that wildlife need. Quail, a lot of upland game birds need that edge effect. What they do is they hunker down in those areas in transitional periods or places in your crops. So if you have a pollinator strip going through the middle, that's where they're gonna be bedding because they like that transitional period. It makes them less susceptible to coyotes or other predators.

26:53 Some of the species as by annuals or perennials: native grasses, legumes and forbs. A key emphasis on native, some other improved varieties that we've brought in: alfalfa, white clover, red clover, sand fine yellow sweet clover, chicory and plantain. Those are some very common ones that people use in perennials and biannual strips. If you're looking at a long term attraction or pollinator strip, you get several benefits out of that.

27:31 So what is the edge effect? I mentioned a couple times and you can see in this picture. This was right where I have my plot. This picture is probably taken, I'm guessing about August, middle of August. But on the left was where I put my winter species for my plot for the people who are, is that my plot? Day on the right was my summer annuals. So edge effects are fence lines, tree lines, grazed versus ungrazed. So you can simply get that edge effect by grazing certain areas and then leaving a tall strip. Roads or any other drastic changes. What deer, quail, other wildlife uses that strip, they can see one way and they know to the back that they're covered. It's hard for them to see. They'll face out. So that's why you're always hard spooking deer when you're walking up to a tree line, because they're using that edge effect.

28:31 It's been found if there is no edge effect or very few edges in a field, fawns are double the chance of getting killed by a coyote then having lots of.

28:44 Edges in a field and the same thing for quail so they're very important in that system of having transitional periods or transitional lines in that habitat.

28:58 Top three tips for keeping deer on your property: maintaining high quality cover and forage all seasons, sanctuaries—places that you may not travel, may not hunt—leaving ground untouched until a new area. Need to consist of all the topics that we talked on what a habitat should contain. They shouldn't have to leave out there that really helps that animal feel comfortable, and providing greater edge effects on your property.

29:32 These are just some of the benefits and in a healthy ecosystem that's a very good indicator of a healthy ecosystem. If you don't have a healthy ecosystem you're probably only finding one or two species. If you have a healthy ecosystem you're probably finding tons and tons of different species including insects, other wildlife, also predators. But the predators, I know have been a big concern for people. That's not such the case. Does your property have too many predators or does it not have enough habitat to protect the animals there? That's kind of the questions that I ask when I look at a property for wildlife, and more often than not it's the habitat, not too many predators.

30:22 This is kind of something that I'm going to end on. I'm keeping it short today, but don't burn your opportunities. We talked a lot about fallow periods. So many times opportunities are left in the bag and the seed bag just wasn't quite committed to something. You say you should have done something and it didn't happen. Well, if you don't do it it's not going to happen for sure.

30:54 So don't burn your opportunities. There's a lot of opportunities out there for diversification with your management system, with wildlife, economic returns. We don't have to be stuck in a wheat fallow wheat rotation or just a straight cotton rotation. There's a lot of opportunities out there, just you have to seek it.

31:19 This is my contact info. I also have cards over on the table. Again, I do a lot of work with wildlife plots, studying wildlife with the species, and also cover crop and grazing management. So that's it.