Our pasture clearing effort is creating a number of interconnected small fields with plenty of wood edge. This small field amounting to less than a 1/2 acre with 98% of it seen in this one picture. It will soon be chemically burned down for its second time this spring and planted in the Quail Unlimited mixture of nesting and brood cover.
During early spring above and middle August below.
Looking the other direction from the picture above is the farm lane below that connects the above small field to the larger 6 acre field that will be sprayed down and planted in soybeans and milo to create succession habitat. Next year, that 6 acre field will be planted in pheasant habitat bordered by 10 foot wide strip of milo and a second of lespedeza. This crop boarder will separate the pasture from the wildlife area that is further divided by the meandering creek bottom woody cover. This same sequence is being repeated over the 30 acre habitat project in a sequential manner creating varying degrees of nest/brood, crop and clear land patches or succession habitat.
Same early spring above and middle August below.
This entire effort is to create what is considered to be the ideal wild quail and pheasant nesting, brood and year round survival habitat that allows the maximum population density the acreage will allow. This entire project is within the boundaries of a 160 acre farm that has 38 acres in cultivation, 21 acres in pasture, approximately 50 acres in wooded cover and around 30+ acres in or will be upland bird habitat of small connected patches of low ground cover and multiple food sources and types. The payoff to the member/hunter in this regard once maximum goals have been achieved will be a baseline location of easy year round observation to evaluate fall hunting potential.
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