- Joined
- Mar 11, 2001
- Messages
- 70,011
- Reaction score
- 1,007
Quail on the mind leads to quail on the land
MDC
7/18/03
David Copeland makes room for quail and production agriculture on his Saline County farm.
(Missouri Dept. of Conservation photo)
With the right mind-set, farmers can produce both quail and profits.
MARSHALL, Mo.--On a rainy May morning, David Copeland is apt to wonder where bobwhite quail are finding shelter from the rain on the 1,500 acres he farms. Through the parched weeks of August, his reveries focus on where quail will find bugs to eat and water to drink. On a cold, blustery February night, he is prone to imagining a covey huddled in a tight circle in a brushy field border not far from his house, conserving energy.
Copeland has developed the habit of thinking like quail. Not coincidentally, he has a thriving quail population on his land, while neighbors wonder where all the bobwhites have gone. The difference is less in what he does than in how he thinks.
Not that he can afford to think exclusively of quail. Copeland is deeply committed to production agriculture. His fields and yields demonstrate that commitment. But within the constraints of successful farming, he has found ways to make room for the game bird he loves.
Copeland, 50, is a full-time farmer. He and his wife raised their sons, now grown, on the farm his father operated. Today he works 1,500 acres in Saline County around Grand Pass Conservation Area and Van Meter State Park.
Aerial photos of the area from the 1950s through the 1970s show striking changes in the landscape. Fields got bigger, and fence rows disappeared. Pastures swallowed up small wood lots. Ballooning crop fields pinched brushy draws back to pencil-thin lines around creeks, ponds and roads.
In effect, Saline County farmers dispensed with wildlife habitat in pursuit of agricultural efficiency. Copeland has his doubts about the wisdom of the trade-off.
"I don't see the sense in mowing or plowing right up to the edge of ditches and fencerows," he says. "A lot of that is marginal land, and it doesn't add up to any significant acreage."
When the federal Conservation Reserve Program came along in the 1980s, Copeland saw it as a way to take this marginal land back out of production. Doing so yielded more than quail habitat. Native grass waterways and permanently vegetated filter strips helped him stop soil erosion, and that improved water quality in his ponds.
"I guarantee you, these 22 acres that I have in filter strips are making me more money than I made farming them," he says emphatically. "Too many farmers never bother to put a pencil to the economics of clearing and farming marginal land."
Copeland says there is much that farmers can do for quail that doesn't involve much expense or loss of productivity. He has gone from having one or two coveys each year to finding between five and eight. That, in his book, is a good return on a little investment.
As an example, he points to a wooded corridor near the gravel road to his house. "I could clean this up and get a few more acres to farm, but I have a covey of quail there every year. I figure if I can't save up an acre here and there for quail and deer what's the use of being a farmer? I get as much enjoyment from wildlife as I do from my work."
Copeland has taken quail habitat needs into account in lots of on-the-ground farming decisions. His farm is a patchwork of water, grass, bare ground and brushy cover. In some spots where cover didn't already exist, he planted native trees and shrubs, such as dogwood, plum and blackberry, from the Missouri Department of Conservation's forest nursery to create it. He calls this his "sampler platter" approach to ensuring that coveys can find everything they need--food, water, nesting and brood-rearing cover and escape cover--readily accessible everywhere on his 1,500 acres.
The effects of this philosophy are clearly visible in the contrast between Copeland's land and neighboring farms. His fields are defined by strips and pockets of habitat, while the surrounding land is a moonscape, stretching to the horizon with hardly a tree or bush in sight.
Copeland shares his experience with others. He helped found the Gary R. Pointer Memorial Chapter of Quail Unlimited in 1991. Since then, the chapter has poured $50,000 into quail habitat in Saline County. When landowners in neighboring counties asked for help they lent a hand there, too. For the most part, though, the appeal of his approach is lost on others.
"I'm a trashy farmer," Copeland says with a sly grin. "At least that's what some people think. If you look at my fields, they are as clean as anybody's. It's just the edges, where wildlife can live, that look junky to some people."
Nevertheless, he says, others are set in their ways. "The attitude is, 'I'm not giving up any ground.'"
Copeland attributes his attitude to childhood experiences, when his family spent every weekend hunting or fishing. He says he thinks the family farm experience is changing, and that accounts for many of the changes in how farming is done.
"I farm three times the acreage that my dad did to make a living, and I have a lot less free time. I think that's partly why people 'clean out' their land. That's naturally what you are going to do if you are under pressure to get every bit of production you can from your land, and you don't have time to enjoy the benefits that go with brushy draws and clean ponds.
"I've been as bad as anybody about changing the land, but I've always tried, when I do something that's not good for wildlife, I try to do something good somewhere else. I figure I've replaced as much if not more habitat than I've taken out. A farmer's motto ought to be to leave his ground in better shape than when he got it. I want to do the same for wildlife.
"An acre here and there isn't going to break me. Meanwhile, we get to kill turkeys every year, and my boys come home to hunt."
- Jim Low -
End article
===============================================
I see this 1st hand up in Lewis County MO at our farm. The neighbor farmer has his whole land scraped clean by a blade. There are no breaks or transition zones, it's one ugly brown dirt hillside. His claim is trees and brush take up vital water. Farmers are supposed to be stewards of the land they farm. If they can't leave a little habitat for the animals they should find another trade. Money is not always the bottom line.
MDC
7/18/03
David Copeland makes room for quail and production agriculture on his Saline County farm.
(Missouri Dept. of Conservation photo)
With the right mind-set, farmers can produce both quail and profits.
MARSHALL, Mo.--On a rainy May morning, David Copeland is apt to wonder where bobwhite quail are finding shelter from the rain on the 1,500 acres he farms. Through the parched weeks of August, his reveries focus on where quail will find bugs to eat and water to drink. On a cold, blustery February night, he is prone to imagining a covey huddled in a tight circle in a brushy field border not far from his house, conserving energy.
Copeland has developed the habit of thinking like quail. Not coincidentally, he has a thriving quail population on his land, while neighbors wonder where all the bobwhites have gone. The difference is less in what he does than in how he thinks.
Not that he can afford to think exclusively of quail. Copeland is deeply committed to production agriculture. His fields and yields demonstrate that commitment. But within the constraints of successful farming, he has found ways to make room for the game bird he loves.
Copeland, 50, is a full-time farmer. He and his wife raised their sons, now grown, on the farm his father operated. Today he works 1,500 acres in Saline County around Grand Pass Conservation Area and Van Meter State Park.
Aerial photos of the area from the 1950s through the 1970s show striking changes in the landscape. Fields got bigger, and fence rows disappeared. Pastures swallowed up small wood lots. Ballooning crop fields pinched brushy draws back to pencil-thin lines around creeks, ponds and roads.
In effect, Saline County farmers dispensed with wildlife habitat in pursuit of agricultural efficiency. Copeland has his doubts about the wisdom of the trade-off.
"I don't see the sense in mowing or plowing right up to the edge of ditches and fencerows," he says. "A lot of that is marginal land, and it doesn't add up to any significant acreage."
When the federal Conservation Reserve Program came along in the 1980s, Copeland saw it as a way to take this marginal land back out of production. Doing so yielded more than quail habitat. Native grass waterways and permanently vegetated filter strips helped him stop soil erosion, and that improved water quality in his ponds.
"I guarantee you, these 22 acres that I have in filter strips are making me more money than I made farming them," he says emphatically. "Too many farmers never bother to put a pencil to the economics of clearing and farming marginal land."
Copeland says there is much that farmers can do for quail that doesn't involve much expense or loss of productivity. He has gone from having one or two coveys each year to finding between five and eight. That, in his book, is a good return on a little investment.
As an example, he points to a wooded corridor near the gravel road to his house. "I could clean this up and get a few more acres to farm, but I have a covey of quail there every year. I figure if I can't save up an acre here and there for quail and deer what's the use of being a farmer? I get as much enjoyment from wildlife as I do from my work."
Copeland has taken quail habitat needs into account in lots of on-the-ground farming decisions. His farm is a patchwork of water, grass, bare ground and brushy cover. In some spots where cover didn't already exist, he planted native trees and shrubs, such as dogwood, plum and blackberry, from the Missouri Department of Conservation's forest nursery to create it. He calls this his "sampler platter" approach to ensuring that coveys can find everything they need--food, water, nesting and brood-rearing cover and escape cover--readily accessible everywhere on his 1,500 acres.
The effects of this philosophy are clearly visible in the contrast between Copeland's land and neighboring farms. His fields are defined by strips and pockets of habitat, while the surrounding land is a moonscape, stretching to the horizon with hardly a tree or bush in sight.
Copeland shares his experience with others. He helped found the Gary R. Pointer Memorial Chapter of Quail Unlimited in 1991. Since then, the chapter has poured $50,000 into quail habitat in Saline County. When landowners in neighboring counties asked for help they lent a hand there, too. For the most part, though, the appeal of his approach is lost on others.
"I'm a trashy farmer," Copeland says with a sly grin. "At least that's what some people think. If you look at my fields, they are as clean as anybody's. It's just the edges, where wildlife can live, that look junky to some people."
Nevertheless, he says, others are set in their ways. "The attitude is, 'I'm not giving up any ground.'"
Copeland attributes his attitude to childhood experiences, when his family spent every weekend hunting or fishing. He says he thinks the family farm experience is changing, and that accounts for many of the changes in how farming is done.
"I farm three times the acreage that my dad did to make a living, and I have a lot less free time. I think that's partly why people 'clean out' their land. That's naturally what you are going to do if you are under pressure to get every bit of production you can from your land, and you don't have time to enjoy the benefits that go with brushy draws and clean ponds.
"I've been as bad as anybody about changing the land, but I've always tried, when I do something that's not good for wildlife, I try to do something good somewhere else. I figure I've replaced as much if not more habitat than I've taken out. A farmer's motto ought to be to leave his ground in better shape than when he got it. I want to do the same for wildlife.
"An acre here and there isn't going to break me. Meanwhile, we get to kill turkeys every year, and my boys come home to hunt."
- Jim Low -
End article
===============================================
I see this 1st hand up in Lewis County MO at our farm. The neighbor farmer has his whole land scraped clean by a blade. There are no breaks or transition zones, it's one ugly brown dirt hillside. His claim is trees and brush take up vital water. Farmers are supposed to be stewards of the land they farm. If they can't leave a little habitat for the animals they should find another trade. Money is not always the bottom line.
