(Des Moines) Conservationists with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service encourage Iowa Landowners with marginal cropland or land adjacent to trees, brush, and pasture to seed down native warm-season grasses to benefit the northern bobwhite quail and other wildlife.
Nick Thompson, Private Lands Biologist, says bobwhite habitat has decreased by 30 million acres nationwide due to a rise in cattle grazing non-native forage like fescue and advanced agriculture equipment that leaves fewer weeds and brush. He says the quail population has decreased by 80 percent in the past 60 -years.
Through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, NRCS has about $1.2 million available to landowners in 35 southern Iowa counties to implement quail habitat-improving practices, such as conservation cover, brush management, upland wildlife habitat management, early successional habitat management, and tree and shrub establishment.
To reconnect cattle and quail, NRCS is working with producers to manage native warm-season grasses that create producer-palatable grazing options for livestock while benefiting quail and other wildlife species. Common native warm-season grasses include switchgrass, big bluestem, eastern gamagrass, and Indiangrass.
The first cutoff to apply for Iowa NRCS programs for fiscal year 2024 is November 3.
