Special USDA Signups for Bobwhite Quail and Pollinator Habitat in 28 Counties

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency submitted the successful proposal for the project and funds are provided through the NRCS Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI). TWRA has identified the following 28 Priority Bobwhite Restoration counties as having the best potential for habitat restoration and a resulting response by quail:

 

TWRA Region I - Carroll, Crockett, Dyer, Fayette, Gibson, Haywood, Henry, Lauderdale, Madison, Obion, Tipton, and Weakley. TWRA Region II - Montgomery, Robertson, and Sumner, and Coffee, Franklin, Giles, Lincoln, and Maury. TWRA Region III - Cumberland, Meigs, McMinn, and Rhea. TWRA Region IV - Loudon, Monroe, Greene and Hawkins.

 

USDA cost-share for developing or improving quality bobwhite habitat or developing pollinator habitat is 75 percent of approved practice costs, or 90 percent for beginning, limited resource, or socially disadvantaged farmers. TWRA is also providing significant additional incentives to encourage landowners to develop this habitat.

 

“Bobwhite quail populations have declined over 70 percent since 1980, and we still battle continuing loss of habitat and other obstacles to maintaining and increasing populations of this popular game bird,” said Mark Gudlin, TWRA Private Lands Liaison.

 

“We need to intensify our efforts on restoring quality native habitats where chances of success are best and bobwhites are most likely to respond and persist. In addition, as society has become more aware of the negative impacts to agricultural crops and native plants due to the loss of native pollinators, we saw an opportunity to encourage good habitat for pollinators such as native bees, beetles, and butterflies, which also overlaps with good habitat for quail and many other wildlife.”

 

New bobwhite habitat consists of converting cropland or tame grassland to a mixture of native grass and broadleaf plants (forbs) along with a percentage of native shrub thickets and hedgerows and/or thinning the woodland edges along the new habitat. Improvements to existing native grass stands not currently under other USDA contracts include applying management practices such as strip disking, strip herbicide application, or prescribed burning plus interseeding of native legumes and forbs; addition of needed native shrub cover; and prescribed burning of thinned woodlands. Pollinator habitat opportunities include whole or partial fields established or converted to a mixture of short native grasses that is heavy on native wildflowers and some native shrubs that will flower at different times from early spring through fall, or field buffers of native grass and wildflower mixes at least one acre in size.

 

The minimum size for new bobwhite habitat plantings or stands of existing native grasses to apply management practices on is five acres. Pollinator habitat plantings must be a minimum of five acres of whole or partial fields, or at least one acre for field borders. In addition to the USDA cost-share, the TWRA Incentive for the new bobwhite or pollinator native grass-forb-shrub habitat is $100 per acre.

 

“One of the great new opportunities through this project is the chance for landowners that established bobwhite habitat in past years to get cost-share and incentives to help manage and improve their existing native grass stands, as long as that land is not currently under a government conservation program contract,” added Gudlin. Such management practices include strip-disking or strip herbicide applications or prescribed burning followed by legume interseeding, or adding native shrub cover, or burning thinned pine or hardwood stands.

 

TWRA-CCPI Incentives are limited and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Application for the incentives is made when applying for the CCPI bobwhite or pollinator habitat practices at the USDA Service Center NRCS office.

 

Application can be made at the USDA Service Centers in the listed counties. Applications for land located in other counties are not eligible. Funding is also anticipated for 2010. Applications are accepted continuously but there are periodic application cutoff dates. More information on the specific practices and TWRA Incentives can be viewed at http://www.tn.nrcs.usda.gov/.

 

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