Primary Purpose of Wildlife-Prairie Buffet™
- To provide food and/or attract food for deer, quail, turkey, ducks, doves, songbirds, and other critters of the ecosystem.
- To provide a native or natural habitat for the critters of the surrounding territory.
Click here to view a presentation (.ppt) on Multiple Native Species Planting Mixtures Given at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Society for Range Management in Ft. Worth, Texas on February 10, 2005 by Chuck Grimes of the Grasslander Ranch in Hennessey, Oklahoma.
Wildlife-Prairie Buffet™ Multiple Native Species Planting Mixture For Quail, Deer, Dove, Turkey, etc…
This a mixture that will resemble what was here on our prairie before the white-man came and plowed and overgrazed it. We need to be planting a mixture of native species as listed below…
Wildlife-Prairie Buffet Contents
| WARM SEASON GRASSES Big Bluestem Little Bluestem Bushy Bluestem Broomsedge Bluestem Indian Grass Switchgrass Side-Oats Grama Blue Grama Eastern Gamagrass Sand Lovegrass Green Sprangletop Tall Dropseed Sand Dropseed Purpletop Purple Three-awn Alkali Sacaton COOL SEASON GRASSES Western Wheatgrass Virginia Wildrye Canada Wildrye NATIVE LEGUMES Illinois Bundleflower Showy Partridgepea Purple Prairieclover White Prairieclover Roundhead Lespedeza Stuves Lespedeza Leadplant Silky prairieclover Catclaw Sensitive Briar Blue Wild Indigo NATIVE WILDFLOWERS Plains Coreopsis Lazy Daisy Blackeyed Susan Lanceleaf Coreopsis Pennsylvania Smartweed
|
NATIVE WILDFLOWERS (continued) Heath Aster Salt Marsh Fleabane Standing Cypress Drummond Phlox Maxmilian Sunflower Pitcher Sage Scarlet Sage Mealy Blue Sage Indian Blanket Tall Gayfeather Thickspike Gayfeather Englemann Daisy Greyhead Coneflower Clasping Coneflower Mexican Hat Coneflower Prairie Coneflower Compass Plant Blue Flax Lemon Mint American Basketflower Wild Bergamot Showy Evening Primrose Common Evening Primrose Fourpoint Evening Primrose Daisy Fleabane Baldwin Ironweed Queen’s Delight Downy Goldenrod Canada Goldenrod Butterfly Milkweed Common Milkweed Broadleaf Milkweed< Biennial Wild Guara Sand Lily Clammy Weed White Beardstongue Foxglove Greenthread Rocky Mtn. Beeplant Cardinal Flower |
You can see what most of these plants look like by going to my website and clicking on the Noble Foundation Plant Gallery or the Kansas site…
Images of plants contained in Wildlife-Prarie Buffet
www.noble.org/imagegallery/
www.lib.ksu.edu/wildflower/
Benefits
- For the qualified redneck hunting enthusiast! 37 different seeds (species) of native grasses, wildflowers, forbs, and legumes make up the right kind of mixture for the "Good Ole Boys" who are trying to develop good food and habitat areas for deer, quail, dove, turkey and ducks on old go-back cropland areas. Wildlife sporting grounds have a tendency to have food and no cover.
- Deer are flight animals and like to be able to see long distances. Quail need protection from the air along with food. Doves love ragweed and croton. Turkeys love a good acorn crop, so we are providing wildflowers to draw bugs too.
- This seed mixture is pre-mixed and bagged with enough seed to plant one acre (one acre = 43,560 square feet).
- Plant one acre each year and you will have many areas in different stages of plant succession.
What is Plant Succession?
The action, whereby one group of plants replace another. If you have a couple hundred years to wait on natural plant succession, OK! If you don't we can speed-up Habitat Restoration by planting the Wildlife-Prairie Buffet™. This will provide the native habitat to be desired by deer, quail, turkey, dove, ducks, and the other critturs. I have examined timbered areas, which were clear-cut in Southern United States and found Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indiangrass and Switchgrass.
Seedbed Preparation
- Grasslander rule of thumb #1
The better the seedbed, the quicker and better the planting will be. At a minimum, disk the area a couple of times to kill undesirable plants. - Grasslander rule of thumb #2
We have lost more native seed plantings because we planted to deep than because we ever planted to shallow. The "Wildlife-Prairie Buffet™" can be sown with a grain drill, but remove seed tubes so seed will drop on top of the ground. When through seeding go across the field (diagonally) a couple of times, letting the press wheels give a good seed firming action 0-1/4" shallow. - Grasslander rule of thumb #3
The firming action is the main key.
Or if you so desire, let me design the seed mixture you want...
Plant Information and Site Selections
http://plant-materials.nrcs.usda.gov/pmcs.html
Reseeding Marginal Cropland to Perennial Grasses
http://agweb.okstate.edu/pearl/plantsoil/crops/f-2581.pdf
Noble Foundation Ag Wildlife Index