The kicker is that almost all of it is private land you cannot hunt without permission though.
I once asked permission to fish a trout stream in MN. It was an old codger who owned it, we caught him out in the shed working on his tractor. He did bring up the buffer issue, and boy was he mad about it! I held my tongue, because I think the mandatory buffer strips are great! We had some really good trout fishing there.
If they would offer a little bit more money, that might open-up a lot more of those CRP acres to the public.
The birds number would explode! Most farmers' excuse for not wanting to do the filter/buffer strips, is that those acres are their most productive acres...and they are right.
I believe that mandatory buffer strips are the last chance for upland birds and clean water in many states. Every day I see environmental activists protesting this and that but not ever a word about buffer strips. Maybe we should whisper in their ears. Those who could help the cause would listen to them long before they gave us a second thought.
They aren't the most productive acres, that's what's so frustrating. The outer edge of any crop especially by trees has substantially lower yields than the rest of their field. If the wildlife departments would show them what they'd save by moving out even 15 ft and save that tillage, seed, fertilizer, and chemical against fighting it to harvest marginal crops on those edges it looks a lot different. You take our area of Kansas in the drought this year, a lucky hill ground field made 20-30 bu of soybeans. On the edges were single digits to zeros because the lack of water, we didn't grow a profitable crop on those edges that also drag our insurance average down. Like I said above if they were honest about what a strip of 30 ft beans made against a tree row then they would honestly tell you they'd be dollars ahead to leave it to grass and let the state pay for it or some uplander who hates driving all day to give him a few bucks to hunt it.
Truth. Even after using a root plow on the tree rows that strip is still less productive.
The filter/buffer strips around here are generally on waterways, not so much having many trees and that low ground these last couple years around here have been the best yielding acres in the fields. Driving around late this summer there were many field that those were the only places the was any green left in the fields, everything else was dried-up. That ground also is where a century of water erosion has deposited a lot of the top soil. If you put in filter strips you will still have an outer edge and it will be even less productive than the one that was closer to the water. I agree an outer edge next to trees is a negative investment, they would be ahead to put in a bit of grass headland even with no payment.
Don't know about the DNR's formula but the last 3 years we have had both milder winters and perfect spring nesting conditions. The decline in our numbers was a combination of declining crp acres and a string of 4-5 years of hard winters and crappie wet/cold springs.
Wow that is a massive trout for a stream. Obviously if there's trout in these waterways, the water is very healthy. Trout need cooler, well-oxygenated water with minimal pollution to survive.
Bird numbers would explode in states like Iowa. And water quality would greatly improve. See trout above.
Gov Kelly, She'll let 'em hang and do the right thing, I'm sure of it. hahahahahahaha
