Lack of milo

Southwind

New member
Last couple years seeing less and less milo stubble around. One thing for sure, the places we have seen milo adjacent to crp, we have found birds. With very little milo stubble around, are you guys finding corn stubble a good substitute for milo?

I found a nice covey this morning in the edge of crp with trees bordered by corn stubble. Didnt know if it was a fluke or not. Hunted other good cover draws in the middle of corn stubble and didnt see anything. I also image bean stubble is completely worthless as a food source for birds?
 
I thought there was quite a bit of Milo around and yes the birds were feeding in it, but never been there before so I don't know what is normal? Talk about waste grain though on the ground where it was.
 
I thought there was quite a bit of Milo around and yes the birds were feeding in it, but never been there before so I don't know what is normal? Talk about waste grain though on the ground where it was.

That's because the stalks fell over due to a late harvest cause of rain.
 
Just got back , Tons of milo stubble where we were. And we found the majority of birds in it. Did find two coveys of quail in wood lots near bean stubble.
 
Maybe there is more milo further west, but I spent all morning scouting/hunting NE between Seneca and Horton, and did not see 1 field of milo stubble. Glad to hear there is still some out there.
 
I live in Marion county, and could count the # of milo fields I've seen here this year on one hand. Farmers here say that's why there's no pheasants here anymore...
 
For the past 2 years, sugarcane aphids have been devastating milo in part of the state. That, combined with the low price, has made milo a larger gamble than it was in previous years.
 
So in the absence of milo, will corn stubble provide a decent source of food for birds? The crp I found the quail in had plenty of rag weed in it, so I know the quail had food regardless of the adjacent corn stubble.
 
Corn is good as long as there is some left on the ground. Rare that they get it all, however, they are much more efficient that they once were. If you are looking for quail, you'll need the woody component as well as the forb component. The crop isn't necessary with the quail like it might be with pheasants. Far too much CRP is too dense and lacking both of these habitat components to be quail cover.
 
Plenty of milo in the area I hunt most, in fact, some was still not cut last time out. Most the birds we kicked up flew right into the standing milo and off limits to us. Pheasants love milo but when I clean the birds their crops are mostly full of corn.
 
It must be a region thing. We had a lot of milo in Decatur and Norton counties.
 
Maybe there is more milo further west, but I spent all morning scouting/hunting NE between Seneca and Horton, and did not see 1 field of milo stubble. Glad to hear there is still some out there.

Hasn't been much milo in that area for quite a number of years.
 
Exactly what Duckn66 said , this area is some of the more valuable land in the state with higher cash rent prices than any part of the state , which means Primarily a bean and corn rotation . My thoughts are where there is still a good portion of wheat and Milo rotation and the right amount of shelterbelts for winter cover the quail and pheasant population fare far better . You will find very few native grass stands in Atchison , Brown and Doniphan county Nemeha county lots of smooth broam stands that have filled up the waterways and road side ditches . This area used to hold a good population of pheasants in the 70's and 80's but you would be hard pressed to say there were a huntable population of pheasants in this area . Where a few stand of well managed Crp exist there are some . Round up Ready beans and corn have replaced wheat and Milo rotation and the pheasants with them .
 
Corn is good as long as there is some left on the ground. Rare that they get it all, however, they are much more efficient that they once were. If you are looking for quail, you'll need the woody component as well as the forb component. The crop isn't necessary with the quail like it might be with pheasants. Far too much CRP is too dense and lacking both of these habitat components to be quail cover.

I don't understand why they aren't burning off these overgrown CRP plots. Too nasty to provide anything but deer bedding.
 
There are a number of reasons. Some plots are non-resident owners and so nothing gets done. Many operators are not equipped or educated to burn and won't spend the $10+/acre to pay to get it done. Most operators are either afraid of or against fire. Smokey Bear is still hard at work in baby boomer's minds. Still others don't understand that NWSG is fire dependent. I guess I wish we had gotten the right to burn WIHA patches ourselves. We could do the easier ones first then work on the harder ones. We could coordinate with burn schools and get them to do some of them. This alone could increase the productivity of these CRP WIHA patches astronomically! When I moved into Norton and started burning on the wildlife area there, flatbed trucks would come screaming in to each fire asking if I needed them to call the fire department. I would say no, and they would lecture me about this being NW Kansas and nobody burned in NW Kansas. Within 3 years, I saw plumes of smoke out on private land surrounding my wildlife area. I couldn't tell them how important it was, but they were watching and seeing the benefits and could tell it was important enough to include in their management portfolio. We need to educate more and more folks in order to preserve the 5% of prairie that is left!
 
Corn is good as long as there is some left on the ground. Rare that they get it all, however, they are much more efficient that they once were. If you are looking for quail, you'll need the woody component as well as the forb component. The crop isn't necessary with the quail like it might be with pheasants. Far too much CRP is too dense and lacking both of these habitat components to be quail cover.

It is better if there is a woody component for quail, but it doesn't have to be there. A friend and I shot limits two days in a row and there wasn't a tree or shrub within a mile. We found 7 coveys in a half mile in a road ditch full of tumbleweeds one day. The next we found several coveys in a fence row full of tumbleweeds. We hunt a lot of big patches of CRP, and anytime we got around tumbleweeds this year there were quail, and lots of them. We were in sw Kansas were we found all the quail. I also shot my limit of pheasant, my friend would have but was shooting a new gun and missed several he shouldn't have.
 
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