Powderhorn Ranch Management Report

The West Powderhorn Ranch is an extremely diverse 9,877-acre property that offers wildlife value for a wide range of species. That said, not all of the area has high potential as bobwhite habitat. The most favorable areas for bobwhite are higher elevation sites with sandy soils on the south side of the ranch. Purposeful management on high potential areas could likely achieve densities of 1 bird per acre within a relatively short time frame (~ 3 years). Specific management recommendations to achieve such results are listed below.

• We recommend focusing quail efforts on "Quail Management Areas, QMAs" with the highest potential (i.e., high ground, sandy soils). See figures below.
• Break QMAs into 20-50 acre burn blocks. Burn the blocks every-other-year or every 3 years in a checkerboard pattern. WPQP can help identify whether burning on a 2-year or 3-year fire cycle is most appropriate for bobwhite at Powderhorn after monitoring burn response.
• February and March (immediately before spring green up) are likely the most ideal months for burning at Powderhorn.
• Some areas require attention to brush (see figure below), namely running live oak. Apply Spike® 20P at a rate of 5 lb. of product (1 lb. of active ingredient) per acre to areas identified below.
• Apply Spike® 20P in March and in years that these areas will not be burned.
• Apply Spike® 20P in a strip checkerboard pattern (see figure below). You don't want to kill it all! You want to keep mottes of different sizes (both taller and lower brush). See figures.
• Instruct applicator to especially avoid taller, mixed-brush mottes (10-yard diameter conglomerates of brush) within the gridded strips.
• Create hunting blocks in the QMA with a brown tree cutter or heavy duty shredder during October and November. Cut paths should be spaced every 40 feet.
• Adopt broadcast supplemental feeding milo, ideally, every other week. We recommend 1.5 miles of feedline per 100 acres of huntable habitat and a rate of 2 bushels (112 lbs) / acre /year.
• Avoid shredding along roads.
• Conduct surveys to monitor bobwhite abundance.

Habitat: Reducing Grass and Increasing Forbs, Bare Ground in Key Areas

Prescribed fire may be the most important tool for the Powderhorn. While grazing creates some ground disturbance and reduces grass stand biomass, once grass becomes older, cattle do not want to graze it. Fire in conjunction with cattle grazing can stimulate forbs, which cattle will also graze. Fresh growth attracts and grows more insects and other arthropods -- a great thing for quail. Following fire, cattle tend to spend more time grazing new growth because of increased nutritional content and digestibility of forage. Thus, it will be important to monitor grazing effects following fire to avoid overgrazing. Some ground disturbance may be helpful but grazing may need to be adjusted depending on vegetation response and weather in a given year. With a frequent burn program, cattle will become a supplementary tool for managing cover rather than a necessary tool.

When burning for bobwhite there are 3 main concepts to remember: 1) scale, 2) timing, and 3) frequency. Bobwhite have a home range of about 50 acres when in good habitat. As such, all the resources they need should be available within that area. In landscapes that are frequently burned (i.e., every other year), most bobwhite nests (~70%) are hatched in patches burned the previous year but broods tend to prefer burned patches. The scale or size of fire should therefore be relatively small (20-50 acres) so that any point on an area has access to both burn types. The timing of burning is also important. Applying fire at different times of the year will have different vegetation responses. The goal for burning for bobwhite is to have roughly equal portions of forbs (weeds; 30%), grasses (25%), shrubs (25%), and bare ground (20%) while reducing the amount of time an area remains devoid of vegetation. Fall burning can accomplish the objectives of reducing woody cover and increasing forbs, but areas burned in the fall remain largely unusable during the winter. Predation risks increase if birds are forced to use large expanses of open country for long periods. Too large of fire could alternatively shift space use of bobwhite to areas with cover that are inherently poorer habitat. Keeping scale of burns small circumvents both issues. We recommend burning immediately prior to the growing season to increase the amount of space usable for bobwhite throughout the year. If frequent fire is still not enough to keep shrub cover in check, we recommend post-burn mechanical or chemical approaches. The frequency an area should be burned depends on the site. The principle concept is to keep the plant community in equal parts forbs, shrubs, grasses and bare ground. Areas with productive soils that receive a lot of rainfall (>50 inches per year) need to be burned every other year. Long term (2000-2021) average annual rainfall at Powderhorn is 44 inches. Given the depauperate soils, we recommend starting with a 2 year fire return interval and monitoring to determine if a 3 year interval is more appropriate.

Habitat: Reducing Brush in Key Areas

Spike® 20P is a pelleted herbicide that becomes effective when application is followed by sufficient rainfall to move the active ingredient to the root zone. Full results can take up to 2 years. Forb shock (effects on desirable forbs for quail) may be noticeable during the first year or 2 following application. Broadcast supplemental feeding may help offset these effects. Recommendations for feedings are found below. Cost of Spike® 20P extrapolates to about $10 per lb., not including application. The areas yet to be treated in the QMA total about 325 acres. Not all of this area should actually be treated, though. An applicator (aerial or ground) has the ability to be fairly selective and can be instructed to leave larger, taller mottes within the designated treatment strips. See example figures to right.

There are no grazing restrictions following application of Spike® 20P at labeled rates, but we recommended grazing deferment to allow desirable grasses and forbs time to recover after application. It is likely that it will take 1-2 growing seasons for grasses and forbs to recover after treatment of Spike®. Exact timing will depend on rainfall.

Supplemental Feeding

Supplemental feeding should be quite helpful for Powderhorn Ranch. Much of the areas currently are grass heavy, which provide little food value for quail. Burning will help this some. Feeding decreases the time bobwhite need to forage and thereby are exposed to predators, increases survival during adverse weather conditions, and increases alternative prey species (various small mammals). All of these tend to increase quail densities.

We recommend feeding milo. It should be readily available near Port O Connor, holds up in various weather conditions, and has very little issues with aflatoxin (compared to corn). The recommended rate (2 bushels / acre / year) is based on research at Tall Timbers. Distributing below 1 bushel / acre / year may produce unnoticeable effects for the hunter. Therefore, we recommend a minimum of 1 bushel / acre / year. We recommend broadcast feeding across the uplands to deliver feed directly into the habitat. Avoid feeding off of main roads. Mains roads are typically wide and open, which would expose quail to predation.

The most common delivery method is a fertilizer spreader (e.g., Adams, Newton Crouch, Chandler) pulled behind a tractor. The capacity of these spreaders are typically 5 to 8 tons. Consistently wet properties sometimes adopt track driven equipment that doesn't get stuck as easily. While potentially needed in some areas, it slows down feeding and can come at a premium. Odds are a tractor with fertilizer spreader will work for most of the year in the uplands areas identified in the QMA below. Alternatives to both of these is a seed spreader attached on the 3 point of a tractor. Capacity of 3 point spreaders are typically limited to about 2,000 lbs. and would require multiple fillings per feeding on larger areas. An example feed line is shown below.

Population Monitoring

A monitoring program helps identify trends of bobwhite abundance over time in relation to management and can further be used to calculate harvest prescriptions. Spring cock call surveys are currently being used to get a crude estimate of quail abundance. While a good start, we recommend conducting covey counts, or ideally, helicopter surveys to monitor trends of abundance over time. Helicopter surveys are the fastest and most accurate method for estimating quail abundance in prairie ecosystems, second to intensive trapping which is not practical.  Covey call surveys  are cheaper, but one observer can only survey at one location per morning because the covey call in the fall (October, November) only last for a short period (5 minutes) in the morning. Thus, it requires many more people or a larger time frame to accomplish surveying a large area. Helicopter surveys cost $700-800 per hour plus pilot travel fees; about 1,100 acres can be surveyed per hour.

Hunting Blocks

Blocking is a practice common on premier quail properties that have a large amount of ground cover. Some people call these "hunting lanes." Blocking increases detectability of bobwhite during hunting by allowing dogs the ability to more comprehensively cover an area and reduces the amount of energy expended doing so. In areas where woody cover is problematic, it can also slow woody plant encroachment. Blocking usually starts in October, after the nesting season and once chicks are old enough to move out of the way for equipment. Spacing is usually every 30 to 40 feet. Forty feet might be more appropriate at Powderhorn, where cover is thick but typically lower growing. Blocking with a heavy duty shredder or Brown tree cutter can increase grasses but a burning program will help areas becoming too grassy. Rolling chopping is another method used to create lanes but the soils at Powderhorn may not do well with this heavy and frequent disturbance. As such, we recommend whichever implement that might already be available or using institutional knowledge to determine if roller chopping is even a viable option.