February 07, 2001,
3:37PM
Summarized by Murat Demirtasli, and Wendy Dickie, umbsn@smumn.edu
Participants: George Vandel, William McGuire, Tom Thrall, Bill Smith
In this discussion,
participants made two important points relating to the issue of brome grass, the
aggressive, poor-quality grass that often takes over on land managed by the
Conservation Reserve Program. Discussion participants agreed that brome was not
necessarily bad for wildlife, but it wasn’t good for it either. Participants
also stated that CRP and Farm Service Agency (FSA) officials needed to be more
flexible and regional in creating standards for land management. Following are
highlights from the discussion:
Brome is not bad for wildlife - it's just not any good.
Sorry, but in SD we
intend to use other (as in better) cool season species in our DNC mixes.
For the record, I did not say brome was bad for wildlife. I
said
'monoculture brome fields in Missouri
provide no benefits for wildlife'. I
probably should have said 'little' rather than "no" but, other than
that, I
say the same.
This discussion has been good but it might have been better to have it a
year from now - assuming CRP is reauthorized, which I hope it will be. I
never intended for a minor comment in my e-mail regarding public access and
CRP to divert attention so much from more timely topics that need discussion
(CSP, short-term set-aside, etc.).
With all the latest debate over bromegrass, native vs.
non-native,
etc., it is very apparent that a major
problem with CRP is trying to
fit one size for all. When the national FSA office telling us how many
grasses and how many forbes to plant, something is seriously wrong. When
we have to plant shrubs in Wisconsin to get some bonus points when we
trying to suppress shrubs in our grasslands; it doesn't make any sense.
The bottom line is that FSA should allow biologists in each state to
decide what their 50 point cover should be, what species should be
planted for their state. Because in the past there may have been a few
problem states that were planting inferior cover, the reaction was to
dictate to all what should be done. Wildlife
folks at the national
level need to get this changed. If FSA is afraid some rogue states
won't plant good wildlife cover, they could have a policy that all cover
recommendations be approved for the state by the state DNR and concurred
with by the Fish & Wildlife Service.
Tom,
You raise a good point in your email posting. My understanding was that
practice CP-4d was originally designed for states to designate "covers
best
suited for wildlife in the area", but somewhere along the way, it was
"standardized". During the last general sign-up, there was little
difference between CP-4d and CP-2 & CP-1. I guess the bottom line would be
to "give" states CP-4d back, as long as they have the data to back
their
recommendations up that they were indeed providing "cover best suited for
wildlife in the area".