Appeciating Weeds

Some plants that you love to hate (e.g., prickly pear cactus) can provide valuable nesting habitat for bobwhites. As a sign that used to adorn the back of the men's room door in a burger shop near San Angelo lamented, "where you stand on an issue usually depends upon where you sit." A cadence sang at the Bobwhite Brigade states it like this:

"Many ranchers do declare,
they've got too much prickly pear.
It's a thorny plant that they despise,
but it sure looks good through a quail hen's eyes."

I often build educational programs around the theme of "appreciation." Appreciation has several contexts: (a) "to value or admire highly", (b) "to judge with heightened awareness", and (c) "to be cautiously or sensitively aware of." For weed's and quail's sake, I focus on "to judge with heightened awareness."

Most of the plants on the Back 40 have some value for quail. We tend to think of those that produce good seeds for quail, e.g., doveweed, but quail do not live by seeds alone. Some plants are important because they offer prime fodder for insects, and insects are the "perfect quail food." Kochia, pigweed, and Russian thistle make excellent brood habitat ("bugging grounds") for a hen and her brood.

In my opinion, cover in the generic sense is the most important habitat consideration for bobwhites. Screening cover protects quail from their various (and many) enemies. Screening cover may be satisfied by many plants, e.g., broomweed, catclaw mimosa, sunflowers, and taller growing species of doveweed.

The take-home message here is that plant diversity yields insect diversity and in general more quail-friendly environs.

Plant diversity, for better or worse, is impacted by our management practices. Clean-farming practices and a weed-free patch of coastal bermudagrass may earn you a good farmer's award, but won't win the admiration of other judges (e.g., bobwhites). Grazing, discing, brush management, and prescribed burning can be used in moderation to achieve a desirable balance between quail plants and cow fodder.

The ability to appreciate weeds begins with the ability to call them by name, and understand their relative contributions to quail management. Can you name the top five food plants for quail in your region? How about the top five plants for nesting cover? Loafing cover? If not, why not? As I used to tell the parents of my Little Leaguers "nothing quiets criticism like involvement." Get on a name-calling basis with the plants on your property.

Sometimes it's difficult to appreciate the value of a plant for quail. Take sandbur (grassbur) for example. On a tour in Wheeler County, Texas back in 1991, one participant took exception to my notion that "every plant out there is important for quail, but we may not always understand why." He plucked some grassbur by the bottom of the stem and thrust them into my face asking indignantly "just what good are these for quail." En guarde!

I sweated profusely for several seconds as I tried to recall finding the kernel of a sandbur in a quail's crop. Just as I was about to admit defeat and concede that sandburs were an exception to my hypothesis, my colleague J. F. Cadenhead of Vernon replied "they slow down bird dogs, don't they?" Touche! I've since coined "Cadenhead's Corollary" as "thou shalt not judge the value of a plant to quail based on food value alone."

Professor J. E. Weaver was an ecologist who spent his career studying the tallgrass prairie. He once said that "Nature is an open book for those willing to read. Upon each grass-covered hillside is revealed the history of the past, the conditions of the present, and the hope for the future." Reading is fundamental.

As you begin your reading odyssey for quail, some good websites to get started include the Noble Foundation's Plant Gallery (www.noble.org) and TeamQuail (http://teamquail.tamu.edu).