Conserving Iowa’s habitat

Webster County workshop draws in about 40 people

By HANS MADSEN, Messenger staff writer
For Arlyn Boelman, of Ogden, last year’s pheasant hunting on his nearly 90 acres of Wright County land was the best he’s ever had.

He has the land planted with big and little bluestem grass, side gramma oats, various legumes, Indian grass and about 5,000 trees and shrubs, including evergreens and dogwoods.

It’s the kind of place pheasants really like.

It’s also the result of a lot of hard work and a serious dedication to restoring habitat and conservation.

He credits the success of the hunt to the conservation work, ‘‘and three good Lab dogs,’’ he joked.

Boelman was in the audience Saturday for an all-day workshop on conservation and habitat at the Webster County ISU Extension in their new offices in the Crossroads Mall.

About 40 people came to the event.

There were plenty of interesting sessions to listen to.

Josh Gansen, a private lands biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, spoke about how to manage conservation reserve program acreage midway through the 10-year contract.

‘‘After the habitat is first planted, the benefits decrease over time,’’ he explained, adding, ‘‘What we want to do is go back and revitalize the land.’’

Various methods are used to do that, including tilling and burning. The goal is to get the native plants back after the various field grasses crowd them out. He explained that doing so increases the amount of insects, vegetation and plant diversity, which in turns helps increase the number of upland birds. Pheasants, for example, depend on insects to feed their young.

Janet Clark recently moved to a half-acre lot on the edge of Fort Dodge, so she was particularly interested in learning how she could plant her ditch so it does not require mowing in an effort to save energy. She was also interesting in learning about green building techniques.

‘‘It’s interesting to hear how agriculture and conservation can work together,’’ she said.

Webster County Conservation Naturalist Karen Hansen talked about just that as she explained the work being done by the Smeltzer Conservation Farm Project. Begun with a grant from the Ann Smeltzer Charitable Trust, the projects seeks to keep a balance between the environment and agriculture.

Several farms that are in the Brushy Creek watershed are being used to help achieve those goals. Field drains, wetland restoration and responsible cropland practices are some of the methods used to provide income for the trust and help preserve and improve the water quality.

Another farm near Gowrie is part of the project, too. The goal of the effort there is to provide an outdoor classroom to showcase common central Iowa land. The farm site includes upland areas, pasture and a section of Prairie Creek.

Conservation efforts center on restoring a pasture to prairie, cleaning up the home site and stabilizing the creek. Terraces, contour planting and field buffers are some of the other efforts that will be tried on the land.

Kathy Rose, of Pomeroy, was attending the sessions to help earn credits towards her master’s degree in agriculture. She has a herd of about 40 dairy goats on land in Calhoun County.

She is currently working on a project to move the herd to a piece of land where she can turn it into a Learning Farm. The methods on the agenda reinforced her own conservation beliefs.

Jesse Randall, an ISU Extension forester, talked about healthy trees and wildlife. He began by explaining the impact of trees on wildlife then moved on to talk about specific types.

‘‘These are deer candy,’’ he said after being asked by an audience member how to keep hungry deer away from young trees.

One of the trees on Randall’s “don’t plant” list, the blue spruce, is subject to a host of ailments that sound like they might be horror movie characters: rhizosphaera needle cast, cytospora canker and something called sudden needle drop syndrome.

‘‘You wake up one morning and half the needles are gone,’’ he said.

After several more trees and their scary fungi, growths and other assorted horrors, he let the audience know there was only one type to go.

‘‘This is the gloom and doom part of the talk,’’ he said.

There are plenty of trees that you can plant that are not subject to horrible plant disease and will help provide food and shelter for wildlife.

Among them are, the various oaks, particularly the white oak.

‘‘Go out into the woods and find a white oak acorn — make sure there isn’t a weevil in there — then chew on it,’’ he said, then added, ‘‘Now try that with a red oak.’’

‘‘Deer prefer the white oak, it tastes better,’’ he said.

Several other trees are great for wildlife — among them are basswood and ironwood.

Conservation is one of the many areas that ISU Extension service works with. Jim Patton, county executive education director, was happy to see the event come together and appreciated the different groups and agencies that participated.

‘‘People appreciate the quality of life conservation brings,’’ he said.

The day’s events were a combined effort of Webster County Conservation, Webster County ISU Extension, Webster County Soil and Water Conservation District, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Webster County Farm Service Agency, Webster County Pheasants Forever Chapter and Iowa Central Community College.



Contact Hans Madsen at (515) 573-2141 or hmadsen@messengernews.net