DuckSouth.com

Here is the link to an interesting article from Miss State and a recent study they have completed.

http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=2992

I just read that off of Webfoot's site.

Look at that soil loss/acre. 1000 lbs of dirt per acre gone after you disk it.

Where does it go? To the river. Now let's use the calculator for a moment...say you have a 100 acre rice field. 1000 lbs of dirt per acre lost each winter. That's 100,000 lbs of dirt off of that 100 acre field (about 2 dump truck loads). Now, factor in the entire Delta, (233,000 acres of rice in 2004) that lose the same amount of dirt each winter. That equals 233 million pounds of dirt eroded each year. That's 4660 dump truck loads of silt put in the rivers each winter. That's not including soybean, corn, cotton, sorghum and any other cropland loss. Granted, some of these farms are practicing minimum till...which is a great thing for erosion.

Then we pay the COE 100 billion dollars to dredge the dern thing because it's silted in.

The CRP program is doing wonders for soil erosion. If you don't believe it, run a trapline this winter. Notice how you can see your traps in the bottom of the flooded ditches in the CRP fields, and can't see even 1" below the surface in the middle of a farm field?

There's alot of things we can do differently that will directly benefit ducks and the environment and the farmer...at the same time.

But when it stays dry late in the fall, it's hard to convince a farmer to sit at the house instead of getting his fields ready for next spring.

I'm not disagreeing with science, but a lot of farmers and hunters think ducks don't eat/use stubble fields like they do rolled fields.

My problem with burning is that it leaves it so wide open for the blackbirds to devour it all before the ducks get here, but it does stop germination.

Well even a rolled field is better than disking the rice under.

The only thing I can see that would dissuade a duck from using a standing field more than a rolled field is landing area. But they seem to be able to land in the tracks just fine and swim in the stubble.

But the "white roller" eventually shows up and walks it all down anyway

I hope the article is accurate, I copied it and sent it to Dad.

Maybe I'll kill some ducks this year

Wingman wrote: That equals 233 million pounds of dirt eroded each year. That's 4660 dump truck loads of silt put in the rivers each winter.
Then we pay the COE 100 billion dollars to dredge the dern thing because it's silted in.

Job security for me!

That's what they say about standing stubble, but best rice hunting I ever experienced was standing stubble. The ducks used the whole field, but we knocked em hard by dragging down a few areas to put decoys in. Great artice.

If there's food in there, the ducks will find a way in. Heck, we've all seen 'em bounce off of tree limbs to get into a timber hole. I don't think a little ol' rice plant is gonna stop 'em.

mottlet

Best rice field is an unharvested rice field, there will be natural holes the birds will land in and after a while the birds will beat down a hole themselves.