Fields and Grasslands Management at Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge
Wildflowers. Credit: USFWS
Although most of the area of Carolina Sandhills is forested, the Refuge also contains nearly 1,200 acres of old field and grassland habitat. Refuge staff employ several agricultural practices to maintain these areas to benefit wildlife. Objectives for this program include meeting basic wildlife needs for food, shelter, and cover. Preservation and restoration of the existing soil base is also an important objective.
Many of our open areas are planted in soil-building legumes to help control erosion in the predominantly sandy soils of the Refuge. The staff and cooperative farmers also plant some of our fields in crops beneficial to wildlife species. In many cases, food crops are planted in strips along the edge or in the center of these fields to maintain cover and shelter for smaller mammals and ground nesting birds.
Typical crops planted to benefit waterfowl include grain sorghum, corn, duckwheat, and millet. These crops provide foods high in nutritional value during the coldest, most stressful periods in the winter. Green browse in the form of wheat, ryegrass, and clover meet the less stringent nutritional requirements for waterfowl.
A few Refuge fields are annually planted with a mixture of crops preferred by mourning doves, including black sunflower, brown-top millet, sorghum, Japanese millet, and switchgrass. More than 900 acres of perennials, such as bicolor lespedeza, have been established on the Refuge to provide food and cover for bobwhite quail. Annual plantings of beggarweed, patridge pea, sorghum, millet, and sunflowers provide excellent food sources for this species.
Since Carolina Sandhills already provides excellent habitat for the wild turkey, little additional management is needed to maintain and increase this population. Since turkey will benefit from the majority of the crops produced on the Refuge to benefit other wildlife, little farming effort needs to be directed specifically for turkeys. Plantings of a peanut-like tuber producing plant known as chufa in fields along the Wildlife Drive helps to attract these birds for the public’s viewing.
Another species that it right at home in the longleaf pine ecosystem is the white-tailed deer. Management practices such as prescribed burning and selective thinning in natural and planted pines benefit most native wildlife species, especially white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and bobwhite quail. Refuge staff conduct supplemental plantings of fall and winter forage such as winter wheat, clover, and ryegrass. In addition, summer legumes such as American jointvetch may be planted in fields along the Wildlife Drive.
In all planting and farming operations on the Refuge, special care is taken to complete these practices before mid-April to minimize stress on ground nesting birds.
