MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of 
Glen 
Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
C. Sanderson and Helen C. Schultz, Editors 
Urbana, Illinois 
January, 1972 
Vol. 15, No. 1 
1. Pheasant Populations and Land Use G. B. Joselyn 
Plowed ground is generally recognized to be of little value to 
pheasants during the winter months, whereas corn stubble left over the 
winter may provide at least a degree of cover and some source of food. As 
the size of farms and the acreage of row crops (corn and soybeans) 
increase in the intensively farmed cash-grain region of east-central 
Illinois, the amount of fall plowing might be expected to show a 
corresponding rise. Thus, with more land under cultivation per individual 
farmer, most operators find it desirable to plow as much as possible in 
the fall to prepare fields for planting during the following spring. 
/Vnong other benefits, fall plowing provides a hedge against the occasional 
wet spring, when delays in planting could be costly in terms of lower 
crop yields. 
However, the level of fall plowing on the 32,200-acre Sibley Study 
Area has not changed materially over the past 9 years. In 1962 (when 64 
percent of the area was planted in corn and soybeans), 51 percent of the 
area was fall-plowed; in 1970 (83 percent of the area in corn and 
soybeans), 56 percent of the area was plowed in the fall. During the 
9-year period, the dry fall of 1964 resulted in the most fall plowing 
(63 percent); in contrast, the wet fall of 1967 allowed only 12 percent 
of the area to be plowed. However, the acreage of corn and soybeans 
planted in 1 968 appeared little affected by the low level of fall plowing 
the preceding year. 
Therefore, the substantial increases in the acreages of row crops 
over the past 9 years have not been followed by corresponding increases 
in fall plowing in the Sibley Study Area. Although farm operators might 
wish to fal1-plow most of the land to be cultivated during the following 
spring, the upper level of plowing intensity is evidently about 65 percent 
of the land area, the proportion each year being a function of moisture 
conditions during and after harvest and the date when frozen ground 
precludes further field work. 
2. Manipulation of Pheasant Habitat G. B. Joselyn 
For large-scale roadside seeding programs to be successful, cooperating 
farm operators must refrain from mowing their roadsides until about July 31• 
Widespread mowing much before this date would greatly diminish the value of 
seeded roadsides as nesting cover for pheasants. Whether most farm 
NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY 
