More food in the ponds with lower water levels

[LandDr]

Everyone is aware that water levels are down...but do you see the new abundant food sources that are appearing?

I have never seen so many ponds and small lakes with wild rice in them this year!  There is less water and many ponds are now mud flats...but many ponds/lakes are now at ideal water levels to produce great food sources.

Wild Rice requires 1 to 3 foot water levels.  The higher water levels over the past years have caused rice to disappear.  Mother Nature safegaurds the species by allowing dormant seed to site patiently for the right conditions...and then a flash of growth to set more seeds to assure the survival of the species.

I have also seen alot more Sago Pond Weed.  Minnewaska is full of it along the shores!  This is a nuisance for swimmers and boaters...but watch the ducks flock into those shores this fall for a great meal!  If you see a whole bunch of ducks gathered in one spot in a pond and they are milling around...most likely there is a patch of Sago there that they are feeding on.  Again 1 to 3 feet of water is ideal.

Water Celery is also benefiting...there are huge areas of celery on Lake Osakis and the big diver ducks will certainly target those areas in search of the tubers.

There is a pond not far from my house that I sampled during college for my aquatic invertebrate class.  I discovered a really odd looking bug and it turned out to be Fairy Shrimp.  The pond was literally full of these little guys.  Remember the sea monkeys?  Also called "brine shrimp".  Well...Fairy Shrimp are the freshwater version of brine shrimp (salt water...most are harvested from Salt Lake in Utah and surrounding salt waters).  I haven't figured out a way to harvest Fairy Shrimp or raise them for that mater...but we do harvest hundreds of gallons of Freshwater Shrimp (scuds) during the winter to stock ponds for duck food.

Anyone trying moist soils management this year?  Planted a crop such as millet, Milo, corn or beans and then will flood it later when the crop is hardened up?  I have a couple of areas that I have planted to corn that I may try to flood out later.  They are already in depressional areas...I just have to figure out a way to get the water there.  The water table is only 12 or 13 feet down so I might put in a shallow well with a pump to flood the areas out...labor of love.

Be thinking about FOOD for ducks.  Much of the research is pointing towards lower body weights of migrating ducks.  Of course we need habitat...but an empty fridge in an empty house feeds no one!  Build the house, load up the fridge and water the people show up.

If we had a conservation program or some cost share program that would provide support for planting crops from the Canadian border to the Iowa border and then flooding them out...we could literally change the flyway!  Proof is when heavy rains in the fall flood fields from Clay, Wilkin, Big Stone, Traverse and Stevens County...the fly way drastically moves to the east back into Minnesota.

Why wait for the chance that weather will provide the flooded crops to move the flyway into Minnesota again...when you can guarantee it with moist soils management?

Something to think about.

Kyle, PLM
www.HabitatNOW.com