The Pollinator Partnership is creating detailed guides for planting and landscaping to support pollinators (bees, butterflies, etc.) in agricultural lands, gardens and backyards. Download a detailed book for each ecological region of the US HERE.
Conservation Corridor Planning at the Landscape Level (CCPLL) is now part 613 of USDA NRCS National Biology Handbook. Overall, it is an excellent resource aimed at conservation practitioners. It is clearly written in a way that can be understood by laymen without sacrificing scientific content. It is suitable as a supplemental text in advanced undergraduate and perhaps graduate level courses. I have used it as a primary text in my Managing Wildlife in Agricultural Landscapes course.
After a brief introduction, the second chapter of CCPLL reviews the ecological effects of fragmentation. The third chapter describes the different types and functions of corridors. Together, these two chapters review the principles of landscape ecology most relevant to conservation in agricultural landscapes. The fourth chapter moves into ecologically-based design principles, although amount of real empirical verification for varies among them (i.e. some of them are better bets than others). The last two chapters move away from ecology and into area-wide planning process and conservation planning.
A major advantage of this document are the case studies sprinkled generously throughout each chapter. A second major advantage is that it is available free here (very large pdf).
Nice little documentary about prescribed burning in Florida longleaf pine system from Terra.
Get Windbreaks for Conservation from USDA National Agroforestry Center. It is an excellent guide to design considerations for conservation windbreaks. You may have to supplement regional woody plant species information to select the appropriate trees & shrubs for your region. They have additional windbreak publications including Windbreaks for Wildlife, How Windbreaks Work, & many other more detailed aspects of windbreak design, establishment and management.
Categories: Buffers & Corridors, Conservation Manuals, Habitat Management, Uncategorized
Tags: agriculture, Agroforestry, buffers, conservation practices, Farm Bill, NRCS, USDA, windbreaks, woody corridors
36% of the commercial bee hives were lost last year, according to a story on CNN. Here are some practical guidelines from the Xerces Society for supporting and conserving native bees and their habitat – Farming for Bees
Native Warm Season Grasses: Identification, Establishment and Forage-Production in the Mid-South is a thorough guide to everything you need to know to establish, manage (and profit from) native warm season grass pastures in the south. Published by University of Tennessee Extension, it draws on expertise from around the region and contains effective graphics, tables and schedules. It is a complete regional guide. Hardcopy is $35, but *.pdfs may be downloaded for free.
