Wild Ideas in Uvalde County

By Dee Ann Cameron, Public Affairs Specialist

“More and more Hill Country landowners are looking for ways to diversify their operation,” says Willie Durham, USDA-NRCS district conservationist in Uvalde. “We want to help provide them access to our resource professionals and information that is available.”

So Durham, the NRCS, the Nueces-Frio-Sabinal Soil and Water Conservation District, and the Rio Grande-Nueces Resource Conservation and Development (RC& D) Council hosted a Uvalde County Range and Wildlife Field Day on Nov. 2 at the Bill Luce Ranch and Four Canyon Ranch Deer Farm just south of Camp Wood, Texas.

“This tour helped landowners understand more about wildlife habitat management as well as some plant identification, brush and grazing management techniques,” says Durham.

Hill country ranchers and wildlife enthusiasts gathered at the Bill Luce Ranch, which has been participating in wildlife and resource conservation management programs for more than 20 years. Owners Bill and Robin Luce have a registered Brangus cattle herd, a goat herd and have diversified their operation with a deer breeding program.

The Luce’s explained that since they have been partnering with the NRCS they have been a part of the Great Plains (GP) Program, which helped them make conservation improvements on their ranch on a long-term schedule. They have also participated in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which included projects like brush work, cedar eradication, reseeding, installing water lines, and most recently, installation of center pivot irrigation systems. The Luce’s have a draw that runs through the ranch, so to protect the water source and enhance wildlife habitat, they have implemented a riparian buffer under a Continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CCRP).  The Luce’s are also waiting on final approval for a Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP) on their ranch.

Phillip Wright, NRCS Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) representative, told the crowd how they can use NRCS programs to implement natural resource conservation improvements on their own land. Wright encouraged the landowners to visit the NRCS office in their county to develop a conservation plan, or long-range management plan, for their operation.
Steve Nelle, wildlife biologist for the NRCS, talked to the group about wildlife habitat management.

“The best habitat is one that offers the biggest variety of plants,” Nelle said. Nelle explained that deer need a variety of weeds (forbs) and shrubs for grazing, as well as trees for hiding cover.

Nelle and Kent Mills, Hi-Pro Feeds representative, held a short plant identification session. They collected plants from the Bill Luce Ranch that deer prefer and talked about the nutritional value of each.

Tour participants learned about brush management with “Brush Buster” expert, Dr. Robert Lyons, Texas Cooperative Extension range specialist in Uvalde. Lyons spoke to the group about maintaining brush management, as well as individual plant treatment methods.
Charles Anderson, NRCS rangeland management specialist, and Wright addressed the group with grazing management and drought plan information.

“As landowners, are you raising forage or animals?” Anderson asked the group of livestock and wildlife producers. Anderson and Wright encouraged the group to manage their land from a forage production perspective, with a grazing management plan that included proper stocking rates.

“Many ranchers that have reduced their stocking rates have found their overall operation benefits from increased weaning weights and better grass cover,” Wright stated.
The second leg of the tour was at Four Canyons Ranch Deer Farm, a deer breeding facility managed by Chris and Ti Walker.

Founded in 1992 by Ken Bailey, Four Canyons Ranch has become one of the premier whitetail breeding ranches in the country. With the expert guidance of Dr. James Kroll, the ranch has established itself as a leader in breeding technology and whitetail genetics.

The original breeding stock was brought in from the northeast in the early 1990s and since then, the ranch has consistently been improving upon those early genetics through the use of both artificial insemination (“AI”) and natural breeding processes. Four Canyons pioneered the AI industry and has now amassed the world’s largest supply of whitetail semen from some of the biggest and most famous bucks in the world.

Tour participants were given the opportunity to tour the breeding facility, which has state of the art technology in deer handling and breeding and has been used as a test center for many of the new technologies in the industry today.

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