Mike from Texas

I'm talking with a landowner about a property for lease here in Teaxs and they are saying that they have a couple of fields that are in CRP ststus, but when that runs out the fields will go active again. Is this basically a wide open field or what?

Rickmur

Conservation Reserve Program

buckstar

CRP is short for Conservation Reserve Program. Farmers can enroll thier land into it for a set number of years and still recieve payment off it from the goverment. In exchange for this money, the farmers can not use it for any purpose of farming, cash crop, grazing, ect. To help insure the land does not erode during this period and to help provide more wildlife habitat, the farmer is required to seed it down to various types of permanent grasses. Quite often the length of time the land is enrolled in CRP is 10 or more years so unless the land was just brought into the program and seeded down, you won't just find a wide open field.

llbts1

Hello Mike, I'm out in Aledo. CRP is a government program that puts previously cultivated land into a program that takes it out of cultivation and the landowner plants grasses and plants that deer, quail ect will be attracted to. The government then pays the rancher for taking the land out of cultivation. The contracts usually last about 10 years and then the rancher can re-apply if they want to at the end of this time. The government agents pick which land that they feel would be most beneficial to the program. It's a good deal for wildlife, the rancher and the land itself as it has some time to recover. Larry

llbts1

Hello Buckstar, you beat me to it! On some of our land, part of the field is still cultivated and part has been placed in CRP. With us it was just where they decided to draw the lines. Larry P.S. Makes for some nice hunting too!

Mike from Texas

But basically does this mean it is void of any brush or cover? Is it bowhuntable?

Shootem up870

i believe that if u have crp land u are not allowed to hunt it until the contract is up but i might be wrong?

IL Rancher

CRP will often have some shubbery in it. It jut happens because invasive woody species get going pretty fast and easy. Often the field was a real rough on and it might even have a section in the middle or edge that was never farmed and the brush really extends off of this. The program is a good one, if you can get your land in it and there are lots of farmers lined up for it as they can make just as much money off the CRP contract as they can planting it down. Again, this is real rough ground usually.

As far as hunting it, if it is illegal than there are going to be a lot of people in the pokey because most everyone I know who has some hunts it. I don't know because we don't have any ground in the program. Have some unfarmable/ungrazeable ground that should have been put in about 20 years ago but we just leave that be as rough ground.

As an aside, the grass on a CRP is harvestable under certain conditions for grazing or haying. There is an applicaiton to fill out during drought years or crop failure for some other reason. Some CRP ground is harvested 1/3 years...

Rickmur

You can hunt it, in Md anyway so I assume you can anywhere being it's a Federal program. We hide in it to pass shoot geese or did so years ago when I goose hunted.

doughboysigep

You can hunt CRP land all you want. The only thing you can's do is mow it at certain times of year (but you do have to mow it - I believe every 3 yrs.); plow it (not sure but you might be able to plow to establish better "habitat"); you can't develop it; and if you sell it the CRP goes with the property.
I even believe you can establish a food plot on the CRP ground - sometimes they will even cost-share it. Normally they look to creat warm season grass habitat for pheasants and other ground nesting birds.