Northwest Missouri River Conservation areas

I spent opening day of bird season, hunting what used to be a couple of my favorite Conservation areas in the Northwest corner. Wow...what devastation from last years flooding. A large portion of the Corning area that have held pheasant and quail in the past, resemble a desert from all the silt.
I did not go up there last year because of the flooding, and I was wondering if the department has any plans for some of these areas? I am sure USACE has there own agenda in what they will allow the Conservation Dept to do.
It looked like most of the farming has gotten back to a decent rebound. It looked like there was some planting of food source by the river, but some of the best areas in the past are practically inaccessible due to the knocked down hard bark weeds and grass.
Thanks a bunch

You might want to repost this to the "Ask the Agent" forum to make sure they see it. Here are mostly fishery biologists. Good questions tho

bovairean..I asked our wildlife biologist, Josh Heintz to comment on your questions for the areas for which I am assuming your are concerned with (i.e. the corps land along the river in NW MO)..here is what he said..."much of the MDC managed COEMitigation property in my region is under a federal wetland conservationprogram known as the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP). Like CRP, activemanagement on WRP tracts is minimal in accordance with the perpetual federal regulationsthat apply to them. Although these acres will be difficult to navigatefor a couple years, the biggest annual weeds (giant ragweed, annual sunflowersand giant pigweed) will be succeeded in a few years by smaller and easier tosee through and walk through species (foxtails, common ragweed, cockleburs). Many acres are planned to be replanted to Warm Season Grass and a fewacres will be broken back out into food plots that get left in the field. As for the worst areas of deposition, they will likely grow up into willows andcottonwoods which will replace a once-common and still important habitat typethat has been dwindling from the floodplain since the channelization of theMissouri River and the exponential profitability of corn and soybean production. Much of the row-crop ground that has was least impacted by deposition has beenput back into production at considerable cost and risk to the permittee farmersthat rent the ground in terms of soil preparation, nutrient replacement, lackof solid flood protection and less than ideal field conditions. Withoutthe powerful management strategy of rotational production agriculture as anoption to MDC managers, nearly all early successional habitat management wouldbe too costly to even consider, especially at the level we currently providethis important resource need in an unnatural highly altered ecosystem."

"The most recent major flood thataffected extreme northwest Missouri occurred in the summer of 2011. TheJungle of massive annual weeds emerged during last year’s growing season(spring/summer 2012.) Believe it or not, this year, the weeds have tamedquite a bit when compared to November 2012. As for the pheasant and quailrebound… It remains to be seen whether the meager ambient population willrecharge these particular areas. On a hopeful note, even though it hasbeen impossible even to walk through vast portions of MDC managed COEMitigation areas in my region the last few seasons, the food availabilityresulting from copious annual weed seeds and the abundant cover provided by the“…knocked down hard bark weeds and grass.” are excellent upland game habitat,though temporarily not that great for upland game hunting."
-Josh Heintz

TMason, thanks for forwarding this on, and thank Josh for the response.
I will say that the areas have maintained enough birds over the years to keep me going back. Even going up there opening day, I heard pheasant, and the dog could pick them up. We just couldn't get through the thick brush. I did get in on a covey of quail on the front side, but with so little cover there now they scattered and we couldn't even pick any singles.
I appreciate the insight into what the COE is going allow for the areas.