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Re: Burning

DACESH@aol.com wrote:
> 
> My concern with early spring burns is the promotion of smooth brome and ken.
> bluegrass, which are prevalent in eastern Nebraska and Iowa remnants.
> 
> GRC
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I am still a "student" on techniques to be used and when to use them in
order to restore native plant communities.  It is a subject that I find
fascinating.  I am learning the role that fire played in natural
ecosystems and the need for this in restoring or recreating natural
plant communities.  It seems to me that now we understand much about the
role that fire played in the evolution of prairie ecosystems and
maintaining a prairie ecosystem.  Fire happened naturally with some help
of native humans in pre-European North America.  Now our ecosystem is
totally different than it was then.
Hydrology, soil mineralogy, soil microbiology to name a very few items
are all different now than then.  We have a lot of animal and plant
species in the landscape that were not here 200 + years ago.  When we
make decisions on when to burn for example we have to consider short
term and long term goals on each specific site.  If one is trying to
reestablish a prairie ecosystem on a site that is occupied by exotic
cool
season grasses and legumes it seems to me that initially the burning
regime should be designed to get rid of them first.  And it means that
burning should be done when it will do the most damage to them.  This
may be totally different than when it should happen on a prairie that is
in its natural state (very little of these around any more) or a prairie
that has been "restored" and no longer being infested with nonindigenous
species. I guess with all things, there is the "theoretical" or
"academic" approach and then there is the approach that is dictated by
actual circumstances.  In the end "mother nature" had her ways of doing
business and she knew what she was doing.  We are still learning from
her and have more to learn.

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