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RE: Summer-Fall Burning ???

Dan-

I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to help you that much. All of my
work has been in the Texas area and giving you exact months to burn would be
misleading. However, I can give you some suggestions to follow.

In general burning along with mowing and grazing will increase diversity of
the species at your site. In my area, I've tried to match the 'controlled
disturbances' ( winter month mowing ) with the grazing that would have
occurred 150 to 200 years ago. Trying to recreate a historic disturbance
regime may not suit you as the historic floral of many prairies would be
closer to a 70% - 30% / grass - forb mix.

With out knowing what species you have (grass or forb) you will have no way
of predicting their reaction to your management. However a self-taught
course in plant taxonomy is not the advice I think you were hoping for. In
North Texas a spring burn tends to encourage grasses over early forbs. I
have not worked in your ecosystem but I'm sure that there is someone with
the University in Madison that could help.

 All in all - Do not be set on burning it is one of many tools and is
sometimes over recommended. Look at the seed set of the forbs and grasses -
Do they freely fall from the seeds heads at the same time? If not, can you
eliminate the grass seed set without affecting the desired forbs through
grazing/burning/mowing. Which plants spread through rhizomes and might
increase through the use of disturbances? In trying to encourage a high forb
mix are there potential invasive or alien plants that could propose a
problem in the future? --- I also assumed that you had adequate rains,
normal environmental conditions ect..

Since native prairie and pollinator restorations my area of focus I also
have to add - are your flowers even getting pollinated? Successful
pollination of native flowers is best accomplish by native bees and not
nectar robbers like cultivated honey bees or butterflies. Many times the
invertebrate community of prairies is only a second thought. Although I do
not think this is your case, burning can kill cavity or stem nesting bees
(Megachile, Osmia, Dianthidium...ect) that over winter as larvae on/in the
dead stalks of grasses and pithy steamed forbs. Thus not only can a burn
increase grasses through just vegetative competition it can affect forb seed
set in the future. This is only an example and not a meant to scare but
adequate pollination is a major factor that sometimes gets left up to
chance. Next year start out by looking for bumble bees. They will be some of
the first native bees to disappear and many times the last to come back.
Very rarely have I seen a system in which there was an abundance of Bumble
bees and a paucity of other natives. I use these as examples of larger and
much more complicated prairie eco-systems than we at times give them credit.


I know that this might not have helped you that much but check with some of
these organizations that are closer to you...
http://www.nrfwis.org/index.html
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov
http://www.uwex.edu/wgnhs/earlyv.htm
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/herbarium/  - some of the search engines are
down right now but this is a great site for general floral id's and
information. It even has a WI invasive species list by county although I
couldn't get the Sauk Co. search to work today- you might want to try this
at a later date.


Good luck,

HW Ikerd II


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-prairie@mallorn.com [o*@mallorn.com]On
Behalf Of Dan Dietz
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 6:11 AM
To: prairie@mallorn.com
Subject: Re: Summer-Fall Burning ???


Harold Ikerd wrote:

> Dan-
>
> What region of the country are you from and in general what are the frobs
> that you are trying increase abundance?
>
> Good luck,
> HWII
>
>
> Subject: Summer-Fall Burning ???
>
> Hello,
>
> I wrote to the list a while back asking about managing residential
> plantings (1/4 acre) for flowers over grasses. Previously I have burned
> in the spring.
>
> My understanding from the answers was; I should burn in the late summer
> or fall to favor the flowers and forbs over grass.
> Is this correct? (I had a variety of answers).
>
> Part 2; If this is correct, what are the tips for getting this to burn? I
> have tried 2 times in the last week of low humidity and fairly dry
> conditions and cant get more than a small spot of maybe 25' to burn. Is
> this maybe just a matter of waiting another month?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dan Dietz
> Reedsburg WI
>

Harold,

I am in southern Wisconsin near Madison and my site is pretty sandy. I have
aproximately 30 flowers and forbs although I am not familiar with the names
of them all so please bear with me.

I have several of each of these; coneflowers, blazingstars, milkweeds,
"daisies": 4 yellow & 2 yellow/orange combos, and also butterfly weed,
purple
prarie clover, nodding pink onion, a couple asters, and some golden rods.

I am not shooting for a particular flower to favor. In the first 4 years
before I burned, we had a beautiful season long profusion of flowers. It
seemed it was an ever changing color show. Since burning in the spring of
2000, the grasses have become much more dominate. Most of the flowers are
still there, just many less of them.

Please let me know what other info you need.

Dan Dietz
Reedsburg Wisconsin

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