Burn/range management season

Prairie Drifter

Prairie Drifter

Well-known member
This is one of the more enjoyable and frustrating times of year for a wildlife manager. It is time to get some of our most effective and necessary range management work done. It is also the time when everything else tries to consume our time and conflict with this important work. The weatherman is both a friend and a foe as he/she does or doesn't provide a forecast we can use. I have 800-1200 acres on my spring burn plan. We have managed to get 5 tracts burned, but 4 priority tracts are still unburned and the calendar is getting short. Further, the drought is still in effect and neighboring counties are already in a burn ban. The drought already has my 4 year burn rotation stretched into a 7-8 year rotation on many tracts. Here are some pics of Friday's 90 acre burn.







 
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A bit more information on Friday's burn. We burned the north 1/4 of pasture 1. It is 360 acres and I am trying to expedite putting it into a patch burn/patch graze rotation. You can Google OSU patch burn/patch graze for more information on the technique. I like how this system gives me a variety of successional stages within each grazing unit and reduces the size of my fires where I can get more of them done with a smaller group of people. It also enhances the forbs and stresses the grasses more than a complete pasture burn and does it with cattle and no cost in comparison to doing so with mechanical techniques that carry a high cost per acre. The drought has me several years behind, so I am burning 1/4 of the unit where normally I would only do 1/8. I will follow up with a summer burn of another 1/4 in July/August which normally would have been 1/8 as well. My goal here is to get rid of the extreme thatch that is an impediment to nest success on these acres and enhance the brood-rearing aspects of the plant community. Increasing the diversity within the patch and reducing the distance to another successional stage plot will also benefit production.
 
Patch burn grazing is really is good management technique. Some is being done here in Iowa although on a smaller scale of course.

The insect folks like it better than large burn areas, as do the song birds.
 
lol, I feel your pain!! The Governor of ND put the entire state of ND into some sort of burn ban and most of eastern SD is in a burn ban. I have numerous tracts that are planned for a burn and we may be screwed. Wildfire is on everyone's mind for sure and the forecast is not looking good for us for a while. The soil moisture is still pretty good considering the lack of rainfall so things should start greening up. That should help us but without a significant rainfall the counties will not relax the burn bans already in place.
 
We had burn teams in se and sw Michigan and they were able to burn several area in some of our better pheasant habitat. Unfortunately I wasn't able to participate as I was on standby in northern Mi. Sounds like they had very successful burns to help our birds.
 
Here is how They are doing it locally

Notices


AUTOMATIC BURN BAN

Charles Mix County has enacted an AUTOMATIC BURN BAN, effective August 7, 2012. This burn ban is in effect on a day to day basis and is determined by the National Weather Service Grassland Fire Danger. When Charles Mix County is in the categories of VERY HIGH, EXTREME, or RED FLAG a burn ban will be in effect. This will last until the National Weather Service reduces Charles Mix County to Low, Moderate, or High. This typically changes daily. To check the status, please go to http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/products/rfdfsd.php. A fine of $500 along with all costs associated with the extinguishment is possible if a fire is started.

CHARLES MIX COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 2012-02
 
There has been a lot of pasture burned here in the FlintHills that last couple of weeks.

Did get 1/3 of my pasture burned this spring. I did a summer burn for 1/3 of it last summer as well. Next spring I will burn the last 1/3.

I have a huge amount of fuel in the pasture. Grass is not being grazed yet, and there are too many cedars that have branches down in the grass. Little more exciting burning than I like.
 
Not to change the subject, but Troy I figured you were the man to ask. Bush honeysuckle control.Is cut and treat the best control? I've already done the cut and didn't treat the stumps. Would drilling into the stumps and putting glyphosphate into the holes take care of them? Thanks Troy, ,, back to burning.
 
3rd photo looks like you have a really great fire break there. Did you just disc that, or mow and then disc, or plow that, or what?

The wind here has been really unpredictable. The last few pastures I've seen burning I wondered if it was intentional. :eek:
 
M. R. Byrd said:
PD,
How do the plums respond to a burn at this time of the year?
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Maynard, I have compared the resprout of plums from spring burns and summer burns. The spring burns get almost a 100% resprout from a 1 time burn. Summer burn resprouts are under 50%. If you burn more than 1 year in a row, you can significantly reduce your plum coverage. I'm to that point on the wildlife area in some places.
 
Toad said:
3rd photo looks like you have a really great fire break there. Did you just disc that, or mow and then disc, or plow that, or what?

The wind here has been really unpredictable. The last few pastures I've seen burning I wondered if it was intentional. :eek:
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Toad, I rarely have enough good days to get all my planned burns done. To improve on that, I try to make things as efficient as I can. I mow my fire breaks then disk them. I usually start that in August or September. By year 4, a lot of them have grown back. Yes, it could cause erosion problems. I take care to not disk steep slopes. There, I just mow and then wet-line. What I do is mow 25 feet then disk 16 feet of it. A side benefit is that the disked strip acts as a brood-rearing strip for a couple of years after being disked. Having bare dirt lets me light quickly with fewer staff. It makes these fires within a mile of a very busy highway much safer.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Maynard, I have compared the resprout of plums from spring burns and summer burns. The spring burns get almost a 100% resprout from a 1 time burn. Summer burn resprouts are under 50%. If you burn more than 1 year in a row, you can significantly reduce your plum coverage. I'm to that point on the wildlife area in some places.
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Thanks Prairie Drifter
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Toad, I rarely have enough good days to get all my planned burns done. To improve on that, I try to make things as efficient as I can. I mow my fire breaks then disk them. I usually start that in August or September. By year 4, a lot of them have grown back. Yes, it could cause erosion problems. I take care to not disk steep slopes. There, I just mow and then wet-line. What I do is mow 25 feet then disk 16 feet of it. A side benefit is that the disked strip acts as a brood-rearing strip for a couple of years after being disked. Having bare dirt lets me light quickly with fewer staff. It makes these fires within a mile of a very busy highway much safer.
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I meant my comment as a compliment. :thumbsup:

One of my S-head neighbors thinks a 4-strand fence will stop his fires, so he's got a pretty bad rep around the neighborhood. I try really hard not to be "that guy" when I burn. I mow about 16' and disc about 8', but I'm working with a lot less acres than you and it's easier to get there with the water or a shovel. Plus I am somewhat protected on 2 sides.

Anyway, nice job there. "Too many plums" is a problem I would be glad to have. :laugh::cheers:
 
Controlled burn/Wildfire

Well the Feds are at it again--they started a 1000 acre controlled burn at Wind Cave National Park--on a day with Fire Weather Watches in place :confused:---YEP --now it's a Wildfire of more than 1000 acres --not in control with no estimate on containment--AND tomorrow the weather will be---RED FLAG WARNING winds to 40 temps near 80 and RH AROUND 15%. :eek:

This is a interface with the forest and grass lands and puts grouse habitat in danger

STUPID STUPID STUPID. Heads should roll on this one. On a personal note this is just 9 miles of timber away from my place in Custer SD.

Video at KOTA news or Wildfire Today

Oh did I mention STUPID IDEA :mad:
 
Jim, I just have to say, My recent trip through the Dakotas and Montana I saw very, very many pheasants. All are in or very close to old growth grasses, woody cover, shelter belts, homesite wind breaks, brushy woody coulees. Trees large and small. That is where the birds are, native sharptails included.
People that know how to make habitat for the game birds native and introduced aren't Spring burning the habitat, at least not in pheasant country.You don't believe me? go ahead, take a rooster road trip.
 
People that know how to manage habitat for pheasant and quail KNOW how to manage the plants to their benefit. They do so in whatever season it takes to ensure that the habitat remains healthy and in the proper stage of succession to support reproduction of those species. In Kansas, that means fire. With NWSG, fire it is mandatory, especially in higher rainfall zones. These plants evolved under the influence of grazing and fire and those techniques, managed properly, are what it takes to keep them thriving.
 
mnmthunting said:
Jim, I just have to say, My recent trip through the Dakotas and Montana I saw very, very many pheasants. All are in or very close to old growth grasses, woody cover, shelter belts, homesite wind breaks, brushy woody coulees. Trees large and small. That is where the birds are, native sharptails included.
People that know how to make habitat for the game birds native and introduced aren't Spring burning the habitat, at least not in pheasant country.You don't believe me? go ahead, take a rooster road trip.
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How do you know that land was not burned in the Spring? And I see pheasants on the road all the time. That does not mean its good nesting or wintering cover.
 
There has been no burning where I'm talking about, at least not during the time it's been managed for peasants and native grouse. No planes to burn these grasslands now or in the future. Not only game birds, the Blue bird houses are all occupied, Meadowlarks are everywhere with mating and nesting rituals. Canada geese are on the nests, mallards and puddle ducks are mated up and soon to be nesting. Sharptails and Sage Grouse are on the Leks in with heavy grass and cover close by for nesting and raising broods. Not to mention the heavy stuff to escape predators. Woody cover is being encouraged and more established in selected areas.
Man! are the wildlife populations in good shape!:thumbsup:
To suggest setting fire to all this would get you about the same attention as suggesting setting fire to the court house.:eek:
But things are different in other areas, so be it.
 
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