RX fire

Sweet! Funny, I've been told that NO ONE burns in pheasant country:) A lot of good work going on there! You do create plenty of smoke! Give me a run down of the grass species you are trying to promote and those you are trying to suppress! What are some of the goals for your burns? Are you also using grazing? Are you a single season fire management system or multiple?
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Sweet! Funny, I've been told that NO ONE burns in pheasant country:) A lot of good work going on there! You do create plenty of smoke! Give me a run down of the grass species you are trying to promote and those you are trying to suppress! What are some of the goals for your burns? Are you also using grazing? Are you a single season fire management system or multiple?
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PD, We are really trying to suppress Smooth Brome and Kentucky Blue grass and trying to promote any warm season grasses such as Big Blue, little blue, indian, switch and any late season native forbs as well. Hopefully some native cool seasons will be able to compete with the exotics a little as well this fall.

I have 339 heifers ready to go in after sufficient green up. Our fire management is really mostly spring but we have a handful of units that we burn in the summer and fall.
 
I had really good luck improving grass stands in NW Kansas using severe short-term spring grazing. I stocked a cow-calf pair per 1.75 acres from April 1 to June 15. Before grazing, you could see every meadowlark in the patch for 400-600 yards from the road. After the third year, I was killing pointed roosters in the patches in 40 inch tall NWSG. You do sacrifice some cover components the first year and maybe the second. However, when you get the natives going, they provide more than was ever available before. The neat part is, with that timing, the cattle ate brome, Kentucky bluegrass, and clover and never touched the NWSG. When the cattle came off, the target cool-season grasses were 2 inches tall and dormant. There were a lot of factors that this project affected. The hoof action improved soil compaction to the point that NWSG seed could sprout and tiller and fill the voids. You rarely found cow pies and the density of stock stomped them out. Some little bluestem clumps, once uncovered by fire showed that they had died out in the center due to their own thatch. There would be a green ring around the outside and nothing growing in the middle. Too much rest can be as deadly as too much grazing!
 
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Prairie Drifter said:
I had really good luck improving grass stands in NW Kansas using severe short-term spring grazing. I stocked a cow-calf pair per 1.75 acres from April 1 to June 15. Before grazing, you could see every meadowlark in the patch for 400-600 yards from the road. After the third year, I was killing pointed roosters in the patches in 40 inch tall NWSG. You do sacrifice some cover components the first year and maybe the second. However, when you get the natives going, they provide more than was ever available before. The neat part is, with that timing, the cattle ate brome, Kentucky bluegrass, and clover and never touched the NWSG. When the cattle came off, the target cool-season grasses were 2 inches tall and dormant. There were a lot of factors that this project affected. The hoof action improved soil compaction to the point that NWSG seed could sprout and tiller and fill the voids. You rarely found cow pies and the density of stock stomped them out. Some little bluestem clumps, once uncovered by fire showed that they had died out in the center due to their own thatch. There would be a green ring around the outside and nothing growing in the middle. Too much rest can be as deadly as too much!
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All I can say is BINGO! My experiences as well.
 
Funny part is, most people had learned not to hunt those acres due to the lack of cover. That led to a lot of birds finding out that it was really quiet out there and they moved from the heavily hunted crop fields and grass strips out into those big pastures. I could often go and hit likely heavy cover patches and limit out in short order. When it snowed, the birds stacked up in that heavier cover away from the traffic and you could really get a pup some good contacts! It shifted the deer use as well! Not unusual to flush some impressive racks laying up in the grass where the birds were.
 
Very nice habitat work, reminds me of the burns we did when I worked in Nebraska.
 
Liked the pictures and videos.

I can see were I burn last year but don't have anything grazing it, the amount of growth is going to be a problem.

But the quail have been active in the burned area, and that was the goal.
 
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