Growing season prescribed burn

[yoderjac]

We are in a USDA program and one of the practices is controlled burns. We had to complete one practice this fiscal year. We had hoped to do a growing season burn two small sections totally about 10 acres. We have been watching weather since July. Either conditions were not right or our burn coordinator was unavailable all summer. We finally gave it a shot yesterday. The temp was in the low 80s, the humidity about 50%, with steady winds at 5-7 mph. The site was a clearcut that had been burned a number of years ago. Saplings were dominate coming out to the firebreaks. There was some broomsedge and grasses, but not much.

We met at 0830, but things were still damp from the dew. We waited until about 1000 before we struck a match. It was a tough go. The fire had a hard time building. We started burning into the wind for safety. We were only able to find one spot where I could work my way through the middle with a drip torch to burn with the wind once we had enough black on the down wind side. We finally ringed it. We had no dozer on site but pretty good firebreaks and only a small crew. We won't know if it killed the saplings for a few weeks. I'm sure it did some good, but I'm not convinced it was worth it.

After looking at the results of the first section burn, we decided to hold off burning the second section. We now plan to do a dormant season burn to get a better kill. I'm learning that growing season burns are more difficult to execute. They have some benefits encouraging forbs and producing better deer food, but conditions have to be just right. I think in the future, we will try to do growing season burns when our clear cuts are primarily broomsedge and dormant season burns when they have gotten away from us a bit and are more saplings.

We did get our practice in before the end of the fiscal year and we learned from it, but it wasn't what I had hoped for.

Just thought I'd pass on the experience in case it benefits others.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Catscratch]

Fall burns are becoming much more common in KS. Better control of Sericea than spring burns.

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[S.T.Fanatic]

Your spring burns will promote grasses meaning it should be easier to do a growing season burn in the future once you can get some more grasses established


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[yoderjac]

Your spring burns will promote grasses meaning it should be easier to do a growing season burn in the future once you can get some more grasses established


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Yes! That is exactly our plan. We hope to plan future growing season burns on clearcuts that are dominated by bluestem broomsedge rather than saplings. We hope to use dormant burns to get us back to more grasses and fewer saplings.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[CarolinaDawg]

Yes! That is exactly our plan. We hope to plan future growing season burns on clearcuts that are dominated by bluestem broomsedge rather than saplings. We hope to use dormant burns to get us back to more grasses and fewer saplings.

Thanks,

Jack

I 100% agree with you on the difficulty in executing an effective growing season burn. You’re threading a needle with conditions which is really hard for me because I don’t live on my farm anymore. When it’s possible though, it’s tremendously more effective at controlling saplings than a dormant season burn. I usually only get top kill on sweetgum with my dormant season burns. Late growing season burns that knock the leaves off leave the sweetgum without a way to photosynthesize until the following spring and I usually get a root kill out of that.

 

[yoderjac]

Well, it has been over a year since we executed the growing season burn. Time to look back and evaluate it. This was our first growing season burn, but our burn coordinator has probably done more fire than anyone else in the state, so a lack of experience was not a factor. On Thursday, he (a wildlife biologist) cam out to evaluate our different sections for scheduling prescribed burns for this year. He was in complete agreement that we need to burn that section again. This may be a single data point decision, but I don't believe the growing season burns are worthwhile for us.

I'm sure that if everything comes together just right, they can be effective for some folks. The problem is that trying to find that sweet spot where conditions are just right and get a crew together to conduct it is just too risky. We have a much greater window for cold season burns as you don't have to worry as much about water content in the plants.

After the walk-about, it looks like we will try to re-burn that section and one other section this winter/early spring.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[b116757]

I burn in the winter or early spring I’m about to light the new farm on fire possibly this weekend. I really should of done it a week or so ago conditions where good I just wasn’t quite ready and had a lot on my plate.

 

[yoderjac]

Yes, there are different benefits from each, growing season and dormant season. There is a lot of coordination to do. We will just be starting the prep in the next couple weeks, disking firebreaks and removing fallen trees from across them. I'm guessing it will be a month or more till we are ready. Our season ended on Jan 7 but our burn coordinator was hunting in NY, so this week was the first opportunity for checkout.

 

[b116757]

Honestly I think some folks put way way to much emphasis on when it’s done it’s simply important to actually burn occasionally time of year is of much less importance.

 

[yoderjac]

Honestly I think some folks put way way to much emphasis on when it’s done it’s simply important to actually burn occasionally time of year is of much less importance.

I agree that burning at the right stage is much more important than the seasonal choice, but there are differences in the plant community that results based on seasonal choice.

 

[somich]

I burn in the winter or early spring I’m about to light the new farm on fire possibly this weekend. I really should of done it a week or so ago conditions where good I just wasn’t quite ready and had a lot on my plate.

Where are you located? This winter has been dryer for me and I wanted to burn several areas this winter that get too darn wet in the early spring.

What and how do you determine if the field is too wet/damp to do a winter burn?

 

[b116757]

I’m in southeastern Kansas and as long as we have gone a week or so without rain/snow it’s usually about right a few days when we where welding fence the grass was really wanting to go ahead and burn we probably should of switched gears and just went ahead a done it then but now I’ll have watch the weather for another dry stretch. I have to get it burned before getting cattle in there this spring it maybe several years before I have enough overgrown grass for a good burn after the cattle are pastured on that farm so I definitely need to take advantage of it this year to kill the ERC taking over areas.