Interesting difference in perspective. It seems that many people in the Soils forum are narrowly focused on 'soil health', composting, preserving organic matter, etc, whereas most of us here in Native Plants think more in terms of the community we want to encourage, such as in prairie restoration.

I especially liked the post about how thousands of studies can support a certain practice, such as prescribed fire, but it only takes one study to prove them all wrong. (I wonder where this person stands in the evolution 'debate'!)

As usual, I find myself taking a little from all sides of such a debate. It's certainly possible to turn a practice such as prescribed fire into a fetish, or to use it for too narrow of a goal. For example, generations of hill people in the Ozarks believed fervently in 'burning the woods' every year. They thought that the green new grass (and, they believed, reduced numbers of vermin like snakes and tick) proved that what they were doing was right. But many decades of such annual burning helped degrade soils by eliminating organic matter and allowing rampant erosion. Although Ozark habitats such as glades and savannahs require periodic burning to halt conversion to closed-canopy woodlands, there can be too much of a good thing.

Joepye,

My problem with your post in the other thread is your claim that torching your land "mimics what mother nature has been doing in your area for thousands of years." Translation: Mother nature does it to improve land, so do I.

Man has used fire to clear land for centuries, but natural wildfires caused by lightning and/or spontaneous combustion are EXTREMELY rare. Do you really know of a truly natural wildfire in your area in your lifetime - I know of none in the entire northeast in my 50 plus years. Most fires (even out west) are the result of careless people or arson.

Prescribed or controlled burns to reduce dead fuel in drought area to stave off larger, more destructive wildfires are a lessor of evils, not some magic formula for forest care.
There are many spectacular forests in the world that have never been raised by fire.

Fire as it applies to disruption ecology usually represents total change. Often native species (plant and animal) are lost forever as new species take hold following the fire. And the recovery period can be a long time. Probably not much of an issue in your backyard, but has huge potential on a larger scale.
For some interesting reading on disruption ecology, check the research about the Burgess Shale fossils - where all life as we know it is the result of several extinction level events).

Fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornado's and the like can rarely be said to improve the land - even though in time, the land recovers from such ravages.

So although I don't have a big problem with you torching your land, I'd question your need to do so every 3 years and suggest that what your doing really doesn't mimic what happens naturally.

Wow.

Here in the Midwest the effects of frequent fire on the landscape were obvious -- in the form of the extensive tallgrass prairie -- when Europeans arrived. Reforestation and woody invastion due to the reduced fire frequency (including reduction in human-caused fire) since European settlement are also obvious.

Prairie is undisputably a fire-dependent ecosystem, so it only makes sense to use fire to manage prairie remnants and prairie restorations. Prescribed fire is not an attempt at 'improvement', it is simply a necessary management approach if tallgrass prairie is to persist. Deciduous forest invasion is neither an 'improvement' nor a 'degradation' of a tallgrass prairie, but if the entire Midwest reverted to forest (and, of course, crop fields and suburbia), the beauty and biological diversity of the prairie ecosystem would be lost.

Finally, such an apocalyptic view of changes due to fire is hardly justified. Short term, localized changes in distributions of plant, animal, and microbial species are simply not comparable to the mass extinctions of the fossil record! Ecosystems that could be badly damaged by occasional fire (i don't know: perhaps rainforests; certainly coral reefs!) are not adapted to fire because they evolved under climate and geographical conditions where fire was rare or absent!

Seeing this is the 'Meadows and Prairies' forum, I feel I must spout my opinion that fire is absolutely necessary to maintain a quality prairie ecosystem.

I have witnessed firsthand the effects fire has on native versus non-native plants. Fire favors natives in a prairie ecosystem, HANDS DOWN. I have successfully controlled such invasives as buckthorn and smooth brome using fire. The benefactors were always natives.

Why did the Native Americans use fire on the prairie?
Because they saw how the native animals were attracted to fresh green growth. Some of the highest quality native prairies still in existence are on reservation land that was frequently burned.

Although I'm neutral on the subject, I have seen the effects that fire and clearcutting have had on native wildlife in northern Minnesota where I live. In the years after the above activities, the areas in question always hold the most wildlife due to the abundance of fresh browse material.

We just had a fire this summer in the Boundary Waters Wilderness most likely caused by lightning. Extremely rare, I don't think so-not in my neck of the woods.

It seems to me the only animals adversely effected by wildfire are the humans who are ever-encroaching on wilderness areas with their mansions.

As John said there are perhaps some ecosystems adversely effected but certainly not 'Meadows and Prairies'

I thought the prairies of the Midwest were once naturally maintained by a bi-zillion grazing buffalo instead of frequent wildfires? Then the white man nearly exterminated the buffalo in order to conquer the native American Indians!
So now we need to set fires to maintain the tall prairie grass and prevent evil brush and tree invasion.
Okay...now what part of this story is natural?

But of course, you may be right. There are those that believe that wildfires are as natural as rain. Seems to me we get a lot more rain than fire - good thing too!

I don't know if everyone is on the same train of thought when it comes to their definition of 'natural'. Over the thousands of years that people have been on the North America continent, they've become an important part of its natural systems. It's not the grazing animals that keep down woody growth, it's mostly the fire. I've seen plenty of overgrazed ranchlands out west that have lost most of their grasses to the unpalatable woody growth of cedar, mesquite and sagebrush.

There are plenty of fire dependent ecosystems (other than grasslands) across the US... chaparral on the west coast, Rocky mountain Ponderosa forests, SE longleaf pine forests, Florida scrub, pine barrens in NY and NJ, Jack pines in the North East.... most are in trouble because they don't get the frequent burning that they used to get.

Human sourced fires may not be strictly natural but there are many natural systems that have evolved to require them.

Wow. After all this nature-talk I think I'm going to have to go out tommorow and plant some non-native bulbs and give them a good shot of chemical fertilizer.

Prairie ecosystems are fire-generated and fire- dependent. Buffalo played a role but not to the extent fire did. Buffalo didn't eat woody vegetation, fire did.

The white man negatively affected prairie and sanvanna ecosystems by suppressing fire, not by killing buffalo.

There would be no prairie if there were no fire, natural or man-made. Without fire, the native bio-diversity would be lost.

As a student and fan of native prairies, I do consider woody growth invasion evil, especially when it is non-native buckthorn.

There are plenty of healthy forests in this nation, but not too many healthy virgin prairies. I, for one, would like to see both survive.

Not in my neck of the woods either...EVERY year in my part of the west most of our fires are caused by dry lightning and during wheat harvest sometimes caused by combines.

Vera

"...natural wildfires caused by lightning and/or spontaneous combustion are EXTREMELY rare."

That may be the case in wetter climes, but not around where I live. I've seen one or two a year, on average - and by seen, I mean that I watched the actual lightning strikes, then saw the smoke and fire.

I know this is an old thread, but found it very interesting after this years spring. Maybe you heard about our fire filled spring here in the midwest. After a very dry fall and winter this spring we were all glad to see the rains start. That is until the fires came with them. In a three week period, here in central Kansas, we had over 15 fires proven to be started by lightening. We were very fortunate not to have any in our immediate neighborhood. Our home is surrounded by 60+ acres of prairie (CRP). I can remember my grandparent telling about the prairie fires 100 years ago. They used to plow around their home to protect it from fire every fall. And they were not man started fires either.

We burn off our prairie about every 5 years. It helps clean up the brush dead grass, and germinate seed of some prairie forbs. Of course only do this only if we have had a wet winter.

I think it all mostly boils down (from a meadow/prairie perspective), to if its an area which has a history of natural fire, and is an ecosystem adapted to such. Here in Florida, lightning and fires from it are typical, and the plants are specifically adapted for it to occur. The recovery time despite an above post to the contrary, is fast. Since many native plants seeds are adapted to sprout resulting from fire, they are more prolific than exotics in re-establishing. Not to say that birds wouldn't poop in some invasive seeds too, of course that is possible. BUT, if a fire occurred with some regularity, that invasive species probably would have some difficulty succeeding. There were over 100 million acres of pine flatwoods in the southeast for a reason, it was adapted to fire! Aristida Stricta goes to seed after a fire. Longleaf pines live as grass developing underground roots and then quickly shoots up as a tree, an adaptation to deal with the likelihood of fire. I've seen how green it gets after a fire. It doesn't take long. Gopher tortoises like it and their burrows are a refuge for lots of animals when fire occurs. They can then feed on the low, accessible greenage.

There are probably other regions where fire via lightning is quite rare. Obviously, 'it never rains in southern California', so how can lightning start fire there? :) Like most things, its probably highly variable.

Gary