So Ben and I were talking the other day how nice it would be able to do a control burn on a food plot we'll be working on this weekend. Then I got to thinking... Soil gets robbed year after year of its nutritional content. What does an intense fire do to the soil? Does it remove nitrogen since that would be partly flammable? I've heard the ash could be good for the soil, which I haven't confirmed yet, but what happens to the actual soil? Does it lose any of its important content? Does anyone actually know?
it will actually help the soil. the ash is good for it, and in all actuality, the fire will help with nutrients in the long run. Fire has been nature's wway of cleansing itself for eons. A controlled burn will allow the area to green up faster, and also will eliminate a lot of "junk" that is sitting there just rotting. I say go for it.
There is no doubt it will be good for the vegetation growth. Just be careful not to burn the entire county by accident.
Burning the soil re-releases inorganic compounds and nutrients that are present in dead leaves, grass, etc. etc. It essentially takes degradation and decomposition processes and speeds it up from months to hours. I think burning is great, but if you do it too often it will rob eventually begin doing more harm than good as there won't be any nutrient to re-release
get ahold of your local FD, it is probably volunteer and im sure they would be glad to do a controleld burn for you.
The NC Forestry Assoc. just did a burn for me last Thurs. on a small tract of Longleaf pines that were planted in the winter of '08. I will be curious to see how everything recovers.
Every Spring the farmers around here burn their ditches. Maybe they do it in other places too? Anyway, it cleans out the old growth & the new growth is greener and prettier than the places around the ditches that don't get burned. And that's all I know on the subject.
You'll be fine burning. Just don'e use any accelerants, please, or you might be taking a trip to the hosp. Depending how big of an area your planning on burning, you might have the local fire dept. do it for a donation. If you do it yourself, pick a day w/very little wind. You don't want to end up burning up your neighbors property with yours. Have some shovels & buckets of water nearby in case it starts to get away from you. The DNR here burns every yr, and everything comes up greener & quicker.
It kind of depends on what your goal is... Having done a number of prescribed burns with the DNR, our usual goal is to knock back nonnatives and non desirable species at the exact right time (just as or after they have greened up). Knocking them back at this stage allows previously dormant or crowded out native species to reestablish themselves as the others have taken a hit. If you are doing a burn just to get rid of the dead vegetation, you will still need to take care of the seed bank at some point. For a food plot, I would suggest possibly mowing away the dead stuff and then treating with a herbicide for a greater kill once it all has greened up. A burn knocks back and regenerates, a herbicide kills out.
I'm not talking a control burn. I'm talking an intense fire. Didn't really see anything that said it was bad or good...
A control burn is a intense fire that is controled you can burn all of your under brush in a controled burn it just means it is not getting away from you and burning the whole county
I agree that having prescribed burnings depend a lot on what you're trying to accomplish. Personally, when I do a burn, I do it usually for 2 reasons. 1) To Clean it up: The fire will obviously burn any dead limbs, grass, trash, invasive plants/seeds... basically anything to clean up the property. 2) To introduce selected plants. Right now I see a lot of people burning CRP fields. If the objective for the landowner is to burn the existing dead plants to create better re-growth... it's a great idea, but IMO too early in the year to be as effective as it could be. I like to burn well into April or May when the cool season grasses are nice and green. By burning when they're green, you'll set back the cool season grasses, and without effecting the CRP Warm Season Grasses, which won't appear until later. Overall, you'll get better growth of the preferred NWSG like, Bluestem, Switchgrass, Indian Grass, etc, while at the same time, clean up your land. And like everyone said, Ash is usually good for the soil. Not always though.. it just depends on your soil. I would recommend sending some soil samples off & figuring out exactly what your soil might need. Good Luck.
Depends on what your old plot is. Sometimes discing under is a good thing by returning nutrients back into the soil! Do a soil sample before putting that ash back into it, might do more harm that good!
