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- Photo of the Week – May 23, 2013
- Blowing Against the Wind?
- Photo of the Week – May 16, 2013
- Join Us For The Platte River Prairies Field Day: July 12, 2013
- Keeping a Low Profile in the Spring
- Photo of the Week – May 9, 2013
- A Prickly Confrontation
- Photo of the Week – May 2, 2013
- Capturing Post-Wildfire Recovery Through Timelapse Photography
- A Dandy Little Predator
- A Prairie Ecologist’s Perspective on Arbor Day
- Photo of the Week – April 25, 2013
- Tuning Into Fire Frequency
- Photo of the Week – April 18, 2013
- The Annual Grassland Restoration Network Workshop – Coming to A Prairie Near You (If You’re Near Columbia, Missouri)
- A Weekend Walk in the Woods
- Photo of the Week – April 11, 2013
- An Ill Wind…
- Is Poison Hemlock Repelled By Plant Diversity? Early Results Say Yes
- Photo of the Week – April 5, 2013
Tag Archives: fire
Photo of the Week – April 25, 2013
I made a quick trip up to our Niobrara Valley Preserve this week to help set up time lapse cameras that will help document recovery from last year’s massive wildfires. More on that next week… The weather followed the same … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography
Tagged erosion, fire, niobrara valley preserve, photo, photography, recovery, snow, wildfire
7 Comments
Should We Be Conducting Prescribed Fires During Drought?
As we enter a second year of drought in central Nebraska, I’m starting to hear discussions about whether or not it’s a good idea to conduct prescribed fires when conditions are so dry. I have some ideas about this, but am curious … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Animals, Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Plants
Tagged burn in drought year, burning, drought, dry weather, fire, forage production, grassland, management objectives, prairie, prescribed fire, safety, soil moisture, wildlife habitat
28 Comments
Lessons From a Project to Improve Prairie Quality – Part 1: Patch-Burn Grazing, Plant Diversity, and Butterflies
We recently completed a large multi-year restoration and management project at our Platte River Prairies. Our specific objectives were to improve habitat quality for various at-risk prairie species and evaluate the impacts of our management on at-risk butterflies – particularly … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Animals, Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Plants, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Tagged at-risk species, burning, butterflies, conservation, conservation grazing, conservative plants, fire, floristic quality, grassland, grassland management, grazing, grazing impacts on prairie, grazing prairie, habitat quality, land management, lessons learned, nebraska, patch-burn grazing, platte river, platte river prairies, pollinators, prairie, prairie management, prairie restoration, prescribed fire, regal fritillary, research, state wildlife grant, stewardship, the nature conservancy
13 Comments
Regal Fritillary Butterflies in Burned and Grazed Prairie
We’ve been conducting field surveys of regal fritillary butterflies for the last three years. During that time, we’ve learned a lot about how those butterflies are responding our prairie management and restoration work. So far, there are two overwhelming lessons … Continue reading
Posted in Prairie Insects, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Photography, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Tagged butterfly, cattle grazing, controlled burn, fire, fire and insects, fire impacts on insects, managing prairies, patch-burn grazing, prairie management, prescribed fire, production, rare butterflies, regal fritillary, response of butterflies to fire, tallgrass prairie, viola sororia
7 Comments
Testing Assumptions – The Milkweed Seed Fiasco
A few months ago, I mentioned a technique that we use to clean milkweed seeds after harvest. We spread the fluffy seeds out on a concrete floor and light the thin pile on fire, burning the fluff off the seeds. … Continue reading
Posted in General, Prairie Restoration/Reconstruction
Tagged burning, fire, fluff, milkweed seeds, prairie restoration, seed cleaning, seed processing, silk
21 Comments
Correction – Tree Invasion
Thank you to a couple people, particularly Dan Carter, for pointing out an inaccuracy in my last post about woody expansion in prairies. In my second paragraph, I said that woody plants had expanded in Konza Prairie (Kansas) under annual … Continue reading
Posted in General, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History
Tagged correction, fire, konza prairie, prairies, tree invasion, woody plants
10 Comments
New Information on Tree Invasion in Prairies
One of the biggest challenges of prairie management today is the suppression of woody invaders. Both native and non-native woody species can spread rapidly in prairie, making it difficult to maintain the open grassy habitat that most prairie species depend … Continue reading
Posted in General, Prairie Management, Prairie Natural History, Prairie Plants
Tagged brush, carbon, climate change, clonal shrubs, cornus drummundii, deep roots, dogwood, fire, grasslands, kansas state university, konza prairie, nitrogen, prairies, rhus glabra, root depth, shrub invasion, soil moisture, spread, sumac, tree invasion, woody plants
40 Comments
A Skeptical Look at Mob Grazing
Mob grazing is attracting a lot of attention lately, especially among people who are fans of other intensive rotational grazing systems. Usually, mob grazing is an extreme form of rotational grazing, in which high numbers of cattle are grazed in very small … Continue reading
Posted in General, Prairie Management, Prairie Plants
Tagged accumulation of organic matter, benefits, building the soil, cattle, cell grazing, fire, grassland, lack of research, livestock, management intensive grazing, mob grazing, negative impacts, organic matter, prairie, prairie management, pros and cons, research, rotational grazing, savory, soil carbon, soil impacts
82 Comments
Why is it so hard to keep trees out of prairies? (and why is it getting harder?)
The standard explanation for why historical prairies had so few trees is pretty simple – frequent fires kept them out. Yes, there were other constraints such as frequent droughts, particularly in western prairies, and there were large browsers like elk and pronghorn … Continue reading
