Prairie and savanna prescribed fires can be good trouble if they are carefully timed and controlled. Their purpose is to help keep prairies as grasslands and prevent or at least slow succession toward more forested habitats.
Prairie is a word used for these grasslands, coming from the French word meaning meadow. Half the upland prairie plants are usually grasses and the other half are forbs, non-grass herbs. Deer and turkeys use these areas, pheasants love them particularly if there are crops nearby. Shed antlers and a few destroyed bird nests attest to the use by these animals after burns.
Aldo Leopold, in his 1949 A Sand County Almanac wrote of compass plants tickling the bellies of buffalos as they fed in grasslands. These days it is a much smaller ungulate, the white-tailed deer, using these prairies in the Midwest.
In general, spring prairie fires get rid of dead stems and leaves of prairie plants. Some invasive species and most trees and shrubs including raspberry and blackberry brambles are set back or killed.
In springtime, all the living parts of prairie grasses and forbs are underground and protected from fire’s quick flame heat. A bur oak’s thick, corky bark protects the tree’s stems so once this oak begins growing it usually survives a spring fire.
Safety, planning, and permits are necessary considerations before jumping into prescribed burns. Neighbors accumulate around prairie burns; they are eager to lend a hand, a leaf blower, and a watchful eye. In addition to controlled excitement and controlled danger, prairie fires provide a combination of sights, sounds, intense heat, flame cones and colors and an immediate warming found nowhere else in April. It’s like a July noon when we get close. But don’t wait too long on the calendar or new shoots will be harmed, more nesting will be disrupted and prairie plants will be harmed. Late fall burns may be an option then.
Numerous mounds and depressions show in the terrain as soon as the flames become ash, and do animal skeletons and white spent deer antlers. Turkeys flock to the blackened landscape, even wood ducks don’t seem to mind the black ash, which remains for but a few days before green dominates all.
Young turkey hunters already had their special season, some on prairies, and now the first turkey season, Period A, has begun. This period is followed by five additional periods, all Wednesday through Tuesday.
Bonus permits, aka authorizations, remain to be purchased for two of the last hunting periods, so for more recreation and excitement buy into the extra hunting opportunities regardless of whether or not a bird is in the freezer or has been consumed.
Checking for possible morel mushroom locations is now prime. Look for dead elm trees, old apple orchards and a number of other locations. Scarlet cup mushrooms are a bright clue that morels will soon appear. False morels appearing are another clue.
After three poor morel hunting years, set your expectations accordingly, but morels often surprise or disappoint gatherers.
In the end it is often a dead elm tree, but with some bark hanging being the best bet. Not all morels appear at the same time so keep checking tried and past productive locations.
With rain and warmth, all sorts of “blooming birthdays” are about to occur. Garden, lawn, field, and forest have a lot in store. Asparagus shoots have been reported. Forsythia is blooming; pasque flowers are, too. Sometimes a green compass plant shoot is as exciting to see as a new bloom or cone.
Check for those tiny tree flowers if you nose hasn’t already made you aware of the pollen these wind-pollinated plants are releasing.
One experience could be finding an evergreen red cedar tree that is releasing pollen grains in pulses early in the morning when the temperature reaches a critical point and the pollen cones open and clouds of pollen takes to the breezes. Some will land on the seed cones on a different individual red cedar tree beginning the development of a bright blue seed cone that smells of gin.
Take note of what is occurring such as wild gooseberries blooming and attracting bumblebees just when the first morels begin to show. It’s all about timing, seeing one event suggesting and reminding of another.
