re: Tree Canopy and controlled burns

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Drunk Tiger, doubt that. Judging from the uneducated way you present yourself here, i’d say you have some issues within.

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Button, does he need to go look at himself in the mirror?

We are probably in the same generation.
Edit: If you were born in 89 then we definitely are. I was born in 88

I thought you were lumping him with older generations and how they made mistakes way back when. It is easy for younger generations, like me, to call out flaws in the older generations, but over look how the same people made some great to greater contributions.

I don’t know how often fires went through the bottomlands before the levee was built, but I doubt it was very often unless there were dry periods when the river didn’t flood as often because the North didn’t get the snow it usually did. Those trees can withstand water more than fire.

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Journal of Forestry, Volume 118, Issue 6, November 2020, Pages 555–560

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the presence of fire-adapted species such as giant cane (Arundinaria gigantea
[Walter] Muhl.) in bottomland hardwood forests suggests that historically occasional fires occurred in these systems

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These findings suggest that fires in bottomland hardwood forests are likely to be patchy, even at small scales and are probably unable to spread over long distances (except possibly during extreme drought; Gagnon 2009). This implies that return intervals for bottomlands were naturally long and that prescribed fire should not be used on a frequent basis. That said, the role of fire in bottomland hardwood forest management is worthy of consideration and further study.

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You are better off with saw and chemicals. Yes, I have burned in bottomland hardwoods before.

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You are better off with saw and chemicals. Yes, I have burned in bottomland hardwoods before.

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That may or may not be true, the understanding of it is changing before our eyes, and with invasives in the mix no one knows for a fact what the best practices will end up being. Disturbance is the goal and understanding how one form of it may work well or fall short can help you make better decisions on how to use another, like selected hack and squirt removal of the species that promote mesophistication.

Point being we should be able to talk about that without hutton spewing some tapatalk back in my day we just knew better without being told bullshite, its every thread he gets in.

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That may or may not be true,

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How can you say that? I just quoted an article stating most of the test plots wouldn’t even burn?


Now once the problematic species are reduced by saw and chemicals a fire might do it moving forward, but in my experience the oaks in GTR (my experiences) have extremely thin bark, and are already stressed from the water during the winter. I don’t think going from water stress to fire is a smart move.
Please let me know because I would love to burn if I could

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Conversely, burning in a higher BLH would have been "normal", with flooding being rare, and the trees wouldn't tolerate flooding very well at all.

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Which species are you talking about?

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Which species are you talking about?

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Anything other than an overcup, water hickory, or nuttall association. Those really wet bottomlands probably never supported much of a river cane community, so likely weren't very susceptible to burning.

Anything higher than that that might have only occasionally or rarely flooded probably burned at irregular intervals, especially if cane was present.

According to the USFS page on A. gigantea, it's often in a community with maple/poplar/oak and hackberry/elm/ash. Now, maybe those stands of cane were monocultures with few trees present, but it's safe to assume that the fires did not stay fully contained to the canebreaks, so those forests were exposed to some fires, albeit of low intensity. The article references some studies that showed long burn intervals on yellow poplar and oak-hickory communities--sometimes up to 30 years.

I am assuming “poplar trees” to be cottonwood and not yellow poplar.

How hot do you think a 10-30 year old canebrake would burn? I have never burned cane, but if it burns anything like switchgrass or bluestem it would be hot enough to kill most trees in it or bordering it.

I know there is on going studies, but do you have an idea/resource that states what sized tree wouldn’t die from a low level fire? Healthy tree, I know an injured/sick tree is more likely to die from a fire.

I have some spots I would like to burn if possible in the future. They are higher ridges that were feathered 10ish years ago, and I would like to reclaim them and maintain them with periodic fires. These sites would contain higher elevated BLH oak species that might flood once a generation, now at least. (High enough to grow Quarcus michauxii/ Ridges)

I might just test the shite out myself (small acre plots on different ridges) in a couple years after I get the understory back in a manageable condition/a decent fuel load on the ground. I know the previous owner ran fire through it, but I think he tried to do it every year. (Big quail guy. Talked to him recently and that was the first thing he asked about, and think he was trying to turn those sites into an Oak Savana. This property does/did have a decent wild quail population)

I worked for him right after I got got out of college, and he had me run a fire through some timber. I left shortly after and came back a few years later and I saw a bunch of trees dead and damaged. I was told by the manager at the time it was from the fire, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what they were nor did I try to figure out why they died. It could have been the fire, it could have been the cycle of fire/huge flood during growing season/fire combo or it could have been fire and damage/injury from implements and the late spring flood. I know I haven’t used fire in BLH in 7 years and I haven’t seen a large mortality rate since then. Well, except 2017-2018 when we had high floods late into the year. (One lasted until July and the other lasted until September) I changed some water management practices and we the trees that were damaged bounced back and the others were removed by heavy equipment.

*preferably, I would like to read an article or two and not look up each BLH species to see the fire response on USDA’s website if it even has the data*

Cowboy,

I have 2 sections on my property that are southwest facing hillsides, that are extremely sandy and dry. They have Texas Live Oaks on them, prickly pear cactus, a couple of dwarf chestnuts, spotted bee balm, etc.

All of this is 5 yr old regeneration. I am really not sure what to do with this area. Any advice on burning?

Thanks in advance.

Southwest facing slope like that probably would have burned infrequently, although more often than the types of woods we've been talking about.

South slopes are always more fire prone than north slopes because of the amount of sunlight they receive.

As far as when and how to burn it, I'd be doing a disservice if I tried to tell you. I'm a flatlander in South Louisiana--we don't deal with alot of slope when burning down here...

There should be a biologist in your area that's familiar with that sort of habitat and burning it.

I'd also recommend the Native Habitat Managers Group on Facebook. With the right information, one of those guys should be able to point you in the right direction.