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  • From: Mark <mpludwig@facstaff.wisc.edu>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Prairies and Forests
  • Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 13:04:25 -0500

At 09:06 AM 7/8/02 -0500, you wrote:
Hi Mark,

I see you're from Madison, Wisconsin the home of the oldest prairie
restoration program in the U.S.A. initially run by Aldo Leopold himself. It
just so happens that my friend who got me going on all of this just returned
from a two week long educators course on prairie restoration. She had
nothing good to say about woodlands upon her return to Texas and everything
to say about prescribed burning and "prairies."

Recall, that Leopold lived to regret his wolf eradication efforts in New
Mexico. I believe that he might have similar regrets if he saw the chronic,
progressive use of fire as a management tool for maintaining prairies.

I doubt it. Compared to the amount of CO2 from fossil fuels the controlled burns we do these days are insignificant. On top of that we sequester carbon deep in the root zone. if you add a grazing component the effect is even grater.

> I tend to side with the prairie promoters, as much as anything because so
much of it was wiped out by plow happy settlers.

I'm all in favor of prairie restoration as long as it doesn't include
clearing trees and prescribed burning. If it does include burning and
clearing then there neads to be an equal amount of land reforested and set
on a path of high succession. I believe that there are enough dunuded lands
in North America to restore so that clearing sites is totally unnecessary.I

Plenty of trees being planted in the midwest, more than we have going into prairie.


Furthermore, there may have been wildfires once upon a time, the frequency
of which I believe to still be disputed, but fire is too dangerous and
destructive of a tool to RELY on for prairie maintenance.

Total bunk. Fire is easy to manage if you know what you're doing, plus there are plenty of roads, pastures and crop fields to stop most fires.

I feel its time
to steer the fire loving plant communities back into their original niches
and aim for a less fire adapted plant community. The main tools missing in
most resoration projects are the bison.

Cattle are much easier to manage and have a nearly identical function if they are managed properly. Bison are far more likely to get you killed or injured than a grass fire will.

One could also argue that just as much forest has been degraded as prairie.
Another thing to consider is that prairies at least in Texas are an infusion
of woodlands and grasslands. Around Elgin, Texas where we live the ratio of
trees to grass is 50:50. Yet the prairie restorers don't seem to want to
include trees in the equation. In other words they can't see the prairie
because of the grasses in the way. Our prairie in Texas is different than
that of the Central US, because it is an ecotone or edge between the Great
Eastern Forest and the Great Plains / Grasslands of the Central U.S.A.

Same situation in WI. I'm really in what is referred to as a Savannah zone where fire adapted trees such as oak, hickory and hazel are found inter spaced with grasses.

>> You might try the following web sites www.grassland.unl.edu/ Nebraska
state grassland institute. <<

Thanks for the lead. I'll check it out.

>> The other nice thing about prairie restoration IMO is the relatively
rapid establishment of a good functioning ecosystem compared to forest
restoration and the relative ease of establishment if you know what you're
doing. <<

By a good functioning ecosystem are you referring to something that has to
be burned very seven years or so? If so I would contend that a fire adapted
plant community is probably not where we need to be headed in this day of
global warming and trends towards aridity. What happens when budgets and
enthusiasm wain and the required disturbace management regimes are
neglected?

Prairie is much more stable in a drought than forests are. Trees can't shed above ground bio-mass and go dormant nearly as effectively as grasslands. This is why forest peters out as the landscape gets more droughty. About half the burning that takes place in WI is done by private citizens who think it's fun. Our biggest problem is getting them to limit the size of burns to provide insect refuges. Want to stop global warming? Promote good grass land development with large grazers, give them ionophores to knock out rumen methane production (I'm only half serious here) and get people to stop burning oil.

Also, a prairie project that relies on fire for maintenance rather than the
bison cannot be anything close to authentic. The pairies and bison are
virtually one inseparable entity. Without the bison as a part of a prairie
ecosystem I personally have a hard time admitting that we're performing
prairie restoration at all. Rather, we are doing nothng but playing with
fire and promoting a fire loving plant community which, IMO, is a dangerous
trend. Why the emphasis on fire and not the bison? because fire is cheap
and easy and yields a nice short term response and bison carry the disease
brucelosis. So we've developed this whole management regime around
econmoics and the political will of the ranchers, which is an awfully
familiar and dangerous trend.

I agree the fear of brucellosis is absurd, but think that both fire and macro grazers are necessary for good restoration of prairie. Fire is preferred in may cases exactly for the reasons you site but I think you worry too much about it. It's neither dangerous or significant in as a co2 generator.

>> The root mass and insect life underground is pretty phenomenal, goes
down 5 meters, where as I understand it most of the action in forest systems
is in the leaf litter. <<

Ah, now we're talking. Where did you hear this information? Is there a
specific study you could direct me to? I'll be sure to check out the
sources you posted above for more info.

Try the Konza folks. the 5 meter root depth is well documented in the prairie restoration lit.

I've always heard that trees have just as much going on below ground as
above ground, that the root system has as much biomass as the trunk and
crown above ground. Now prairie restorationists are reducing the
underground role of trees to something almost insignificant and drawing this
comparison as justification for clearing woodlands in order to "restore"
fire loving plant communities.

I do not speak for this tree hating community you imagine. I don't think it really exists as some great and influential mass. I saw down box elders, buck thorns, red ceders etc in restorations and remnants because they are of limited value compared to the grasslands they invade. I protect Oaks and hickory in the same situations. This isn't black and white. One of my favorite spots in WI is a steep hill, the south side is dry prairie, the north is birch forest. Truly a site to behold on the crest. I just wish it was mine so I could burn the south side a bit before the brambles choke it out.

Not trying to piss you off here Kirby, you just need to get out on a burn some time and get comfortable with it.
Mark


Mark P. Ludwig
Poultry Research Lab
University of Wisconsin -Madison
608-262-1730 WK
608-846-7125 HM





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