Burning Down the Pasture

A large portion of our farmland is native prairie. In April, the local volunteer fire department agreed to do a controlled burn for us. Controlled burns every 4 years are a key part of prairie restoration. The fire burns out non-native plants, freeing up room and nutrients for prairie plants. The prairie plants have deep roots, so they can survive fires.

Starting the fire in the eastern prairie

Fire in the eastern prairie

monitoring the fire

While the FD was here, I also asked them to burn my pasture area. The grass was horribly overgrown from over 20 years of disuse. Fire is one of the easiest ways to rejuvenate a fallow pasture. It eliminates the need to mow it all down, and returns vital nutrients to the soil that would take many years to return otherwise due to the slow decay of the plants.

Ensuring the pines don't go up in flames with the grass

Fire snaking through the pasture

 The amazing thing is how fast it grows back. These photos were taken just 2 weeks after the burn:

Pasture area, 2 weeks after controlled burn

Grow, grass, grow!

And this is the pasture last week, roughly 2 months after the burn. You can't tell from the photo, but the grasses are once again taller than me. So I'll need to find someone to brush hog the area anyway, or I will lose my poor sheep in there. Not to mention that the taller the grass, the less palatable it tends to be.

Pasture, about 2 months after controlled burn

Another way to really tell the difference that fire makes is to compare the burned field to the other prairie we didn't burn this year. See how there's still lots of brown grass? The tender young shoots have a harder time pushing up through the mat. The photo below also shows the difference between the prairie and a former cattle pasture. The cattle pasture is the lusher land to the left.

Slower growth of the prairie that wasn't burned this year.

It feels a little nerdy to be focusing so much on my grass. And I still have SO MUCH to learn. (Like telling the difference between most of the grasses!) But there's a reason many ruminant farmers refer to themselves as grass farmers--that grass is the largest input on your farm. Your animals are turning the sun's energy into food, fiber, or milk, all through that grass.

My grasses aren't necessarily the most optimum. Though species diverse, there's a little too much browse, a little too much canary grass. But putting animals back on the pasture is the first step in improving them. It will be interesting to watch the pastures change over the next several years!