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Last week this column addressed some management considerations for landowners that have open fields that are neither hayed nor grazed and the owners wish to manage them for the benefit of wildlife but still keep them open.
My personal bias favors open meadows be available to support grazing livestock and a significant wildlife benefit is still achieved even when these “wildlife meadows” are grazed in the late summer or early fall after the summer nesting season. The reality is that we have many open meadows that no longer have the fence or water infrastructure to support grazing and some landowners choose to forego use-value taxation by not making the land available for a farmer to use.
Many people with wildlife meadows do not want to use herbicides to control woody invasives which, if not mowed, would require regular hikes around the field with a backpack sprayer spot treating Autumn Olive, Ailanthus and other invasives. That leaves annual mowing and our Virginia Tech Extension wildlife specialist Dr. Jim Parkhurst says late winter or early spring is the best time to mow.
Dr. Parkhurst adds that in the best of all worlds, he likes the spring prescribed burns as the method of choice to ensure vigorous growth, nutritious output, and better overall cover and diversity. Dr. Parkhurst adds that mowing typically serves as a surrogate for fire, but there are repercussions with using just mowing. Unlike mowing, a prescribed fire returns nutrient to the site by converting the duff layer into ash, which then helps enrich that fast growth. Repeated mowing tends to accumulate that organic material in a layer on the surface of the ground, which decomposes slowly and, if done repeatedly, will smother any new growth trying to emerge. As normal rule of thumb, Dr. Parkhurst encourages landowners to try to burn a field or food plot every three to five years in between mowing as a way to reduce that organic blanket that bush hogging will create and to return bound-up nutrients to the soil.
Often the biomass present has sufficient moisture content that it is very difficult to get a complete burn. Unlike the native warm season grasses more common in the Great Plains, the fescues and other cool season grasses retain a great deal of their moisture and consequently do not catch fire very easily. A compromise might be found by employing a sidedelivery hay rake pulled by a tractor after mowing the field in late winter. Even when using a rotary mower, which tends to chop the standing biomass, a side-delivery rake will pick up most of the cut biomass and allow enough air to blow through the windrow so as to dry out the fuel. Prescribed burning of the windrows accumulated by the rake gives a more complete burn than might be realized from attempting to burn the standing biomass and can be easier to control.
Safe prescribed burning requires careful planning and coordination with local fire and natural resource authorities. Consult with your local fire department, Virginia Department of Forestry, and Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources officials before attempting a prescribed burn.
