Don't be surprised or alarmed if you notice a black plume of smoke rising over Picnic Point early next spring. Instead, walk up the hill to the open grassland just east of the Eagle Heights Community Gardens and watch—from a safe distance! What you will see is a burn crew setting fire to the Biocore Prairie.
Why fire?
One word…weeds!
Fire is a natural element of a healthy prairie ecosystem and an essential tool for restoration and management of prairies. For the last eight years, Biocore students, staff, faculty and volunteers have been converting the old agricultural fields at the base of Picnic Point to tall grass prairie, using prescribed burns as one management strategy to help control weeds, remove encroaching woody plants, and encourage prairie plant growth. We burned the area in 2004 and 2005 to attack the many annual and perennial weeds.
Seth McGee (Lab Manager) and Nate Chin (Biocore student)
burn the Biocore Prairie in spring 2004. (J Batzli)
As plants grow and die, above-ground biomass accumulates and supplies fuel for burning. Fire in early spring provides a pulse of nutrients and exposes dark soil to direct sunlight. These conditions are optimal for growth of prairie plants that are particularly well adapted to fire, with deep, extensive, long-lived root systems and underground growing points. Most annual weeds and grasses can be controlled with prescribed burning. However, fire must be carefully applied and managed in restorations since the conditions following a burn may also favor weeds if seeds survive within the soil, disperse from adjacent areas, or if the site supports perennial weeds such as Canada thistle that can resprout following fire. Fortunately, fire is not our only restoration tool.
More than fire…..
Since 1997, the Biocore Prairie team has been preparing soil, hand-pulling weeds, sowing prairie seed, transplanting and watering prairie seedlings, cutting brush, and mowing fields and fire breaks. Happily, we can report that our hard work is paying off with the establishment of 37 native prairie species, declining weed growth in some areas, and a significantly higher bird species diversity in Biocore Prairie compared to an adjacent grassland control .
The goal of the Biocore Prairie project is to provide ecological education opportunities for undergraduate students as well as public outreach and enjoyment. The Biocore Prairie is a central field site for two Biocore lab courses, for summer independent research projects, service learning, and collaborative research and teaching efforts with many other UW programs and departments including the Biocore Prairie Bird Observatory coordinated by Mara McDona ld. We are always interested in new partners!
Highlights
In summer 2004, a civil engineering class taught by Dan Rodman (CEE450) did a detailed survey of the Biocore Prairie resulting in a permanent, 20x20 meter grid overlay map of the entire prairie that is geo-referenced to the Dane County coordinate system (accurate to 5 cm!) . This work establishes a valuable base map from which students can accurately locate study plots and analyze their data spatially utilizing GIS (Geographic Information System) software.
Each year since 2001 we have welcomed three to seven summer students doing independent research projects in the Biocore Prairie. All areas of the site have provided venues for projects carried out by Biocore students and/or high school students. These students receive directed study credits (and in some cases small grants) to do their research on topics as diverse as seed predation, the impact of sawdust addition to soil on prairie plant competition and soil invertebrates, distribution and abundance of mycorrhizae fungi, simulated grazing, and bird and insect diversity in different patches of prairie.
Biocore Prairie currently has two of seven acres planted in prairie. This fall we plan to plant the remaining five acres that are now under soybeans. To find out more about Biocore and this project please visit http://www.biocore.wisc.edu/biocore or contact Janet Batzli and Seth McGee.
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