I drove by a smoldering, charred grassland on the way home last week. A prairie burn.
It seems counterintuitive, but a prairie burn is a huge opportunity for renewal. Recently restored prairies have been burned out at Carver Park Reserve, where I teach at Lowry Nature Center. The sky last week was hazy as winds blew smoke from west to east. It made me cough, was slightly disconcerting, and pretty awesome. Last week was toasty warm (too toasty really) and this week has been cold and rainy, but small green shoots are coming up from the blackened prairies. Why do this? It burns up biomass from dead grass and forbs, cuts back on invasives like brome, release nutrients and triggers flowering forbs to use those nutrients to renew their growth. Basically, this season we should have a bumper crop of flowering plants thanks to the fire.
Cool huh? Well, hot really... So whenever the sun decides to pop up and warm up the earth, I'm looking forward to those new shoots rapidly turning into a flowering prairie with amazing habitat!
-Laurel
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