In the absence of burning, grazing, or other active management, native prairie can quickly deteriorate. Historically, bison grazed the prairie, wildfires occurred, and Native Americans set the grasslands on fire for a variety of reasons. They learned early on, for example, that burned over grasslands attracted bison because the regrowth was more accessible, palatable, and nutritious. Today, prescribed burning has become a widely accepted management tool for natural resource managers.
A variety of objectives may be accomplished with the implementation of prescribed burning. That would include reducing mulch and the risk of wildfire, improving grazing distribution, setting back the encroachment of woody species, suppressing invasive introduced cool-season grasses, and improving wildlife habitat, to name a few.
A prescription is constructed to achieve the objective of burning a particular tract of land and set of conditions under which the burn will be conducted to help ensure the objective is met. It outlines a specific range of conditions in which the burn can be conducted, including temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, as well as whether to burn into the wind, with the wind, necessary equipment, crew size, etc. On a given day the burn would be postponed if the conditions of the prescription were not met.
Kentucky bluegrass and smooth brome are both introduced cool-season grasses that are invading native grasslands, often resulting in a precipitous decline of the native plants and reduced biodiversity. Prescribed burning is an effective tool in helping control these invasive grasses.
Prescribed burning is also being used to help control the encroachment of woody species onto the prairie. Cedar for example is becoming quite invasive on some Great Plains grasslands, including North Dakota, particularly in the western part of the state. One well executed prescribed burn can be quite effective in reducing cedar invasion.
So, if you see some burning of native prairie around the state, it is perhaps the prescribed burning efforts of natural resource managers trying to reduce the invasion of exotic cool-season grasses, juniper, or meet some other managerial objective to help keep North Dakota’s grasslands healthy and productive.
