Research

Sparking a new trend
Researchers discover the benefits of a new rangeland management technique
By Leslie N. Smith, Sand Springs, Okla.

Before western settlement and the bison's population decline, these massive animals roamed the tallgrass prairie and grazed its nutritious grasses and forbs. To the average person, their movements may have seemed random, even pointless. But to experts, their roaming patterns have become a source of information that can benefit cattle ranchers and conservationists alike.

Performing research
Sam Fuhlendorf, professor and researcher for Oklahoma State University's natural resource ecology and management department, worked with researchers at Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to confirm theories he developed about bison's roaming habits.
           
"Historically, bison grazing patterns followed fire," Fuhlendorf said. "Fires were started by lightning or natives, and the unburned areas were not grazed much and accumulated fuel to burn later."
           
Knowing this, Fuhlendorf said he wondered whether the cattle would follow the same pattern as bison if he burned small areas of land. He wanted to know if the cattle would benefit from it and how native grassland species would be affected. To come to a conclusion, Fuhlendorf designed a study involving patch burning.
           
"We took two sections of land and used different management techniques for each," Fuhlendorf said. "In the first section, we divided it into six subsections, burning one subsection in the spring and one in the fall. The other section was completely burned once."
           
At the end of three years, each of the subsections in section one had been burned, leaving six patches in different stages of re-growth, Fuhlendorf said. All of section two was at the same stage of regrowth.
           
To test the effects the patch-burning system had on cattle production, researchers stocked sections one and two with the same number of cattle and let them graze at their will, Fuhlendorf said. The cattle were tracked to determine where they grazed in the sections, and weight and growth statistics were collected.
           
"We completed the same study in three areas around Oklahoma," Fuhlendorf said. "One study was done at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, one at Stillwater's research station and the other at the Marvin Klemme Research Station."

Saving time and money
Some advantages were immediately obvious. When researchers burned all of section two, they incurred monetary and time costs associated with relocating the cattle, Fuhlendorf said. With patch burning, the cattle did not have to be moved from the section.
           
As researchers collected statistics and results, more benefits of patch burning were revealed.
           
"Forage quality on recently burned patches is much greater than forage that has grown," Fuhlendorf said. "So, there is less need for supplemental feed.
           
"Animals graze everything in burned areas, even weeds they don't otherwise eat, because they are more palatable, more nutritious and have fewer tannins when they are in the early stages of regrowth."
           
Producers are able to maintain the same livestock production in both sections, but they feed less with the frequent burn scenario, Fuhlendorf said.
           
"Another benefit to cattle production is risk management," said Bob Hamilton, director of science and stewardship at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
           
Patch burning provides a reserve patch and diversified forage options, Hamilton said.
           
"By having pasture in a multi-year rotation, you have higher fuel levels and thus better control of invasive species," Hamilton said.
           
One of the invasive species that affects forage quality, sericea lespedeza, is taking hold in much of eastern Oklahoma, Fuhlendorf said. With patch burning, these weeds do not increase.
           
"Sericea lespedeza seed lasts a long time in the soil, and one herbicide treatment won't work," Hamilton said. "With patch-burn grazing, we turn a weed into a forage species, and the cattle eat away your problem."
           
Oklahoma faces ecological catastrophes with the encroachment of Eastern redcedar, said Dwayne Elmore, assistant professor and wildlife extension specialist at OSU. Burning in the summer will provide for a hotter fire that will burn wood, like cedar, but you can still get a hot burn in winter with the right conditions, he said.
           
"The elimination of herbicide use, redcedar and noxious weeds are very beneficial aspects of patch burning," Elmore said.

Helping native wildlife
Although ranchers can benefit from patch burning, they are not the only ones who may find patch burning helpful.
           
"People are interested in more than just livestock on their land," Fuhlendorf said. "You can manage land for wildlife with fire."
           
Native species from insects to small mammals respond well to patch burning, Fuhlendorf said. Patch burning makes a greater variety of habitat and helps increase species diversity in the prairie.
           
"Any wildlife species that evolved here did so with a fire and grazing interaction," Elmore said. "The good thing about patch burning is it's very dynamic.
           
"You can change the scale of the burn in terms of size, time of year and intensity to control for the species you want. For example, to maximize quail management, smaller burns of less than 50 acres are ideal."
           
While quail are birds commonly associated with the prairie, many other grassland birds benefit from patch burning, as well. One species that responds positively to patch burning is prairie chickens, Hamilton said.
           
"Prairie chickens are interesting in that during the spring and summer, just for a few months, they seek out very different patch types in a fairly short amount of time," Hamilton said. "In the spring, males look for very short vegetation where they can strut.
           
"Once hens breed, they seek patches with quite a bit of vegetation already on them so they can hide. Then, as soon as their eggs hatch, the hens try to take their babies to a patch with less dense vegetation because it is so difficult for the babies to get around."      
           
By having a diverse landscape, you have a much broader array of grassland birds because different ones require different vegetation, Hamilton said.

What you should know
While patch burning can be useful to ranchers and conservationists, researchers think there are some things both groups should know before implementing a new
management plan.
           
"The producers need to be comfortable with a forby, weedy initial response," Hamilton said. "People should know that patch burning takes a little more management, and they should be comfortable with having a messier looking landscape. Have trust in the plant community that it will respond and recover."
           
This leads to another benefit of patch burning. If you start and change your mind, you can burn the rest of your land with no loss on investment, Hamilton said.          "If I were a producer, I would want to know the bottom line, that is, weight gain and cost cuts," Elmore said. "Weight gains don't differ from traditional burns, patch burning costs substantially less, and it kills noxious weeds.
           
"It removes the need for interior fencing, which is a huge cost, and it greatly reduces handling time," Elmore said.
           
For those who used fire management before, trying patch burning will not be a big change, but for those who have not, it will be harder, Elmore said.
           
"We tell people to pick a section of land they are comfortable with and try patch burning for two to three years," Elmore said.
           
Then, if they are comfortable and it meets their objectives, he recommended they do it for the rest of their land.
           
"With the adoption curve, it takes a while for new information to take hold and be used," Elmore said. "Once people consider patch burning against the traditional alternatives, we believe they will decide to adopt this technique."

For additional information on patch burning, visit http://fireecology.okstate.edu or call Sam Fuhlendorf at 405-744-9646.

Stacy Dunkin, a NREM graduate student, starts a fire on an OSU research range during last August's patch-burning study. (Photo by Steve Winter)

Bison graze on a previously burned patch of land on Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. (Photo by Steve Winter)