Prescribed burn in Cambridge goes ahead without a hitch
Rare Charitable Research Reserve did so to control tallgrass prairie ecosystem, invasive plants on Blair Road
CAMBRIDGE — Jenna Quinn remembers seeing the tallgrass prairie ecosystem at rare’s property on Blair Road after its first prescribed burn in 2015. The field looked black, brown and dead. She describes it as a moonscape.
Then, like a miracle only a few weeks later, the plants were growing again.
“It’s shocking how quickly it rebounds,” says Quinn, a program scientist with rare Charitable Research Reserve.
This week, smoke rose again at the tallgrass prairie site in the Blair Flats in Cambridge for the ecosystem’s second prescribed burn.
The burn was conducted by Lands and Forest Consulting in collaboration with Andrew MacDougall of the University of Guelph, and rare Charitable Research Reserve, says Tamanna Kohi, a spokesperson for rare.
The area that was burned was approximately 18.5 hectares and ignition happened shortly after 1 p.m. The team at rare has been preparing for the event for over six months, says Quinn. In the fall, burn breaks 1.5 meters wide were established. These are fire breaks where mineral soil is exposed and vegetation removed to stop the fire from advancing.
Then, as spring got underway, temperature and humidity readings were taken every day, says Quinn. The team needed to wait for specific conditions to ensure it was safe to burn.
This included moisture, direction and speed of wind, temperature and weather forecast.
Rare’s communications team co-ordinated with the fire department ahead of time, says Quinn.
Burning is a traditional way to manage a tallgrass prairie ecosystem, and necessary to get rid of invasive plants.
Species that are characteristic of tallgrass prairie ecosystems have deep, long root systems. The native plants that do belong have root systems that can be upwards of 25 centimetres deep, says Quinn.
A prescribed burn gets rid of everything that is not adapted to survive the burn and allows sunlight and water to get down to the soil, she says.
The tallgrass prairie ecosystem was planted in 2010 as part of the research conducted by Andrew MacDougall, a biologist with the University of Guelph.
The first noticeable change was in the insect community. Butterfly species at the site doubled within two to three years, says Quinn.
Quinn says a future goal for this ecosystem is to transition it from tallgrass prairie to oak savannah, which means planting oak trees with the tallgrass prairie. Tallgrass prairie is one of the rarest native ecosystems in North America. Only one per cent of original tallgrass remains across Canada, says Quinn.