I've been wanting to burn my little 3 acre patch of Cave-In-Rock switchgrass this spring but wasnt able to until Wednesday night. This planting is 3 years old and was in pretty good shape but had a few weeds here and there that I hoped burning might supress. It was a little windier than I wanted but with the help of Buck10 and my dad we were able to do a nice slow back-burn. I bushogged a 15' perimeter of switch ahead of time and that really helped to control the fire as there were some red cedars nearby that I didnt want to kill. The mowed grass slowed the fire alot, however we noticed that once that mulch started to burn it was difficult to put out as it tended to burn underneath and the water couldnt reach it. I recommend bushogging the fireline, just dont let too much of it catch fire or you'll have a hell of a time putting it out.
A couple ATV sprayers and my new backpack sprayer worked just fine to stop it where we wanted. I also used a 3M Organic Vapor mask and that totally cut out the smoke when I needed to get in and spray, I couldnt even smell the smoke. I highly recommend that and I didnt have any of the "sore lung syndrome" the next day. Bucky didnt have a mask and he was hurting! Now I just need to figure out a system for protecting my eyes from the smoke and I'll be good to go, I have been considering swim goggles for a cheap solution. We also found that 2-way radios were handy when we needed to yell for help.
The next day I checked the area (mostly for sheds) and was pretty impressed by the erosion control that the CIR provided. I have considerable erosion in the cornfield just uphill from the CIR but in the planting you could still see the slight rows of dirt created by the drill 3 years ago. There was virtually no erosion at all since the planting.
Anyway, folks have been burning around here for quite a while and I felt like it was getting a little late for this. I know that switchgrass wont begin sprouting for awhile yet but the cool season grass (brome I assume) that lines the creek which divides this planting had greened up quite a bit in the last 2 weeks. The fire burned right through the brome and no doubt killed the new growth. I am hoping that it will come back OK. Any experience with that?
A couple ATV sprayers and my new backpack sprayer worked just fine to stop it where we wanted. I also used a 3M Organic Vapor mask and that totally cut out the smoke when I needed to get in and spray, I couldnt even smell the smoke. I highly recommend that and I didnt have any of the "sore lung syndrome" the next day. Bucky didnt have a mask and he was hurting! Now I just need to figure out a system for protecting my eyes from the smoke and I'll be good to go, I have been considering swim goggles for a cheap solution. We also found that 2-way radios were handy when we needed to yell for help.
The next day I checked the area (mostly for sheds) and was pretty impressed by the erosion control that the CIR provided. I have considerable erosion in the cornfield just uphill from the CIR but in the planting you could still see the slight rows of dirt created by the drill 3 years ago. There was virtually no erosion at all since the planting.
Anyway, folks have been burning around here for quite a while and I felt like it was getting a little late for this. I know that switchgrass wont begin sprouting for awhile yet but the cool season grass (brome I assume) that lines the creek which divides this planting had greened up quite a bit in the last 2 weeks. The fire burned right through the brome and no doubt killed the new growth. I am hoping that it will come back OK. Any experience with that?
