Burning in fall leaves a little more stubble, which I think is probably more beneficial to overwintering invertebrates.

I don't think winter or early spring burning would be a reason for loss of prairie dropseed, unless maybe it had formed very tall tussocks and was swimming in thatch. In my experience it does better the more often fire is, so long as it is before it begins to emerge.

accreditations, insurance, multiple tiers of regulations and permitting (consider prescribed burning), etc. It's come to the point where in order to do any work on the ground, much more work is required for compliance. So I bristle at certifications for more and more and more all the time.

(PDF) Open letter: The need for a site‐based biodiversity standard measuring and certifying impacts from nature‐based projects PDF | Despite growing investment in restoration, weak accountability and poor biodiversity monitoring mean many projects fail to achieve ecological... | Find, read and cite all the research you need o...

Accountability for biodiversity outcomes in conservation is very important, and I agree with much of this wholeheartedly, but much of effective site-based conservation is grassroots and already overburdened by the need for administration for grants... www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Meh, a lot of that nitrate ends up poisoning our water so we can produce a gas additive and feed miserable, concentrated livestock to sustain our overconsumption of meat and dairy.

and this is why burning true prairie this late is a bad idea.

Susan Collans...is 6'6"?

The problem I have is that my trees don't respond to weather in the same way, so sometimes they bloom concurrently, and I get fruit, sometimes not.

They are pretty resistant to cold before the flowers open. I've had pawpaws the last two years, and I know I had lows in the 20-25F range when they were at that stage.

Jefferson County...blue. Walworth County...almost. Southwest WI driftless counties...solidly, easily, blue.

Will the conservative margin in Waukesha County be less than 10%?! When we moved here it was a 70-30 place. Slowly, surely. Ozaukee seems to have flipped. WOW are just now Ww. Frankly, I look at my neighbors, my community, and I'm amazed, but I'll take it!

The riffles in the sea floor sediment in the suspected AI video are another reason to suspect AI

Boo. We get 1-2 orders of magnitude more engergy per acre with solar, without poisoning people and land.

Don't know where you are, but some turtle nests overwinter and hatchlings emerge in early spring (painted turtles, northern map turtles, snapping turtles).

Instead we get a literal moonshot.

Many of the grasses and sedges that do this, still have dense root systems near the surface (but less so in some)...much more variation in strategy among forbs.

Indeed, but there is another layer to this onion, because there is just as much phenological avoidance of drought--grasses (like Junegrass, porcupine grass and other needlegrasses), sedges, and forbs that simply avoid the worst of drought by growing when their is residual spring/winter moisture.

View along the fire line of a prairie burn. The burn boss and an observer look on from a cultivated field with a UTV pump unit in the background. In the front foreground are flames, further back is smoke and blackened ground. All under a sunny blue sky.

Flames dance around the bases of bare bur oak trees.

Full day. The Glacial Prairie Chapter of The #Prairie Enthusiasts got in its last planned burn just under the wire of the impending growing season and just in time for me to meet up with my family at the tail end of #NoKIngs in Waukesha.

I'm forced to be hyper aware of it, because I'm trying to get prescribed burns done before these sorts of fire headlines tart popping up.

It's March in the Midwest. Late winter into early spring, before vegetation greens up and when there isn't snow on the ground is a normal time for fire headlines, probably more normal than any other time of year. Dead vegetation, low humidity, and wind often coincide in March and early April.

A flower I've never seen. Surely eliminated from many prairies due to thatch or mid-spring burning. Never recorded in WI, but worth looking for in the SW part of the State. bonap.net/MapGallery/C...

Bribes. They aren't donations. They are bribes.

That's laziness, and it's professional misconduct, whether expressly prohibited or not.

This is a compelling argument. There is also the argument that the corn industry is poisoning our water and air in the Midwest. Good arguements for dumping Amy Klobuchar.

Probably, but it's quite a few. It will parasatize big bluestem and Indiangrass to the point of almost killing them. It will use other grasses, sedges (certainly Pennsylvania sedge), goldenrods, trees, shrubs...most species with fine roots near the surface.

Pale pink, six-petaled flowers of round-lobed hepatica flowering above last year's leaves, which have overwintered, moss, and dried blades of sedge from last year.

crimson shoots of wood betony emerging about an inch above the soil, looking like little ruffled ridicchios.

Round-lobed hepatica opened up at my place, where it has spread over a little convex area the oak litter blows off of (so it doesn't smother and often doesn't burn when I burn off the leaf litter). Wood betony is emerging, particularly in areas burned in the fall where the soil is a wee bit warmer.

It's there because of the mowing. That's the only thing preventing taller vegetation from overwhelming it.

A ring of sprengel's sedge, with a few inges last year's dead foliage present, but it's distal tips have burned off along with oak leaf litter. The bases of the leaf blades remained green after the burn and overwinter, and new green shoots have just begun to grow. Fire did not reach the center of this clump, where some twigs and other debris remain.

This area was burned in late February, and the burn was much more complete, consuming sedge shoots down to ground level. The black is a little deceptive, because it will wash away and some debris remaining because it was moist and possibly frozen when this was burned.

The view in the first image was burned late last October. The view in the second image was burned in February. Both areas get burned every dormant season. Now think like an overwintering #invertebrate. The clumps are Sprengel's sedge. This is a reconstructed #oak #woodland / #savanna setting. #Fire

...worst fires in colonial history. This landscape was frequently subject to very large, landscape-scale fires lit by indegenous people for many reasons, and it was in that context that short and mixed-grass prairie ecosystems in that region developed during the Holocene.

Jury Finds Afroman Songs Mocking Ohio Cops Too Hilarious to Be Illegal Here is what happens when cops cross a professional entertainer with plenty of time, a sizable social media following, a sense of humor, and a smooth baritone

Good news is good news. ballsandstrikes.substack.com/p/jury-finds...