[APWG] Fire as part of the Tiny Test plots

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear Tony and All,

Thanks for your email.

Yes, I would encourage the testing of fire by itself in any Tiny Test
plots, so that you can quickly elimate that possibility for future
ecological restoration west of the 100th meridian, whenever you have
exotics within your ecosystem.

Fire with broadcast sowing immediate afterwards with local native seeds,
however, might work very nicely, but 99 out of 100 times, fires are
usually used by themselves without the seed-sowing aspect, and you can see
the lack of success of two fires at Russian Ridge at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/invent.html

The fires, without the immediate native seed sowing thereafter, actually
made the exotic weeds spread faster, in the second year after the fires.
The native grasses were not harmed much, but the native wildflowers and
native perennials suffered the most.

The problem with burning annuals amongst the native perennials, is that
the annuals may have much more burnable biomass, than the local natives
originally had.

Last autumn, I measured the burnable biomass per acre, for differen native
and exotic species in my area, and concluded that the normal burnable
biomass in our native grasslands induring our fire season, September and
October, is equal to a single sheet of newspaper spread across the land.

By contrast, the wild oats, which is one of our more common exotic
grasses, burnable biomass was equal to 500 gallons of gasoline per acre. 
You can see why you see such spectacular fire pics. from California,
there's a lot of kindling underneath those trees.

You can see the measurements of the burnable biomasses at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/flames.html

Regarding relic native grasslands on sandy, arid soils, they have been
hammered, so if there are any empty spaces, those spaces are like little
vacancy signs.

We are having the same problem with Saharan mustard (Brassica
tournefortii) in the cattle and sheep-created empty spaces in our
California and Mojave deserts, at http://www.ecoseeds.com/mustards.html

You can also see the Before and After pictures from arid grasslands of the
SW, from Dr. Robert Humphry's paired photos, 1890s to 1980s at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/desertgrass.html

That is why when we look at what looks like a pristine area, even if it is
fairly weed-free, might still be a ruin of the original 1492 ecosystem.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann