Grassland prescribed fire enhances forage quality

Photo Credit

Forest Service photo by Jacqueline Ott

Nebraska National Forest personnel assist with research plot burns on Buffalo Gap National Grassland.  

Fall and spring prescribed fire in Eastern Wyoming and Western South Dakota, where sagebrush steppe meets northern mixed-grass prairie, has positive effects on forage quality. Forage benefits for grazers can last two growing seasons after fire in these grasslands and shrublands.

This research shows that although forage quality rarely drops below critical nutrition thresholds for ruminants regardless of burning, beneficial changes in forage quality after prescribed fire occur across ecosystem types, seasonality of dormant-season burns, and fuel characteristics. Managers can take advantage of the short-term nutritional benefits through adaptive management strategies that allow animals access to burned and unburned areas.

This project used over 152 small burns to examine forage quality in pure northern mixed-grass prairie and the ecotone of northern mixed-grass prairie and sagebrush steppe. Forage quality responses at ecosystem boundaries can be uncertain, but this work provides knowledge on forage quality responses critical to livestock production in the northern Great Plains.