Surrounded by a prairie tall grass known as big bluestem that has grown higher than he can reach, John Williams marvels at the transformation in the four months since a controlled burn torched the area.
“It was a completely black space, just black,” says the Hamilton Conservation Authority’s project manager for its 50-year vision to enhance the Dundas Valley, including by increasing habitat biodiversity.
“You could see the heat coming off the ground. It was very intense.”
The goal of the late-April burn was to rid the prairie, which covers much of a former gravel pit and OPP rifle range near Paddy Green Road in Ancaster, of invasive plants that threatened to overtake the native big and little bluestems and Indian grass.
For the most part it’s worked as hoped, although there are still three noteworthy patches of the main invasive of concern, the Japanese knotweed, despite efforts to cut them down. They’ve since been covered with tarps to effectively bake them to death.
“We’re trying a non-chemical method,” says Lesley McDonell, the authority’s terrestrial ecologist.
“I think we found it two years ago and it was a patch maybe the size of a dinner table,” she says. “It grows quite aggressively and can push out all the stuff we’ve been working on. It would kind of take over, over time.”
McDonell says the authority hopes to repeat the burn in each the next two springs to firmly reestablish the tall grasses that historically grew in the bowl-shaped prairie.
“They can’t just grow anywhere. They need specific habitat to grow in, like shallow soil, sandy, sometimes rocky,” she says, noting big bluestem bloom with tiny yellow flowers, making them good for pollinators.
“In a more established prairie, there would be a lot of flowering plants, wildflowers and such, which are great for bees and insects.”
This year’s burn took about six hours and was made possible by grants of $3,000 each from Tallgrass Ontario, a charity dedicated to restoring tallgrass prairies, TD Friends of the Environment, and the authority’s own Conservation Foundation.
The authority hired a private contractor and scared off any snakes and other creatures that may have been in the area beforehand.
“We didn’t find any mortality after the burn,” McDonell says. “It would be fairly obvious; it was wide open and black.”
Surrounded by a prairie tall grass known as big bluestem that has grown higher than he can reach, John Williams marvels at the transformation in the four months since a controlled burn torched the area.
“It was a completely black space, just black,” says the Hamilton Conservation Authority’s project manager for its 50-year vision to enhance the Dundas Valley, including by increasing habitat biodiversity.
“You could see the heat coming off the ground. It was very intense.”
The goal of the late-April burn was to rid the prairie, which covers much of a former gravel pit and OPP rifle range near Paddy Green Road in Ancaster, of invasive plants that threatened to overtake the native big and little bluestems and Indian grass.
For the most part it’s worked as hoped, although there are still three noteworthy patches of the main invasive of concern, the Japanese knotweed, despite efforts to cut them down. They’ve since been covered with tarps to effectively bake them to death.
“We’re trying a non-chemical method,” says Lesley McDonell, the authority’s terrestrial ecologist.
“I think we found it two years ago and it was a patch maybe the size of a dinner table,” she says. “It grows quite aggressively and can push out all the stuff we’ve been working on. It would kind of take over, over time.”
McDonell says the authority hopes to repeat the burn in each the next two springs to firmly reestablish the tall grasses that historically grew in the bowl-shaped prairie.
“They can’t just grow anywhere. They need specific habitat to grow in, like shallow soil, sandy, sometimes rocky,” she says, noting big bluestem bloom with tiny yellow flowers, making them good for pollinators.
“In a more established prairie, there would be a lot of flowering plants, wildflowers and such, which are great for bees and insects.”
This year’s burn took about six hours and was made possible by grants of $3,000 each from Tallgrass Ontario, a charity dedicated to restoring tallgrass prairies, TD Friends of the Environment, and the authority’s own Conservation Foundation.
The authority hired a private contractor and scared off any snakes and other creatures that may have been in the area beforehand.
“We didn’t find any mortality after the burn,” McDonell says. “It would be fairly obvious; it was wide open and black.”
Surrounded by a prairie tall grass known as big bluestem that has grown higher than he can reach, John Williams marvels at the transformation in the four months since a controlled burn torched the area.
“It was a completely black space, just black,” says the Hamilton Conservation Authority’s project manager for its 50-year vision to enhance the Dundas Valley, including by increasing habitat biodiversity.
“You could see the heat coming off the ground. It was very intense.”
The goal of the late-April burn was to rid the prairie, which covers much of a former gravel pit and OPP rifle range near Paddy Green Road in Ancaster, of invasive plants that threatened to overtake the native big and little bluestems and Indian grass.
For the most part it’s worked as hoped, although there are still three noteworthy patches of the main invasive of concern, the Japanese knotweed, despite efforts to cut them down. They’ve since been covered with tarps to effectively bake them to death.
“We’re trying a non-chemical method,” says Lesley McDonell, the authority’s terrestrial ecologist.
“I think we found it two years ago and it was a patch maybe the size of a dinner table,” she says. “It grows quite aggressively and can push out all the stuff we’ve been working on. It would kind of take over, over time.”
McDonell says the authority hopes to repeat the burn in each the next two springs to firmly reestablish the tall grasses that historically grew in the bowl-shaped prairie.
“They can’t just grow anywhere. They need specific habitat to grow in, like shallow soil, sandy, sometimes rocky,” she says, noting big bluestem bloom with tiny yellow flowers, making them good for pollinators.
“In a more established prairie, there would be a lot of flowering plants, wildflowers and such, which are great for bees and insects.”
This year’s burn took about six hours and was made possible by grants of $3,000 each from Tallgrass Ontario, a charity dedicated to restoring tallgrass prairies, TD Friends of the Environment, and the authority’s own Conservation Foundation.
The authority hired a private contractor and scared off any snakes and other creatures that may have been in the area beforehand.
“We didn’t find any mortality after the burn,” McDonell says. “It would be fairly obvious; it was wide open and black.”