I met with Dr Scott Stephens from the University of California, Berkeley to look at the ‘Hopland Heath Experiment’. Hopland is a tiny village in the northern third of California, about 2 hours NW of San Francisco named for its history of growing hops. Nowadays Hopland is known for its wine, and for the University of California, Berkeley's Research & Extension Center, where the experiment was undertaken.
This study done in Chaparral* fuels aimed to look at the opportunities for expanding prescribed fire outside the traditional season of spring, to see if the heath was adversely affected by changing the time of year burning was undertaken. An experimental plot was also masticated (complete mechanical vegetation removal) to measure and compare the effects on biodiversity.
*In California heathlands are also known as Chaparral.
Scott and co-author Jennifer Potts found that burning (once) during seasons other than the traditional spring season had no appreciable detriment to the assemblage of plant species extant in the plots. In fact they found that a significant number of species regenerated after one fire treatment. Interestingly they found that mastication immediately promoted the growth of weeds. Scott reported the cost of mastication worked out at about $1000 per hectare, so it was a very expensive option as a broadscale treatment. Further work is required to determine how native and non-native plant species fare after repeated fire treatments.
For more information read the paper:
Invasive and native plant responses to shrubland fuel reduction: comparing prescribed fire, mastication, and treatment season
Jennifer B. Potts, Scott L. Stephens * Division of Ecosystem Science, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3114, USA
Thanks Dr Scott!
(sorry about the wind noise - hence the sub-titles)
