A list of weeds and strategies

Posted on June 11, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Bill Kleiman

This is a list of most of the weeds we manage against at Nachusa Grasslands. I give brief descriptions of our management strategies. This blogsite has a search bar where you can quickly find other posts with various details. For instance, there are several posts on reed canary grass.

Here is a link to a short list of these weeds and others and my suggestions: https://www.nachusagrasslands.org/herbicide-use.html

Poison hemlock, Cicuta maculata. Above. These can be spaded but beware it is poisonous so don’t handle it, like picking it up to carry it somewhere. Cut the taproot with a sharp spade, push over with your boot. Leave it. You can mow hemlock which may set it back and at least buys you time. Or spray before bolting with a broadleaf such as Crossbow or Garlon 3A. This hemlock was flowering when it was sprayed with 2% Garlon 3A and it just twisted it and will not kill the plant.

Wild parsnip, Sativa pastinaca. Bernie is spading this one and perhaps plans to carry it somewhere. Beware the sap on your skin will give you a sun burn boil. I tend not to haul it. Like hemlock, I cut the tap root with a spade, then push it over with my boot. Sometimes I use the spade to cut the plant near the top with the hopes of not having the seed mature on the stalk. Or you can mow it and deal with it the next year.

You can spray parsnip before it bolts with broadleaf herbicides such as Crossbow or Garlon 3A.

Yellow sweet clover, Melilotus officianalis. Here I point to a low leaf stalk. Mowing or cutting very low sets back sweet clover, but you want to cut below the lowest leaf. In this case that looks to be a few inches. We sometimes use tri-blade weed brush cutters, and the new battery clearing saws are nice. We have had success with old fashioned scythes, and various mowers. They all work pretty well and can reduce infestations.

We often use a weed spade, “parsnip predator”, to loosen the soil next to the sweet clover, then lean on on the spade handle and with the other hand pull the root up. Saves you body strains.

We spray it at times with Transline in the early part of its growth cycle, and then switch to Garlon 3A after it has been blooming for a several days.

White sweet clover, Melilotus alba. Similar to yellow sweet clover you need to mow or cut it below the lowest leaves. If you wait until the plant is late in flower the lowest leaves will have fallen and you can mow higher. It is also more stout and harder to cut.

Birdsfoot trefoil, Lotus corniculatus. We spray Garlon 3A, or Transline, Milestone, or Crossbow. Late in the bloom time we mix 2% Garlon 3A with half percent Milestone. Our thinking is that the Garlon 3A browns it out quick to beat seed set, and the Milestone has a residual that will kill emerging BFT plants that are likely around the target plant.

Bouncing bet, Saponaria officinalis. Milestone seems to be working well at 0.7 ounces per gallon. Walters uses tricopyr and 24D. He uses amine or ester tricopyr depending on the situation. Use surfactant.

Crown vetch, Corilla varia. Milestone at 0.7 ounces per gallon. Transline works too. Like a lot of weeds, making two or more visits a year makes a big difference.

Butter and eggs, Linaria vulgaris. Imazapic seems to work, but these are tough to control as there are lots of small plants for every flower you see.

Day lily, Hemerocallis fulva. The photo shows the vegetative day lily in a right of way. They are tough to kill. Use 3% glyphosate with 2% Habitat on these monocots. Add surfactant.

King devil, Hieracium pratense. Garlon 3A, Element 3A, Crossbow, Milestone all work. Some feel these are not a problem but we find them hard to extinguish. The seeds blow about. We treat the flowering plant and look for seedlings nearby. We pluck the flowers and dispose in the kitchen garbage.

Reed canary grass, Phalaris arundinacea. Lots of opinions on this blogsite about RCG. I like clethodim at 1.5%, with water conditioner added first, and surfactant or MSO added after. Spray twice a year if you can muster that effort but we tend to spray once. Glyphosate with Polaris kills it fully but you want to spray very carefully.

Red clover, Trifolium pratense. Transline works well. Crossbow and Element 3A do fine too. Most do not call this invasive, but we find red clover can be very aggressive in our prairie restorations.

Leafy spurge, Euphorbia eschella. 1.5% Imazapic works well. It is recommended it be treated twice a season. This is a tough plant to kill.

Sericea lespedeza, Lespedeza cuneata. Saxton likes 2% Garlon 4 in water. Look carefully for young and old plants. Jeff Horn and others find Pastureguard herbicide (Triclopyr with Fluroxopyr)  to work very well.

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Annual Workshop Success – Shaw Nature Reserve

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

Mike Saxton – Executive Director – Friends of Nachusa Grasslands

Since its inception in 2003, the Grassland Restoration Network has focused on sharing lessons learned, connecting practitioners from across the region, and supporting a community of doers who believe in the promise of prairie.

The 2026 Grassland Restoration Network annual workshop hosted by Shaw Nature Reserve was a smashing success! The landscape was rich, the work was impressive, and the discussion was lively. We heard a stirring, impassioned keynote address from Doug Ladd and enjoyed a wide variety of tour experiences: dynamic glades, diverse plantings, creative approaches to enhancing old grass dominated restorations, amazing native plant gardens, important restoration science and an organized, well appointed shop space. The Tuesday night dinner/social was well attended and offered workshop participants the chance to network and engage. The bat mist netting and emergence counts were unique experiences for many.

Well done SNR team! Congratulations on all of the great work and thank you for all the time, energy, and care invested in the 2026 GRN workshop.

The Grassland Restoration Network workshop 2027 will be hosted by the Prairie Plains Resource Institute and TNC Nebraska. The Nebraska Sandhills, spanning over 12 million acres, form the largest remaining intact temperate grassland in the United States. Dates and details TBD.

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Testing shows confounding results. Late spring applications of clethodim on Reed Canary Grass.

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Bill Kleiman

This is a continuing update on an original post. At the end I post several links to related articles on controlling reed canary.

It is good to do simple monitoring or testing to see if a weed treatment you are using works. I will describe the simple way I tested a herbicide treatment. I retreated this patch and found it did brown it out, but then a year later the plants were still alive but weak looking. Read on.

On May 30, 2024 I sprayed eight distinct mature patches of reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) with clethodim herbicide. Each patch of reed canary was about six feet in diameter, the plants 3 to 4 foot tall, and in flower. So their big growth spurt was done for the season.

As I have read, it is recommended to apply clethodim when the plants have emerged several inches and are actively growing. I have tested this and it works pretty well. I was hoping for a longer application window by spraying more mature plants. Would that work?

The herbicide mix was 1.5% Intensity (clethodim), ammonium sulfate crystals (three cups added to a 50 gallon mix), and a half ounce per gallon of methylated seed oil.

In each of the eight patches I drove in a four foot tall fiberglass rod. The rod could withstand a fire and be noticeable a year later. The rods worked well.

I sprayed the patches so the milky herbicide mix was starting to drip off.

I recorded this information into Field Maps.

I made a calendar reminder for a year later to look at the results.

I looked about a year later on May 28 2025 and all eight patches looked very healthy. The clethodim did not control reed canary grass that was applied when the plants were mature. Hmm. Did I forget to add something to the mix? Is an end of May application too late. See Juli Mason’s post where she found late applications to reed canary were showing control.

One of the 8 patches treated a year previously with clethodim. They looked like this last year when I sprayed them. And they look fine a year later after clethodim. This suggests clethodim applied to mature reed canary grass in late spring did not work in this case.

I tried a second application. The next day, May 29, 2025, I did make a new clethodim mix and re-sprayed the same 8 patches of reed canary to see what happens. Below are two photos of those patches about six weeks later on July 19, 2025. They are clearly top killed. I was surprised. Top killed but are the roots dead? I will leave the fiberglass rods in them and check back in May of 2026 and report back.

July 19, 2025 shows top killed RCG sprayed six weeks before
July 19, 2025: Top killed reed canary grass treated with clethodom six weeks previously.

On May 10, 2026 I returned again to spray clethodim in this unit and I found half a dozen of my fiberglass rods still in clumps of live reed canary. All of those reed canary were there and alive, but diminished compared to those around them. The below photo shows two RCG clumps that I sprayed a year previous. These two happen to be pretty robust, but not as healthy looking as others nearby.

Overall, I like clethodim grass herbicide because it is not killing the forbs and sedges. I have seen areas that had a lot of RCG diminish and allow other plants to take over. In this particular case maybe I should have carefully applied glyphosate from a backpack. This is a new planting into a retired corn/soy field and the pattern is that you will see clumps of plants that are doing very well in a small patch. After six years of this new planting you might see a three foot circle of pussytoes, Antennaria plantanginifolia. The soil is pretty empty of competing plants and the pussytoes builds momemtum. I imagine a few decades later the pussytoes will be spread out through the planting. Likewise this reed canary grass established in the new planting and it has not spread very far via its rhizomatous roots. Hence glyphosate carefully applied by a backpack might be the best control in this case.

But let’s say the reed canary is covering an acre and there are some sedges growing in among the grass. A broad spray pattern aiming at the grass has yielded in the past a conversion so that the sedges dominate the ground. I can think of one area where the sedges still dominate there after a decade. I know of another area that floods a lot where the reed canary came back within several years of our ceasing grass spraying.

So the usual response to ecological questions, “It depends”.

May 10, 2026. White rod in RCG sprayed a year previous in May.

I encourage managers to test out their treatments. It was not hard. It was also not rigorous enough to publish a scientific paper or get a degree.

This GRN site has some great reed canary posts.

Clethodim Treatment Tracking – Reed Canary Grass
Herbicide Treatments to Reed Canary Grass – Clethodim vs. Glyphosate – Follow-Up Observations
Herbicide Treatments to Reed Canary Grass, Clethodim vs. Glyphosate

Control of reed canary grass
Invasive Reed canary grass control
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Post-Burn Basal Bark Treatments: A Game Changer for Invasive Shrub Control

Posted on May 14, 2026 by jmasonfpdwc

By: Julianne Mason, Forest Preserve District of Will County

Over the past decade, we’ve consistently found basal bark herbicide treatment to be the most efficient and effective way to control invasive shrubs. In fact, we now use basal bark treatments almost exclusively across thousands of acres of prairies, wetlands, and woodlands in northeastern Illinois, in place of traditional cut stump methods.

For anyone unfamiliar with the technique, basal bark treatment is an herbicide-only application. We typically use a 15% solution of Garlon 4 (or a comparable triclopyr ester product) mixed in a commercially formulated bark oil. The herbicide is sprayed onto the lower 3–12 inches of the stem, depending on shrub size. Smaller stems only need a narrow 3-inch band, while larger shrubs require a wider treated area. We apply the mixture with backpack sprayers set to low pressure and large droplet sizes to minimize overspray. It’s important to make a 360 degree application around the entire circumference of the stem.  It’s important to use an official bark oil (not diesel or other weird oils). 

Crew member doing a basal bark herbicide treatment to invasive shrubs (buckthorn) in a prairie.
Reddish oily sheen on the bottom 3″ of the shrub stem is the basal bark herbicide treatment. That’s it.

When done properly, basal bark treatment has proven effective for us year-round, as long as there is no snow cover (winter consideration) and as long as temperatures are below about 85°F to reduce the risk of herbicide volatilization and vapor drift (summer consideration).

Over the years, we’ve had many discussions comparing basal bark and cut stump treatments. Cut stump methods certainly satisfy our human desire for instant gratification — there’s something emotionally satisfying about cutting down a shrub and seeing it gone immediately. But once we get past that emotional reaction, I think the evidence strongly favors basal bark treatments for many situations. They are often faster, less disruptive, and, in our experience, more consistently effective.

Last spring, we stumbled into an unexpected discovery because of a scheduling mistake. An ecological contractor was scheduled to conduct basal bark treatments in a prairie and wetland near Braidwood, IL. However, we forgot to tell them that we had just conducted a prescribed burn there the previous day.

Lighting a flanking fire during a prescribed burn. Invasive shrubs are present (red circles), but they are obscured in the prairie vegetation.
After prescribed burns in prairies, shrubs stand out like sore thumbs.

The crew arrived, saw that the entire site had been burned, and decided to proceed anyway. They essentially sprayed the bases of shrubs that had already been top-killed by the fire. When I heard what happened, I was upset that they had wasted time and herbicide treating dead stems that would no longer be able to absorb or translocate the herbicide.

I was completely wrong.

All of the invasive shrubs died following the treatment. Without herbicide, those shrubs would have vigorously resprouted after the fire. In our region, dormant-season fire alone generally does not kill established invasive shrubs. Yet even large, 3-inch diameter bush honeysuckles, autumn olive, callery pear and buckthorns were effectively controlled after the post-burn herbicide application.

Shrub was killed by basal bark herbicide treatment after a prescribed burn.
Shrub was missed during basal bark herbicide treatment after the burn. Note vigorous resprouting.

Just as importantly, the treatment proved remarkably efficient. The crew raved about how easy it was to move through the burned prairie. The blackened, top-killed shrubs stood out visually and were incredibly easy to locate and treat.

Encouraged by those results, our crew spent much of the past winter and spring experimenting further with post-burn basal bark applications of Garlon 4 in recently burned prairies. I’m excited to report that the original results were not a fluke.

We’ve successfully treated sites anywhere from a few days after burning to as much as three months post-burn in areas burned last fall. Treatments in recently burned prairies have been especially effective because the invasive shrubs stand out so clearly against the burned landscape. In woodlands, where native and invasive shrubs are more intermixed, it can be more difficult to quickly distinguish which blackened stems should be treated. But in prairies, especially where the shrubs are mostly invasive and visually distinct from native ones, post-burn treatments have been outstanding.

Woodies stand out visually during the spring green-up after a prescribed burn.

The combination of visibility, ease of movement, and effectiveness has made this one of the most promising invasive shrub control techniques we’ve used in years.  So easy, so effective, highly recommended!

p.s. We may have finally defeated common buckthorn on the ridges of several of our dolomite prairie preserves. For more than 30 years, we intermittently cut the invasive shrubs, treated stumps, sprayed resprouts, and repeatedly top-killed them with prescribed fire. After decades of effort, a single post-burn basal bark treatment appears to have accomplished what all those previous efforts did not.

p.s.s. It feels like we’ve stopped spinning our wheels, and can actually make progress addressing the scale of invasive shrub control that’s needed. It’s spring, and hope feels great!

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Nachusa Grasslands Prescribed Fire Summary Report April 2026

Posted on April 30, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Bill Kleiman

April 9 IL DNR Franklin Creek Natural Area, 21-acres. These very modest flames do some good if they can just keep going.

March 27: Yellow House Prairie burn 140– acres

The bottom line:

  • Number of burn days was 20, which is a limiting factor.
  • We burned 2,370-acres of Nachusa on 23 burn units
  • We assisted at 6 units for 278-acres.
  • Average size of a burn unit was 103-acres with a unit as small as 15-acres and big as 333.
  • Average crew size was 10.
  • These values are typical for us.

March 30: Kaleb Baker of INPC leads the fire safety briefing for a DNR fire at Franklin Creek State Natural Area.  At the briefing each crew receives a map and a crew roster which tells them which team they will be on & what equipment they will have.  The map and roster are printed and on the radio table when crew arrive, and they enjoy pondering the information gleamed from it.  The briefing lasts about 20 minutes.  Then each team gets together and figures out some last minute logistics, tests their equipment, then they leave to go inspect their fire line that they will control for the day.

What is better than one water tender?  Two tenders!  We find this extra army surplus water buffalo is nice to have when the burn unit is big.  Each team can have their own water tender in a place where it helps them refill an empty tank and return to the line quickly.  It also gives this new EV Ford truck which we don’t want scratched yet something to do.

April 7: East part of Main Unit.  Our fire scout in red, Joe Richardson, watches in the corner where we started ignitions.  The clockwise team is to the right, and the counterclockwise is off camera on left.

We like UTVs for their mobility.   I don’t like that a two stroke gasoline fuel can is there, especially behind the pump motor exhaust.  I removed it. You can find a GRN blog post I wrote about fire equipment here:  Rx fire pumper units and tenders | grassland restoration network

On the open prairie the pickup truck pumper is nice as it holds nearly 3 times the water the UTV carries.  Mark Herman was driver with Steve Lardner on the hose. 

Lessons learned:

  • Communicate.  Tell the chain of command what the issue is. If the radios are full of static, try that cell phone.  Line bosses need to communicate across to each other and up to the burn boss, without being chatty, vague, or cautious. 
  • Redundancy: We had a fire where a UTV went down with a flat tire. Hence we need enough boots and tires on the ground to fill in such gaps.

March 9: Hook Larson Unit, 114-acres.  Bison are typically very calm when we burn.  This bunch was in the burn unit.  We slowly moved them out of the unit and kept burning.  Bison seem to hover in grazed lawns where the fires hardly burn, and they will hang out in fresh black.   

March 25: Main Unit burn, 333-acres. A long line of smokey back burn.  If the backfire is burning don’t add to it by igniting a line further in, as this puts a bolus of smoke on the crew trying to observe the line and the extra ignition is more likely to send a spot fire.  Be patient and keep extending the ignition line.

March 23: Juanita’s burn unit. Ali Fakhari of the Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves joined us for a day.  When we burn with other crews everybody gains insights. 

March 28, Stone Barn Savanna burn, 300-acres.  Crew is gathered for the After Action Review to discuss lessons learned.  The UTV there is our fire scout vehicle, which carries snacks, drinking water, and torch fuel.  Four of these crew are staff, the rest are ‘civilians’.  Go team!

October 21: Big Jump West fire break preparation. The skid loader just mowed the fire break.  All that vegetation is now mulched.  Typically, we hay rake and then use a leaf blower powered by our tractor to move that mulch off the fire break.

November 11: Preparing fire breaks.  The tender truck towed the tractor to this unit and then that red leaf blower cleared about two miles of leaves and mowed vegetation from the fire break.

November 16, DNR fire at Mineral Marsh, 160-acres.  Russ Blogg was Burn Boss. About half of this crew are citizen volunteers who made this big burn possible.  Nachusa supports natural areas management in the region.  We care for our preserve, but we also turn outwards and support other preserves as they are important too.  Photo: R Blogg

April 14, FCNA: Spring green-up came early and this was our last fire.  The opening photo in this report is from this unit where oak litter burned slowly helping thin the brush.

December 19: Brush mowing opens brush filled habitats that the fires can then keep sunny.  Katie Jo Jackson was a regular operator of our brush mower.

January 23: Before brush mowing by Kaleb Baker at FCNA.

January 23: After brush mowing

November 6: Visitor Center Prairie burn, 31-acres.  Smoke blowing out of the east sending smoke away from the road.

Ecologists Tyler Pellegrini and Leah Kleiman

February 16: Big Jump East, 180-acres. The climate is such now-a-days, that in the last several years we can burn in February.   Paul Say is a food engineer by day and volunteer steward by weekend.   

Nachusa celebrated publishing 100 peer reviewed scientific papers this year.  Elizabeth Bach is our lead scientist.

To see the end of the report which has the map of what we burned, the list of fires, and list of fire crew you can find them here:

https://www.nachusagrasslands.org/uploads/5/8/4/6/58466593/nachusa_grasslands_annual_fire_report_2025_2026_opt.pdf

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Wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) control

Posted on April 16, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Don Osmond, volunteer steward

Wild parsnip is a monocarpic perennial, usually taking 2-3 years to flower.  I chose a 4 acre area in southwestern Wisconsin to evaluate my control efforts over time.  Habitats ranged from dry degraded prairie to mesic lowland planted with forage.  Spring burns occurred in 2021 & 2023.  All the work was performed by me, so the methods are consistent year to year.

Herbiciding was performed using a calibrated backpack sprayer with 0.5% Garlon 4 (1.1 quarts/acre of product) & 0.5% MSO.  This concentration was chosen based on an experiment consisting of a control plot & plots sprayed at 0.5, 1 and 1.5%, then monitored one year later.  All 3 plots had similar very low densities of parsnip one year after spraying, compared to the high density control plot.  It probably would be safer to settle on 1% concentration to account for variables, but I anecdotally had good results previously at 0.5%, so I stuck with that.  The minimum concentration for broadleaf weeds on the Garlon 4 label is 1 quart/acre.  Herbiciding was never done in the remnants.  Spring spraying started in the first 2 weeks of May, depending on how cool it had been.  Fall spraying started the second week of September (rosettes were in the process of emerging before then).  I limited fall application to known, higher density patches since tall vegetation makes area searches unproductive.

Wild parsnip with pink flagging was herbicide treated, with untreated plants behind. Photo by B Kleiman

For mechanical control, I use a sharpened Parsnip Predator shovel to sever the root a few inches below the soil.  I place the shovel at the parsnip base to center the shovel notch on the stem, move the shovel back 2”, hold it about 30 degrees off vertical & slice the root with even force (no stomping or prying).  If the plant doesn’t pull up easily, I move the shovel laterally & make another slice.  If the plant isn’t swollen at the top of the stem, I throw it on the ground.  If swollen, but flowers aren’t emerging, I throw it on the ground & cut the stem below the swelling with the shovel.  Before June 15, if the plant is blooming or close to it,  I throw it on the ground & cut the stem below the terminal flower & also below the lowest flower.  Cutting the stem reduces the possibility that stem carbohydrates will be used to reflower, although I have no proof that is possible on a stem without a root.  After June 15, I bag the cut plants & let them compost on site.  I deposit the bags away from roads & trails since animals may break the bags open, allowing seed spread.  My method is an attempt to keep the job manageable for one person.  A 2 person team is ideal for digging & bagging.  Keep in mind the plant is toxic to the skin, so long gauntlet waterproof gloves & a long sleeved shirt should be worn.  Peak bloom for the early plants in my area occurs in late June.  The first pass of mechanical control is in the first 2 weeks of June, with a second pass starting the 3rd week.  The latter is to find late blooming plants, which are small & not in bloom during the first pass & thus easily missed.  Many plants will have green seeds by July 9.  Mechanical control can continue until July 15 (when seeds start to drop), but I try to be done by July 1 so I can switch to white sweet clover control.  Despite trying to be meticulous, I always find a handful of plants each year that were missed & went to seed.  For example, I did a second pass on June 19 & found a small but surprising amount of blooming plants July 1 to July 19.  So a 3rd pass may be necessary.  I’ve even occasionally found blooming plants, some quite tall, in September.  If you only have limited time for one pass, shoot for July 4 in southern Wisconsin & stack the cut plants in as few piles as possible, away from roads & trails.  This is well before seed drop, yet late enough to catch the early as well as many of the later blooming plants.

Bernie Buchholz with a Parsnip Predator weed spade. These are for sale by The Prairie Enthusiasts. It is a modified spade with the blade cut down, and the handle turned 90 degrees. The pink tape helps you find it in the grass. Photo by B Kleiman

Here are the results:

Gallons of herbicide solution used

2020 (fall only): 9

2021: 30

2022: 9

2023: 9

2024: 6

2025: 2

Hours for mechanical control

2021: 19

2022: 12

2023: 6

2024: 7

2025: 8

Estimated plant density over this 4.5 year time period decreased from moderate-dense to light.  Notice that mechanical control hours plateaued after 2 years, probably because at that point most of the time was spent walking around looking for plants.

The results roughly correlate with the following:

1) Cain, Nancy, et al.  “The biology of Canadian weeds: Pastinaca sativa L.”  Canadian Journal of Plant Science volume 90 (2) page 217 (2010).  They report the seedbank is viable for 2 to 4 years.

2) A prairie expert plus the above reference indicate most parsnips produce flowers in the 2nd or 3rd year but some take 5 to 6 years.

Using my method, 2 factors can lengthen the time for adequate control.

1) Missed plants due to poor visibility in heavy vegetation, plants that bloom at very low heights or very late blooming plants (as late as September).  It is very easy to miss short, blooming plants in tall vegetation.  Especially since invasion was widespread at this site, requiring a search of the entire area, except for the dry remnants where parsnip success was poor.

2) Digging disrupts soil, bringing seeds to the surface where they are more likely to germinate.  Proper use of the Parsnip Predator (no prying) minimizes this.

If practitioners are not meticulous, time for adequate control will be longer than what I experienced.  For example, not making a second mechanical pass, thus missing a surprising amount of late blooming plants.  Or missing a year, allowing substantial seed drop.  That would severely set efforts back & illustrates the importance of careful site selection & control area size to match the predicted resources over the years needed.

Herbiciding is particularly effective after a spring burn since thatch removal makes rosettes quite visible.  Herbiciding can be skipped if there are enough people to complete 2 thorough mechanical passes for the number of years needed.  My results are a good example of how herbicides can be a force multiplier if resources are limited.  Without them, there would be no hope of making a meaningful improvement at this site with just one worker.

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Effects of Brush Pile Burning in the Chicago region

Posted on April 9, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

Antonio Del Vallé, Emma Leavens, Meghan Midgley

This is a shortened version of a longer post from the Strategies for Stewards blog. You can find the full-length version at this link: https://woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2025/12/effects-of-brush-pile-burning-in.html

Research project summary:

Over the past three years, we have conducted research on brush pile burning and its effects on plants, fungi, and soil across the Chicago region. We’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with many different organizations, forest preserves, stewards, and volunteers across the region to determine where brush has been burned and collect data related to plant and soil communities. Our project has three main themes/questions: 1) how do plants and soil change through time following brush pile burning?; 2) how do differences in habitat, burning techniques, and type of wood being cleared/burned impact the succession of plant/soil communities following burning?; 3) are there post-burn restoration techniques that encourage desirable plant and soil communities?

Removal of invasive woody species (e.g. buckthorn, honeysuckle, etc.) and overstory thinning of native weedy species (e.g. maple, basswood, etc.) are important/essential restoration techniques to restore oak woodland, savanna, and grassland habitats in the Chicago region (and anywhere there is invasive brush that cannot be controlled by prescribed fire alone). Many regional practitioners and stewards eliminate resulting woody debris by conducting brush pile burns. This approach reduces effort, cost, and potential soil compaction of removing wood from natural areas. Additionally, it fosters social engagement and camaraderie amongst stewards through group “cut and drag” work days and gathering around the fire afterwards.

As researchers, we want to understand what happens when brush piles are burned in natural areas. Brush pile burning may change soil chemistry, and plant and fungal biodiversity. In our research, we’re working with stewards and managers of natural areas throughout the Chicago region to assess the above- and belowground effects of brush pile burning, identify the burning strategies that maximize or minimize these impacts, and characterize post-burn succession.

Preliminary results: How does burning brush affect the ecology of the burn pile footprint and how do soil and plants respond over time?

For the preliminary results detailed below, we will mainly draw from our studies of brush pile burns conducted at The Morton Arboretum and Forest Glen Woods (Cook County) from 2015-2023 (unless otherwise noted). We present data for each preserve separately, since each preserve has slightly different habitats/plant communities, and brush pile burns may consist of different levels of burn intensity.

Soil temperatures can reach values of 80-350 ℃ at 2 centimeters depth within the centers of burn piles and stay above 60 ℃ for 3-5 days after active flames are put out. Below is an example of soil temperatures observed underneath a brush pile at Harms Woods in Cook County.

These temperatures are high/long enough to negatively impact seed viability and mycorrhizal fungi. It takes 4 years for mycorrhizal fungi to return to pre-burn values.

Microbes (fungi and bacteria) are needed to balance soil nutrients, so their fluctuations through time may impact soil nutrient changes through time. Decreases in mycorrhizal fungi abundance or changes in the fungi community may inhibit the growth of plant species that require specific mycorrhizal associations. Though there are significant decreases in overall microbe abundance, we do observe some unusual pyrophilic fungi species (Pyronema omphalodes) 0-1 years after burning.

Brush pile burning increases soil pH, nitrate, and phosphate through ash deposits. Nitrate and phosphate return to pre-burn levels within 2 and 5 years respectively. pH values remain significantly higher (more alkaline), 7 years post-burn.

The creation of more alkaline soils may provide unique habitat conditions for rare/pyrophilic plants, create conditions that support invasive species, and/or make the area difficult for more conservative plants to grow.

Spiranthes ovalis erostellata

The state endangered Geranium bicknellii is known to exclusively grow on the edge of burn pile footprints in a few natural areas in the region. Additionally, we’ve made observations of other rare plant species, such as this Spiranthes ovalis erostellata, which was found in an 8 year old burn scar.

Plant cover and quality is greatly reduced in the first growing season after burning. Weedy/hardy plants such as tall goldenrod, pokeweed, and wintercress are observed 0-3 years after burning.

As soil pH and nutrients balance through time, the plant community successionally returns to its previous composition. Overall, variation in plant quality within burn scars is dependent on the surrounding plant quality within the natural area. Plant quality variation may also be related to burn intensity and other factors. We have more work to do to uncover the relationship of burn intensity and other management decisions to soil biogeochemistry and plant communities in burn scars.

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A fifteen-year revisit of a prairie planting

Posted on April 2, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Mary Vieregg, Nachusa Grasslands Volunteer Steward, with photo and captions by Bill Kleiman

2008: Mary and Jim Vieregg planting their seed
November 2008: Planting seed

In 2008, the conversion of 6.25 acres of cornfield into reconstructed prairie began in the Clear Creek Knolls East Unit of Nachusa Grasslands. The acreage offered the opportunity to collect and plant seed suitable for three different habitats all in one planting.

During the 2008 growing season, 225 pounds of bulk seed of 176 species were collected to plant in the unit. This is uncleaned seed where seed weight is perhaps 40% of bulk weight and 60% is chaff.  The seeds were processed and combined into dry-mesic, mesic, and wet-mesic mixes. The average per acre seed bulk weight was 36 pounds of seed.  A complete list of the species collected and planted was kept at the time.

How the field was planted:

After the corn was harvested in 2008, the stubble was burned and the field was harrowed. The seed mixes were planted in late November using a New Idea Drop Seeder. Multiple passes were made to facilitate even distribution of the seeds. The dry/mesic, mesic, and wet/mesic mixes were planted according to the soil type and relative topography in different parts of the field. No carrier was used with the seed.

Stewards also collected additional seed during the growing seasons of 2009 and 2010 for overseeding the planting. Another 99.5 pounds of seed were overseeded by hand into the acreage in areas where native growth seemed particularly sparse. Additional species were also added in the overseeding mixes bringing the species total up to 192.

Fire and weed management for 15 years:

Since the last overseeding was completed in 2010, prescribed fire has run through the unit approximately every other year primarily because the planting is a subset of a larger management unit. Additionally, there has been consistent surveillance and control of the relatively modest populations of birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), white sweet clover (Melilotus albus),and reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea). The populations of all three of these weed species have declined but still require surveillance and control.

July 2020 photo showing goats rue, western sunflower, spidorwort, big bluestem, wild quinine, and pale purple coneflower

So…What’s Growing in the Planting 15 Years Later????

The planting was visited 15 times beginning in April and ending in late October, 2025. During each visit, each new species observed was recorded.

Here are a few observations:

  1. 134, or 70% of the 192 species in the 2008-2010 seed mixes were found in the planting during 2025.
  • There were 30 native species found in the planting that were not knowingly included in the original seed mix.
  • There were 7 non-native species found in small scattered populations.
  • The C-values (coefficients of conservatism) of the native species found in 2025 range from 0 (least conservative) to 10 (most conservative). Of those species planted in 2008-2010 and found growing in 2025, 57 or 43% of the species have high C-values (8, 9, or 10).
  • The National Wetland Categories – Upland (UPL), Facultative Upland (FACU), Facultative (FAC), Facultative Wet (FACW), and Obligate (OBL) – provide insight into the habitat preference of a species:

64% of the planted UPL species were found.

84% of the planted FACU species were found.

84% of the planted FAC species were found.

64% of the planted FACW species were found.

53% of the planted OBL species were found.

  • One of the least successful genera in the planting was Carex; out of 8 species planted, only 3 were found in 2025. (This was a surprise given the quantity of seed collected and dispersed.)
  • Thirteen (43%) of the 30 native species not knowingly planted are rated FACU; 5 (16%) species are rated UPL; 5 (16%) species are rated FACW; 4 (13%) species are rated FAC; 3 (10%) species are rated OBL.
An introduced birdsfoot trefoil in this nice planting, so the plant was coiled up and then sprayed with foliar broadleaf herbicide to lessen the off target damage.
22 plugs of queen of the prairie were planted and they took in the swale section
Mary Vieregg has led many tours at Nachusa over the years.
Another view of this nice planting with gay feather, rattlesnake master, white and cream baptisia, golden alexander, bee balm, tall coreopsis, yellow coneflower, and culvers root. It is crazy nice! – BK

Read the entire report here on our Friends of Nachusa Grasslands site at: https://www.nachusagrasslands.org/uploads/5/8/4/6/58466593/dropseed_north_15_years_later.pdf

In the report I ponder what happened to the 30% of species we did not find.  You will also find the seed list I refer to where the species found are noted. 

People have asked me whether the time we have spent and the work we have done at Nachusa over the last 27 years has been “worth it”. This 15 year “revisit” helped me answer that question. I think Aldo Leopold’s words again seem most fitting in this context: “Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods or poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how.” Yes, it has been worth it.

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2026 Workshop – Shaw Nature Reserve – Registration

Posted on March 26, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

Shaw Nature Reserve – Gray Summit, MO

Grassland Restoration Network Annual Workshop

May 27 & 28, 2026 

We would like to extend an early invitation for you to join us for the annual Grassland Restoration Network Workshop. This two-day workshop will feature insights from grassland restoration practice and research happening at Shaw Nature Reserve. The workshop will be held on May 27th and 28th. A schedule of planned events as well as lodging recommendations is included below.

REGISTRATION: Follow this link to register.

Registration will open to everyone on March 26th, so be sure to register before then if you intend on attending. The number of participants is limited, and we are trying to have representation from a wide range of folks, both in terms of geographically and agencies. For this reason, we would appreciate it if you could please keep your organization/agency reservation numbers to 6 or less.

DAY ONE – May 27th

This year will also feature Doug Ladd as our keynote speaker. For 31 years he was Director of Conservation for The Nature Conservancy – Missouri, where he managed science, land management, and conservation real estate activities. He has been involved with fire management and fire ecology, conservation planning, natural area assessment, and ecological management, restoration, and research for more than thirty-five years, with emphasis on vegetation, ecological restoration and fire ecology.

DAY TWO – May 28th

Your SNR hosts – Brad Delfeld (Manager, Ecological Restoration) and Quinn Long (Director, Shaw Nature Reserve)

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2026 – Annual Workshop – Shaw Nature Reserve

Posted on March 19, 2026 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

Shaw Nature Reserve – Gray Summit, MO

Grassland Restoration Network Annual Workshop

May 27 & 28, 2026 – Registration opens Thursday, March 26th

Registration for this year’s Grassland Restoration Network annual workshop will go live next Thursday (03/26/2026). Join us at Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit, Missouri, to learn, exchange, and connect. Since 1980, Shaw Nature Reserve staff and a dedicated community of volunteers have been getting their hands dirty and turning vision into habitat. The workshop will include tours and discussion our different grassland restoration projects, which include:

A chronosequence of one, two, and three year old prairie plantings displaying the conversion of old-field successional woodlands into a prairie-savanna complex. Wolf Run Grassland Restoration blog post and Timelapse of conversion

-Striking remnant glades, with a rich species diversity in full bloom, featuring glade-endemic species and unique habitat.

-The beginning stages of establishing an Army Corps of Engineers wetland mitigation bank

-Several ongoing and completed research projects will be discussed, including mycorrhizal fungi inoculation effects on establishing conservative species in a nascent prairie planting, varying mowing frequencies’ effects on establishing prairie plantings, and grass-specific herbicide as a means to enhance forb diversity in established prairies

This year will also feature Doug Ladd as our keynote speaker. For 31 years he was Director of Conservation for The Nature Conservancy – Missouri, where he managed science, land management, and conservation real estate activities. He has been involved with fire management and fire ecology, conservation planning, natural area assessment, and ecological management, restoration, and research for more than thirty-five years, with emphasis on vegetation, ecological restoration and fire ecology.

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