Julianne Mason, Ecological Management Supervisor, Forest Preserve District of Will County, Illinois
I know, I know. There’s a lot to do during prescribed burn season and monitoring typically isn’t high on the list of pressing priorities. However, I would like to make the case that prescribed burn monitoring doesn’t have to take up much additional time, and the data is well worth the small amount of additional effort!
The ecological effects of prescribed burns can vary a lot depending on seasonality, frequency, and fire intensity. Seasonality and frequency are pretty straightforward to track over time by just recording the dates and areas burned. Fire intensity is more complicated to infer since it is affected by many factors like weather conditions (relative humidity, temperature, wind speed), fuel moisture levels, fuel model type (grassland vs woodland), and firing techniques (backing, flanking, or headfires).
Some burns are hot.Some burns are not.
Fire monitoring after a “hot” burn. The organic litter was fully consumed, vegetation was fully consumed, and char heights were 6’ high.
Fire monitoring after a “cool” burn. The burn coverage was incomplete, the lower layers of leaves were totally unburned even in burned areas, and char heights were <1/4’ high.
We have a network of photo monitoring points that we use to track plant community changes through time. Basically, we have GPS points and just go back to the same locations every few years to take photos facing in a standardized direction. Simple, right?
Permanent photo point locations are a simple way to track vegetation community changes through time. We have been coupling that data set of photos with fire severity monitoring data.
For the past eight years or so, we have been using a greatly simplified version of the National Park Service’s Fire Monitoring Handbook protocol to assess burn severity. If you don’t want to read their whole protocol, just jump to page 110. Our version of burn severity monitoring is as follows.
Take post-burn photos at each permanent photo point monitoring location in the burned unit.
At each monitoring location, walk 5 meters in the direction that the photo was taken. Within a 3 m radius, record the percent burn coverage.
Assess the burn severity category for the substrate layer (duff/leaf litter) and vegetation layers using the categories below (this is our modification of the NPS categories).
The maximum char height is averaged for the nearest three woodies and recorded.
We use the ESRI Field Maps app to take the photos and enter the data into a geodatabase. Easy-peasy!
Ecologist Nick Budde, our prescribed fire coordinator, doing post-burn monitoring. Thanks to Nick for adapting the NPS categories and developing our burn monitoring protocol!
We try to do the burn monitoring reasonably soon after a burn is completed – if we wait too long then the vegetation can green up or leaves blow around which obscures the monitoring criteria. To make things efficient during a busy burn season, we can sometimes do the monitoring at the end of the burn while the rest of the crew is finishing mopping up or packing up equipment. If the burn days are too busy, we try to do the monitoring the next morning if we need to go back and see if any trees re-ignited on the firebreak or if any other fire hazards have developed. All it takes is a little extra professional discipline and time management to collect burn severity data and post-burn photos during the course of a burn season.
FPDWC Burn Severity Coding Matrix
Category 5 – Unburned
Category 4 – Scorched
Substrate: Litter partially blackened; wood/leaf structures unchanged at ground surface
Vegetation: Foliage of sedges/grasses partially blackened and attached to supporting stems or twigs; stems of forbs and small woodies unburned to lightly blackened at base
Category 3.5 – Patchily Lightly Burned
Substrate & vegetation: Roughly equal areas that are scorched and lightly burned
Category 3 – Lightly Burned
Substrate: Less than 30% bare soil; litter and moss charred to partially consumed, but some plant parts are still discernable; most small to medium woody debris is scorched; logs are unburned to scorched but not charred
Vegetation: Unconsumed vegetation of sedges/cool season grasses more than 1” high; most warm season grasses consumed to 3” tall or higher; most stems of forbs and small woodies scorched; some stems may still be standing
Category 2.5 – Lightly to Moderately Burned
Substrate: Litter and moss partially to mostly consumed; 30-80% bare dirt; most small to medium woody debris is scorched to partially consumed; most logs are scorched to charred
Vegetation: Unconsumed vegetation of sedges/cool season grasses less than 1” high; most forbs and warm season grasses consumed to less than 2” tall; most stems of small woodies scorched to partially consumed
Category 2 – Moderately Burned
Substrate: Litter fully consumed; 80-100% bare soil; most small to medium woody debris partially to mostly consumed; logs are deeply charred to mostly consumed
Vegetation: Sedges/cool season grasses fully consumed; most forbs and warm season grasses fully consumed; stems of small woodies partially to completely consumed
Category 1 – Heavily Burned
Substrate: Mineral soil visibly altered, often reddish; litter and duff completely consumed; even sound logs are deeply charred to completely consumed
Vegetation: All plant parts consumed leaving some or no major stems or trunks, any left are deeply charred; no unburned grasses above the root crown
We don’t use this category because our prescribed burns are not done under extreme (red flag) conditions and they have not resulted in these severe effects.
Fire Intensity Monitoring – Conclusion
In time, burn severity monitoring is giving us a standardized way to characterize the intensity of a burn. In combination with the seasonality and frequency of burning, it gives us a more nuanced way to assess how prescribed burns are affecting plant communities.
Prescribed burning is one of the ecological management activities that has higher risks to human and wildlife safety. That makes it important to make sure that the prescribed burns are meeting management objectives. It doesn’t take much extra time to assess the burn severity criteria outlined here, and to accumulate data to learn better how fire intensity can influence vegetation communities. No need to wait – start using a standardized protocol to monitor your fire’s effects during this burn season!
The Nature Conservancy is hiring for a full time permanent Restoration Ecologist. The job is open another two weeks. We are looking for someone who is a good person and has skills like these: Prescribed fire, chainsaw, skid loader, tractor, hauling such heavy equipment, weed work, seed harvesting. And on the soft skill side of things someone who wants to be a leader and mentor, can work with the public and colleagues. This link takes you to a list of job openings. Type Nachusa at top and it takes you there. Job number is 55855 if that helps. https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/jsh6C9rAj8skm9EgECof6Hq_nAi?domain=careers.nature.org
The Friends of Nachusa Grasslands is hiring an Executive Director. This would be their first employee. They are an amazing set of citizens who are very productive. This would be a fun job for someone special. https://www.nachusagrasslands.org/executive-director.html
By Mike Saxton – Manager of Ecological Restoration and Land Stewardship at Shaw Nature Reserve
There are certain tools/pieces of equipment that once you have them, you wonder 1) why didn’t I buy this sooner? 2) how did we ever get by without this? I think a PTO driven blower for firebreak prep is one of those tools.
Here at Shaw Nature Reserve, we have 19 miles of hiking trails and gravel roads, many of which serve as firebreaks. Whether blowing mowed tallgrass and clearing leaves from trails, a PTO blower saves time and resources.
Our roads are 12ft wide gravel then a 3ft mowed green shoulder. We then do a fuel reduction line, mowing down tall grass prairie with a 5ft Woods mower deck. We blow the mowed debris into the unit. We have essentially a ~28ft wild break along our gravel roads. Pretty sweet! Blowing off the fuel reduction line isn’t critical but it sure feels good on a windy day with low Rh.
We have a few miles of woodland firebreaks. While we can blow them off in advance…we still have to make a return trip day-of to ensure the breaks are clean. More leaves always come down & high winds can move leaves back onto previously blown roads/trails. The morning of a burn can be hectic with loading equipment, checking and rechecking gear, making maps, etc. The ability to have 1 person head out on a tractor and clear/check miles of woodland fire break is a huge resource saver. It would take 2-4 people with backpack blowers to achieve what 1 person can do on a tractor.
Airflow is ~10,000 CFM (a nice Stihl backpack blower does about 900CFM at 195 mph)
Air speed is ~175 MPH (if you walk in front of it…it’ll blow your feet out from under you)
Requires 20 horsepower at the PTO
The cone rotates 360 degrees with an electric switch. But you have to throttle all the way down in order to overcome the force of the wind to turn the cone with the electric motor.
The unit is long which can make slaloming through trees difficult. It’s tricky when going over really uneven terrain because it’s so long and thus easy to bottom out.
The fall purple leaves of gray dogwood show in a patch mowed one time in 1994
On a recent blogpost I mentioned that I mowed a gray dogwood patch, Cornus racemosa, in about 1994, so 3 decades back. I only mowed it one time with a rotary mower on the back of a tractor. The dogwood clone had stalks about six feet tall. Since then we have been frequently burning this unit to keep various brush in check. It appears that those fires kept top killing the dogwood where it would re-sprout again as is shows in these current photos.
If we had time on our hands, we could treat each stem with basal bark herbicide but this low patch seems ok to me, with various grasses and forbs intermixing with it.
The recent GRN workshop was all tour based, with 5 themed tours that ran concurrently every two hours over two days. All participants could go on all 5 tours. I led the tour with the theme of weeds. We covered a lot of ground in footsteps and concepts.
Birdsfoot trefoil: We stopped at a unit with a 40 year history of invasive birdsfoot trefoil, Lotus corniculatus. The trefoil was planted for pasture forage and then later the pasture became part of Nachusa. We have experienced the long duration of the seed bank of these legumes as they continue to emerge. We have reduced their occurrence with about 15 years of careful backpack spraying and the field looks good at this time of year with only a few trefoil plants encountered as we hiked around.
The last two seasons we have tried boom spraying a pre-emergent herbicide, Esplanade 200, on the prairie planting in early spring. This kills all seeds emerging, good and bad, but it gives our weed crew a chance to catch up with the adult trefoil plants. This shows signs of success as the field looks better than ever, but we will report out later.
Selfie by Bill
Reed canary grass: We looked at a wet meadow that once was thick with reed canary grass, Phalaris arundinacea, and is now much reduced in reed canary grass and dominated by native plants. We used grass herbicides intensively for several years from about 1993 to 1998 and then were able to spray with just backpacks with occasional tractor spot spraying since.
Sweet clover: We found that mowing about the 4th of July proved very effective on white sweet clover, with yellow sweet clover mowed a week or two before the white. Here is a recent post on that: https://grasslandrestorationnetwork.org/2024/07/11/yellow-and-white-sweet-clover/ On the GRN blogsite there is a search bar. There are four articles on sweet clover on the site.
Lespedeza daurica and L. cuneata: These invasive legumes take a lot of work to control. We talked about the need for careful sweeping, this refers to walking back and forth across a planting. We also agreed that at least two visits per year are needed, and three would be best to get towards success. Here are a few posts on that:
Photo from the workshop, the editors of this blogsite: Julianne Mason, Mike Saxton, and Bill Kleiman
Exotic vs Invasive: I listed some species of exotic plants that I don’t think are invasive in our area: Queen Anne’s lace, dames rocket, canada thistle, garlic mustard (as frequent fire controls mustard). I also spoke of holding back on planting the native shrub Amorpha bush, Amorpha fruticosa, as I have seen it get very dense in a new planting. Gray dogwood has been controlled with one or two mowings.
By Bernie Buchholz, Volunteer at Nachusa Grasslands
The recent GRN conference at Nachusa Grasslands included “Prairie Tours” of new plantings and remnant restorations. It was a very experienced group with about 90% of attendees having either planted a prairie in former crop fields or having restored degraded remnants. About 90% were also working professionals and the remainder were devoted volunteers. We were a knowledgeable group.
ORGANIZATION: Nachusa has had success with an “ownership” model where individual volunteers can “own” a unit of the grasslands where, after extensive informal mentoring, they make the decisions about what to plant, how much to plant, seed harvest, and weed management. Nachusa staff provides support with some tasks like chain sawing, mowing, prescribed fire, and heavy equipment, if needed. Volunteers become quite devoted to their units, with pride being an additional motivator.
OBJECTIVES: Many attendees use maximization of plant biodiversity as the goal, which is effectively a proxy for maximizing habitat resilience and function. The group discussed plant assisted migration, but there was support for the idea that maximizing diversity with existing species builds resilience while the concept of assisted migration is developed elsewhere.
Photo by Chris Helzer
SEEDS: Nachusa’s approach to is to plant every species desired in the plantings in the very first year. For example, we don’t start with extraordinary amount of adventive plants with plans to add conservative species later. Volunteers have noted that it takes 350 to 400 hours to collect 175 species for a five-acre planting. (For more see Plant High Diversity ) Use of plant plugs is limited due to the demands of planting and watering them. Many participants shared the species they had the most trouble growing, including Comandra umbellata and Lilium philadelphicum.
Nachusa does not clean its seed of chaff. Target weights are 45 pounds per acre of which maybe 30-50% may be seed. Grasses may be up to 20% of the gross weight with Indian grass and big blue stem used vary sparingly, or not at all, depending on soil moisture and other factors.
WEEDS: Former row crop land offers relatively “clean” soil for native plantings, but there are still occasional surprises, including large amounts of yellow and white sweet clover, for example, and birdsfoot trefoil has a decades long life in the seedbank. We had a lighthearted, but thoughtful conversation about managing non-invasive weeds like wild parsnip and Queen Annes lace which are addressed only after the true invasives are dealt with. There was strong support for the aesthetic and emotional value of eliminating highly visible but non-threatening weeds. It gets down to priorities.
FIRE: At Nachusa we burn plantings as soon as there is enough plant matter to carry a fire which is often the second year. A new planting is usually burned annually until it is well established, which could be 5 to ten years. It is important not to burn the entire preserve at the same time for fear of diminishing insects. However, we look at plantings as part of the whole, rather than trying to burn portions of individual units.
Photo by Chris Helzer
REMNANTS: It’s a very favorable and special situation when you can simultaneously do cropland plantings and restore an adjacent remnant. Look for a comparable remnant of similar soils and contours,but with higher plant diversity to use as a model. Eliminating non-invasive weeds like wild parsnip and Queen Anne’s lace completely can take six to seven years, while invasives like birdsfoot trefoil can persist for decades.
OVERSEEDING DEGRADED HABITAT: There was considerable discussion about the best technique for overseeding pastures. Seeding directly into existing vegetation, including dense non-native grasses, seems counterintuitive to first treating the area with herbicides. Our experience at Nachusa, however, indicates that heavy seeding into existing vegetation, when supported with frequent prescribed fire, can be very successful over a period of five to seven years. For more see Converting Pasture to Prairie
PASSION FOR BEAUTY: The opportunity to convert row crop land to thriving prairie is an intoxicating idea. The passion of a volunteer or professional land manager may provide the necessary dedication and hard work to make the most of a planting. There can also be ego (or hubris) compelling the volunteer to establish a great planting. Hopefully, the beauty of a diverse and functioning native grasslands is a result and reward for devotion.
By: Mike Saxton – Manager of Ecological Restoration and Land Stewardship at Shaw Nature Reserve – a division of the Missouri Botanical Garden – Gray Summit, MO
There are few acts more hopeful than planting prairie. We put so much effort and thought and love and care into the process and we hope for ecologically significant results. We want our efforts to translate into benefits for biodiversity and for the increased health of the land. And, perhaps a bit selfishly, we want to be proud of our good work, to show off our success, to reap the rewards of so much determination.
Left – frozen snowy ground for seed sowing of 40 acres on January 16th. Right – Restoration team mixing 1,000 pounds of hand collected, bulk milled seed.
Collecting seed, prepping the ground, sowing on a frosty winter morning…and then the hard part – the waiting. The agonizing wait. Once the seed is down, we want to chase off every bird we see feasting in the field. In the spring, we worry about getting enough rain. And sometimes about getting too much rain. Every day we’re out there expectantly watching for seedlings to emerge.
• 244 total species in the mix • All 40 acres received 1-pass of prairie seed • ~2 acres received a wet swale mix • ~8 acres received an open woods mix • ~30 acres received a 2nd pass of prairie mix • Roughly 25 pounds of bulk, milled, hand collected seed per acre • 146 pounds of PLS purchased seed • No big blue or Indian grass in the mix • We are not high-mowing at any time during the growing season • The 40-acres has been swept on foot for invasives by our crew. They report using a total of 1 gallon of herbicide per acre on Japanese stilt grass, Sericea lespedeza, and white sweet clover. More weeds than we’d like in a first year planting, of course. But extremely important to be on them from the beginning.
I walked the ground in the early summer hoping to spot seedlings. I didn’t like how much non-native brome I saw and I was impressed with the abundance of plain’s coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria) growing across the site (it was seeded but also was in the seed bank). I found many, many native plants but lots of the usual suspects too: fireweed (Erechtites hieraciifolius), mare’s tail (Erigeron canadensis), ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) and fox tail (Setaria pumila). We mostly do not worry about these distrubance driven annual Ag weeds.
Left – Bidens aristosa in background (wetter swale) with sprinkling of fox tail in foreground. Right – Partridge pea, mare’s tail and plain’s coreopsis – pretty typical for a first year planting.
Yesterday I walked the planting with a hopeful optimism. Generally, I’m happy with what I saw. I found flowering Liatris pycnostachya (prairie blazing star), Salvia azurea (blue sage), Agalinis tenuifolia (slender false foxglover), Physostegia virginiana (obedient plant), and multiple other species. Vegetatively, I found lots of Silphiums (compass & rosin), Baptisias, and Partheniums (quinine).
The most important piece of context – this ground was once forested, it was then cleared and converted to row-crop agriculture. In 1925, the Missouri Botanical Garden purchased the land, describing parts of it as “wasted farm ground”. It was then mowed for decades to be kept open. Then they planted blue grass and ran cattle on it. When mowing/grazing ceased (ca. 1960) it went through old field succession. Then we cleared the trees and are now asking the land to become a diverse prairie restoration. We need to be patient with the land and to attempt to understand what it wants to be and what it can be.
The Agony
A few patches of what I think is Bromus japonicus (Japenese brome). This area had been old-field succesional closed-canopy cedars and mesophytic hardwoods for decades…so it took us by surprise. There are native seedlings in and around the Brome, but not as many as we’d like.
Not extensive but some patches of a Digitaria that might persist. Mostly thin enough that native plants co-occur.
Large portions of the 40 acres have a spattering of fox tail. Some areas have nearly none while a few small areas have thickets.
The Ecstasy
Eryngium yuccifolium (Rattlesnake master), Monarda fistulosa (bee balm), Baptisia,Aesclepias, Lespedeza capitata (Round headed bush clover), Parthenium (quinine). These plants are growing around the remnants of a stump from the land clearing.
Obedient plant flowering with Baptisia, Salvia, Boltonia, Coreopsis and Aesclepias within 2ft.
Porcupine grass (hand-seeded in clusters across the unit – marked by pin flag), with yarrow, Liatris, and Parthenium.
We will be planting 40-acres of prairie over each of the following two winters. We will take the lessons learned from this first 40 and apply them to our subsequent efforts. This planting isn’t perfect but considering the context, we’re happy with these early results! And the planting will, hopefully, only get better with age and continued care.
By Bill Kleiman, Nachusa Grasslands Project Director, TNC
If you visit an invasive weed occurrence only once a year to treat it the weed may increase.
If you visit the occurrence twice you will break even and maybe gain.
If you visit three or more times you will make great progress.
The photo below shows a nail pouch that clips to my belt. Those are king devil flower heads in there. I pluck the heads and spray the basal rosettes. This is easy and I call it fun.
Year round I have a quart sprayer of some herbicide in my vehicle sitting in a five gallon pail to keep it upright. In winter it is a basal bark herbicide solution since it won’t freeze. In summer I still have the basal bark spray bottle, but I also carry a bottle of water based broadleaf herbicide. Lately it has been a solution of 2% Garlon 3A with a bit of blue dye. It is very pleasant to hop out of the truck, grab a squirt bottle, and treat an autumn olive or a birdsfoot trefoil, without having to put my backpack on, or make a note to return to it.
Below is a jug of broadleaf herbicide. It is marked RTU which stands for Ready To Use, meaning it is not concentrate but diluted, with a surfactant and colorant added. I carry about a gallon in the jug as it is easier to fill the bottles that way. I have a funnel with me. Or you can fill the squirt bottles from your backpack sprayer.
Below are five squirt bottle brands. I am not sold on any of them. Elsewhere in this blogsite I review squirt bottles. Some of these bottles cost very little. The Zep bottle purchased in hardware stores in the cleaning section are pretty reliable. We tend to keep the solution in these bottles for months so it is no surprise that they stop spraying sometimes.
Below is a repurposed Chlorox cleaning solution bottle. On the other side I used a label maker to mark it as “Broadleaf herbicide”. This model will spray every drop as that pickup tube comes from the very bottom front, so you don’t pump air when the bottle is tilted down. I liked it but then it quit spraying after a few weeks.
Below you are looking down at one big invasive birdsfoot trefoil with the yellow flowers. Carrying a hand sprayer means it is easy to bend down and gather up that sprawling plant as I did here and then squirt the middle of the “braid” with a dose. The prairie dock should survive.
I have found that if I use basal bark herbicide I can just spray a bit where the BFT plants emerge and the plant will die with very little off target impacts.
Below is a repurposed class A foam container to hold water for a simple hand washing station. I drilled a hole in the edge. Just lay it over and it trickles out water. Sometimes I carry soap but just the water is very nice to have around. Don’t fill it all the way, a gallon or two last a few days.
Below is a plastic hinged box to hold items useful in weed work. Disposable rubber gloves, blue tree marking paint, sun screen, ear plugs, paper towels, safety glasses, a little bottle of eye saline, MSDS sheets.
Of course a backpack is a common item to carry in my truck. The Chapin below we tried. I like its folding handle. The clip seems to hold the nozzle wand. The wand is metal. It has a padded shoulder straps and back pad. The fill lid is deep and wide which means less splashing on fill up. We had issues with the pressure being too low and the shut off of the spray was not crisp and so it dripped a bit. So we did not continue with these.
We have used the Solo brand for a long time and some of them go for years.
Below a partially clogged screen that Solo has in some of their tips. I find these clog frequently and usually I pitch the screen. It needs cleaning every day or two of use.
This pack came in with a tag stating it would not spray. I could feel the pressure in the pump was fine. The tip was very clogged. We reuse 2.5 gallon jugs and sometimes a paper from the cap falls into the jug, then into the pack, and this happens. It looks like shredded paper.
Below, a cable tie acts to hold up the folding pump handle of the Solo.
Below, the Stihl sprayers are nice. We have been buying these as they are easy to buy at our local Ace, they spray well, and so far are holding up to our abuses. Mike Saxton reports they work well too. You can see that we assign packs to individuals, with the duct tape noting the herbicide in the tank. The Stihl does not have a good system to hold the nozzle wand when in storage.
I encourage our crew to just put in 1.5 gallons of mix to keep the weight low. This pack full would feel like you were backpacking the A.T.. Hopefully we walk more than we spray. Carry a 2 gallon jug of RTU mix in the truck.
By: Mike Saxton – Manager of Ecological Restoration and Land Stewardship at Shaw Nature Reserve
Across the Midwest, many prairie restoration efforts seek to transform degraded pastures or row crop fields into robust and vibrant plant communities. In this post-agricultural context, restoration practitioners typically utilize standard ag equipment like harrows, discs, boom sprayers (PTO driven from tractors or electric sprayer rigs in the back of a UTV) for site preparation before planting.
Areas of former ag usage usually are hazard free (rocks, stumps) and can be readily and safely traversed by standard equipment. But what do you do with a 40 acre field of stumps that you want to restore to prairie? When conventional spray equipment cannot be used, new tools are needed. Enter drones.
Before and after image showing extensive cedar and mesophytic tree removal
With the help of a contractor, drone herbicide application of invasive species and for general site preparation for native seed addition was completed in a stump-filled 40 acres that we will plant this winter.
Drone specs:
About 12ft wide from propeller tip to propeller tip
Carries 8 gallons of herbicide
Usually sprays 3 to 4 gallons per acre (mix is at a high concentration and within the label)
Drone has a 7.5 min flight time
One battery takes 6 minutes to charge
Drone can identify and avoid hazards
Drone flies a grid, knows when it runs out of herbicide, and automatically returns to fill up location where staff refills. The drone flies out and picks up where it left off.
Drone flies roughly 12ft over top the vegetation.
Treatment width per pass is roughly 25ft
Drone sprayer is roughly the size of a Kawasaki Mule Pro
Drones thrive where conventional equipment can struggle:
Fields with high tension power lines
Small, odd shaped fields in a forested landscape
Post-logging areas with high density of stumps
We provided the herbicide to the contractor and the rate for the drone to fly was somewhere around $36/acre.
Contractor hauls enough water for most large jobs and mixes everything on-site. Hand is on the battery. 8 gallon spray tank behind. Carbon propeller in foreground.
By Nathan Burmester, Coastal Plains Stewardship Manager, The Nature Conservancy, North Carolina
Nathan Burmester with their new Can-Am
Bill Kleiman here: Nathan Burmester was shopping for a UTV and he asked a bunch of TNC colleagues what they liked and the list was fun to peruse. So I asked Nathan if I could share it and he agreed. He is not endorsing any one machine. What UTV to buy depends on specific needs, and what dealerships are in your region.
South Dakota
I ditched Polaris and went with Cam AM about 8 years ago and I wish I I had done it way before that. Can AM’s are built for more commercial use and are tough as nails. Our Polaris machines were always in the shop and we haven’t had hardly ANY problems with Can AM. I have a UTV and 6×6 atv. No problems with either. I should do a commercial, because I am that much of a believer. You can adjust the suspension, they have all kinds of storage (depending on what you get) and they can handle more weight, especially if you get upgrades. I purchased the first one in 15/16 and its still going strong and they are the work horses of this program. Polaris was constant headaches and problems. I think nearly all the offices in our Chapter have walked away from Polaris and shifted to Kubota and Can AM.
I don’t think you will be disappointed.
Illinois
We went with Can-Am with our most recent UTV. Very sturdy, with lots of clearance. We opted for the 4-seater. The power steering is very handy.
Texas
Can am 6 wheeler. More power. Ground clearance weight capacity. Does take an “acre” to turn around. Uses more gas. Pretty expensive. We don’t have one yet but I was with a vfd that has two. Seats 3. Most of the time people overload things. Just because the sticker says it will haul something. It’s probably for 5% of it use. Figure 50-60% of recommended capacity to make it last longer. The Kubota is the only one that you can get close to capacity and it stay together but it is heavier.
Oklahoma
We have a kubota rtv-xg850 it’s their sporty version its been great so far
Indiana
Here in Northern Indiana we have started to use the Bobcat UV34. Prior to this we were using six wheel Polaris 800s. The bobcat utv have similar clearance, bed capacity, and durability. They seem to handle mud better than 4 wheel Polaris rangers and have better clearance. The bed capacity is better than the 4 wheels. Also, we were able to get a winch as part of the package when we bought the UTV. The shocks are adjustable which has helped to offset the weight of the slip-in. We didn’t need to do much adjustment for ours.
It is a Polaris with bobcat branding. The engine is Polaris but so far we haven’t had any big issues unlike the real Polaris rangers. There is a limit on speed which is reduced even more if you don’t have the seatbelt buckled in. The seats are gray which get really dirty but get less hot than the black ones.
So far, it is my recommended UTV when people are looking to purchase a new. I have used Polaris, Bobcat, Kubota, Gators, and mules. I also have used Can-am a couple times but not enough to have a great sense of what they are like all around as a machine.
Kansas
We purchased a 2020 Can-Am 6×6 and it has been rock solid. It sees dual use for fire and herbicide application. A couple quick notes, I am happy to chat more if you would like:
This UTV sees dual-use for fire and invasive treatments (different spray rigs).
Each spray rig has a 100 gal tank, machine carries the weight well with minimum squatting
This thing is a rockstar on Flint Hills terrain. Super stable, crawls up and down hills and through some pretty gnarly prairie streams no problem. Nice suspension system. High ground clearance, which is great for our rocky soils.
Several ranching neighbors have changed their tune about how useful UTVs can be on wildland fire because of our Can-Am. We’ve put out a lot of wildfire, getting places where no other rig could have.
Great power and top-speed for transport around a site.
4 years of hard use, so far nothing more than typical maintenance and a new set of tires.
The only downside is the long wheel base. We had to buy a new trailer to accommodate, and the turning radius is not as small as the Polaris 6x6s.
North Carolina
I would recommend the Honda Pioneer 1000. We now have 3 of them and everyone loves them compared to gators. They have a more traditional transmission with gears, and a sub transmission, which is a design Honda has been using since the 80’s when they were making 3 wheelers. They also have a payload of 1000 lbs (2 seater).
Any machine with a CVT (Polaris calls it PVT) transmission is not great for moving at slow speeds and constantly stopping and starting movement. The clutch belt drive system is dry and was designed to use the belt as the wearable item that can be easily replaced in the field . Unfortunately, for fireline work, the two clutches that the belt rides on also begin malfunctioning over time and they are not so easy to change in the field. The primary clutch uses centrifugal force to actuate weights which swing out and move one half of the clutch in and out on a shaft, pinching the belt. The weights wear out quickly from constantly engaging and disengaging and the clutches start to get stuck on the shaft and will not slide as they need to. That is the cause of the dreaded ratcheting sound when the transmission is in gear but the vehicle will not move with throttle applied. Moving at slow speed and slow rpm causes the weights to be partially engaged. The last time I replaced both clutches and a belt on a ranger XP it was about $1020 plus the special tool needed to remove the primary clutch from the shaft.
I also hate the polaris wheel bearings. The honda pioneers use similar 1 piece bearings but the Polaris bearings wore out so much faster. I have only replaced 1 honda wheel bearing so far and we are in season 3 with our first machine and season 2 with our 2nd machine.
I have looked at the design of the new Polaris with the metal belt design but I am skeptical of the new design, especially in the first year or two of production. I have not seen one in person yet, though, and it may turn out to be a great machine. If money is no object, CanAm makes a UTV with a tool body but it is very expensive, very long and also uses a CVT.
There is no way around needing good rear shocks for whatever UTV is decided on. Our UTV skid units weigh about 900 lbs loaded with water and 10 gal of torch fuel. The honda pioneer 1000 limited edition is no longer available but it came with Fox shocks that have enough adjustment to hold the rear of the machine at proper ride height. For the last pioneer we purchased, we added those same Fox shocks to the spec sheet for a standard model, as well as a roof, full skid plates, front bumper, winch, and rear bumper to protect the discharge plumbing on the skid unit. That has worked out fine and the dealer had no issues accommodating that.
Fox shocks and Elka shocks can also be ordered and built custom by the shock manufacturer for the weight the machine will be carrying. That is what we did with our Rangers and the prices were very reasonable ($800 a pair for the Elkas).
We have over 700 hours on our 2021 Pioneer and 206 hrs on our 2022 Pioneer. The only maintenance other than regular I have done to either machine is one wheel bearing and two rear axles.
Minnesota
Look into a Can Am Defender HD10. We put tracks on ours and it’s been great w/ and w/o tracks. Only had it for a year, but we use it for everything. We use Kubota’s a lot. Heavy duty, but w/o tracks clearance sucks.
Missouri
I’ll share for my experience this season using a new Honda Pioneer, I would not recommend it.
Great piece of equipment, not ideal for fire.
A big problem we’ve had is bed storage. It doesn’t seem to fit a slip in well and it’s hard to figure a way to attach one. We have yet to find a solution 6 months in.
Another big issue with it is that it is so powerful it just wants to go too fast. You can’t slow roll it along a line for patrol or holding without a jerky lurching sensation. It is also so powerful I think you could easily smack into someone in close quarters if you give a little too much gas.
It performed best for us here where it tackles the rough terrain, but shows up with a poorly fitted slip in and gear barely strapped to the sides. It performed worst in the grass lands where it is just way too sporty to drive slowly in a straight line holding.
North Dakota
We’ve used Polaris Ranger from 2010-20 and Kubota RTV from 2007-currently. Polaris are terrible, I refuse to buy one again. Terrible design and unreliable.
We have two- Kubota RTV 900’s that have been workhorses. One is the 2007 and another is 2014. Both are diesel and can handle the heavy loads, no problem. Our slip-on units are 80-90 gal tanks- no problems with terrain, doesn’t get tippy. You drop these in low gear and engage 4WD and they’ll scale a mountain. Clearance isn’t great- 8” I believe, but the standard metal skid-plate mitigates damaging underside. They are on the heavy side with the diesel engine and are slow- max speed of 25 mph. There is a gas version that hits 40 mph.
We also have 2020 Can-Am Defender HD8 that we run with 80 gal slip-on. So far seems to be holding up but the jury is still out on it. It has a 20-30 grease zerks that I’m not a fan of. Clearance is in 10-12” range. Very comparable to the Polaris ranger, slightly less tippy. We’re running the same slip-on unit that was originally in the Polaris Ranger 800. In the Polaris, the front wheels would commonly want to come off the ground when you were maxed out trying to navigate terrain. That doesn’t happen with the Can-Am.
I was extremely interested in Honda Pioneer when replacing the Polaris but I was needing a machine immediately and Honda was 3-5 months out.
Minnesota
If you want to eliminate transmission issues, consider Honda Pioneer. I have a 1000 model, and it’s shaft-driven, I love it.
We also have several Can-Am UTVs in our fleet in MN, but I don’t have any first-hand experience. Those that have them are not going back to Polaris from what I hear
Kansas
You’ll pay out the nose for it, but CanAm is the best machine I’ve worked with. After 7-8 seasons depending on the ranger 6×6 and all its maintenance, I think Canam is worth the investment. We use one here in Kansas and I’m continually impressed by that thing’s ability to climb and slosh around in the mud with a full slip-on in the back. It’s only a few years old, but I remember the Rangers needing a considerable amount of after-market work by that point. Radiator lifts, new CV boots, etc. That’s kind of prairie-specific stuff but it gives an idea. That said, I don’t have experience with those newer models of Polaris and Honda you mentioned.
North America program
I have worked with several machines, including Honda, Polaris, and Can-Am to name a few.
I highly recommend the Honda pioneer 1000. The shaft drive is superior to the belt drive of other manufacturers. If you need to do any aftermarket accessories to make it have a higher clearance, better tires, bed extension, etc are readily available.
Nathan adds this too: Don’t forget that these machines have a break in period of about 10hrs/30mi that you need to complete, then you need to have it serviced (change all the oils), and only then will it be ready to haul your slip-on and be used on the fireline.
And a few comments came in after Nathan published his list:
Steven Kloetzel: We have 2 units here in Western Montana. We rely on partners a lot, and they rely on us. We don’t have a lot of dough for fire equipment, so here’s what I’ve put together. These are very popular on our partner burns, with no breakdowns or issues:
2021 TNC-built 110gal slide-in, with hose-reel, that we put in a 2014 Tacoma. One person can load and install this slide-in in about 30min. Chris Gordon at the Cross Ranch (ND) & Evan at Niobrara Preserve (NE) helped advise on the slide-in build. We often use that setup like a UTV. And then the Tacoma doubles as a daily-driver pickup for our second forester, how sweet is that?
2023 Kawasaki Mule UTV with 50gal slide-in tank. Tops out at about 25mph – but it is small & mighty. Narrow as an ATV, so easy to weave thru trees. Has better clearance than most UTVs, and way less plastic body-parts. My weed management contractors swear by Mules. The lightweight slide-in is custom built by Warne Chemical of Rapid City, SD, with a hi-pressure electric pump (onboard backup replacement pump can be swapped in 5min.) I’m in the process of adding a front-rack to the UTV for gear/tools. The whole setup cost maybe $15000.
Steve Kloetzel’s Mule with slip on
David Printiss: Thanks Nathan. Whatever rig you buy, you must remember to not go over the listed cargo capacity when adding equipment, tools, etc.
Rob Littiken: We have a few of the Bobcat UTV U34. They are the Commercial line of Polaris and are more heavy duty than normal Polaris UTV’s. The cargo capacity is 1,250# as opposed to most of the other at 1000#. We have had good luck with them. TNC gets a pretty good discount if the dealer prices it out through the government discount system.
This blog site has other posts on UTV slip on units:
grassland restoration network 