Yesterday (February 27, 2018) we did the annual burn of the tallgrass prairie on the south slope of Pleasant Valley Conservancy State Natural Area. Because of the extensive bur oak…

Typical open canopy of a savanna. This is a July view of the northwest side of Unit 10. Quite a few methods for measuring a forest canopy cover exist, but…

What's happened to those great fall days that were so perfect for savanna and oak woodland burns? The last several years it has been difficult to find a good day…

As the graph and map show, once we got started clearing the prairie and savanna remnants we kept up a fairly regular pace. Although it isn’t shown on the graph,…

Almost 14 years ago Kathie and I led a field trip to Pleasant Valley Conservancy for the North American Prairie Conference that was held at UW-Madison. Photographer Dennis Connor was…

I am reviewing the 20-year history of burns at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. Every year I have kept careful notes of each burn, and have written a narrative afterward, with a…

Oak savanna restoration involves a lot of delicate removal of invasive trees and shrubs. (I refrain from using the word “logging”, which has connotations of habitat destruction.) The long-term goal…

This post is based on 20-years work restoring oak savannas and tallgrass prairie remnants at PVC. During that period, we were able to obtain a lot of experience on the…

Brambles (genus Rubus) may be native but they are generally undesirable in a prairie or savanna. This post is based on over 20 years of restoration work at Pleasant Valley…

This year, apparently for the first time, a small number of our bur oaks have acquired bur oak blight, a relatively new bur oak disease. The disease is shown in…