Forest thinning is a common practice used by land managers to reduce fuel loads and to restore historic forest structure and function in Colorado montane and subalpine forests. Typically, the material removed by thinning is unmerchantable and must be disposed of to reduce the risk of crown fires. Slash pile burning is the most widely used technique in this situation due to its cost effectiveness, practicality, and ease of implementation under a wide variety of weather conditions. Despite these factors, slash pile burning causes drastic changes to soil conditions and vegetation composition, which are a concern for land managers charged with maintaining soil productivity and native plant diversity. The objective of this study was to identify cost effective and practical restoration treatments to mitigate ecological damage and to restore community structure and ecosystem processes within slash pile burn scars. We aim to determine simple rehabilitation techniques capable of minimizing soil degradation, promoting native species recolonization, and preventing non-native species establishment within burn scars. Rehabilitation treatments were installed at 20 sites throughout CO’s Front Range. The treatments were: scarification, scarification and seeding, wood chip mulch, wood chip mulch and seeding, vertical mulch, vertical mulch and seeding, seeding, and an untreated control. Treatments were compared to each other, to the control pile (non-mechanically treated), and to the reference condition (outside the pile).
Results/Conclusions
First year results indicated that simple rehabilitation treatments may effectively minimize exotic species encroachment and promote native species establishment in slash pile scars. Seeding piles resulted in greater plant cover and seeding in addition to scarifying resulted in piles that were most similar to the reference condition. Results from the second year’s data collection will be presented during this talk.