Reseeding After Wildfire a Hot Topic
Going "natural" not necessarily best course of action
© 2004 Wendy Dager
Ash floated through the air, choking the homeowners who stood outside to watch and wait. The bright orange fire coming down the Simi hills from nearby Piru was mesmerizingly beautiful as it consumed tree after tree. Neighbors chatted nervously, wondering if they would have to jump in their cars—already packed full of possessions—and head for safer ground. By noon, most north-central Simi Valley residents had decided to stay put, their homes and personal property intact, as the fire, driven by fickle Santa Ana winds, made an abrupt turn, jeopardizing the houses on Simi’s east end.
To Seed and Protect
Simi Valley wasn’t the only Southern California community affected by late fall wildfires. They raged throughout the Golden State, destroying 3,500 structures and more than a half million acres, with the worst damage occurring in San Bernadino and San Diego counties. The Cedar Fire alone was the largest California fire since 1932, decimating 280,000 acres in San Diego County.
While citizens continue to mourn the loss of life and the destruction of property, government agencies are attending to the process of securing blackened hills before winter rains create hazardous mudslides.
But erosion control after a fire is no easy task, particularly when there are those who favor "natural revegetation" instead of a managed reseeding process.
That is, some environmental groups don’t want hills reseeded with nonnative pioneer species, which are generally hydroseeded, leaving the green-tinted spray now visible in many California burn zones. Instead, these groups prefer stabilization methods such as hydromulching, in hopes that native seed, buried deep within the soil, eventually emerge as plants, restoring hillsides to their former lushness.
Mulch, usually a mixture of wood and paper—containing no seeds—is expected to last between 6 and 12 months, depending on wind and rainfall. S&S Seeds recommends Conwed Fibers Hydro Mulch® 2500, a bonded fiber matrix (BFM) that is less expensive and easier to install than blankets or sod.
Even though recent studies support the idea that the most effective first year erosion controls are mulches and Best Management Practices (BMPs), and that seeding is only minimally effective, there is more that can be done to stabilize hillsides. (See "Why Best Management Practice Doesn’t Always Work," http://albrightseed.com/bmp.htm.)
S&S Seeds believes that using mulch with supplemental native grass and native forb seeding (see "The Natives are Restless" on page three of this Leaf-let) can have tremendous mid-term and long-term benefits.
The benefits include better erosion control in the second and third years following a fire, improved conditions for beneficial subterranean life forms, and increased water infiltration.
Going Native
Use of stabilizing agents and quick-germinating, short-lived native grasses such as Bromus carinatus (California Brome) or Vulpia microstachys (Small Fescue) provide the most erosion control over the life of a revegetation process.
Since the grasses are native to Southern California, their use will increase the native seed bank and, therefore, protect the regional gene pool.
"S&S Seeds strongly supports the practice of reseeding natives for the value and protection that native grasses will provide for many years," said S&S Seeds’ Paul Albright. "In fact, we’re so pro-native that we’ve donated 10,000 pounds of Bromus carinatus to San Diego County to help reseed the areas affected by the recent wildfires."
Getting to the Root of the Problem
But hillsides cannot be restored to healthy conditions just by reseeding native grasses and the added process of hydromulching. Burned areas also need a little boost from below.
"After a fire, there’s a degradation of the endomycorrhizae populations," said Albright. "This means there isn’t as much beneficial fungus traveling from the surrounding soil back to the plant."
The mycorrhizal fungi growing on a plant’s roots as a sheath are important to the overall health of a plant. (See the Best of the Leaf-let, "Mycorrhizal Inoculation: Fungus for your Humus, A Natural Enhancement, http://albrightseed.com/mycorr.htm.)
Fungal root extensions transport nutrients from widely surrounding soil back to the host plant, but, after a fire, an application of mycorrhizal inoculant, such as AM 120, can increase the survival rate of native seeds and stimulate greater root ball growth activity.
While the fungi takes in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, magnesium, manganese, copper, calcium, iron, silicon, aluminum, zinc and water, the mycorrhiza only takes carbon from the plant. Amazingly, this lopsided give-and-take contributes to a healthy flora and terrestrial ecosystem.
The Goal is Control
"Using mycorrhizal inoculant in conjunction with mulches and, of course, native seeds, we believe the burned areas in Southern California will recover quickly," said Albright. "The goal is to create successful erosion control using proper revegetation methods, so that there is no more unnecessary loss at the hands of Mother Nature."
—For more information about Southern California burn area recovery, visit the Web site of Burned Area Emergency Response, http://baerteam.net.
GREENFIX
America
EarthSaver Straw Wattle Slope Interruption DeviceCall S&S Seeds at (805) 684-0436.
- A low cost solution to sheet and rill erosion problems.
- Can replace silt fences or straw bales on steep slopes.
- Helps establish and store moisture for native vegetation.
- Plastic netting photodegrades and straw becomes incorporated into soil.
Albright Seed is a Division of S&S Seeds.
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