The feel of spring is in the air, and for panhandle Florida that has certain implications. With the days getting longer and warmer, many of the native plants and trees are blooming.
This season of renewal ambiance certainly brightens the landscape after months of muted colors, and January’s snow. It does, however, come at a price.
The flowers’ issue is pollen season. It is popular with bees and other pollinators, but rough on those with sinus issues.
Fortunately, the weather fronts which bring rain also literally wash the air. The excess pollen which did not make it to another bloom or a beehive is quickly concentrated in runoff.
The yellow dust floats in anything which holds water. Luckily, it deteriorates quickly and with no harmful aftereffects to the environment.
Rainy weather washes any impurities out of the air. Pollen will be concentrated in water, where it decays quickly.
Another interloper to the olfactory sense this season is smoke from prescribed or controlled burns. Spring, with its low humidity days and ample dead brush, is the time for this forestry management practice.
It is also the best time to expose smaller pine trees to the flames. Emerging from their dormant season, they have enough energy to overcome most damage that may be incurred.
Periodically, many publicly and privately held timber properties are burned to remove dead annuals and undesirable perennial species on windless days. As with any untended property, there can easily be a buildup of plants which have settled in an ideal microenvironment.
Dense thickets and concentrations can result in a monoculture, especially if an exotic invasive species has become established. Less intrusive plants are unable to compete and will be eliminated from the area.
If some exotic invasive weeds, cogon grass and old-world climbing fern for example, are allowed to become established, any fire will result in the death of nearby trees.
Cogon grass burns hot enough to incinerate the bark of trees. Climbing fern becomes a fire bridge to the top of a tree and destroys it.
Only a smoldering pine stump hole continues to burn after a prescribed fire in panhandle Florida. Part of a series of good forestry management practices, controlled burns minimize the potential for wildfires later in the year.
Even the heavy accumulation of native underbrush poses a problem for the health of trees in the forest and public safety in general. The recent spate of wildfires in California are an excellent example of how environmental factors can combine to produce widespread havoc.
Even in humid north Florida, there will be hot dry late summers and early autumns. It is not a matter of if, but a guarantee of when.
Removing the fuel for a potential wildfire is a prudent safety practice with easily established economic benefits.
Prescribed burns have other benefits which promote the health of local forests. One is the fires speed the deterioration of organic matter and return the nutrients to the soil.
The ash and decaying branches are utilized by the plants and trees, but also beneficial insects and earthworms. Earthworms are especially effective at aerating the soil zone where delicate root growth is necessary for tree health.
Noxious weed seeds and insect pests are destroyed in prescribed burns. Ticks in particular will be controlled when exposed to the flames.
Permitting through the Florida Forestry Service is required for controlled burns. Fire lanes which are plowed around the burn area minimize the potential of the fire escaping into the surrounding environment.
Humidity rises when the sun sets, so the fires, with the exception of a few flaming stump holes, will cease by dark.
As with pollen, the rain will remove any vestiges of smoke.
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