DESIRED STAGE: Flatwoods - Stage 1 (grass dominated flatwoods). Open yellow pine overstory. Pyrhic grasses dominate groundcover vegetation and palmetto is short in a vertical stem or short "gator-back" growth form less than 2 feet in height. Typical flatwoods shrub species such as gallberry and Lyonia appear much less dense in terms of cover dominance. Fuel Models 2 or 7.
RESTORATION/MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL
- Selective thinning and "pocket cut" timber harvests to restore open character of yellow pine overstory in situations where overstory is too dense.
- Mechanical treatment of dense palmetto cover with bush-hog or roller chopper type equipment to reduce palmetto over-dominance. Care should be taken in treatment design to avoid any soil disturbance from roller chopper tine digging or "root tip up".
- Post mechanical fuel reduction (dormant season) prescribed fires should be performed only in the thicker extremes of this stage category. Care should be taken to choose weather/moisture parameters that create low fire intensities yielding moderate to mild fire severity.
- Follow-up of exotics management should exist where exotics are in or surrounding the treatment area.
- Maintenance/Management Phase:
- Growing season and mixed season series of prescribed fires at a 1 to 4 year fire interval.
- Follow-up of exotics management should exist where exotics are in or surrounding the treatment area.
- Special Management Concerns:
- Soil disturbance as avenue for exotics.
- Degradation of wiregrass complex from equipment trampling.
- Hydrologic/topographic alteration such as ditching and fire-plow scars as impacts to fire
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