Here’s something to consider too…..If frequent intense fire were to be having a negative impact on a property's soil then it would likely play itself out slowly over a long term period….maybe like a decade or something lets say……and here’s why……The soil organic matter is continually decomposing day in and day out…..it speeds up and slows down according to temp but it’s always gonna be in processes of decomposing…..Which mean you have to always be adding it back or you start running a soil OM deficit…..For example I said I have 6% right now and growing……the soil running a deficit would be 5.2% next year and 4.6% the next and so on and so forth……because its decomposing at a faster rate than its being added.....you took much of its above ground carbon source away through fire .....If you continue to run a deficit long enough then you end of with zero…..This is what has happened to many food plots and it’s the same thing that can happen to the rest of the soil if you slowly starve it of carbon. It would be very interesting to do some soil tests on burn areas and see if you’re growing the OM or running a deficit…..

Fire is a great tool but we should try to know all of the effects we are causing with the manner in which we use it...I would suspect a really hot fire would reek havoc on the soil microbes as well.....almost sterilizing it of life for awhile....most of the life exists in the top layers of soil....It would be extremely important to know if your soil OM% is growing or declining because it has a significant impact on the forage production....as soil OM% grows, forage production grows.....species composition also changes.....so as soil OM% grows then so does deer holding capacity....Correct?.....Which means as it declines then so does holding capacity.

Are we "managing" the right things? We try to manage the deer.....we try to manage the plant......but do we pay any attention to managing the soil?