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We have weather!

There was a nice steady rain this afternoon at the farm. Although the National Weather Service says we accumulated less than 0.1 in, I think the plants will take full advantage of precipitation in this unusually dry season.

Point precipitation map for Minnesota June 24, 2009

Seedling search at Hegg Lake

Amy and I have been out at Hegg Lake since Tuesday afternoon, searching low and lower for Echinacea seedlings in my small “next generation genetic rescue” experiment and Amy’s crossing and local adaptation experiments. We’re finding quite a few seedlings- they’re mostly just cotyledons (some amazingly with their little seed coats still attached) and about a quarter have put out their first true, very fuzzy leaf. Without the true leaves, the seedlings can be tricky to tell apart from the seedlings of one or two other species, but we’ve developed a fairly good search image and are making notes of questionable identifications.
Mode number of seedlings for each “position,” that is a batch of 5-40 achenes sown: 0
Maximum seedlings found in a position in my experiment: 12
Maximum seedlings found in a position in Amy’s experiment: 10
I’ll also brag and mention that today I found the seedling with the longest true leaf so far at 42 mm. Looked to me like the plucky guy was flipping the bird. Ah, Amy and I certainly do succeed at keeping ourselves and each other entertained.
We completed searches for my experiment on Tuesday, made it through the crossing experiment Wednesday and today and plan to finish up with the local adaptation experiment tomorrow. Photos are forthcoming.

Way extended field season

Amy and I were out at Hegg Lake last Tuesday and Wednesday sowing seeds for a couple of new experiments. Hard to believe there’s still fieldwork to be done in the middle of November! It seems everything was pushed late this year. On Tuesday, as we were measuring and setting up plots, we experienced about every form of precipitation: light snow and heavy, wet snow and freezing rain and good ‘ole regular rain. Luckily by Wednesday, there was little accumulation and nothing falling from the sky. We sowed my entire experiment, looking at the ability of genetically rescued plants to recruit new individuals to a population, and one third of Amy’s, which examines both local adaptation and the relative potential of different populations to act as genetic rescuers. Here are some pictures showing ice around the edges of Hegg Lake and our attempt to get achenes right on the ground in our plots (utilizing kitchen scrubbers/mini-brooms to brush away vegetation).

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