August 2007 « The Echinacea Project

Pictures

I finally got around to completely updating my pictures on photobucket, so I thought I should post the link to the site on the blog. It’s a mix of work pictures and others, or simply pictures from times I have my camera.

http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa256/panzerfaustja/

jardín de mi madre

My mom, who is quite the gardener, sent me some pictures of Echinacea she’s had growing in our garden for the past couple of years (I haven’t been home during the summer since I graduated high school, so I’ve never actually seen it). She has a purple variety of ambiguous species identity as well as a yellow and an orange variety developed in the local nursery.

Echinacea garden 002.jpg

Purple variety, head status: indented

View image

Yellow variety

View image

Now you can get gallons of organic milk in Alexandria. I thought some of you would be interested

Ian and the blonde children

Fishing in Minnesota

It is one of my greatest failures that after four summers in a part of Minnesota where there are more lakes than people I still do not know how to fish. Therefore, this summer when I am not measuring Echinacea I can often be found on a lake trying to learn how to fish. I have been only somewhat successful in this endeavor (as you can see by the picture below). However, with the help of Ian, my dad, and my Kensington friend Clint, I am completely confident that by the end of the summer I will be a mediocre fishing woman.

This summer, much more so than in years past, fishing has been a major pastime for a number of the field crew when we are not learning the wonders of Echinacea. Overall I contribute the increase in fishing to two major factors; one living at Andes where we have access to a row boat on a lake full of fish, and, more importantly, actually having crew members that can tie fishing line on hooks (before last week this was not me). Below I have included just a few pictures of our fishing excursions. However, for the entire 112 fishing pictures (most thanks to Ian) see my piacasa web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/ison.jennifer/FishingInMinnesota

Lake Isaac
Is a lake nearly completely on Andes property with a row boat that we have been given permission to take out for fishing. Isaac is a fairly small lake but it is quite beautiful and scenic.

The Lake has a large number of sunfish (or blue gill) crappies, and bass. Both Ian and Amy have caught some very respectable size bass.

Everyone on the crew (except one) has been out on Isaac at least once. Even my dad, who visited last weekend, fished Isaac with me two times.

Supplementing our food budget
One great thing about fishing is the ability to supplement our food budget. On a few occasions we have kept larger sunfish and crappies to clean and eat.

Best Moment of the Summer

We were enjoying a delicious supper of curried chick peas and green beans in the RAJ mahal, relaxing in spite of the raucous shrieking of a gaggle of pre-adolescents in our usually peaceful backyard (e.g. the alpine glory that is Andes Ski Hill). We heard the tweens erupt into rapturous cheering and looked out the window in time to see Ian emerge over the crest of the mountain on his bike, reminiscent of Gandalf, back lit by the morning sun, boldly perched atop Shadowfax. After bombing down the black diamond, Ian cruised back to the mando with a hoard of teenyboppers hot in pursuit. In the throes ecstasy, celebrating their newfound hero, the aggregation of blond children called out eager questions to this mysterious stranger: ‘Where are you from?’ ‘What’s your name?’ and yes, even, ‘can I have your autograph?’

View image

Off the subject of Echinacea.

With the influx of work related postings, I thought I would shed some light on the day to day goings-on of the Andes’ condos.

Specifically, I will cover the activities of the 3-bedroom-condo, fondly dubbed “The Mando” (though it is now slightly inaccurate as Jennifer has been living here for several weeks now). I exclude the 2-bedroom-condo, fondly named the Raj-Mahal, not out of spite or ill-will but rather because they’re crazy and I don’t know what they do all day.
The Good:
We continue to improve our living situation by adding a mass supply of cereal, donated by the kind folks of “Sweet Retreat”, the Bed and Breakfast that Jennifer’s parents stayed in this last weekend. It seems that Post cereals gives away huge numbers of sample boxes to B+Bs everywhere, and by some good luck and friendly coercing we’ve managed to procure 144 sample-sized boxes of “Blueberry Morning” and “Cranberry Almond Crunch”. We also continue to supplement our food budget, though the pheasant supply has slowed. We continue to pursue alternative food options. I’ll leave that open to interpretation.
The Bad:
The cereal donation wasn’t entirely beneficial, and did create some negative emotions. Jennifer specifically was influenced by the free food. Who can blame her, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. And by “absolute power” I mean sample boxes of cereal, and by “corrupts absolutely” I mean causes her to blame me for its disappearance. We also seem to have run into a bought of clumsiness around the Mando. With freshly burned hands, smashed fingers and chiggered bodies, we persist. Hopefully this accident prone streak will fade in time.
The men of Denison are approaching the end of our stay here quickly, with less than 3 weeks left in Minnesota. We will continue to live interesting lives here Douglas County, and I will continue to provide the lovely details.

Hegg Lake 2006 versus 2007

I thought I would spend some time comparing the 2006 and 2007 measuring of the plants at Hegg Lake. The Hegg Lake common garden is located on Minnesota DNR land and is approximately a 7.5 mile drive from the main common garden. In May 2006 3,941 seedlings were planted at Hegg Lake after they were first germinated and grown in a green house at the Chicago Botanic Garden. To learn more about this large seedling growth experiment read this description.

Measuring plants:
In both years we counted the number of leaves and measured the longest leaf. However, this year we also recorded insects and any herbivory damage on the plants. The average tallest leaf of the living plants was 6.4 cm in 2006 and 13.7 cm in 2007.

“Can’t finds��? and mortality estimates between years:
When we are measuring plants and can’t find a plant we don’t assume the plant is dead. Instead the measurer records that the plant is a “can’t find��? and places a flag in the position he/she was searching. Later we have a different person come back and searches for the plant so that two pairs of eye look for every “can’t find��? plant. In 2006 we had approximately 21% of the plants were found by the second person who went back and searched for the “can’t find��? plants. Our overall estimate for mortality in the plants first year of growth was around 6% with 243 plants that were “can’t finds��? after two people searched for the plant.

This year we have just started having the second person go back and search for “can’t find��? plants. We have a total of 698 plants that were not found by the originally measurer. This puts the mortality estimate at 17.7% plants (cumulative) however I feel this percentage will drop significant after the second person rechecks the “can’t finds��?.

One interesting note is there were 30 plants found by the originally measurer this year that were not found by EITHER person who searched for the plant in 2006. Therefore, in 2006 there were really (at most) 213 plants that died making the currently mortality estimate for 2006 at 5%.

Ground markers

How are we figuring out what goes where? In most KAP applications, the camera is pointed at the horizon, or slightly towards the ground from the horizon. It’s pretty easy to get landmarks this way (trees, buildings, roads, stuff like that). Looking at the ground, however, it’s not so easy. How do you get good landmarks in a sea of green?

Simple. Ground markers.

It’s really a pretty simple marker. Made from 2 pieces of meter-long wood (it’s several centimeters wide, but I don’t recall off the top of my head.) The boards are painted a flat white, North is painted red (lighter grey in the above image). The stripes are painted flat black (darker grey in the image). The boards are drilled through the center and affixed with a bolt and wing nut, to easily collapse them for storage and transport. Red is painted on the edge of the east-west board facing north, to keep it keyed when unfolding.

Download a PDF with 20 ground markers already made
Download the GIMP source file for the ground markers

Rachel’s Species Survey List

Download file

This is a link to a sample survey sheet that is used for my research. It includes a list of some of the most common plants found in the prairie fragments.

-Rachel

Rained out

There may be a sudden influx of blog entries very soon because when we don’t work, we get to flog. I was out at Hegg Lake when the storm rolled in today around 11. Jennifer heard the thunder and told us to finish our row and then we would consider our options. Before we could finish our rows, Jennifer looked up, noticed the clouds and thunder were almost overhead and said we should go back to the farmhouse. Everyone else was already in the farmhouse at that point because it was pouring and there was lightning, so they decided to scamper inside. Some pictures from today: