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A low key day here in Kensington, not much Echinacea Project work going on today. We bid our sad farewells (those of us who stuck around this weekend) to Sara Z as she left to head home and begin preparing for another year of teaching in Chicago. Today was filled with some cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping as per the usual; however, I did come across this curious sign today on my run, a historic site with arrows pointing in BOTH directions….
So curiosity struck and I decided to follow the arrow that pointed right, and I came across this little gem…
A monument erected in honor of the towns founders. To find out what is in the direction of the historic site sign’s arrow you will have to go see for yourself.
Hello,
Attached is the data that I collected this summer observing ants on Echinacea. The metadata is as follows:
Date- The date on which the observation was made
Site- The site at which the observation was made, abbreviations are the standard for the projects sites
Initials- Initials of the individual making the observation (SZ= Sara Zufan)
PlantID- The tag number of the plant being identified
Aphids- Whether or not aphids were observed (Y= Yes, N= No)
VialNo- The number of the vial which the ant samples were collected in
SpecNo- The number the specimen were given when transferred into collection tubes
MorphoID- The identification of the ant to Genus species
MorphoCt- The number of ants counted on the plant of that morphological identification
AntCt- If more than one species was on the plant this shows how many total ants were present during the observation
Est- Indicates whether or not the count was estimated (Y= Yes, N=No)
NearbyFlPlants- The identification of plants that were in flower at the time of the observation within one meter of the plant being observed
Ant Collection-Observation Data 2013.csv
Once again, a hearty hello to readers on the flog-o-sphere!
As with many days this week, the morning started off with phenology. Now that more than half of the plants in the common garden have finished flowering, it can be accomplished in a little over an hour. The Sara(h)s measured plants in the 99 garden while Ilse, Lydia, Gretel, and Marie worked on crossing. Dayvis lurked in the basement of the Hjelm house, alone with his collection of pollinators and an insect identification book. Kory visited Hegg Lake and harvested his first Echinacea head for his experiment! At lunch, Marie practiced giving her poster presentation to the group.
After eating, Sara Z, Gretel, Marie, and Ilse stayed at the Hjelm house to finish crossing and measuring. The rest of the group traveled to East Riley for seedling re-finds. In high spirits after finding (although most often not finding) a seedling, Team Echincea adorned themselves with natural hitchhiker jewelry.
Crew members returned home in a timely fashion to enjoy some homemade pad thai prepared by Sara Z. Thai food is the only thing Dayvis has craved more than a machete all summer long – needless to say, he was sated. When Sara Z first arrived at the town hall, she was under the misguided impression that crew members play board games every night after work; the fact that we don’t has been a constant cause for consternation. At her dogged insistence, several of us joined her for a game of Bananagrams and Apples to Apples.
Have a great weekend!
Hello everyone!
Today was a productive and fun day up here at Kensington! This morning we had project work time. I finished collecting my data this past monday so I spent the time analyzing and organizing my data (I post it soon!) Marie worked on her poster, and Dayvis identified his bees. Sarah B went to her remnants today, and Sara Z visited her E. angustifolia to work on her ant research. Ilse and Lydia did crosses for the Qgen project. The afternoon was filled with crossing and seedling re-finds.
This week team echinacea has learned the true meaning of R.A.A.D.!
ROMANCE!
(Marie and the thistle who loved her)
ADVENTURE!
(walking around at Hegg Lake)
ACTION!
(Walking!)
DANGER!
(Marie almost eating dogbane)
Thats all from me today! Stay R.A.A.D. everyone!
Another day of measuring, phenology, and crossing has come and gone. Phenology this morning was quite wet, afterwards some of us crossed and the rest worked on independent projects. Crossing has gotten quite challenging in the sense that we have a limited supply of pollen to work with as most of the sires are done flowering. The challenge is to get an even distribution of each sire (pollen donor) to the 4 dams (pollen acceptor) that it goes to, this has proven to be our biggest obstacle. And to top it off some dams haven’t even started to flower yet!
At lunch we got to see Dayvis’s preliminary power point for the presentation he will be giving on his research at the Chicago Botanic Garden next week; Marie will also be presenting a poster on her hybrid project there.
Then it was back to work with measuring the common garden and finishing up crossing jobs from this morning for the rest of the afternoon.
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Weather was as usual today, meaning erratic. In the morning, it rained really hard for about half an hour and then we were left with sunshine. In the afternoon, we started with sunshine and ended with rain! We still managed to get a lot done, though. Good job, team!
In the morning, people did data entry while it rained and then individual projects and common garden work when it cleared up. We all met up for lunch and then spent the afternoon measuring more plants in the common garden. The leopard frogs seemed to love the weather and were everywhere today. So cute!
In other news, Marie found a love for thistles and has proclaimed herself a “thistle whisperer.”
We all went home early due to rain and a tornado warning (we’re all safe, thankfully). Lydia made a delicious dinner of black bean burgers and potatoes which was awesome!
Another good day, even with the crazy weather. Now, it’s time for bed. Goodnight!
Sarah B
It’s the start of a new week for Team Echinacea. This morning was jam packed with phenology and crossing. We’re past peak flowering at this point which is making phenology go quite a bit faster, however we’re definitely in the midst of peak crossing. Ilse and I printed off nearly 25 pages of crossing information, and together Team Echinacea probably visited three quarters of the plants in the crossing experiment today. Wowee!
The afternoon was spent (as many afternoons recently) crossing and measuring the common garden. After lunch we did spend an hour pulling thistle, which was surprisingly more enjoyable than it sounds (gloves helped). Kory got the record for largest thistle with this bad boy.
Marie made some delish baked mac n cheese with a side of broccoli puree for dinner and the mayor of Kensington stopped by to alert us of construction due next week. Not a bad Monday.
Today was about as exciting as one could expect an uneventful day to be. If the surface of a lake were as placid as the town hall was today, there wouldn’t be a single ripple of water.
However, that’s not to say that nothing happened. Dayvis bicycled out to Hegg Lake this morning to monitor phenology, and took the long way home (for a total round trip of about 6 miles). Sarah B.’s parents were visiting; the Bakers had lunch at the famous Mi Mexico in Alexandria, and then visited several prairie remnants to practice identifying wildflowers. Kory and Lydia went to Kensington for laundry and groceries. Lydia must have been hungry at the time, because she impulsively bought a large carton of doughnut holes. They probably won’t last long, since Sarah B. has been eyeing them ravenously.
I had a few significant accomplishments of my own today. Shown above is a container of some eggs that I hard-boiled to perfection. The last batch that I made several weeks ago were rather inedible due to an under-cooked center. I have been reluctant to cook eggs ever since that debacle. Because my eggs had exceeded their expiration date, however, I decided to take the plunge and try again – and to what marvelous results! I also succeeded in debugging some R code that had me stumped all of yesterday.
Since yesterday, there has also been significant progress on the puzzle. See if you can guess what it is now!
Well, this Saturday was so un-noteworthy that I forgot to flog it. Oops.
Some of us started Saturday morning with phenology in the common garden. Sarah B went out afterwards to do phenology at her sites. There are so few flowering now that she can visit all of her sites in one morning.
We all learned something new at the expense of Dayvis. Never take out the batteries in your Visor. You will lose all of your data. 🙁
The rest of the day was spent running errands in Alex, looking at data, and relaxing.
Reina, Mike, and Ilse are out this weekend so Town Hall feels very empty. We did, however, start a community puzzle. Can you guess what it will be?
For many of our experiments we want to harvest Echinacea heads when they are as ripe as possible, but before any achenes have dropped.
The standard harvest indicators are as follows:
- Phyllaries (involucral bracts) are brown
- Bracts that subtend each disc floret are brown and sharp
- Flower stalk (peduncle) is brown (not purple)
- 1st (uppermost) cauline lf is brown (note: 1st lf may be close to hd!)
Once harvest indicators 1 – 4 are positive, or if a head has loose achenes or is in some way deformed and you think achenes may be lost before the next harvest, harvest the hd! Make sure to look for loose achenes at the top of every hd with brown bracts.
Harvest a head by cutting it off and placing it carefully into a labeled bag. When cutting the hd off, hold the head firmly in one hand and cut the peduncle with the pruners 3-5 cm under the hd. You don’t need to open the bag all the way and the hd doesn’t need to go all the way to the bottom of the bag.
That’s our standard harvest protocol! Everything’s flowering so late this year, we won’t be harvesting for a while, but I wanted to post this while I was thinking about it.
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