2016 Update: Echinacea hybrids — exPt 9

The team after an initial measurement of p9. Blue flags are positions where Echinacea weren’t found.

This summer, we remeasured plants in experimental plot 9 at Hegg Lake. These plants are hybrids of Echinacea angustifolia (native) and Echinacea pallida (non-native, but planted at a nearby restoration). Unlike the plants in p7, these plants came from open-pollinated parents – that is, there was no artificial crossing done.  Stuart and Lydia English planted the seeds in May of 2014. Much like with plot p7, an analysis the survival and fitness of these plants can give insight into whether or not hybrid populations can be viable in our study areas, and whether or not they pose a threat to native E. angustifolia in our remnants. We have returned to the plot each of the last three years to measure number of rosettes and leaf lengths of these plants.

Table 1 shows the number of plants found alive during each search. These plants were measured on August 4^th and rechecked on August 23rd. No plants flowered this year, although there were several found that had leaves over 40cm long.

Start year: 2014

Location: Hegg Lake Wildlife Management Area — experimental plot 9

Overlapping experiments: Echinacea hybrids — experimental plot 6, Echinacea hybrids — experimental plot 7

Data collected: Rosette number, length of all leaves, herbivory for each plant collected electronically and exported to CGData. Recheck information for plants not found was also collected electronically and stored in CGData.

You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.