What an exciting day. The team spent most of the morning checking on phenology in the remnants. We split up into four teams to cover the whole study area: the Big East Team (Stuart and Anna M), the Andes + Erin crew, the A-team (Allie, Anna A., and me), and Riley and John. It was a lot of fun. More and more plants are presenting pollen, but for now most heads are still buds or are just starting to present ray florets.
This is the only picture I took today! Check out those antennae.
The most fun thing about today was that we used a walkie talkie app on our phones to stay in touch while doing phenology. We practiced our radio lingo and learned what our initials are in the NATO phoenetic alphabet.
Persistent plant growing three rows into the soybean field at On27 (Photo Credit: Mike Sierra aka Mia Stevens)
In the afternoon, the A-team went back out to do phenology at Landfill and others started searching for Stipa. We finished the day with chores.
Huge opportunity for wishes! (Photo Credit: Mike Sierra aka Mia Stevens)
I can’t wait to do this all over again on Wednesday!
Erin keeping her boy Darwin dry during some sprinkles at Loeffler’s Corner, a site in the Choo Choo Corner Route (Photo Credit: Mike Sierra aka Mia Stevens)
Hi flog! Today began slowly, with people in the Hoffman House up and about doing some field work and getting some errands/chores done.
However, this afternoon the Hoffman House crew and some of the Andes Tower Hill folks met up for some relaxation at Elk Lake. Some of us braved the plant-filled, squishy-bottomed lake for a nice, refreshing swim.
A view of Elk Lake
After that, we headed back home for some dinner, and then to Hjelm to meet the goats and have a bonfire, complete with the requisite s’mores. Emma started the second bonfire, which resulted in a gigantic flame. You could have roasted a marshmallow 10 meters away from the fire.
Emma with her fire – you can see what’s left of the first fire in the bottom right.
There are 9 goats staying at Hjelm House this summer and they are all adorable. They love eating treats and nibbling on fingers. For the most part, they are all well-behaved goats. But, one goat, Noess, decided that it would be better outside the fence than in, and hopped out to join us at the bonfire. Noess spent part of the night missing and part of the night trying to eat marshmallows with us.
Saying hi to the goats!Noess on the loose
We were also joined by many mosquitoes and some bats. Everyone had a great time and we look forward to more evening bonfires in the future!
A steady trickle of plants on their first day of flowering continues to roll in. Very exciting!
Anna M took this beautiful picture of an Echinacea head on its second day of flowering at Loeffler’s Corner
Erin E finished surveying all of the sites where I will be doing my crossing experiment, which looks at the effects of outcrossing distance and inter-parent asynchrony on offspring fitness!
A team completed a first round of twist-tying flowering plants at p2.
The team got trained in on Stipa searching.
I looked for flowering plants at East Elk Lake Road and encountered the plant tagged 18136, which is precious to us because we have been tracking it since it was a baby seedling. It might flower this year, but the bud is so little it is hard to tell!
Just a little bud!
My department at UMN had a forum about experiences of racism in our community, following several weeks of dialogue. My peers shared powerful statements, and I am hopeful that this will lead to positive change. Black Lives Matter. Read more about the perspectives we expressed in the open letter we wrote to faculty before the meeting.
We began week #2 stalking Staffanson Prairie for Echinacea first in the rain and then if the pleasant breeze. We estimated about on 150 flowering plants on the East quadrant and will hopefully get to the West tomorrow morning. It’s simply amazing the variety of species found there and also the colors present. We then spent the afternoon visiting some remnant plots looking for flowering plants.
Prairie Smoke from Staffanson’s PrairieWood LillyPrairie Turnip – my new favorite this summer, replacing Monarda fistulosa
We then had an afternoon Zoom meeting wth Jarred Beck, Echinacea Project Alumni from 2014 discussing the history and benefits of burning praire. He also discussed upcoming research on burning some remnant prairies starting next spring.
We had a pretty quiet Sunday here at the Hoff House, except for the constant rumbling of the washer and dryer. Stuart, Emma and Mia all paid us visits to do their laundry. The sun finally came out in the afternoon and I joined Mia in the yard, where we watched a bee which she identified as Bombus imaptiens trundling around clover patches.
Allie, Riley and I took advantage of the sun to throw a frisbee around the yard. The winds were gusty and occasionally carried the ‘bee way over our heads! Afterwards we deliberated about making crop circles in an un-mowed field of grass adjacent to the lawn, but if you see anything about aliens on the news this week, it wasn’t us!
UFOs have been reported in the area
Our Bombus friend returned and Riley and I chased her around the yard. We’ve named her Biggio for the MLB player and her enormous length. There seems to be several Biggios hanging out in the yard, though, and hopefully there will eventually bee enough for a pickup ball game.
Biggio! This doesn’t seem to be the Biggio who Mia orginially identified, as this one seemed a little smaller.
The Hoff House is largely unfurnished, so I was really excited to rescue a dresser from the side of the road yesterday. The former owners of the dresser drove up and said hello as I heaved it into my trunk, which briefly terrified me into thinking I was robbing them. Today Riley helped me haul it upstairs and I have now transitioned from a floor-based organizational system to a drawer-based one.
Not pictured: The antique framed photo of a church that the former owners of this dresser asked me to take as well
Let me know if you see any large bees or spare furniture on the roadsides of West Central Minnesota! The Hoff House has a vested interest in both of them.
We had a good first week at the Echinacea Project! It’s a good group of caring and dedicated people and I’m looking forward to spending the summer with them. On Friday we discussed our ideas for individual summer projects, which demonstrated the collaborative, supportive, and ecological science-fostering environment that this team cultivates. It was fun hearing about everyone’s projects, which ranged in topics from aphid-ant-plant interactions to the role of parasitic plants in prairies, to Echinacea pallida/angustifolia hybrids, to Echinacea seedling persistence in microhabitats, to planning prairie research projects for a high school class. It will be exciting to see how they develop!
In plant ID this week I’m jazzed to share that I figured out what the plant Amy and I were trying to identify at the Landfill site on Friday was! It was Amorpha nana, aka fragrant false indigo or dwarf false indigo. It’s a relative of Amorpha canescens (leadplant) and looks similar, but has distinctive red stems.
Next week I look forward to more monitoring of Echinacea phenology as its flowers develop, getting more practice with GPS data collection, and working on my project idea. I’m thankful for the patience of more experienced team members showing me how it’s done!
What I believe is Amorpha nana, seen at the Landfill prairie remnant. Surrounded by brome grass and litter–maybe this site would benefit from a burn!A brilliant tiger beetle also seen at Landfill
Today was a demo day! Demo day is where you collect data from flowering Echinacea. During demo day I went to the Landfill site and found all the flowering plants. When I found the plants I collected how many heads there were, and tagged all of them. After I collected data I changed out the color of the flags so others would know I was there.
Here is a picture of an Echinacea plant that is flowering!
In this picture Emma is holding a turtle that was crossing the road and she decided to help it out. But when she was moving it, the turtle started peeing all over. Luckily it wasn’t on her.
Hello Echination! It’s me again, Riley. I’m finally returning to regular summer flogs, and I am beyond excited to be doing so. As regular flog subscribers may know, I spent the winter with Team Echinacea at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and I have been looking forward to adventures in west-central Minnesota for a while now. I like to think my return to the prairie was as epic as Kurt Angle’s TNA debut.
Nonetheless, we had a productive team day today. This morning, Anna M, Mia, and I went out to hybrid exPt7 and exPt9 and flagged the plots for future measuring. It went very smoothly relative to previous years! Additionally, we found a flowering plant in experimental plot 7! We expect it is either an Echinacea pallida plant or a hybrid. I think it may be in the same plant that flowered in 2018 in exPt7. Other team members weeded in exPt1 this morning, and Erin worked on preparing Darwin to stake and shoot plants in the remnants. Finally, Amy W and Emma went to remnants to take demography records on plants that have initiated flowering.
We had a fun lunch and headed over to West Central Area High School for an afternoon of meetings. First, we talked about team norms and expectations over Zoom. We started by trying to all Zoom from the same room, but that was a disaster. We decided to split into separate rooms, and the meeting went well thereafter. Finally, we talked as a group (this time, in-person) about COVID-19 expectations and preparedness. Once again, our meeting went well, and we have clearer ground rules to mitigate COVID transmission opportunities.
Well, flog readers, thanks for having me! I’ll talk to ya soon!!! Peace out Echination.
First rays up of the year in the study area!! (except we think it’s pallida. rat.)
Today sure was a hot one out there today, well in comparison to how early in the season it is. The theme of the day was cleaning up. We started by cleaning up the flagging system in P1, this meant replacing most of the old flags from last year with clean crisp new ones. This is an extremely important task because it sets the ground work to collect data in P1 for the rest of the season.
A precision line of flags made by the team (photo creds to Emma)
Erin and Emma worked on rechecking some confusing data
points from last summer. By fixing these confusing points Emma and Erin were
able to pick up the data set.
A number of team members working on picking up G3 and started
on picking up Hjelm house.
Darwin practicing his road safety with his hi-vis hat (Photo creds to Erin)
Erin headed out to Near Town Hall to check on how the plants
are doing out there, she found what is thought to be the last known living
plant in the remnant. She reports that it is fairly large and is only a basal
plant this year and last flowered in 2018.
The Near Town Hall plant (photo creds to Erin)
We will keep cleaning so that we can have the most accurate and efficient season possible!
After lunch on June 15th, Amy and I headed out to visit the remnants around Golf Course and Landfill. We flagged flowering plants to get a sense of how many will flower later in the season.
The number of flagged Echinacea averaged around five flowering Echinacea per remnant. We did not visit Landfill, which has a much higher number of flowering plants.
A view of the flags fluttering in the wind.
One of the sites we visited had been recently mowed at the edge of the road, cutting off leaves and possibly flowering heads.
One of the plants that got mowed – you can see where the leaves got cut.
After a windy and hot afternoon of flagging we headed back to Hjelm House to pack up and head home. More flagging to come!
