A note to future Team Echinacea members: Are you still wearing masks all the time? Are you still 3 years behind on cleaning Echinacea heads or have you caught up a little bit?
Anyway, in the summer of 2020 there were 18 heads of Echinacea pallida that were harvested. 11 of these heads were a part of Anna Meehan’s hybrid compatibility experiment. All of the pallida heads are NOT going through the ACE process; they are in the lab all together nice and neat. These 18 pallida heads will not be a part of hh2020. EXCEPT the hybrid plant head (AP-772) who will stay apart of hh.2020 since we need achene count eventually but for now it will stay here until it is dissected.
The heads are in a box labeled “Anna Meehan’s Hybrid Compatibility experiment & E. pallida heads 2020″ in the glass cabinets right as you enter the ecology lab.
The hybrid compatibility experiment would be a perfect project for a student in the lab for a few weeks. They could asses the compatibility of the hybrid with not only the E. angustifolia but also the E. pallida. The experiment is designed with backcrosses (hybrid to parent) and forward crosses (parent to hybrid don’t know if this is the right word I just made it up). The student would be able to access seed set on the hybrid, E. angustifolia, & E. pallida heads. The sample size is fairly small but this would conclude a good pilot study for further studies of the hybrid compatibilities. We also need achene count of the hybrid plant (AP-227)!
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