We are over the peak harvest bump! Looking through the harvest data sheets its clear that we have harvested well over half of the heads that were in cg1 this year. Lydia and I are dissecting the heads that were used in the quantitative genetics experiment this year. Out of just over 200 we are more than halfway finished extracting the achenes, each head takes approximately half an hour. Prepping the new experimental plot is still in progress though most of the trees have been cleared out at this point. We’ve begun collecting little bluestem and Bouteloua seeds which we will broadcast in the new plot this fall. We’ve also discovered windy days are NOT the best days to do this, even a slight wind will carry away the little bluestem. We also completed the first demography recheck of the fall and there are many more to come.

The first of the month started off with Phenology on only 4 plants…but now we are down to the last two! Head harvesting is underway and it looks like we will have plenty to harvest come Thursday. We are staying busy trying to keep up with repainting heads in the crossing experiment before they are ready to be harvested, but the grasshoppers are doing their best to sabotage our efforts, check out this guy caught in the act of eating off painted bracts!

Yesterday Lydia and I mapped out a potential location for a new common garden where the progeny from the crosses from this summer will be planted this fall. This morning we are off to do demography and survey, as well as harvest the heads at Hegg lake. We will harvest all plants in the experimental plot there as well as the pallida plants Dayvis observed pollenators on and the nearest angustifolia plants to determine if any of the progeny from those heads are a product of hybridization…we may see some interesting results!

We continued with phenology, measuring cg1, seedling refinds and crossing today. The day ended with a wonderful dinner put on by Stuart and Gretel et al., and not one but TWO bonfires at the farm house complete with s’more fixings. On Dayvis’s last night here he had his first s’more ever! Marie left in the evening and Dayvis will leave in the morning, our numbers are definitely dwindling but there is still plenty left to be done.

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.

This morning started out with some of the crew at varying remnants working on independent projects and some were at the Hjelm house: Reina and Pam were working on their trichome data, while Sara Z worked on pinning ants, Lydia and I began some crosses but were soon rained out. Before we got rained out however I found this large fly larva in the head of the plant I was crossing…normally they are transparent-ish…this one however had a hay day with the pollen and as you can see is quite orange!

Once the rain put a stop to the crosses for the morning we worked on organizing and taking inventory of the pollen that has been collected thus far for the crossing experiment (qGen2).

After lunch today Stuart gave the crew a brief introduction into the wonderful world of R…OHHHHH the possibilities….

Then, later in the afternoon, we had many hands on deck helping with crosses that had been prioritized for the day. The most important thing about crossing is that you accessorize well while doing it, and what better way to accessorize than to have a handy bract painting bracelet! Below I am showing proper bracelet wearing technique.

These bracelets are all the rage right now at the Hjelm house, and they certainly are not going out of “style” anytime soon! (Or at least not until the crossing experiment is finished). Well, I must say we are very fashion forward here in Kensington, and I’m sure no one will be caught without one tomorrow because of the exciting happenings that are to be taking place tomorrow morning….but I shouldn’t say anymore just yet….stay tuned!