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Cycle of Life at the Echinacea Project

With about a month left for many of the participants on the Echinacea Team, the flowers keep on flowering, the weeds keep on growing and seed collecting ramps up for many of the prairie species. And for the animals on the Echinacea Team: Shea soon starts her senior year of HS; Riley, Drake and Erin make arrangements to move to Chicago; Julie and Jay begin their senior year of college; and John prepares for his 31st year of teaching. And Amy continues her research on bees with the University of Minnesota, spending much of her time on the praire in midwest Minnesota.

Stuart looks for seeds in Douglas County to be collected for Drake as the a cumulonimbus cloud begins to build behind him.
Amy W (pictured left – Echin Team Member 2015-2019) wins her 4th consecutive Flekkefest 5K. Amy pictured here with Echin Team Member Alum Abby VK (2015 -2016) and the previous two time winner of Flekke 5K. The Echinacea Project Women have created a dynasty of 5K winners.

Job Shadowing A Bee

Today began with the pulse/steady experiment at P2 in which pollen is collected and added to viable styles either on a daily basis (the steady part of the experiment) or every three days (yep – the pulse part of the experiment). The goal is to determine if a steady treatment of pollen to the styles versus the pulse treatment of pollen leads to greater seed set. We quickly found another reason to be impressed with bees and their pollen collecting ability. The bees typically had their pollen sacs quite full while we could barely muster up enough to use in our experiment.

The afternoon led to another planting expedition at West Central Area Schools (WCA) in Barrett, MN. The already 1700 or so Echinacea plants were united with The College of Wooster’s 300 plants. The twelve plots are filling up. The ultimate goal for these twelve plots is to determine how burning affects prairie, specifically if fall or spring burns are more beneficial to the prairie. Along with the Echinacea Team, WCA students will be able to use the plots for their own experiments along with assisting Stuart and The Echinacea Project for future years. A tremendous opportunity for our students to be able to be involved in a meaningful research experience while still in high school.

Erin, Ruth and Shea planted the basal plants in the WCA plots, making sure to get the correct plant in the correct location.

Thunder and Lightning

Today began with a 10 AM start time due to some forecasted rain and thunder. When the team arrived, everyone was catching up on either entering data, working on individual project proposals or getting some Visor forms ready for future data collecting events. After the rain subsided, a few groups went out to find some Porcupine grasses (stipa) in P1, while Shea and i prepared for YPT (Yellow pan trap) sites for collecting bees in the next few weeks.

Here the busy worker bees in the Hjelm Hive working inside while the storm passes.

Shea and I placed 38 YPT”s in the designated locations to collect bees and record the land use nearby the sites. This is an ongoing study for determining local bees families and species and also part of Shea’s 2019 project.

Shea pictured here hammering in a YPT collection stake. Shea shows great promise as a future Hammerschlagen competitor. .

Last week while i was placing some distance labels along the west and east sides of P1, I spotted a frog on top of the very post that i was going to secure the plackard to. I took its picture at 9:19AM and gently moved it to a nearby sumac leaf and secured the sign to its stake. At 9:24AM when i was returning, the frog was back, this time on top of the sign. It didn’t even take the little amphibian five minutes to return to its perch.

9:19AM
9:24AM

John Van Kempen

Hello Everyone: I just finished my 30th year of teaching/coaching and am looking forward to being outside during the summer months. I am currently getting ready to lead 14 students to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wildermess(BWCAW) for one week before i begin with the Echin Project. In my spare time i enjoy taking my two dogs (Lilly and Clyde) out for walks/runs, and spending time with my 4 children, ages 17- 22. I am interested in learning more about our local ecosystems in West central MN and learning about prairie plants.

2018 Update: West Central Area Experimental Plots

West Central Area School District and grounds are located in west central Minnesota. The high school is located in Barrett, MN which encompasses five small communities (Barrett, Hoffman, Kensington, Elbow Lake, and Wendell) that have united to make one high school. The school was built in 1994 and we are still in the process of restoring our 35 acres of land (Environmental Learning Center – ELC) into native prairie plant species. The ELC has several trails, an observation deck, and a pier that reaches into a small pond. The area has recently begun to be more and more incorporated into several classroom activities. One of the science classes used the ELC in 2018 to sample types of Bombus (bumblebee) species and populations, the agricultural instructor has been using the ELC for soil sampling and classification along with looking at soil profiles. Even the art teacher has had drawing sessions from the observation deck and the English teacher used it for writing exercises. The plan is to utilize the ELC more and more in upcoming years and we have received outstanding support from the school administration, school board, and local businesses in promoting this part of our school. Plans for 2019 are to have 12 plots that 8m x 12m in which four are burned in the spring, 4 are burned in the fall and 4 are not burned at all. As years progress, we plan to have classes engaged in monitoring the progression and health of some native species in these plots, especially Echinacea angustifolia, which will be hand planted in the plots in May of 2019.

Start year: 2019

Location: West Central Area High School

Overlaps with: Nothing… yet!

GPS points shot: 96 points delineating the future plot locations

The location of the field site, near the high school

Prairie Zoo

The very damp morning began with flagging p8 on each nail that was spaced 1 m apart. A then very interesting meeting with Joe Montoyne from NCRS who provided us with much insight into prairie restoration and some local history of local prairies. After lunch Michael, Tracy, Andy and i wnet to p2 to harvest more flower heads. As the summer comes to an end i am so appreciative of the opportunity i have had this summer with the Echin Project and the group of quality young people here. Rest assured citizens, these kids will be our community leaders, parents and professors leading us into the next generation at a when the world needs such an intelligent thoughtful group in charge. I have also gained an appreciation for what we have been blessed with in our very own west central Minnesota. Everyone is within a few minute drive to a prairie with a diversity that may go unappreciated until you spend some quality time walking and observing what the prairie has to offer. Our zoo is right here. There is a diversity of plants and insects that will require thoughtful consideration of how we choose to treat the soil and water. It may be difficult to imagine that not too long ago west central Minnesota was acre after acre of prairie.

Monday, July 30th

The last Monday of July, yikes. The season is unfortunately winding down and many of the individual projects are wrapping up or nearly wrapped up. The groups split up with CowBee doing their thing at P2 and the leftovers doing some phenology at p1. Kristin and i finished some bee stuff. Michael and i then picked up some soil samples at Hegg Lake West (by the way my favorite piece of land of the all the sites). In the afternoon, demography was continued after a brief interesting history of the Douglas/Pople County Landfill from Stuart. Kristin and Mia moved tents and everyone finished the day making more tags for demography. Tomorrow should be exciting as we will be wrangling up the goats and move them to a fresh patch of buckthorn.

Found this Bombus bimac on my Mexican Sunflower on my first step out of the van at home


Me doing demo

Heres the Echin Trophy for Saturday Flekkefest 5K. Dont know the criteria yet for the winner but Zeke is in the lead.

Wednesday, July

A rarely seen mammal in MN, dead or alive. This badger was along the roadside but didn’t appear to be hit by a vehicle.

Today was a busy day with groups going different directions. Phenology on P1, Bee photography at P2, insect pan traps, moving insect tents and a lesson on demography with a practicum test. Ryley getting accustomed to running the lycor which measures the photosynthetic rates and has the label micromole CO2/meter squared per second. How cool is that? The Echin Project seems to be flowing like a well oiled machine and the plants too. Tomorrow looks like it may rain so plans were made for Thursday to begin looking at some of the data/specimens we’ve collected over the weeks. Personally, i’m looking forward to Big Event 6: Contact 3-2-1. (I’m thinking of a word beginning with the letter B)

July 4th

The day began with 2 rain delays before work began.  Kristin moved her insect tents and Jennifer, Zeke, Mia, Evan and John finished the phenology at P2 and cut randomly selected Echin heads.  It was a very short work day followed by the annual Independence Day picnic moved from Elk Lake to the farmhouse with members of Stuart’s family and Team Echinacea.  Since the workday was short, here’s a little diddy:

 

A Day in the Life of Team Echin

(disclaimer – some words and names may have been spelled incorrectly but intentionally)

 

I’m leaving for work wife says “wow you smell purdy”

I say “thank you dear its sunscreen, SPF 30”

 

The Hjelm House, P8 and P2 and P1,

The Farmhouse, G3 and G2 and G1

 

Ticks, Chiggers, and mosquitoes

and Jalapeno Cheddar Cheetos

 

Evan, Anna, Brigid, Kristin and Morgan,

Citrus lanatus we love Stuart’s watermelon

 

Hydrate with water, put on your sunscreen and boots

What’s for supper tonight and who’s cooking at the roost

 

Visors, toothpicks, Twist Ties and Flags,

Proposals, projects, task forces and flogs

 

Wagenius, Reed, Dykstra and Shaw

Angustifolia, Purpea and Pallidaw

 

College of Wooster in Ohio with Zeke

Groupme, Dropbox, Twitter and Tweeks

 

Hegg Lake, Staffanson, Stevens and Landfill

PB and mustard sandwiches at lunch with Michaill

 

Team norms, teamwork, go team and efficiency,

Before you go please sync the visors Ryley

 

Jennifer, Amy, Evan, Andy, John VK and Mia

You see now Stuart “its not about Echina Cia”