Stuart and Amy visited the West Central Area High School Environmental Learning Center on October 1st to work with Matt’s plant science class. The students helped harvest heads of echinacea purpurea that will be used in a competition study with echinacea angustifolia. Stuart also talked to students about prairies and some of the various prairie plants and then wrapped up the lesson talking about flowers and how they work. The students enjoyed the talk and had fun collecting the heads. WCA is excited to see what kind of experiments we can do in our ELC! Matt was hoping that Ali an Katherine might have been with also, but still plans on having them come and speak to his classes.

August 11 was an extra hot day.  We started the day with phenology and then worked on taking plant measurements in P1 before lunch.  The wise decision was made to measure again after lunch and then quit measuring and work on personal projects during the most intense heat of the day!  Turned out great! Sounds like the rest of the week is supposed to be extra hot as well.  We are going to have to do measuring in the mornings I think.  We are making good progress and should have at least P1 and the 99 garden done by weeks end!  Phenology is taking very little time now, so it will soon be time for the next stage!  Let’s hope for a good breeze tomorrow!

Birds foot trefoil has slowly been making its way into P1 along with its buddy Canada thistle.  The time has come to put an end to it!  Today P1 was mapped out and all the invaders were marked for termination.  The eradication will began right after the next rain.  It looks like perhaps Friday will be the day as rain is looking good for Thursday.  Everyone will have to glove up and teach these pesky invaders a lesson!  Look further down the post to see how Will has devised a plan for extra triple protection from sun to take on the task!

Will has decided that extra protection will be needed to take on this task and its shown here demonstrating the latest in ultra triple protection. No sun will be getting in his eyes!

-Steven’s Approach-
A profile of Prairie as observed by Ali Hall
Written by Matt Olhoft
“My impression is that the landscape has been carved out to make the road”. This was Ali Hall’s first thought as we stopped by Steven’s approach, a small prairie remnant located on Wolley Lake road. Steven’s approach is typical of most field approaches, being about 30 feet wide by about 40 feet long, just big enough to connect a field to a road bed. The field approach is bordered by a wheat field on the west and the road on the east.
Ali noted that there was Echinacea Angustifolia seen right away. Later the realization came that the field approach was loaded with Echinacea and that there may have been as many as 100 metal echinacea tags located right on the field approach. In fact, it was difficult to even stand in one place and not step on Echinacea. Several are setting flowers and will be in full bloom soon. Echinacea plants were in almost every square foot of the field approach.
In further observations, Ali noticed was that there were no rocks or trees present. “The area is kind of prairie like, but not really”, she said. There were several flowering plants seen, and they seem to be located on the upslopes along the ditch side and the field side. The majority of these flowering varieties seen to be birdsfoot trefoil, prairie rose, and alfalfa.
Some discussion ensued between Ali and myself as to the reason Echinacea loved this approached so much, even though it repeatedly gets run over by large equipment. We speculated that perhaps it was the soil type used to build the approach that may be a factor in why they are choosing this area.