daily update « The Echinacea Project

Measuring p1 progress update

On Friday the team made great progress measuring, with the help of Gretel (World Record holder for fastest measurer) the team completed 16 segments in ~3 hours with 3 measuring pairs. We now have finished the 99’s both north and south and are off in the Q-gen/big batch experiment. We have a total of 33 segments left out of 141 segments so we are 77% complete! This is amazing and I expect that we will be done before the end of the week.

*Lavender is completed records green is what we have left. positions go N-S rows are W-E*

New day, new ditches

On Saturday, some of Team Echinacea took a trip up north to record seed set of the western prairie fringed orchid.

Mia, Jared, Amy, Wesley, and I (Allie) rolled out of bed to hit the road at 6am to meet Stuart and Gretel up in Fertile, MN. After finding out that Opdahl’s Donuts doesn’t open until 9am on Saturdays, we trekked out to find all the flags marking flowering orchids we found on the last trip to record seed set. The wet prairie was very not wet, one might even say dry, this time as well. Mia and I paired up to find orchids. Disappointingly, we only found a few orchids that had set seed.

An orchid with seeds! They are the swollen, green pods.

After a morning spent assessing seed set, we all headed into a picnic lunch in Fertile. The afternoon was spent visiting various natural areas.

First we went to the Agassiz Dunes SNA, where we botanized and also had some wildlife viewings, including some wild turkeys and some wild botanists. We tried to find the (alleged) burn break, but had no success.

Some of the ever-shifting sand dunes – Stuart saw a live blowout while we were there!

Then, we hopped in the car and headed to Frenchman’s Bluff SNA, one of the highest points in NW MN. We could see far into the distance, both towards North Dakota and towards the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Despite the dry and crunchy conditions, the Liatris punctata seemed to be doing quite well!

Finally, we headed to the Felton Prairie SNA. We were aiming to walk along some beach ridges to find some fens, but instead ended up visiting 2.5 of the 3 parking lots associated with the SNA. I say 2.5 because we did find 2 of them, but the third parking lot, and coincidentally the one we wanted, remained tantalizingly out of reach.

However, in true Team Echinacea fashion, we ended up exactly where you would expect us: in a roadside ditch looking at some cool plants. In this case, we didn’t see E. angustifolia there, but we did find some cool plants usually only found in wetter conditions.

After a long day of botanizing, the team had dinner at a taco truck in Fargo, making it the first time Mia and I ever stepped foot into North Dakota. Then it was a mere hop, skip, and a car ride full of Taylor Swift to make it back to Hoffman for a well-deserved night of sleep.

Measuring p1 progress update

Today the team continued working in the 1999 experiments. The measuring in these experiments feels slow because the plants are so densely packed but we got a good chunk done today.

With 3 measuring pairs in ~3 hours we got 12 segments done. The map makes it seem like all of 99north is done but there are actually 3 segments in their that aren’t done. Tomorrow we will finish the 1999 experiment and start Big Batch/Q-Gen which is the big green chunk on the map.

Measuring p1 progress update-day 4&5

This is a combined update from today and Friday.

On Friday the team measured 6 segments in ~1.5 hours with 3 measuring pairs in the 96, 97, 98 experiments. Friday also was when Amy W. made her annual measuring guest appearance.

Today we measured 11 segments with 3 pairs in ~3 hours. We completed the inbreeding, 96, 97, 98, experiments and started the 99 experiments. Tomorrow we will work on completing the 99 experiments which are a bit dense but we will get through them.

Measuring p1 progress update

Today we continued our efforts in measuring p1. We finished the miscellaneous assortment of experiments (SPP, 2001, and Monica’s 2003) and we started working on the 96, 97, and 98 experiments. We had 4 measuring pairs going and in the course of ~2.5 hours we completed 21 segments.

As you can see below we have made a HUGE jump westward. The team has done an amazing job cranking through the plot. Next we will finish the 96, 97, and 98 experiments and keep working west into the inbreeding 1 experiment.

Measuring p1 progress update

Yesterday we continued our measuring progress we starting working on a miscellaneous assortment of experiments, seeds from Staffonson, and two different 2001 experiments. The team completed 23 total segments with 4 measuring pairs in ~4 hours. This brings the total segments to 41 segments.

Below you can see the updated progress map, there has been a big jump in the purple between Aug 03 to Aug 04. The team will continue to work west ward today as we start the 96, 97, 98 experiments.

The Flog with a Frog

Today proved to be a day filled with various tasks and adventures. The team (minus Maris and Miyauna since they are leaving at the end of the week) went out to Riley to learn how to determine if an Echinacea head is ready to be harvested. We learned the four indicators and how to play the “Harvest Now” game, similar to rock paper scissors.

Stuart and Mia determining if a head should be harvested

Next the team split up, a crew went out to do phenology while I was with Wesley, Allie, and Kennedy to do total demo at Yellow Orchid Hill. Allie and I braved the west side and managed not to fall into the Grand Canyon, although we did have some moments where we thought we were going to fall. The biggest surprise while being out there was the temperature, both of us were cold! After last week it was much appreciated, until we both realized we didn’t have our sweatshirts and jackets with.

The number of people at lunch has fallen significantly since our first day in June, yet that doesn’t stop us from having great conversations over strange topics! Once we were full from our food (and some of us ready for a nap), the crew went out to P1 to continue measuring. Today Kennedy and I were partners, a sure sign for something fun to happen! Almost right away we find a big frog in our row, Maris came over to take a picture and she believes it was a Leopard Frog. Throughout our measuring adventure Kennedy and I found lots more critters, a spider neither of us liked, some strange exoskeletons, and a caterpillar we both loved which was sitting on a milkweed.

Part of our job when measuring the plot is to find staples in the ground where past plants were in order to stay on track. Kennedy and I were having quite the time with these staples, some rows we were struggling to find them while in other rows we would blindly reach into the grass and find them on the first try. At one position Kennedy and I each found a staple, meaning there were somehow two staples at one position. It was a good day to be working in P1, the sky was cloudy (allowing us to find plants easier) and the weather was cool.

Try to spot how many pairs you can see working!

The newest addition the Hjelm this week is Mia’s game for measuring P1. Every section we complete in the plot is one square we get to fill in on the road, all while a printed out picture of a gopher chases us. It feels good at the end of the day to be able to see how much progress we made!

Maris, Allie, and Kennedy fill in some squares

Once chores were finished the team went out to the Andes house for a team dinner, Kennedy and I were both very excited for dinner after googling the dishes while we were measuring this afternoon. The first food served to us was chicken and vegetable samosas, which were absolutely delicious. Team Echinacea has now gotten very efficient at handing out plates and forks, passing each dish in a circle until each person is served. The second dish to come onto the deck and onto our plates was rice and curry, which was again delicious, even if it was a little spicy for me! The meal finished with some amazing mango lassi and a wonderful conversation discussing funny memories of science classes. It was a wonderful day ending with amazing food, thank you Andes House for hosting us tonight!

Measuring p1 Progress update

One of the large tasks that the team does every year is measure the first experimental plot (p1). This is the largest of the the experimental plots with a daunting 10,673 total positions. The plot is broken up into 46 rows, some of these rows are so long that we have broken them up into segments. There are 141 total segments.

I will be posting daily (or close to daily) updates on our measuring progress right here on the flog. Yesturday (Aug 03 2021) was our first day of measuring p1. We start with one of the inbreeding experiments, the team measured a total of 18 segments over the course of 3 ish hours with 4 measuring pairs.

Below I have attached a map of the plot, it is colored with which positions have been measured and what we have yet to do. There is a lot left to do but we have made GREAT progress for just one day!

Echin Ending

We are getting to the part of the season when the Echin are mostly done flowering and we are going through the plots searching for basal plants (measuring). The MWF Phenologing has gone from taking the entire morning to taking 1.5 hours. On Tuesday, we finished measuring P2 and began P1. P1 is about 10% finished and we look forward to keep making progress on that. We are also keeping an eye on plants to see when we can begin harvesting the heads preparing for their transfer to the Chicago Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately, we are also getting the part of the season when we are saying goodbye to our coworkers. Last week, Alex needed to back to Florida to begin her middle school teaching duties. This week we say goodbye to a couple of the College of Wooster coworkers, Maris and Miyauna.

Wesley, doing his best imitation as a sword swallower at the end of the day in P2.

Part of the team playing leapfrog as they finish a section of measuring in P1.

Back at it

After last week’s sweltering hot temperatures and absolutely atrocious air quality, Team Echinacea is finally back in the field at full force (minus Alex, we miss you!)

My morning consisted of a quick phenology trip to the few sites left on our Northwest loop. We needed to make the hike out to landfill for the six plants still flowering, but it meant I got to see a plenty of fun butterflies flitting about, and certainly plenty of monarchs. I seem to be seeing more and more of them recently.

Butterfly at landfill, a tailed-blue, I believe.

After lunch we spent most of the afternoon measuring P2. With 40 rows left, we were hopeful that we’d be able to finish, and let me tell you, we came tantalizingly close. We had to pack up and head back around 4:30 to make sure we finished work on time, but it was truly and agonizing experience to leave just four and a half rows for the next day.