This morning most of the team met Jared! He gave us a really nice, knowledgeable, and interesting talk about TOTAL DEMO. We headed to tower to start our introduction to TOTAL DEMO, we as a whole found that it’s really easy (mostly because of the low number of flowers and the fact that it wasn’t 85 degrees) I think we all enjoyed not only learning more about TOTAL DEMO but also being able to do it!
After doing Tower we headed to East of Town Hall to keep doing TOTAL DEMO, and were met by Shawn Papon a worker for US fish and wildlife and he happily explained to us their efforts to restore prairie remnants and how he was so excited to finally meet someone in our team! Shawn said how he has heard of us but never had the opportunity of meeting any of us!
After East of Town Hall we headed back to Hjelm for lunch, and currently we all are working on independent projects while in the watch for a big storm or even hail. Not all of us are excited for hail (I am) Well that was the daily update, I hope you liked it and THERE ARE MORE TO COME SO KEEP READING!
I attached some interesting pictures!
Two Echinaceas tangled with each other.The team with Jared at Tower doing TOTAL DEMO.“Freaky” Echinacea found by Aaron.Sky picture taken by Maddie D.
The Viola Pod experiment has been going well! Pods have been monitored consistently. The following is the data of their pod counts over the past couple weeks.
After four years on Team Echinacea, today is my last official day with the project. As a write this from the Chicago Botanic Garden, it’s hard not to get all retrospective about it. I’ve been on the team for 1/6th of my life! But also, only for about 1/8th of the span of the Echinacea Project’s existence. Now that’s crazy. I feel so fortunate to have been with this project in so many capacities—first as a summer REU student, then a work study, a grad student, and lastly a lab manager/research assistant. My time here has profoundly shaped me as a scientist and person, and I will always be grateful.
My last weeks in the field in Minnesota were at the start of June, first with just Stuart, Maddie, Maddie, and Jared, and then joined by the rest of the summer 2025 team. We got a lot done, and had fun to boot!
During the first week, the Maddies, Jared, and I staked, flagged, and searched seed addition transects in the remnants. Many seedlings juveniles were found!
Yummy meter stickMaddie’s car stands sentinel at alfSelfie from my trip to Krusmarks!Jared demonstrates searching a transect at Nice Island
After the rest of the team arrived the following Monday, we did some onboarding activities, including a visit to Staffanson and Hegg Lake. Both these sites burned this spring! This, plus the fact that we burned p1 and p8, means that p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, p7, p8, and p9 all burned this year. Gee whiz! A bountiful harvest lies ahead, I suspect.
The team takes their first steps into StaffansonA thunderhead threatens our day 1 itineraryStuart surveys Hegg Lake
The other big activity/accomplishment from this week (at least when I was there) was flagging p1. Usually, this is an endeavor that takes at least a couple days. However, with a brief head start and Ruth’s help, the team was able to flag the entire plot in one day! We benefitted from the fact that p1 burned in the spring because old pin flags, staples, and plants were easier to find. Huzzah!
Gael, Aaron, Kyra, and RuthLook at that progress!Hooray! Done! I’m so proud
After my last day in the field, Wednesday the 18th, the team gathered at Elk Lake for a potluck and swimming. Everyone brought delicious food, from fruit to beans to pasta salads to baked goods. Sooo satiated. After some diving shenanigans, the Maddies and I headed to the last stop on my Hoffman bucket list: Bullfrogs. Bullfrogs was not hoppin’, but we still got in a couple rounds of Maddie Sadler trouncing us at pool. The next day, my dad picked me up to fish for smallmouth bass (classic) east of Sauk Centre before we headed back to the cities.
Elk lake, pretty as everIs this allowed? The right ball went in, for what it’s worthCan’t leave without one last fish pic!The summer team at our Elk Lake picnic. Left to right: Stuart, Maddie S, Maddie D, Kyra, Grace, Aaron, Gael, and Chelsea. Summer team not pictured: Britney, kinda Grace H, kinda Jared, kinda Ruth, kinda me, kinda others
Side note – I recently acquired a bare-bones digital point-and-shoot camera and have been enjoying clicking it at people. Below are two unique reactions to realizing your photo is being taken.
Smile!Or that.
Now that the recent field pics are posted, I want to leave off with some of my fav pictures/moments/memories from the last few years that may or may not have made it on the flog before.
Burning:
Maddie runs the torch in the paddocks (Spring 2025)Hulze after a fire. Pure satisfaction. Third time’s the charm! (Spring 2024)Smoky torgen burn! Not all our smoke (Spring 2024)A paddock burns behind a private property sign. Not the best time to trespass, anyway (Fall 2023)Me and Rina at my first burn ever in Dixon Prairie at CBG (Fall 2022)
Flora and Fauna:
A white Liatris aspera? (Summer 2021)A friend among foes (Summer 2023)A triple lily we found during the orchid trip! (Summer 2024)Does Abby count as fauna? Anyway, look at all those asters (et al.)! (Summer 2024)
Minnesota skies:
Ian with a canoe before sunrise (Summer 2024)A storm cloud carrying baseball-sized hail (Summer 2024)The Elk Lake house at dawn (Summer 2021)Abby stands in a just-burned paddock at sunset. I love this photo. (Fall 2023)
Shenanigans:
Lindsey proudly picks up litter (Spring 2023)Jan, Abby, Luke, and me on a weekend trip to Duluth (Summer 2023)Wyatt + Abby Prairie Gothic (Summer 2024)Mia and Allie play cards in my van (RIP) while we wait out the rain during the orchid trip. Note the donuts (Summer 2021)I inadvertently discover the site “woeth” (Summer 2024)Swany White flour and oats are strapped in! (Summer 2024)Alex enjoys a tamale during our Chicago Independent Bookstore Day outing (Spring 2023)Ian and Abby pose with our canoe setup (Summer 2024)
Thank you to everyone who’s made the last few years on the team such a treat. I’ll miss the prairie immensely during my upcoming stint in California, but there’s something to be said for new adventures, too. I’ll see you around!
The project I will be working on this summer is transplanting and growing Comandra umbellata with either its field host or with a Galium boreale plug. Today, I prepared the growing container for the plants. We leveled off the ground, drilled holes in the container, cut and placed the drainage tile, and purchased river rock, black dirt, and beach sand, which we used to fill the container. See pictures below.
The next step is to decide which sites and which plants we are going to collect. Finally, we will plant the plants in the growing container and record observations about their growth.
Today we went to the surrounding areas of P1 and P8 —Experimental Plot number 1 and Experimental Plot number 8 respectively— to take care of the weeds found in those places (birdsfoot trefoil aka Lotus corniculatus, and sweet clover aka Melilotus officinalis).
We know that invasive plants have been expanding around the remnants of prairie and that these invasive plants represent a risk for native prairie plants (Echinacea angustifolia, porcupine grass, little bluestem, big bluestem) as they compete for the remaining space and resources, but after trying for some time we have not found a herbicide that eliminates those weeds without damaging native prairie plants, therefore we choose to manually get rid of these weeds. We spent the whole morning getting rid of the invasive plants and we did enjoy it and it made us very happy to make plants happy. 🙂
Grace with a jumping spider found in P8Kyra with the painted turtleFemale painted turtle found near P1Grace with the pile of bird’s foot trefoil by P1Aaron with the longest taproot of the bird’s foot trefoil we extracted (he did)Gael surprised by the amount of bird’s foot trefoil we got rid of
This week the team went out to experimental plot one with one clear goal, locate Hesperostipa Spartea, commonly referred to as Porcupine Grass. The team divided the plots and went off and searched–rows 42-49 were excluded from data collection. With an average time of 13 minutes per row and an extraordinary performance by Gael being the team member with the most data gathered with 17 rows. While the plants were not dry enough for seed collection, they were marked for a quick trip back to gather seeds.
Site observations by Grace K., Aaron, and Brittany
This site was a small prairie remnant on the upwards slope on a roadside ditch. The opposite of the road was a large field of predominantly bean crops, while the remnant side was only agriculturally disturbed far up over the slope. Our immediate impression of the site was a clear distinction between the downhill slope of the ditch by the road, and the remnant on the upwards side. Along the roadside and down the roadside slope of the ditch, there was a large community of forbs and non-native plants. This included large quantities of brome and cool season grasses, as well as clover, alfalfa, and roses. However, the prairie remnant contained mostly warm season grasses and echinacea seedlings, and there was significantly more exposed ground. This created a visual juxtaposition between thicker and greener vegetation on the left side, with slightly sparser vegetation with more ground and dead growth on the right. This dead growth led us to believe the site has not been burned this past season. Once the ditch flattened out at the top, the brome reestablished.
We hypothesized that the steep upwards slope of this section of the ditch made it untenable for plowing, and it was left undisturbed as the surrounding land was developed for agriculture. We also hypothesized that the increased disturbance immediately along the road may also benefit the growth of clover and forbs.
Site: Loeffler’s Corner West (LCW)
Site observations by Grace K., Aaron, and Brittany
This site is a remnant of the prairie, found on the corner of two roads. Both sides of the road were nonagricultural sites. There were signs of terraforming on the land. A clear distinction of plant life between the ditch and prairie remnant was clear. Much of the ditch on the road side was populated with tall brome grass, with some native grasses in the mix. The landscape of the site was steep and near a lake, making it unfit for cattle grazing and agricultural needs. The site was populated with many warm season grasses like porcupine and big blue. As well, was a significant amount of dried out plant life suggesting that there was not a control burn recently.
We hypothesized that due to the steep nature of the land and the wetland surroundings, it allowed for the land to be untouched by farmers and cattle alike. We also hypothesized that due to the artificial terraforming to build the nearby road, it allowed for non-native species of plant to populate the roadside of the ditch.
We visited the sites East Elk Lake Road and KJ’s . Both sites were small, bordering on either mowed private property or agricultural fields. We hypothesize that neither site has been burned recently, because there was remnants of old plant matter and the presence of fairly large trees and scrubs. For legumes, there was veiny peas, but no clover. For cold grass, there was brome and porcupine grass, and for warm, there was big blue grass. Otherwise, there were yellow asters and prairie roses.
KJ’s was extremely small, wedged between the road and the tree line, and was probably too small the ever consider planting. There was also a large animal den/hole and turkeys near the road at KJ’s. We also found an old flag at KJ’s, possibly demarking an old transect. In terms of legumes, we found clover, veiny pea, and alfalfa. For cold growing grass, there was lots of brome on the roadsides. However, there was not a lot of big blue grass for warm growing grass. There was also poison ivy, prairie roses, milkweed, and thistle.
EELR had many round bulbs on the plant matter, we hypothesize that these are wasp galls of some sort. EELR was much larger, with a higher diversity of plants, and likely was preserved because it was too steep to plow. Between the two sites, there was a fair number of trees, many of them pine, especially at KJ’s. There was evidence of significant animal activity, including a section of flattened grass where an animal, probably a deer, bedded down for the night, bordering on one of the segments at EELR.
Matted section of grass at the fourth segment of transect 131 at EELRFound flag at KJ’s along the eastern section, near the two tract roadTurkeys seen on the side of the road at KJ’sGall found on woody plant in many sections of EELR
Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA around 2006 (Stuart’s recollection). This is concerning, because we don’t know how a similar species may impact or local Echinacea angustifolia! Will they hybridize? Could pallida outcompete angustifolia? Ever since pallida have started springing up, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration, taken flowering phenology, and collected demography on the non-native plant. We have decapitated all flowering E. pallida each year to avoid cross-pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year, we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes, collect precise GPS points for each individual, and cut off all the heads before they produce fruits.
This year, we cut E. pallida heads on June 26th. Overall, we found and shot 172 flowering E. pallida plants with 512 normal heads in total, averaging 2.98 heads per plant, though the max was 20 on a single plant! These non-native plants were hearty with an average rosette count of 7.20 rosettes and an astounding individual with a maximum of 88 rosettes. We did not take phenology data on E. pallida this year.
Team 2024 returns to their vehicles after flagging, taking demography data on, and decapitating Echinacea pallida at Hegg Lake WMA
Demography data: head counts, rosette counts, etc.
data in aiisummer2024 repo: ~/aiisummer2024/demo/demoGood2024.txt
Spatial location for every flowering E. pallida
data in aiisummer2024 repo: ~/aiisummer2024/surv/survGood2024.txt
Samples collected:
Echinaceapallida were not collected: decapitated heads were left on the ground next to the plants
A flowering echinacea at the aptly named nearby remnant “near pal” looked suspiciously like a hybrid (more robust than an angustifolia). We put a pollinator exclusion bag on the single head to prevent pollen spread, and later harvested the head and brought it back to the lab, where it is currently in the seed dryer. Keep an eye on tag 29239 in the future
Products:
None… yet! Besides a prairie with significantly less E. pallida reproduction
You can find more information about E. pallida flowering phenology and previous flog posts on the background page for the experiment.
Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted. All individuals have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2024, we visited 23 positions, 4 of which were can’t find year 3 in 2023 and didn’t get their final double check. We found living plants at all positions but those four (so, 19)! Last year, for the first time, 3 plants flowered in this plot. This year, no plants flowered.
Start year: 2011 (crossing) and 2012 (planting)
Location: Wagenius property
Overlaps with:
Common garden experiment
Data collected:
Measure data (status, size, etc.)
data in SQL database
Samples collected:
None (no flowering plants)
Products:
None… yet!
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Experimental plot 7 is the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids, totaling 294 pdeigreed individuals. We took phenology records between July 10th and July 18th. There were 42 flowering plants this year; from these we harvested 87 heads. Heads in this plot were covered by pollinator exclusion bags during the growing season to prevent cross-pollination with nearby Echinacea populations.
Stuart demonstrates proper measuring technique in exPt07
Start year: 2012 (crossing) and 2013 (planting)
Location: Hegg Lake WMA (MN DNR)
Overlaps with:
Common garden experiment
Data collected:
Phenology data (dates of flowering stages)
data in cgData repo: ~/cgData/summer2024/exPt79Phenology
Measure data (status, size, etc.)
data in SQL database
Harvest data (IDs of harvested heads, missing achenes, etc)
detailed data in dropbox: dropbox/CGData/140_reconcile/reconcile2024/reconcileOut/2024harvestListReconciledExport.csv
data in echinaceaLab package (hh.2024)
Samples collected:
87 heads harvested
at CBG for processing
Products:
None… yet!
You can find more information about experimental plot 7 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt09. Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because the E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt09 were open-pollinated. At this point, some but not all plants in this plot were tested for paternity, revealing that there are some hybrids. This year, we took phenology records between July 9th and July 18th. During measuring, we searched at 292 positions and found evidence of 234 living plants in 2024. Of these individuals, 70 were flowering. We harvested 110 heads from this plot! Heads in this plot were covered by pollinator exclusion bags during the growing season to prevent cross-pollination with nearby Echinacea populations.
The team runs out reel tapes to aid in measuring exPt09
Start year: 2014
Location: Hegg Lake WMA (MN DNR)
Overlaps with:
Common garden experiment
Data collected:
Phenology data (dates of flowering stages)
data in cgData repo: ~/cgData/summer2024/exPt79Phenology
Measure data (status, size, etc.)
data in SQL database
Harvest data (IDs of harvested heads, missing achenes, etc)
detailed data in dropbox: dropbox/CGData/140_reconcile/reconcile2024/reconcileOut/2024harvestListReconciledExport.csv
data in echinaceaLab package (hh.2024)
Samples collected:
110 heads harvested
at CBG for processing
Products:
None… yet!
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
