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Some observations about phenology in p1: the peak day of flowering seems to vary quite a bit from year to year. In 2007, peak was the earliest observed, on July 3 (!) and in 2008, 2013, and 2015 the peak was latest, on July 27. Curiously enough, 2008, 2013, and 2015 were all burn years. But then again, so was 2006. Hopefully we’ll be looking into this dataset more closely this year. Stay tuned for updates!
| Year |
Peak |
| 2005 |
12-Jul |
| 2006 |
12-Jul |
| 2007 |
3-Jul |
| 2008 |
27-Jul |
| 2009 |
14-Jul |
| 2011 |
24-Jul |
| 2012 |
4-Jul |
| 2013 |
27-Jul |
| 2014 |
19-Jul |
| 2015 |
27-Jul |
We brought all of the harvested heads back to the lab. There are still 4 heads back in p1 that aren’t ready to harvest but everything is officially in Illinois!
 All the heads with Amy and Ali for scale
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.
Yesterday afternoon, Ali and I went on a journey of epic proportions. What for, you ask? To find the elusive recruitment plot 7, of course! During the past couple weeks, we have been taking demography data on the Echinacea plants flowering in small recruitment plots planted by members of Team Echinacea in previous years. These plots are demarcated by poles in the corners and have generally been a breeze to find. Ali and I had just taken data at a plot north of Steven’s Approach, and were looking forward to finishing off the day with this last plot. We started out with spirits high; on the map, the plot appeared to be only a 5 minute walk from the road. Using the GPS unit to stake the point we needed to find, we realized that to get straight to the plot we’d need to plunge through the heart of a dark, swampy, scraggly forest that most likely contained a witch’s hut. To bypass this obstacle, we set off through a recently harvested corn field, keeping an eye on the GPS and hoping to cut back over to the plot as soon as we had a clear path to it. However, once we saw the complex of lakes and wetlands that lay to the north of the small woods, we realized that our path might not be as straightforward as we’d imagined. So began an hour and a half long journey through fields, marshes, pastures, mud, prairie, and a mysterious junkyard that I almost believed was a hallucination until Ali commented on its strangeness. We became increasingly convinced that the plot had been swallowed up by wetlands, or that it didn’t exist at all. Finally, having at last found our way back to the road about a half mile east of where we’d started, we decided that we had to give up and call it a day. These pictures are all we have to show for our adventure.
 Started off with clear minds and hearts  “Where are we? Is this plot a prank??” “It’s probably just through these reeds!” “NOPE. That’s a lake.”
After escaping the junkyard of broken dreams…”Are we in Ireland now?” Aside from these misadventures, we took advantage of the damp and dreary weather to start dissecting Q3 heads. They’ve all been harvested by now (yay!!), so all that remains is to remove the achenes and sort them based on pollen donor. This takes some time and concentration, but it’s enjoyable and relaxing. So far we have dissected 20 heads…only 134 more to go before we take the achenes down to Chicago to be x-rayed!
Ali hard at work at her dissecting station
While field work continues in good old Kensington, Amy and Danny have moved to their new residence in Evanston to begin work at the Garden. It’s an exciting time filled with new faces such as the many wonderful volunteers who help clean, count, weigh, and do many other things with Echinacea heads. Today, Nina, who goes to the Illinois Math and Science Academy, was in the lab and we were able to discuss what she’ll be doing for the year (more to come later). The shiny metal of the lab was quite a change from the vivid goldenrod and smooth blue aster of the prairie and Jared’s standing desk set up only partially simulates the feeling of standing in a patch big blue stem. All in all, it’s a different environment but a very welcoming one and the Garden itself is absolutely beautiful.
Hi, I’m Nina, and I’m a student at the Illinois Math and Science Academy that will be working with the Echinacea Project through the 2015/2016 academic year. I will be conducting a competition experiment between Echinacea angustifolia and Echinacea purpurea. In the past, I’ve been an intern with Plants of Concern, volunteering at Volo Bog State Natural Area and collecting data on various threatened and endangered species. I’m very excited to start my project here!
On Friday, yet another member of Team Echinacea left Kensington! 🙁 Amy moved down to Chicago this past weekend to start the lab-based portion of her internship. We’re excited for her, but we definitely miss her (and her mom-like presence) back here in Minnesota! Hope the Chicago Botanic Garden is treating you well so far, Amy!
It was a quiet weekend for me here in Kensington, with Amy moving and both Danny and Ali in Northfield visiting college friends. For the first time in a long time, none of us town hall kids were together in the same place! It made me miss the days when there were 8 of us living here.
Today at work, we started the day by harvesting heads in the remnants and at Hegg Lake. Only 7 heads remain to be harvested in the remnants as of today! In addition, Ali measured senescence in Gina and Abby’s aphid addition and exclusion plants, and all 3 of us collected Bouteloua seeds at Hegg to be planted in P2. At lunch, we were excited to see Gretel for the first time in weeks! She headed out with us this afternoon to do seedling refinds at the landfill, NW of landfill, and S of golf course sites. After completing these sites, we staked the focal plants at Loeffler’s corner, in case we have time for more seedling refinds tomorrow.
Ali and I did lots of driving practice in the truck!
As the title suggests, today was the only day this week that we didn’t harvest. It was also the chilliest by far! With a nice cool 48 degrees to start the day, we went to one of the recruitment plots to do demography and didn’t find a single flowering plant. We tried going to the other plot nearby and realized that it was going to be wet and we didn’t have boots so we pushed it off for later.
Searching in an Echinacea barren land We then went and did seedling searches for the rest of the morning and got quite a bit done!
 Amy and Katherine find a focal plant After lunch Ali and Katherine practiced driving and Amy and Danny went to another site to look for seedlings. After that we harvested a bunch of Bouteloua curtipendula to put into our one of our most recent experimental plots. Overall it was a productive day with a lot of fun and a large amount of cold wind.
A gallon of Bouteloua
Today the team headed out to kjs to finish up the seedling refinds! We were happy to finish the site with the most seedlings! From kjs we went to P1 to do a harvest! On Thursday we were so proud of the progress we’d made with the harvest, and naively thoughtthat Thursday may have been the longest day! Little did we know we would spend the greater part of today ruthlessly chopping off the heads of the flowers we tended so carefully all summer. We may have lost more that just the flower’s heads out there! Happily we had a croc pot meal of chili with cornbread courtesy of Danny! Yum!
This morning, the team spent some time catching up on smaller activities. Matt and Katherine worked on their website which we all eagerly anticipate, Danny and Amy planned for the rest of their year with the Echinacea Project, and Abby and I worked on the aphid project. I tried to channel Gina as I took her place as Abby’s partner, but must admit defeat- that girl is irreplaceable and very missed!
We spent the rest of the morning at East Elk Lake Road doing seedling refinds. We’re getting the hang of this new protocol, and it’s exciting to try to see maps that 2011 team members have made, and follow their tracks to find the tiny echinacea plants.
After lunch, we had a lot of harvesting to do! We teamed up and powered through the afternoon, motivated by visions of puppies in our future. Sure enough, as we approached town hall we saw the bundle of white puppies that our neighbors have outside their house! We have all agreed that they are the most wonderful thing to have ever existed ever ever. We stopped for a quick snuggle before going home to make pizza!
 
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