Common garden experiment « The Echinacea Project

Heads in CG1

Now that we’ve inventoried all the CG1 heads, I checked to see just how many we have. There were about 3009 twist-ties put out, and 119 heads were duds or missing, so our (estimated) total number of good heads is about 2890.

CG2 had something like 140 heads, but we haven’t inventoried those yet.

end of harvest

Only about 13 heads left to harvest in the common garden experiment! I attached a pdf of listing all heads with no gbag info…

HarvestList2010FinalHarvest.pdf

Here’s a map of unharvested head locations in the main experiment (there’s one more head in the 99S garden).

Click to enlarge.

Common Garden Measuring Protocol 2010

Today we will start measuring Echinacea in the Common Garden. Here is the link to the protocol: CGmeasureprotocol2010.htm

Oh the things you will find … doing rechecks

I found a few things besides Echinacea plants, while searching for plants that may have died in the common garden. I found a fossil shell. I gave it to Per and he held on to it for a while but dropped it. Someone else will find it! I found a stylus (for a handspring visor). It’s probably Gretel’s; she lost hers earlier this year. I found a snake skin with an intact top of head–the eyes were transparent-cool! Per gave to Hattie, I think. I found a mouse in a mouse nest (right on top of dead Echinacea leaves from last year). The mouse bounded away. Also, Ruth called while I was searching to say that she had just found the serial cord for the survey station data collector that we couldn’t find–we had been looking for that for a few days. Wahoo! Finally, I emptied my pockets of litter that I had picked up: three pieces of flagging, one melted plastic plug label, and 2 blue plastic cocktail stirrers.

Stuff from Stuart’s pocket: stylus (1), flagging bits (3),
melted plastic plug label (1), blue plastic cocktail stirrers (2)

We are making great progress on annual measurements of plant in the common garden. On Monday we finished measuring all plants (~10000). On Tuesday we finished placing staples at all locations where plants died overwinter in 2007-2008 (>700). Today we made a huge dent in “rechecks.”

Rechecking is when we revisit all the locations where we recorded a “can’t find” and left a flag while measuring. We placed about 1500 flags. About 700 of those “can’t finds” were stapled this year. So, we just verified that staples were in the correct locations and pulled flags. Some locations had staples from previous years that a measurer didn’t find. We pulled flags there too. Then there were the plants that were alive last year. We rechecked those and found quite a few plants. Each time someone found one, they yelled “wahoo” and the rest of us responded with a whoop and a holler.

Shucks, it was fun!! Actually I was burned out by the end. Next year we should plan two 2h sessions instead of one 4h session.

Common Garden Measuring 2009

Yesterday we finished measuring in the Common Garden! Here are some details about the protocol used for 2009:

Gardens: Inbreeding & INB2 we used the same form as in 2008. Basal and Flowering Rosettes were counted separately. Crisp leaves were included in the leaf counts.

Gardens: 2001, Monica’s, SPP, Big Batch, and 96-99 we used an abbreviated form. We did not record data on insect damage. Insects on all rosettes (basal and flowering) were recorded on the main form. Insects on the heads were recorded on the subform. Cauline leaves were not counted. The longest cauline leaf (longest leaf on the tallest flowering rosette) was recorded on the main form. For basal leaves, crisp leaves were included in leaf counts and also noted, as were leaves that were “gone.” Pips or duds with no florets were only recorded if there was a peduncle long enough for a twist-tie collar.

Plan for the week

This week we are going to make big dents in CG measurements and our independent projects. We will measure the CG MWF morning and TTH afternoon. We’ll start T & Th morning with Phenology assessments and end off each morning with time to work on independent projects. Afternoons on MWF will be devoted to independent projects.

Be ready 8:30 Monday morning–with sunscreen on & visors synced–for a pep talk (it’ll be about efficiency & the well-oiled machine)!

day        AM                PM
Monday     measure CG        ind. proj.
Tuesday    phenology & i.p.  measure CG
Wednesday  measure CG        ind. proj.
Thursday   phenology & i.p.  measure CG
Friday     measure CG        ind. proj.
Saturday   phenology & off   off

Measuring plants in the CG

Please review this protocol for measuring plants in the common garden.

Measure plants in the CG 2008

Hi folks! Here’s the protocol for measuring plants in the common garden this year. The protocol hasn’t changed much from last year, but the description has improved; the protocol is now a html file and there are many nice images from 2007. Thanks to Jameson and Gretel for taking the photos. And thanks to the wonders of digital photography, Pendragon forms, the UMN library’s blog, and contributors to this flog. Wahoo! Let the counting of leaves, ants, and aphids begin!

Map of flowering plants in main Common Garden

Here’s a map (pdf format) of plants in the common garden. A purple asterisk indicates a plant that flowered this year. The size of the asterisk is proportional to the number of heads produced. Download file

We harvested a lot of heads today & yesterday. It’s early for us to be harvesting.

Tough Team Echinacea

At last, after car trouble aborted my trip last week, I made it back out to Douglas County to join in field work with Team Echinacea. What a difference from the 2 days in late May, when Stuart, Jennifer, Andrea, Amy Mueller, and I were there searching for seedlings in the remnants! On Wed, the team numbered 12, and we made great headway measuring plants in the common garden. We were undaunted by the heat and humidity, though we did welcome every breeze. Today, we had the benefit of clouds all morning, and 13 of us measured quite a few plants at the Hegg Lake experimental site before rain, which we’d been seeing in the distance all morning, chased us in for lunch. The weather canceled field work for the afternoon, but we received instruction from Rachel about the upcoming work to evaluate species composition at her research sites, and I conferred with Stuart on analysis of pollinator visitation data before I headed back to the Twin Cities. I enjoyed the opportunity to meet the new members of the crew and working with them and look forward to the next time.

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Experiments