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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.
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
Please review this protocol for measuring plants in the 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.
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.
Hi all,
So I arrived up at the field site about a week and half ago to finish up monitoring flowering and help out with measuring and demo. Except for the recent death of my computer’s hard drive it has been an excellent start to my field season. As you may know flowering was about a week earlier this year with many more flowering heads than expected. I would have estimated around 800 (max) flowering heads but we had over 1,100 flowering in the common garden. Last year was also a huge flowering year (over 1,300 heads) because it was a burn year. I am excited to now have two years of flowering data on a large of plants in the common garden.
We have spent a large part of the last week I have been here measuring both in the common garden and at the hegg lake common garden. The hegg lake common garden was established back in May of 2006 to as part of my graduate research. It is about 6 miles from the main common garden on Minnesota DNR land. It has around 4,000 plants planted on a 1m X 1m grid. Today we had the entire field crew out at hegg lake measuring for a total of 13 people and measured nearly half of the entire plot just today…it was great!
Besides the field work I have been keeping myself busy in rural Minnesota by fishing (Ian has promised that I will actually know how to fish by the end of the summer), playing poker, and going to a dirt track race. In the near future I plan on flogging all non-Echinacea related activities that can be done in rural Minnesota….however now I’m tired so it will have to wait until the weekend.
Night!
Jennifer
… are boring.
I took about 118 photos this afternoon and the > 100 straight-down shots are not interesting. Straight-down shot will provide good data when we have the ground markers and get enough shots in the right places. But for visual appeal & interest, the photos are boring.
Flying the kite was fun. It was cloudy with 10 – 15 mph winds from the N – NNW. It was a challenge to get the FF16 kite up–a 15 minute ordeal. But when it got up, it stayed. It was tiring to take it down and then it easily went right back up again. I took shots of the CG and then went to Staffanson.
Here’s one of the few shots with the camera tilted. I like it.
This is a view of part of the common garden from the West. The rows are 1 m apart and those things are tripods for the video cameras. The tripods weren’t in use today and have plastics bags over them. Flags are more visible than the Echinacea plants. But If you click on the thumbnail, you’ll be able to see some flowering plants in the larger image.
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