One of my favorite daily rituals has been the cultivation of the viola tub. Every morning since the beginning of Week 2 of our field season (6-Jul-2026), we have watered a tub of Viola pedatifida (prairie violet) outside the Hjelm house. Before we water, we also collect all ripe viola pods. Viola pods, as we call them, are the fruit of the prairie violet, and turn from pale green to white when ready to harvest. Interestingly, all the fruit we collect come from cleistogamous flowers, meaning that the flowers self-pollinated without ever opening. Prairie violet also produces chasmogamous (more traditionally pollinated, petaled) flowers, but our violets had stopped producing these flowers by the time we arrived in late June.

I think that I enjoy the collection of viola pods because it satisfies my innate human urge to gather fruit. However, like everything else that we do here on Team Echinacea, it also has a greater purpose: the Advancement of Science! Last Monday, we designed an experiment to quantify the effect of seed freshness on V. pedatifida seedling establishment. This was our first time designing an experiment as a group, and it took us all afternoon, but it was a fun exercise in planning and group decision-making. Our experimental design is as follows:

Each morning, we collect all ripe viola pods in envelopes, where they explosively release their seeds. At the start of each week, we compile all Viola seeds collected in the previous week and weigh them out into 0.26 gram envelopes (roughly 200 seeds). Half of these will be planted later that day, while the other half are set aside for future planting. An additional five envelopes of “old” seeds, collected in the month before we designed the experiment, are planted at the same time.

We plant the Viola seeds in experimental plot 08, which is located just south of the Hjelm house. This plot is the site of an ongoing experiment (see Aaron’s recent post for details), and contains many Echinacea plants, as well as a variety of other prairie forbs and grasses, making it a good analog for a natural prairie habitat. Each envelope is planted in a unique, randomly determined 2-meter line segment within the plot, and given a single watering can’s worth of water. And then we wait!

What, you may be be asking, are we hoping to discover with this experiment? Our primary goal is to determine whether the age of Viola seeds (measured from the date of pod collection to the date of planting) affects seedling establishment. By planting “fresh” seeds (collected in the previous week) and “old” seeds (collected 2+ weeks ago) at the same time, we can directly compare their success. Previous research suggests that fresher seeds fare better, but whether this holds true in a natural setting has yet to be determined. Since our planting period spans from early August into September, we will also be testing whether time of year affects germination success. And lastly, since this is our first time conducting this sort of experiment, we will see whether our planting method yields results at all. At the very least, we should learn something about how to conduct future Viola experiments.

So there you have it! In September, myself and maybe Wyatt will return to exPt08 to count new V. pedatifida seedlings. I’m excited to see what we find out! I’m less excited to look for thousands of tiny seedlings in a sea of knee-high grass… but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it nonetheless. Stay tuned for updates!