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Mowing went well today. The crew did a good job. I have some notes:
Rows 10 – 33 got blasted from the east by the grass clipping etc from the mower.
Rows 35 – 56 got blasted from the west.
Row 34 didn’t get blasted. Row 34 was chosen at random, row 38 was chosen last year. Each year before 2006 I blasted the whole garden from either the east or the west. That was too inefficient.
Here’s the schedule of not-to-be-blasted rows for the next few years:
year row
2008 31
2009 39
2010 36
2011 28
2012 34
2013 27
2014 32
2015 29
2016 35
2017 37
2018 30
I ran over 4 flags (loose or bent) and didn’t hit any rocks. There aren’t very many new gopher mounds. Look for new mounds far N, Row ~ 35, Pos ~925, and Row 56. I don’t think I ran over any Echinacea plants. I was running blind in R~40-42, up to P935, and P865 in R10-12. Also, I had to add flags in R 10 far N. The brome is flowering super thick this year. The CG looks so different from last year because of the brome. Some brome infl are eye-level W of the garden in pos <910! Those fence posts in R 13.5 and ~38.5 are annoying and must go. The cottonwoods need to go to too--too much shade. Deal with trefoil & phalaris.
I can think of some things I will do differently next year. I’ll only do them next year if I remember. Next year I’ll have to look at this flog to find the unblasted row. Here’s the plan.
Preparation:
in fall, leave flags in the 98 garden or put in staples
get flags delivered in plenty of time (consider color coordination)
30″ are much better in non-burn years
sharpen blade, buy gas
mow entry paths & set up stairs
flag perimeter & unblasted row
mow perimeter
mow aisle on both sides of unblasted row
Orientation (print maps beforehand):
wear safety glasses, ear protection optional
place flags 10cm N of each plant
search for plants or staples
emphasize that plants can be difficult to find, but the goal isn’t to find every one (measure if necessary to get good coverage in thick areas)
walk E & W in unmowed areas & anywhere on mowed areas
lift legs over rows
pull pins & collect plastic
start flagging in positions 860, 935, 960, 983, then flag on either side of unblasted row
coordinate so rows are flagged before mowing
after a few rows, get folks working rows 50 – 56 & 10 – 16. Don’t bother flagging cg96.
Remove duff from all plants in an organized fashion.
Equipment:
flag bags
meter sticks (we need more, we only have six)
safety glasses
ear protection
mower sharp blade
gas
gloves for all & gloves for SW. Get the XL; L is too small.
Plan to spread mowing over two days to avoid exhaustion. Sharpen blade in between.
After duff is removed weed thistles, sweet clover, trim shrubs & trap gophers.
To do–cut cottonwoods, ashes in ditch, trees E of CG.
well I just took a shower. Showers are a big event for me because recently at least they are very infrequent. I suppose I should start taking showers more frequently because my current living situation is more civilized than when I am at school and everyone else takes showers more or less everyday so … well there are many reasons why i should take more than one shower a week here but if you want to know more i think that you should ask me. or maybe you should ask why I think it is reasonable to only take one shower a week. Anyway my hair and beard should be different now because the last time I bathed was last friday at a indoor water park in Ohio in heavily chlorinated water. My beard and hair is naturally curly/wavy but the chlorine straightened it out a bit. Let me tell you: It takes a long time to clean several weeks of oil, grease,and dirt off of you. I don’t know if anyone is still reading this but as you might be able to tell this blog is not about Echinacea at all; up until now that is. But none of our lives are completely consumed by Echinacae, except possibly stuart’s, so you should not be surprised by the varied content of this blog, and/or field log
and now for something completely different
I’m trying to stay until $13 a week for food this summer because at least I heard that that is the amount that we can get reimbursed. I calculated today that that is less than $1 per meal -in fact it is less than 62 cents per meal. I’ve spent a large chunk of it already (this being the latter portion of the first week) so if limit my spending to $5 next week and $10 for the remaining weeks i should come close to my goal
I’ve started to keep a running tally of all the ticks that i’ve found crawling on me or embedded in me. So far after the 5th day here and the 4th day of work i’ve found 15 ticks on me -3 of which were attached. I just realized that i’m missing a day so those numbers are approximate. Still that’s a lot of ticks and several more than other people have gotten. i seem to be a tick magnet. Also a mosquito magnet but not as to as an unusual extant. I guess that it’s not really worse than if i were back at the Homestead, where I perpetually had a mild case of poison ivy and was continually scratching myself and getting caught on the multiflora rose that has taken over there.
I just got a notice that i’m getting paid for the Alumni Reunion Weekend that I was part of staff for back at Denison tomorrow. i thought that I had already gotten paid for that so now i’ll actually have some spending money, but i don’t think i’ll be needing it very soon anyway.
i bought a bag of cherries at the grocery store the other day. They were in a cart and all in bags that prominently said 99 cents apparently because they were very ripe. Anyway the cashier rang them as $3.99 a pound so i ended up paying more than $10 for the bag, which i didn’t realize until 2 days afterward when most of the cherries were already gone. i’m going to go in with the receipt next time i go to the grocery store to try to get my money back. That might not be for a while though. Oh well I have to go to bed. Work is at 8 tomorrow because the Echinacae already. There are lots of things to do.
i didn’t get to the completely different stuff. too bad
maybe tomorrow
I just finished mowing paths between rows in the common garden. I was so pooped by the time I pushed the mower to the truck, it took me 15 minutes to psych myself up to lift it into the truck (it didn’t help that I laid down to psych myself up). I would’ve fallen asleep listening to the chipping sparrows and a N. oriole, but a mosquito told me she was hungry.
Now I am getting psyched to go back to the CG to look at the flowering plants for our phenology observations. I am shocked how early they are flowering this year. I peeked at the CG on Monday and thought we’d have a good week before they’d start to flower. I don’t think they’ve ever started flowering by solstice before. Recently, the field season has started after the solstice.
These long days are a double-edged sword. We get all this daylight, but that means we can do field work for many more hours. I should clarify. The crew finished before 4:30 and went home–I can work for many more hours.
> (983 – 860 + 4) * (56-10)
[1] 5842
That’s how many meters I mowed today. Well, I have to subtract
> (960 – 935) * 8
[1] 200
I carried the mower 200 meters around the 99 garden (in 8 trips). Next mower I get should be lighter than what we have now, a snapper 21″ steel deck, self-propelled “M” model with a Tecumseh 6.0 hp engine.
Gosh, I was about to say something cliché about getting old & tired, because this seems like such a big job. But back when I was younger (e.g. last year) the garden was smaller!
OK, all this thinking is making my shoulders and back sorer–back to the common garden!
PS: Stuart, remember to bring the gas can back!
Today was a day of firsts, realizations and first realizations. It was our first unexpected change in schedule due to weather, and realization that the early flowering of many plants will mess with pollination experiments. It was also our first day in the Common Garden and possibly first experience with chiggers, as we have many unexplainable itchy red bites. I think that we all realized that it’s going to be rough work out there. Mosquitoes swarm all over at all times, the sun/heat is unrelenting and there are thistle plants the size of Christmas trees to deal with. I realized that there is nothing better than a ridiculously long shower after a day in the field. It even seems to make sunburns hurt less, mosquito bites (of which I have many) itch less, and will always be the one place that ticks and chiggers can’t get me.
Day 4 of the Echinacea project and still no blog postings from the ladies of the group. Not to pass judgment on the fairer sex, but they seem to lack general motivation. Hopefully their negative attitudes improve with time.
The field season is off to a great start. We’ve spent time collecting data on two experiments and we are getting new equipment & gear organized. Not everything is roses though.
We have determined survival of plants in our experimental “recruitment plots.” Seeds were planted during fall 2000, 2001 & 2002 in plots with different prescribed burn treatments. We have kept track of survival every spring. Five plots down, four to go! We will write down our equipment list & the protocol for this experiment later this week.
We searched for and found seedlings in three remnants (sap, nwlf & kjs). The goal is to find plants of the 2007 seedling cohort and determine their survival this summer & in future years. We want to compare seedling recruitment & juvenile survival from year to year and among remnants. This project will offer insight into the differences in population dynamics in small & large remnants. We’ll also be able to gauge masting in Echinacea.
Distinguishing between seedlings and small plants is difficult. Some plants were obviously seedlings because we could see green cotyledons or brown shriveled up cotyledons. Other plants were the same size as seedlings, but were obviously not seedlings because we could see remains of a dried up leaf from last year. Then there were some that we just weren’t sure about: small plants with no leaves from last year and no cotyledons.
Some problems are impossible to solve right now (distinguishing seedlings). Other problems are solvable–and we have a lot of them. We have many new gadgets to get working this summer: kites, digital cameras, video cameras, high-precision GPS, etc. We will push some of our equipment to the limits (like using binoculars to follow flying bees). We’re feeling a bit overwhelmed and worried that we won’t have everything figured out before flowering starts. And flowering will start soon–one plant at kjs (#1919) looks like it could start flowering tomorrow.
Fortunately, field biologists are a resourceful lot. It is no surprise that Andy & Josh surmounted the problem that we had with downloading large video files.
We will face many challenges in our pursuit of efficient data collection in demanding, harsh field conditions far away from civilization with pressing time constraints. But science must move forward! New discoveries await! We are up to the challenge! Stay tuned to the Echinacea field log to read about new adventures of the Echinacea team…
It was a good day around Andes Tower Hill and the study sites. I think one of the top experiences was when Colin assembled the shower caddy the kind folks from the Andes gave to us and I am guessing that it will vastly improve our showering experience. We also got wireless after some skillful negoitiating by Andy. Working was good today, although it appeared that Echinacea was avoiding our study plots today and we only found two plants on one entire side of the whole plot and also found very few seedlings when doing the seedling counts. There were plenty of seedlings at the other group’s sites however. Once back at Andes, Jameson broke ground on his garden and proceeded to work the dirt into something that would be palatable to his plants. We debated tilling the bunny hill and turning it into a large garden, but then decided it was too much work. I chased butterflies around the condos, and Jameson promptly laughed at me when I took a spill in my quest to capture the flitting, defenseless insects. Six of us went looking for some poor, orphaned furry creatures, namely baby raccoons, that Amy had found, but we were unable to locate them and instead picked up roadkill dragonflies. It wasn’t quite the excitement we were looking for, but it was still good. Jameson’s tick count for today was 5 and currently I do not have the expertise to comment on whether this is above or below his average.
Andy’s problems for the summer:
1. How to transfer large (> 2.0 Gb) of video from the cameras to the hard drives. Right now, it is taking 70 minutes per 2.0 Gb, which is really too long. I am hoping that if I can switch to Josh’s USB 2.0 computer the transfer rate will be much higher. This is probably the biggest problem I need to solve this summer, but there is not much time!
Breaking News!: I just used the USB 2.0 on Josh’s laptop, and the transfer speed is about 30 times faster – yahoooo! Now, I just have to figure out how to keep track of all the videos and how to switch them in the common garden without getting totally confused.
2. Deciding which variables to measure for the path analyses. Some we have thought of so far: population identity, inbreeding status, number of leaves, number of flowering heads, # of pollinators visiting per unit time, style persistence, distance to nearest flowering neighbor, distance from edge in the common garden. The final variables of interest would be # seeds produced and perhaps pollen viability.
3. I need to figure out how to test the viability of Echinacea pollen.
4. How to measure FA in the plants. Leaves and inflorescences should be measured in some manner. The disk itself could be measured for radial symmetry, too. On the inflorescences, the petals themselves can be measured, as well as petals on opposite sides of the head, or across the entire head, as it should be radially symmetric.
Some wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) webworm damage. Wild parsnip is an exotic weed found throughout the midwest. It’s chemical ecology has been well studied by May Berenbaum and Art Zangerl at U of Illinois.
Whilst strolling around Andes Tower- being eaten alive by mosquitoes- I found myself well beyond familiar territory. The black-diamond slope “Warmgear” had betrayed my trust and led me to a farm field much further south than I had expected. In the treck through the soybeans, I saw 2 white tailed deer in the distance. Distracted by their graceful loping, I was startled by an explosion of feathers from a cluster of brush nearby. The most tremendously obese turkey in the history of people was flapping frantically to remain airborne. As it struggled to move away from me I began to think that I could run faster than it could fly. As I continued back to the condos, I started to wonder if it would have been smarter to have attacked the turkey rather than simply watch it fly to safety in the woods nearby. Had I punched it in the head, as I suggested aloud to Jameson and Andy later, it may have helped me meet my $13 per week food budget. I suppose you live and learn.
Colin
19 June 2007
Andy McCall reporting here. I drove from OH to Minnesota last Friday. It was a trying commute for a number of reasons. After preparing for the summer and trying to rid myself of a strange contagion I may have contracted in Costa Rica last month I took off from Granville, OH to Chicago, where I was to meet Stuart.
All was well until I hit the hellish highway snag that is Chicagoland. I was not expecting the horrors that I encountered. I WAS however, prepared for tolls on US 90, bringing about ten dollars in change. The first toll came to a grand total of 15 cents. I didn’t know that anything, even candy, cost fifteen cents anymore. I used to buy subsidized milk in elementary school for that amount. The next toll was 50 cents – OK, the next toll was 100 meters later and was $2.50. I submit this question to you, dear reader, “What is up with that?��? Why wasn’t it $3.00 in the first place? – I didn’t even see a darn exit in between the tolls.
OK, enough about tolls. I called Stuart telling him of the construction on I-90, suggesting that I was 40 minutes away. Three hours later I arrived in Highland Park, right across the street from the Chicago Botanic Garden. We stayed for about 30 minutes, chatting through the din of the cicadas that had emerged en masse in the Chicago area. Stuart drove my car and we talked of many things, as we had 6hrs in the car.
After arriving in MN, I went down to Northfield for my 10th College Reunion. It was grand, and saw many a familiar face. I also got to visit Carleton’s own prairie restoration, where I had worked years before under the tutelage of Dr. Mark McKone. I took several pictures of prairie plants and their associated insects. From the prairie you can even see Carleton’s giant windmill. St. Olaf has copied us and now has a big one right as you enter Northfield on Hwy 19. I picked up Colin Venner at the MSP airport and then we were on our way!
Heliopsis 
Amorpha canescens
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