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One of the reasons I enjoy field work is its unpredictability: it could rain or it could be a cloudless day, it could be 80˚F or it could be 60˚F, you could make a pretty significant dent measuring P2, finish measuring in P1, or you could get stung by a couple wasps for like no reason. Any combination of 4 of those things could make for an interesting and complex day.
Yesterday we did finish measuring in P1 (though we still need to do re-checks), and we got through 14 rows of measuring in P2, all during the morning. So far, no one seems to have gotten lost in P2, but we will see what happens as measuring progresses.
During the afternoon, most of the team worked on demo at the railroad crossing sites, while Lea visited her sites, and I set out yellow pan traps. Doing the yellow pan trap study is one of my favorite activities as a member of Team Echinacea. Every time I bring one in, its like a new and different present. There are some sites where I’ve come to expect certain insects. For example, I have come to almost always expect to see a cockroach in the site 3 yellow pan trap. It’s exciting, it’s fun, and it’s producing really interesting data. More is sure to come.
Oh, also happy August.
 An old picture of Augochlorella spp. on a prairie rose. July 2017.
Sometimes, team Echinacea weekends can be very low key: we read or study, do laundry, or cook lunches for next week. This past Saturday was different. Lea, Tracie, Ashley, Wes, and I went to yoga on the beach in Glenwood. It was nice, the water was very peaceful, the class was rigorous but not overly difficult, and it was a warm morning.
After yoga, we got breakfast at the Gingerbread Cafe nearby. Now, I love breakfast. It’s hands down the best meal of the day. As far as the taste, the Gingerbread Cafe delivered a solid egg-hashbrown-toast plate. It was basic, but well done for a small town greasy spoon. The wait for said food was a bit long; I believe we waited a little over an hour. However, the restaurant was busy when we walked in, so I expected a little bit of a wait. The service was very good, and I (who was at that point in desperate need of a coffee) was not found with an empty cup. For my overall experience, I would give it a 9/10: a good breakfast.
After breakfast, Lea and Ashley went and had their own experiences. But Wes, Tracie, and I, along with a few of Amy Waananen’s team, went floating on the Long Prairie River. Butt reeds aside, it was perfect. Stuart and Gretel had graciously supplied us with tubes, and not wishing to use Wes’s bike pump, we filled the tubes at one of Alexandria’s finest gas stations. I am now absolutely convinced that Rosie, Kristina, Matthew, and Amy are all genii. They had found a floating cooler, which we tied ourselves to (with varying levels of permanency). The float took a few hours. To make a very long story short, we encountered tunnels and bridges, visited with turtles, got poked by Wes with reeds, and enjoyed a few libations. It was overall an excellent afternoon, captured by the blurry but nonetheless perfect figure below.
Oh yeah, and Wes, Ashley, and I went to fireworks in Glenwood that evening too. Good Saturday, 12.5/10.
 The least blurry photo of the floaters feat. Amy, Rosie, Kristina, Matthew, and Wes’s forehead. 29 July 2017. Photo Courtesy of Wes Braker.
Today was a great day. We worked on phenology and independent projects in the morning. At lunch we talked about plans for the week and heard all about Anna’s Waterama victory as First Princess!!! We thought she deserved to be the queen, but alas, 1st princess is pretty good also! After lunch it was a long afternoon measuring in p1. After a few hours, we are almost done measuring in p1. Only a few more rows to go! Until next flog…
 Monarda at Staffanson is beautiful!
The usual activites of Team Echinacea (or at least for the non-locals) on a Sunday are driving in to Alex to do laundry and get groceries for the week. Most of us did that today, but Lea and I also had a special errand to run: Menard’s. We needed to pick up some quadrat-building material. We are beginning a new project this week that has been in planning for some time. We have selected 100 Echinacea plants that have flowered either in 2014, 2015, or 2016, and also have seed set data associated with them at least one of those years. Then, we are going to stake to those plants and do vegetation surveys in a 2 meter by 2 meter quadrat around them. Our goal is to assess whether the diversity surrounding an Echinacea benefits its reproductive fitness. More to come later!
So, Lea and I met at Menard’s to pick out some nice PVC pipe and corner fittings. We got the PVC pipe cut to 2 meter pieces so that everything could fit in our cars. Assembly will take place soon, once we start working in the field! There are some plants at Staffanson first up on our list; I’m sure there will be some exciting species surrounding them.
It was a pretty productive Sunday. Also, here is an update on how dirty my car has become over the last couple weeks:
Tracie’s car and some advertisement.
Team Echinacea started the morning off with a brief meeting. Stuart reminded us of all of the neat things we’ve done since the field season commenced in mid June, and I must agree, we have done a lot! We have measured all of p8; we’re nearing the end of phenology; we’ve added and excluded hundreds of aphids; and we’ve just begun total demography. Not to forget the smaller individual projects we’ve undertaken, we took a moment to give a very short update on some of our projects’ progress. Our morning meeting transitioned to a new topic as we stalled, so some of the dew in p8 could evaporate: Anna is competing for the title of Queen of Waterama this weekend, and we shared our support for her and enthusiasm for the event. I’m excited to spend Saturday in Minnewaska!
Soon enough, we embarked on our morning task: assessing fitness in p1. I worked with Tracie, and we had fun while crawling through the rows and spotting Echinacea. We switched between recording and measuring, so we never got tired of either task. Tracie was the real star though: Towards noon, she coordinated Anna and I measuring, and she didn’t lose her place once in the Visor! Speaking from experience, that was a feat.
Over lunch, we talked about Waterama a bit more, and our conversation somehow evolved to include hitchhiking. After a few fun anecdotes and many bouts of laughter, we decided on our afternoon objectives. On his way to set out pan traps, Alex dropped me off at Nice Island to count shriveling rates on one of my plants. As I walked from the approach to my plants, I waved to Anna and Wes as they drove to Steven’s Approach to do demography. Then 10 minutes later, Will and Tracie picked me up to do demography at Around Landfill.
 Ready for PBORY! As I set up the GPS, Will, Tracie, and I decided I am standing Queen PBORY, as I love to stake with the GPS and therefore use PBORY frequently. We staked about 35 plants before the GPS went to float, and it remained on float for a solid 30 minutes. I walked as far away from the power lines and the electric fence to minimize interference, and that put me in the middle of the road. I was cautious of traffic flow as I waited for the GPS to return to fixed. After re-configuring the modem multiple times, we restarted the GPS and we were able to stake again–Crisis averted. Eventually, we finished the first portion of Around Landfill, and we picked up Wes and Gretel on our way back to the Hjelm House.
Will and Tracie love PBORY, even when the GPS is floating We left a bit earlier than usual, so we could eat and get ready for our evening activity–Game night!
Will, Tracie, and Alex ready to start a fun game of Pandemic! We started the evening off with some refreshing iced tea, and we selected the board games we wanted to play. I chose to play Pandemic with Alex, Tracie, and Will, and Wes, Gretel, Stuart, and Per started a game of Ticket to Ride. Soon, Amy and other members of her research team joined us at game night, and they joined in on Ticket to Ride just as our game got started.
While we played, we shared fun conversations, and even through times of disease outbreak, we kept our cool, and played our cards right. At one point, however, it seemed like the game was over, and the diseases were going to win. After an ice cream and rice crispy break however, we were reinvigorated to defeat the diseases and win the game. As Alex airlifted Tracie across continents, Will quarantined diseases in the East, and I stopped cascading outbreaks in their tracks in the South, we slowly but surely saved the fictional world of Pandemic from doom and won the game.
Overall, and especially after saving the world, I would call today a success (and a lot of fun)!
Hi all! This week I’ve had the opportunity to participate in the Planting Science Digging Deeper workshop in Colorado Springs. Planting Science is a really cool program that pairs teachers with scientist mentors (like me!) so that students can get feedback from “real” scientists while developing and conducting experiments in class. This particular workshop is important because it’s part of a larger research project. Though Planting Science has existed for over a decade, BSCS (the organization that developed Planting Science) wants to demonstrate more quantitatively how participation in this program impacts student understanding. I am training to be a “mentor liaison” that will smooth communication between teachers and other scientist mentors. The workshop has included discussions about science content, pedagogy, and mentorship! When the workshop started we were separated into teams and developed team names. My team represents Echinacea since we are “The Disc Florets”.
 The team poster! The workshop was focused on the module called “Power of Sunlight” which focuses on teaching photosynthesis. As part of the workshop we were able to conduct our own investigations about photosynthesis with spinach leaf discs, algal balls (very fun to make), and other aquatic plants.
 Algae balls  Algae balls in phenol red solution  Materials for making spinach leaf disks We also were lucky enough to go on a field trip to Garden of the Gods, a beautiful city park in Colorado Springs. Here are some of the things we saw.
 Walking along the path  Red rocks!  Style persistence?
Overall it’s been a great week. I’m excited to participate in the Planting Science program this fall, and I’ve had a great time in Colorado Springs!
 The Disc Florets!
Once the initial cleaning of Echinacea heads has been completed the next step in the ACE workflow is (re)checking.
Checking is an important step to get a precise count of achenes per head to accurately measure plant fitness. The bags with the cleaned head, achenes, and chaff are checked to ensure that there are no achenes in the chaff or left on the head. Once the envelopes have been thoroughly checked they are labelled according to experiment. Both envelopes are then organized numerically in a box where the next step is to be scanned.
 Kathryn checking Echinacea heads and chaff for stray achenes After this point paper markers are used to identify where in the ACE process the envelopes are. Once checking is complete a paper marker that reads “Checked, labeled, & ready for scanning behind this card” is placed in the box. As volunteers work through the process the paper markers are moved to the appropriate positions (see images below).The next stop on the achenes’ trip is to the scanner to accurately count everything (all the achenes) from the image.
 Boxes of achenes and corresponding chaff envelopes in sequential order in the “Ready to be Scanned” area. Box with markers indicating it has been not only checked but also some achenes have been scanned.
Today we found plants, measured plants, counted plants, identified plants, pollinated plants, painted plants, examined plants, surveyed plants, and added aphids to plants. A usual day for Team Echinacea. I started out my morning at Lea’s roadside plots to get the weekly update on floral resources. Most of the plants I came across were non-natives, but there was one flowering monarda at one plot and some solidagos at another.
 Flower fly and a Solidago canadensis.
Later in the morning we started total demo at Steven’s Approach. The percentage complete might indicate the steep learning curve most of us are discovering. I’m sure we will get faster with practice.
After lunch we headed out to p1 to measure the 99 garden. It didn’t take too long, and then we had more individual project time! Gretel helped me identify a few plants I was unsure of, and I got the maps for phenology ready for tomorrow. Alex worked on his pollinator identification, Wes and Anna worked on aphids, Ashley entered data from her time at Nice Island today, and Stuart and Will prepared for total demo. A good Tuesday.
Wes, Blue, Gretel, Anna, and Ashley working in the Hjelm House.
Another fun phenology Monday! We got a lot done this morning. The time it takes to get phenology finished has decreased as we have all gotten more efficient and many of the Echinacea are done flowering. Ashley and Gretel did p2, Wes did the Nessman/Aanenson route, Anna and Alex took Staffanson, and Will and I took the Around Landfill route. I was excited because my route today includes my favorite plant. It’s in the northwest corner of East Elk Lake Road.
One of the heads on my favorite plant. First day flowering at East Elk Lake Road.
After finishing up phenology Will and I GPSed plants at the rest of the phenology remnant sites. As of now, all plants in the phenology dataset should have a matching location! We had a couple extra minutes before lunch, so we ventured into an island within a corn field near Stevens Approach. We found a lot of cool plants there, including some swamp milkweed.
 Swamp milkweed, a very beautiful milkweed.
After lunch we headed out to do flowering demography at Loefflers Corner West. I liked being at a new site and seeing some new plants there.
Anna, Will, and Gretel flagging and entering data on flowering plants at Loefflers Corner West.
See you tomorrow, flog!
I went home to see my parents this weekend in Northfield, MN, and had a wonderful time! This morning my mom and I biked around the St. Olaf College Natural Lands to see prairie flowers in bloom. When we got home we had a big breakfast of blueberry pancakes with some family friends. Then we spent the day working in the garden weeding and picking ripe veggies. Yum!
The St. Olaf College Natural Lands in full bloom.
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