Goodbye for now, Minnesota and Team Echinacea! My fellow RET teacher, Brittany, and I are back to school. Brittany started back this week and I start Monday. For our project, Brittany and I worked together this summer to locate and describe the rare plant, Astragalus adsurgens, also called Prairie Milkvetch. We searched many remnant sites but were able to find plants at only two locations. Brittany used the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Plants of Concern app to submit information about the plants that will help us understand how these rare plant subpopulations are doing. I created a gps layer so that they can easily be revisited in future years and made a small seed collection. These seeds will hopefully be the start of a restoration project that will reintroduce A. adsurgens into suitable sites in Douglas County.
Prairie milkvetch (Astragalus adsurgens) in bloom in a remnant prairie.
The seeds of Prairie milkvetch are enclosed in a two-sided pod and multiple pods attach to the stem.
I also spent time this summer collecting Carex seeds that will be planted in recruitment plots. The recruitment plots will grow Carex plants for the purpose of generating even more seed that can be collected and used in restoration projects or added to existing experimental plots. I kept track of the sites I collected seed from so that the collection contains locally-adapted, genetically diverse sample.
Short-beaked sedge (Carex brevior) found around Hegg Lake.
I chose to work with seed collections for my project this summer because the seed collection represents the first step in establishing a long-term research project in a restoration setting. At La Salle High School in Yakima, WA, we are fortunate to have riparian habitat on campus that can be used as outdoor learning space. However, it is horribly invaded with a who’s who of Washington’s worst invasive plant species. I have created a lesson plan in which students use seed collections for a native plant restoration project on campus. Students will have opportunities to test hypotheses related to germination and seedling survival, learn about plant anatomy and life cycles, and work with tribal biologists on projects that are important to our community. This will be a long-term project with probably a few wrong turns and negative results as is the way with science, but each class of students will have the opportunity to work on one or two important questions related to successfully restoring the vegetation on our creek.
In past years team echinacea has noticed that silverleaf scurfpea very rarely produces a seed. Some would estimate over ninety percent of the time the pod contains no seed. This brings about many questions concerning why sliverleaf scurfpea produces so few seeds. The focus of this experiment is to get an idea of whether or not the problems related to going to seed are pollination related?
The first step of the experiment was to was to look at the sliverleaf scurfpea’s flowers under a microscope to see if the flowers were producing pollen and see if it was possible to cross pollinate such a small flower in the field. The flowers of the sliverleaf scurfpea were producing pollen and with some experimentation I found a way to effectively cross pollinate the flowers. I found that the best way to get the pollen out out of the flowers was to use a dark colored toothpick and gently open the petals of the flower so that the anthers are more visible. following that I would lightly brush the anthers with the toothpick so that it would collect the pollen. I would then gently open the petals of the other flower and bush the toothpick over the stigma.
The second phase of the experiment included going out into the field and cross pollinating the silverleaf scurfpea. This took place at the site Nice Island on July 24th and July 31st of 2024. The plants were chosen at random and each plant was over 20 meters away from the plant it was being crossed with. On each plant two flowers were randomly chosen. One as the flower that would be crossed, identified by a blue twist tie, and the other as a control variable, identified by a yellow twist tie. Following the cross pollination both twist tied flowers were covered in a pollinator exclusion bag. This was repeated for 6 different silverleaf scurfpea plants at Nice Island. Each plant involved in the silverleaf scurfpea experiment was marked using a green flag.
This work sets the team up for the final step of the experiment. The final step will be to return to the cross pollinated plants in about 2-3 weeks and see if the pods that were pollinated produced a seed. This can be done by squeezing the pods. The pod will either contain a seed or not contain a seed.
Silverleaf Scurfpea in Cross Pollination Experiment
Silverleaf Scurfpea in Cross Pollination ExperimentSilverleaf Scurfpea Cross Pollination Experiment at Nice Island
We are busy with fieldwork here in western MN! Between measuring, floral assessments, emergence trapping, searching for flowering plants, and finishing up our pollen and nectar collections, we have our work cut out for us… We’ve been making steady progress with total demo. As of this morning, we have completed 34% of the locs where we search for echinacea.
With a smaller crew and slightly soggy start to the morning, it was all-hands-on-deck as we continue to chip away at measuring experimental plot 1. We made great progress today, but still found time to stop and take pictures of cool critters! After lunch, we all headed out to retrieve and deploy emergence traps. It was a busy day for e-trapping, with three teams visiting eight sites in total.
Big beautiful eyes, such a shiny green, gorgeous!Absolute stunner. (bit Wyatt, but we forgive her)
The team takes its first steps into measuring experimental plot 1
Friday, 26 July, 2024, was the first day we started measuring p1 this year! Coincidentally, this was the same day we started last year. This monumental task involves visiting 10992 positions in the plot and assessing the status of the plants there (or not, in the case of plants we have not been able to find in >3 years. RIP. Presumably.) After measuring again this morning, I booted up the old progress tracker (in the cgData repo, if you ever need it) to see how we’re doing. After making some adjustments (for the colorblind out there), here’s our progress over the last two days:
A map of every position in p1. Every position we have visited so far is colored in purple. On Friday, we were 8.1% done with measuring the plot. After today, we jumped up to 23.8% done. Rounding up, that’s about a quarter of the plot done already! Yahoo!
Today was also RET Brittany’s last day with the field team. Brittany, you will be sorely missed, and we hope you bring a bit of the prairie to share with your students!
Brittany evaluates Heterostipa spartea reproduction in p1
Big project update! For my summer project I am looking at nectar and pollen volumes in other Asteraceae plants that are non – Echinacea in burned sites versus unburned sites. This is important because pollinators depend on pollen and nectar to get the nutrients they need. A large decrease in pollinators has been found due to prairie fragmentation, and studying whether fire can help in producing a higher quantity of pollen and nectar can be shared with land managers to help create more viable resources for pollinators in their prairie restoration efforts. My two species of focus for now are Coreopsis palmata (also known as prairie coreopsis) and Helianthus pauciflorus (also known as stiff sunflower). Mid-summer coreopsis blooming is starting to come to close and so are my nectar and pollen measurements! Onto sunflowers here in the next couple weeks!
Time for daily update: Total demo continues! One group of 4 and one group of 3 went out to a total of 4 different sites. These included south of golf course, north of golf course, and yellow orchid hill east and west. A few people also finished up or pollen and nectar collection on Echinacea heads.
This afternoon a group went out and did e-trap collection and retrieval. We have been working on rotation 5 this week after finally polishing off rotation 4 late last week! The rest of us went and did measurements of Echinacea in one of our experimental plots (P9). Measurements included: flowering rosette count, basal rosette count, total basal leaves, height of tallest basal leaf, height of tallest cauline leaf (aka leaf on stem without a petiole), and height of head to name a few. Our plant of the day was finding a diseased Echinacea with over 360 basal leaves. To finish off the day we moved the goats to a new paddock and enjoyed some cold watermelon in the late week heat.
Nothing beats cold watermelon after a hot day of field work!Incentive to get the goats to their new paddock.
