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Today everyone went to work right away on their projects. Ashley headed back out to Nice Island to do more pollination and she hopes to report more results soon! Wes headed out to Hegg Lake to continue his vegetation analysis- check out his project in the previous post. Lea and Tracie went around to some of the sites for Lea’s experiment and recorded data. Alex spent some time sorting, counting, and identifying the bees from his yellow pan traps. Will did some more work on R studio. And I spent some time learning more functions on R and becoming more familiar with the soil web application I am using for my project on Google Earth Pro.
 Ashley and Tracie measuring in p1, Wes determining the number of leaves on a flowering Echinacea, and a basal Echinacea plant in p1. After lunch, we all headed out to p1 to continue measuring. With everyone working hard, we completed the first page of measuring for the fitness experiment. Ashley and Tracie even found at 2 “rogue” plants. These were marked as staples last year, but this year were very much growing Echinacea! By the time measuring wrapped up for the day, we were almost half done with the next page for the 96′ and 98′ plants!
Also, make sure to follow “We Rate Echinacea” on twitter! And send in your pics of Echinacea angustifolia to be rated!
Tomorrow the game plan is phenology in the morning, a visit from Amy D., and demo.
Stay tuned and until next time!
This summer each of us are choosing a project to work on alongside the long-term Echinacea Project research. I am interested in plant communities and the interactions that occur within themselves and with other communities. The following is my proposal for a project investigating the plant communities at Hegg Lake Wildlife Management Area near Kensington, MN:
Braker_Hegg_Lake_Plant_Community_Proposal
-Wes
 Hegg Lake with Echinacea
Once the flower heads are harvested for each of the experiments the achenes (seeds) need to be separated from the rest of the head (chaff). The achenes are the important part as they will inform the results of the experiments. All volunteers and staff are blind to which experiment is which so that there will be no bias as to how many achenes “should” be present for each experiment. The process of cleaning heads can be involved and each person has their own technique.
The first step is to label two envelopes: one for the achenes and the other for chaff. The label should have the number of the experiment with the twist tie color, your initials with the date, and then chaff or achene. There is a separate datasheet that has each head detailed where you should cross reference the information and initial with the date. (see below for example).
 Example of how to label an envelope and cross check the datasheet where you can write notes such as if a twist tie is missing or a different color While cleaning it is important not to damage any achenes in the process (though this will happen). People use a variety of tools and techniques to clean a head from toothpicks to tweezers. The stem may be prickly so if you are like me you may need use a napkin or gloves to protect your fingers. There may be achenes that were damaged by critters that took a bite but these should still be placed in the “Achene” envelope. The achenes at the bottom of the flower head are called ray achenes and should also be included in the achene envelope. These can be “hidden” and hard to clean so be patient and thorough. Achenes may be have florets attached which can be left on. Separate the achenes and chaff (a strainer/sieve can be of great help) and place them into the appropriate envelope. Once a head is cleaned put it back in the original little brown bag with the twist tie as well as the two envelopes. These finished bags are but into a big box. Once all the heads from one experiment are cleaned the box moves on to the checking process to ensure there are no stray achenes in the chaff or head. “Check” out the next post for more details….
 Clockwise: Cleaned head with achenes and chaff separated; Some of our star cleaners Naomi; Susie; Alan. Note in the above photos the little brown bag with a head is taken from the large brown bag and when cleaned placed in the cardboard box. P.S. Today Susie cleaned the last head collected from 2015! She already started on the 2016 experiments : )
It’s phenology Monday!!!! Everyone headed out to different remnants and experimental plots to collected data on flowering Echinacea. Lea, Ashley, and I took care of experimental plot 2 at Hegg Lake.
Lea phenologizing P2 In the afternoon it was hot! We measured basal Echinacea plants in experimental plot 1, then we split up into different projects. Anna and I worked on the group aphid project by excluding and adding Echinacea-specific aphids to various plants. Ashley and Gretel pollinated and painted heads for Ashley’s project. Tracie, Will, and Stuart worked on data organization.
Tracie, Will, and Stuart mull over data. Just before we finished for the day a large thunderstorm appeared and moved in. It made for quite a beautiful sight on our drive home!
Thunderstorms over Solem Township Happy Monday!
Wes
Today the crew at Andes decided to go out to breakfast! We found a cute spot and enjoyed our large breakfasts and unlimited coffee. After grocery shopping and a variety of other chores, we ended up back at Andes where Tracie made an amazing dinner. She made an Indian curry, with home-ground spices and coconut milk, topped with puff pastry. It was amazing. Overall we had a fun and relaxing Sunday!
 Flowering milkweed!
Today was a perfect sunny day in Minnesota!
I went hiking with some cousins at Glacial Lakes State Park and saw some awesome native prairie. I then went out to the dairy and helped with some of the baby calves. Other members of team Echinacea worked on their projects and some traveled down to Minneapolis.
It’s hard to believe that July is half done! Looking forward to more flowering Echinacea and other fun!!
Today team echinacea enjoyed some weather on the other end of the spectrum from the high and humid 80s last week. With temps in the low 70s, clouds, and a breeze it was a convenient day for phenology and measuring.
In the morning we broke off into teams to complete phenology at the remnants, Staffanson, and p2. Will, Tracie, and I went out to p2 and recorded the status of the many, many flowering plants. As we went along, Will and Tracie began rating some of the echinacea on a scale of 1-10. Ones with full heads and perfect florets received some high scores! We are also beginning to find plants that are already done flowering.
 Echinacea in P2
After everyone returned to the Hjelm house we had lunch and then headed right out to p1 to measure the plants part of the fitness experiment. When we had measured for exactly 100 minutes, everyone split up to work on their individual projects. I did some work on the computer looking at soil maps of Minnesota and some of the Echinacea plots on Google Earth. Ashley went out to Nice Island to do more pollination, Lea and Wes where out at Hegg Lake, and Alex checked on his yellow pan traps.
Tomorrow we are leaving bright and early to head up north for measuring orchids! Looking forward to an awesome and fun filled day!!
Welcome! This first post will introduce the Accurately Counting Everything (ACE) workflow. This is the standard protocol for the work done in the Echinacea lab at the Chicago Botanic Garden. While work is being conducted in the field here in the lab volunteers continue to progress through the flower heads collected the previous summer. You can explore the flog to get more acquainted with the details of the experiments and projects. The main goal in the lab is to process Echinacea angustifolia flower heads in order to quantify female fitness and seed set.
The main steps of the ACE workflow with the names of some of the volunteers that implement it are:
 Great illustration by Scott of ACE workflow
The tireless efforts of our amazing volunteers and lab members are key to the Echinacea Project!
Tuesday morning volunteer community implementing ACE workflow. From top left clockwise: Lois counting achenes from a scan; Aldo counting achenes from a scan; Susie cleaning heads; Char sampling achenes for x-raying.
Future flog posts will detail each step.
Check out the next post about how to clean flower heads to separate achenes (seeds) from the chaff like an ACE…
~Hilary
The Andes crew spent another Sunday doing laundry, grocery shopping, and preparing for the week, so I’m going to take today’s flog to talk about the trip to Minneapolis that Ashley, Alex, and I took yesterday.
Besides eating delicious Vietnamese food for lunch and tacos for dinner, the highlight of the day was going to the Walker Art Center. We started out in the garden and saw the iconic Hahn/Cock by Katharina Fritsch, along with some other great sculptures by Jim Hodges and Theaster Gates.
 Hahn/Cock by Katharina Fritsch at the Walker Art Center Not forgetting our ecology side, we did notice some bird’s foot trefoil in the meadow restoration along the footpaths (though we resisted the urge to dig it out) and we couldn’t help but check how far along some of the flowering Echinacea varieties were as we walked from place to place.
We spent a lot of time in the galleries, featuring Jimmie Durham, Katharina Fritsch, and videos of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. One exhibit by teamLab involved building up an ecosystem by coloring in templates of different organisms. Then we scanned these drawings and they came to life as video projections moving about in a colorful space.
My colored-in bird for the teamLab interactive exhibit at the Walker Art Center The video projection bird flying free!
Team Echinacea did not meet today, so many of us used the day to work on projects or simply relax. I started my day by helping on my family’s dairy and after lunch enjoyed the rest of the day with some friends.
A couple members of the team used the day to get some work done on their projects. For example, Ashley spent some time crossing some of her experimental plants. Some of the team also took a little road trip to Minneapolis to visit the Walker Art Center and other things downtown.
Hopefully the weather will stay beautiful for the coming week!
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