In 2024, we harvested Echinacea in the remnants for Jennifer Ison’s pollinator observation study and at the Hegg Lake pallida restoration.
For the pollinator observation study, we quantified reproductive effort on a given day and watched heads at different plants across 10 remnants. When a pollinator visited our focus head, we would take a video so we could later ID the pollinator.
This pollinator observation was done by Ning on a plant at yohw this summer. I asked Ian to give his best ID and he thinks this is a Halictus species! Very cool.
We harvested heads from plants involved in this experiment to get an idea of how observed visitation links up with realized seed set. In total, we harvested 136 heads and brought them back to the botanic garden for processing. Here are the detailed stats:
- TOTAL: 136 heads
- hulze: 15 heads (11.0%)
- hulzw: 14 heads (10.3%)
- hutche: 9 heads (6.6%)
- hutchw: 13 heads (9.6%)
- nice: 15 heads (11.0%)
- torgen: 14 heads (10.3%)
- torgew: 15 heads (11.0%)
- tower: 11 heads (8.1%)
- yohe: 15 heads (11.0%)
- yohw: 15 heads (11.0%)
Again, please forgive rounding errors. This batch is the highest priority in the lab; volunteers are currently working on cleaning these heads and hopefully the rest of the ace process is soon to follow!
We also harvested, or perhaps I should just say decapitated, Echinacea pallida at Hegg Lake WMA. This species is native to areas primarily south and east of our study site, such as Indiana and Arkansas. SO how did they wind up in Minnesota? Seed for pallida was accidentally included in a restoration effort by the MN DNR years back. This raised concerns for us about potential hybridization with our native Echinacea angustifolia. (If you want to learn more about angustifolia x pallida hybridization like we did, check out our experiments to that end!) In summer 2024, we once again conducted our civic duty and decapitated pallida heads at Hegg in an attempt to prevent reproduction and further spread. We sliced and diced a total of 523 heads this year, with the largest plant having 20 normal flowering heads! Wowza.
There was also one plant at the location we refer to as “near pal” that we suspected may be an escaped hybrid; that is, a plant that we believe may be a natural hybrid of angustifolia and pallida. This individual only had one head, but was taller and more robust than its angustifolia neighbors. We put a pollinator exclusion bag on the head to prevent pollen spread, and later harvested the head and brought it back to the lab, where it is currently in the seed dryer. Keep an eye on 29239 in the future…
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