Stipa!

We started the morning by going into P1 to look and record and flowering or basal Stipa. This task involved locating the Stipa, counting the stems, healthy, aborted, along with missing fruits, and then collecting the healthy fruits for planting. Information collected will be used to estimate the fitness of stipa. Working together we finished the entire plot and recorded 147 stipa plants. The largest plant had 31 stems and 301 fruits!

(Left to right) The stipa seeds seperated for counting, a large stipa plant, Will and Wes working in P1

After lunch some of us worked on individual projects and a couple went into P8 to plant they freshly harvested stipa seeds. This was done by broadcasting (aka distributing) them evenly throughout the entire plot. Later in the afternoon Will, Ashley, and myself, went back into P1 to locate the plants part of the aphid project. These randomly selected Echinacea will be monitored for aphid activity throughout the summer. Will claims to have found one, in his own words, that had over a billion aphids! Which is honestly not the best for any plant…