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A Penultimate Day

Today marked the second to the last day of mine and Reina’s stint in Kensington working with Echinacea. The past week we have been remeasuring photosynthesis with Helga our LI-COR 6400 and today we finally finished. Pam and Reina were the lucky ones who spent this last week outside working with Helga while I took wet weights of leaves and pressed them so we can obtain dry weights later. It has been a little strange this week remaining separated from the group, even at lunch time. Oh well, it was necessary so that we could finish!

Today the rest of the group spent the morning crossing and finishing measuring the common garden, an arduous task that required quite a few days. After their lunch, they continued to work on seedling refinds, a important but often frustrating task. It will be sad having to say goodbye to the whole group tomorrow, but school is about to start, and so perhaps it really is a great time to be heading home. That’s it for today, and goodbye Team Echinacea!

And Then There Were Six

Today was another busy, productive day. Dayvis left for Chicago this morning bringing our number down to six. However, everyone still got a lot done.

In the morning, Lydia and Ilse continued their cross pollination adventures while Mike, Reina, and Pam finished using Helga, counted trichomes, and weighed and pressed leaves. Kory, Stuart, and I went to South of Golf Course and East Elk Lake Road to do seedling re-finds and learn how to use the GPS.

We all met up again for lunch, as usual. The table felt really empty today!

The afternoon was spent measuring the common garden (we’re close to being done). Stuart and I found a little fuzzy friend at row 23, position 912. It was super cute but we suspect it had been eating the E. angustifolia leaves.

Woolly Bear Caterpillar (Pyrrharctia isabella larval stage)
WoollyBear2.JPG

In other news, grasshoppers seem to like eating data sheets
GrasshopperAteIt.JPG

That’s all for today!

Sarah B