The moment I saw the big wooden sign for the Lakeview BLM district I cheered for joy. I am just nine days into my Seeds of Success position here in south central Oregon but every one of them has proven educational, rewarding and FUN! Last week I began the challenging task of learning the flora in this gorgeous sea of sagebrush. Most of the plants here are new to me but I’ve come across some favorites like phlox and collinsia while assisting in botany clearances for new fences, road bulldozing and pond digging. The weather has been surprisingly cold with many nights last week around freezing, accompanied by snow, sleet, and grapple (a new phenomenon for me). Now things are warming up to near 90°F and the threat of fire is increasing. The desert is indeed an extreme ecosystem. 

I just returned from Boise, ID where I was invited to attend the SOS protocol training. Some of the most valuable information shared was the result of many long hours of work with very disappointing ends, such as the seeds that molded or were grazed just before collecting. We learned that mapping collection sites and making the data available are crucial to ensuring a diverse native seed collection in the future. My mentor Ian and I now have a great knowledge of the program and can begin planning our seed collecting efforts. The highlights include a private tour of the Boise Botanical Garden and visiting the Malheur Experiment Station in Ontario, OR where they grow out native seed under varying conditions of irrigation and weed treatments.  Seeing the production side of native seed motivates me to make great collections so more seed is available for grow out studies like these. The science learned can then increase the success of actual reseeding.

We have found populations of Lupinus polyphyllus and Phlox diffusa that look healthy now, but nothing is certain until the seed is in your hands.

Horned toad

Lupinus polyphyllus

Coleman Lake

BLM Lakeview, OR

Wow, the past few weeks have been busy for me. My days have been filled with habitat assessment framework for sage grouse, finding morels while monitoring rare plants, and finding populations that are suitable to collect seeds in.

The habitat assessment framework, or HAF, has been a learning curve for the whole crew. We are learning how to fill out the full HAF forms as well as the modified versions. Trying to train the eye for ocular estimates proved to be tougher than originally thought. Up to this point a majority of the sites we have visited are in terrible condition for sage grouse. The main reason for this is the encroaching Junipers, lack of sagebrush, and lack of grass and forbs.

Treasure Mountain

While monitoring for many different species we have come across many fun and exciting things. There was one particular place that I nicknamed Treasure Mountain. At the beginning of our hike we came across some morels. I, not being a mushroom fan, did not know what this odd thing was. As soon as I pointed it out to my crew they were really excited to have found morels! As we hiked further up the mountain I found an old rusty horse shoe. Horse shoes are nothing to write home about but I thought it was an exciting find. When at the top of this mountain one of the crew members found a nice shed from a mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). To top this trip to Treasure Mountain, we found many healthy specimens of the Astragalus diaphanus var. diurnus. 

Morel (Morchella)

The Prineville district is a large district. Driving all across the country side looking for suitable collection sites is a real expedition. We have done a lot of searching this way, but we have also had to do some research using our resources.  We compiled a list of people, range cons, botanists, hydrologists, and others within our office to talk to. Some took us out on “field trips,” others drew on maps, and others we are waiting to hear and learn from. It was a great experience talking to people with different professions and to see how each can help us in very different ways.

The time is flying by with not a minute of work time to spare. It keeps the internship interesting, full of adventures, and provides a huge learning curve. It also allows us to meet different people with different backgrounds that have all been brought together to accomplish important tasks together.

Well, it’s been another great few weeks of my internship, here in Wenatchee WA. Since my last blog, I’ve explored another beautiful part of the state. My field partner and I spent this last week out in Juniper Dunes Wilderness. We set out to monitor the State Sensitive Cryptantha leucophea and expected to find at least a few populations that have been declining over the last few years. To our surprise, were only able to find two plants – we speculate that the population in this region has dropped off almost completely.

After doing some more background reading, I’ve personified this plant as a free spirit, transient- like. Coming and going, quite literally with the wind that shapes the sand dunes. It has adapted to establishing itself on freshly altered sandy slopes, although to the increasing stabilization of sand dunes through the state, it seems likely that this species will continue to plummet.

Apart from a few dismal thoughts about the fate of this species, I truly enjoyed being out in this piece of wilderness.  I was lulled to sleep at night by howling coyotes, and awakened by mormon crickets. Although these crickets are a pest and create a large conservation concern for the BLM, their rambunctious movement over the land created a cacophony of sounds that resembled a babbling brook – very comforting after days of wandering around the scorching dunes!

Here’s some shots of our monitoring sites:

Okay, okay … enough shots of me. Yay – our two plants (Cryptantha leucophea)! (Sorry about the low quality)

It’s great to be able to take time every few weeks to reflect on my experiences so far. Sending good thoughts out to all fellow interns!

Over the last month a lot of my energy has been focused on studying two animal species found in the Panoche Hills Recreation Area: kangaroo rats and the federally listed blunt nosed leopard lizard. We have been conducting kangaroo rat granivory trials to examine how kangaroo rats interact with the shrub Ephedra californica and understory annual species which are mainly invasive grasses. We also have been using animal activity cameras with night vision to monitor their activity under shrubs and in open areas. Very recently we have also begun an exciting collaboration with working dogs to survey lizard scat under E. californica shrubs and in open areas. This technique for surveying animals has proven to be very useful and is able to quickly and accurately survey animal populations in an area and is a very exciting collaborative project.

Over the next month we will be finishing up our leopard lizard survey and I will begin the preparation for manipulative experiments with E. california to further test the interactions of the shrub with animals and annual vegetation. This will also have important restoration and conservation implications for both species, especially with future predicted climate change.

Here are some pictures of me and another researcher (Alex) with a leopard lizard!

As I reflect on the last 6 months, I recognize the many ways that I have grown professionally. In dealing with a variety of seed vendors and other BLM employees, I have been able to sharpen my professional workplace skills, as well as my customer service skills. Personally, I have been able to get a better understanding of what it looks like to commit yourself full time to BLM projects that aren’t completed in just a few short days, or even weeks. It has been made clear that many projects take many months and years of hard work and commitment before being completed, and that doesn’t include the preparatory time before getting started. It takes a lot of passion and hard work to turn visions into reality. That’s something I will remember for years to come.

This internship has also taught me that hard work pays off. There were a variety of projects that I was assigned, some harder than others. A number of those projects took many weeks to complete. Regardless of how much time it took though, every day of hard work applied to that project was a day well spent and brought me one day closer to completion. It was unfortunate how quickly time passed when working hard. I wish I still had some more time to enjoy this experience.

Another factor that really made me enjoy this experience was the ability to sharpen my computer skills. I spent quite a bit of time on the computer and was able to learn many new things on Excel and Word. Having the capability to get better at utilizing those skills and learning new ones was a really good thing for me.

I am grateful for this experience and will always appreciate my mentor and the things that he taught me. I am also appreciative of the other individuals that I was able to work with and get to know. They were valuable in assisting me when I had questions and providing insight when things were clear as mud. This was a great experience and a great networking tool. I am confident that the addition to my resume will be a benefit in more than one way when applying for jobs in the future. I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors. Work hard, have fun, and enjoy your summer.

Boise Regional Seed Warehouse

Bureau of Land Management

Boise, Idaho

Erythranthe carsonensis

It’s been an eventful month for the team and I here in Carson City, NV.  We began the month by traveling to Boise, ID for pesticide certification. It was basically like taking a super condensed college course, then having several finals at the end of the week. It was a challenge, but the whole team passed the general pesticide exam, as well as all of the category exams. We are straight up pesticide certified, so don’t mess with us!  We also did a couple of outreach events. We helped organize the Truckee River Environmental Education event on Earth Day. We took the kids on a botany safari and organized a game that taught the kids about noxious weeds. We also had a BLM booth at Earth Day in Reno, which a lot of families enjoyed.  Our booth had free posters, tattoos, homemade plant pressed book marks, as well as a couple games which included ecosystem jenga (super fun!) and the trash game, where the players had to guess how long it took certain everyday trash items to degrade.  Reno Earth Day was pretty neat, I got a chance to walk around a little bit and check out the vendors, food, and live music.

My favorite project we have been working on this month is rare plant monitoring.  We have been surveying for both Ivesia webberi and Erythranthe carsonesis.  We have successfully mapped several polygons of the Ivesei, and have been attempting to survey elsewhere for the plant. It’s been kind of a treasure hunt! We only spent a day surveying for the Erythranthe carsonesis, but it is a very unique looking plant, characterized by a yellow flower with a tiny red dot. We did find a few very small populations, a couple of them only have two or three individuals. Many plants are in bloom right now, so I expect lots of seed collecting on the horizon…

I’m signing off from my fantastic adventure that was the SOS/CLM/CBG internship with much gratitude and appreciation to the people and systems that put time, energy and effort into making this program a possibility.

My time with the CLM was slightly different than the experience that most people had. Instead of working in a BLM Field Office, reporting directly to a natural resource specialist within the Bureau of Land Management, I was dispatched to Patagonia, Arizona to work for Borderlands Restoration, L3C. I still had duties that required me to collect seeds using the Seeds of Success protocol, but anything over the 10,000 seed accession that the BLM held on to came back to Patagonia to be used for restoration mother plant populations. Once these mother plant populations are established, we will be able to dramatically ramp up the source of readily available native seeds for use on public and private lands alike.

My favorite aspect of the CLM/SOS/CBG internship is that it connected me with people actively involved in restoration. I was afforded the opportunity to identify native plants in the field while strengthening relationships with conservationists from different federal agencies and private industries alike. I know that the connections I made will continue to develop, even though my funding source will change.

The funding that SOS provided allowed me to develop a seed collection protocol for Borderlands Restoration, passing on knowledge to another organization. I will in turn train future seed collectors with other funding sources to over time increase the available seed resources for future restoration activities. The SOS support also allowed me to set up a seed lab for Borderlands Restoration to clean, assess, and store wild seeds.

Now that I’m equipped as an experienced wild seed steward, I’m excited and honored to continue carrying the torch of seed love. I’m excited to continue developing as a seed scout, harvester, cleaner, hoarder and steward. Thanks for all of the knowledge, resources and support Bureau of Land Management, Seeds of Success, Conservation and Land Management and Chicago Botanical Garden! May this internship continue to bear many yields of delicious fruit

My fellow interns and I have stayed very busy the past few weeks monitoring and measuring plants all across the Mojave Desert. This past week we traveled to all three of our common gardens to monitor and measure our transplants for a second time. We were happy to see that survivorship in the gardens is still quite good and many plants have new growth.

In addition to measuring and monitoring the common gardens, I also traveled to the Eureka Valley in Death Valley National Park to continue with measurements of two endemic and endangered species: Eureka Valley dune grass (Swallenia alexandrae) and Eureka Valley Evening Primrose (Oenothera californica ssp. eurekensis). Although the strong winds, heat, and aridity of the Eureka Valley create a rather hostile environment, these plants don’t seem to mind! Many of them have dramatically increased in size since my last trip to the dunes and several have an abundance of flowers and seed pods.

As I struggled to stay hydrated and avoid sunburn I couldn’t help but marvel at the adaptations that enable many organisms, including the plants I measured, to successfully live in the dunes. Although I finished each day of fieldwork feeling exhausted and a little sunburnt, my experiences in the dunes were extremely rewarding. I enjoyed working with plants that are found nowhere else in the world. Additionally, the scenery of Eureka Valley is absolutely breathtaking. Each night when I would camp under the stars I had a stunning view of the Milky Way stretched across the entire night sky. This is a sight I had never seen before and it is one that I know I will never forget.

Until next time!

Renee Albrecht

Las Vegas Field Office, USGS

The sun sets on a day of fieldwork in the Eureka Dunes!

My last month here has been an exciting one: the desert is in bloom. Every week, a new plant comes into bloom. One week the palo verdes turn from pale green to bright yellow, the next the massive silver-grey ironwoods turn pink, and the dense arrowweed stands are all tipped with little purple flowers. But easily my favorite of all these are one that just came into bloom this week, the Smoke Trees. Normally they’re a uniform grey green color, billowing out in a way that really does look like smoke. But this first week of may, they’re flowering, and the silvery plant is suddenly spotted with rich purple-blue. Looking closely, one can see that each flower is ringed with orange spots on the sepals, and with a deep orange stamen poking out the end. Amazing, and presently my favorite plant out here.

Of course, shortly after flowers come seeds, and shortly after seeds come CBG Interns collecting for Seeds of Success. So I’ve had my work cut out for me there: seven 10,000-seed collections done and mailed off to be cleaned, with plenty more to come. It looks like my fellow interns are also enjoying the desert flowers, so I hope they are all as enamored by the smoke tree flowers as I am.

Joe Brehm