Spring is here! The weather here in Boise has been great the last few weeks. Everything is in bloom and the weather has been great in the high 60’s and low 70’s. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Before I know it though, it will be in the high 90’s and I will be waiting for it to cool down. Regardless, I am enjoying the spring weather at its best.

Now that my schedule has changed and I have gone to part time, it has taken me a little longer to complete the different projects.  I finished gathering information for the sagebrush project that entailed locating sagebrush lots that have been bought and sold, along with where they have been planted in the last 20 years. Once that was completed, I went back to going through all of the lots of seed in the warehouse and identifying what seed lots needed to be retested. Fortunately, of the hundreds of different lots in the warehouse, less than 30 issues were identified. Now that the Boise inventory is completed and up to date, I will begin focusing on the Ely warehouse these next few days in an attempt to finalize the inventory, update all of the seed lots, and identify test dates and current PLS. This task, however, will be more difficult for many different reasons, one of which is that fact that I am not down in Nevada at the warehouse. Considering the amount of time I have left with CLM, and the projects I have left to complete, time is definitely valuable. These next few weeks, I will be working diligently in my attempt to finish the workload in a timely manner. I am confident that I can finish what I have started in ample time. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Boise Regional Seed Warehouse

Bureau of Land Management

Hello Everyone!

I am now entering week three working with the BLM Hollister office in California and it has been an exciting and interesting time so far! Everyone is so welcoming and helpful out here and there is a lot of interesting research coming out of this office. It definitely helps working with such friendly people when transitioning to a new job and to a new home!

I am conducting all of my research at the beautiful Panoche Hills Recreation Area which is a semi-arid scrubland. This area is dominated by the shrub Ephedra californica and I have been working closely with a Ph.D. student testing plant-plant interactions between Ephedra and annuals as well as plant-animal interactions between Ephedra and kangaroo rats. Together we have set up a number of experiments including seed trapping experiments, herbivore exclosures to remove biotic stress, and kangaroo rat granivory trials. This year was an extremely dry year for California, so it is very interesting testing interactions in an abnormal year.

One thing that I would like to investigate further after the above mentioned experiments are complete is how the highly invasive grass species red brome has impacted the area. Specifically, there are two endangered species present at Panoche Hills, the giant kangaroo rat and the blunt nosed leopard lizard and I would like to know if/how the invasion by red brome has impacted their populations and potential ways to mitigate this impact.

I am looking forward to continuing this amazing experience!

Here are some photos of my adventures so far!

-Amanda

BLM Holister Field Office, California