With the sun scorching the plants, seeds are  ready for collecting!

I haven’t had much time in the lab lately because we are constantly driving out to our field sites to collect seeds from our target plants. At times we get disappointed when we arrive at our site because the seeds are almost ready, meaning we have to leave the site empty-handed, but we always plan to go back to the site a week or so later hoping the seeds will be ready by then. Usually the seeds are and we can collect on our second trip out. Although on our second trip out we may run into other problems, such as no more seeds being left on the plant because of high winds or grazing from animals.

For example, at out McCain Valley site, we had two Lupinus species we were very eager to collect. When we went out one week hoping the pods would be ready to collect, they weren’t ready. So we estimated they’d be ready in about two weeks. Well, when the beginning of the second week came around, we decided to head out and check. When we arrived we were sadly disappointed, apparently Lupine’s are cream of the crop! Who would have thought? 😀 Of course the tasty pods had been munched on and we were unable to collect the seeds to make a complete seed lot. Aside from a few seeds that were still left in some pods, we decided to leave those for nature and marked Lupinus concinnus and Lupinus excubitus off our list. Laurie will keep an eye out for these two species next year when she monitors McCain Valley.

Lupinus excubitus - McCain Valley

Landscape for Lupinus excubitus - McCain Valley