Just finishing up may second week in Farmington, New Mexico and we are really getting into the swing of things here. Coming from a plant physiology background these first weeks have been a humbling and fulfilling experiencing of  botanizing, plant keying and navigating around the desert. Relearning families, remembering plant morphology, learning how to use GIS and GPS units has been really exciting! Everyone always told me that the real learning starts after you finish with college and if these few weeks are indicative of the next five months I have no doubts.

Today we were able to check out a new program that our office has implemented as a control for Russian Knapweed,  Acroptilon repens , an invasive herb in our region. This biological control involves a mite that infects the inflorescences of the knapweed and instead of them producing flowers they make galls for the mite larva to live in. This will hopefully slow down the reproduction of the knapweed and prevent it from spreading further! In the second year of implementation the mites seem to be spreading well and soon the project could be implemented on a larger scale.

Looking for mite infected plants.

Got one!