In the last couple weeks, I have continued to scout for seed collection sites at numerous Open Space parks near the Denver, CO area. I also got the opportunity to travel Silt, CO to do some scouting on BLM land, where I saw some different species include a very cool Cymopterus purpureus and the beautiful Calochortus sp. Collected herbarium vouchers for species that we thought had a big enough population to create a 10,000+ seed collection.
Last week I participated in the CLM Internship Training Workshop in Chicago, IL, where I got the opportunity to meet some of the other interns in the program. The workshop was very well organized and very informative for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the Conservation Genetics presentations. Dr. Jeremie Fant was one of the most interesting presenters I have seen in a while. The quality of the presenter made the content that much more interesting and gave me additional ideas for possible Graduate thesis proposals.
When I got back to Colorado, three species were ready for collection in Silt, CO; Cymopterus bulbosus, Cymopterus purpureus, and Allium textile. We made our way out to Silt and got to collect seeds all day. Like all ecosystems, there is always at least one annoying little insect that seems to enjoy the taste of humans and Silt was no different with cedar gnats. We had bug spray but it seemed not to bother the gnats and they annoyed us the whole time we were on the site location. Next day we packaged up seeds and shipped them off to Bend, all of them except the Cymopterus purpureus due to a low seed balance. We collected additional seeds later in the week when the winds were high in Silt and the gnats were not an issue. We also made a collection at an Open Space park near Idledale, CO.
During the week we also got to go to a drone demonstration which was interesting. I was surprised that it was a helicopter and that it could fly in 35mph sustained winds and had a top speed of 70 mph, but most of the models used by natural resource managing agencies have governors on them which restricts their speed to 20-30mph.
Nathan Redecker
Lakewood, CO
Colorado State Office