It is early September and the Prineville area is drying up quickly. Most plants are past the seeding stage and it is hard to find any new collections. We recently found a few possibilities in higher elevations, some of which were successful, others did not have enough viable seed to collect only twenty percent of the population due to herbivory and lack of overall viable seeds.

Since the seed collecting has slowed down so much, I had the opportunity to help with a project in the office. It consisted of going through the various land use plans that the Prineville BLM District uses and the Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation documents. I was looking for all of the botany information and the after-fire reseeding efforts. I compiled all of this information into one document for quick and easy access to the botany information. 

This week is the beginning of my extension. It is a short one so we are starting to wrap up the season. I will be working on finalizing all of the paperwork and getting it turned in, creating herbarium vouchers to send to the National Herbarium at the Smithsonian and to the Oregon State University herbarium, as well as create vouchers for the herbarium here in Prineville. I anticipate going out into the field for a Seeds of Success collection only one more time. It is in an area with higher elevation that may have some plants that we can identify with just the seeds. If that is not successful then my Seeds of Success season will be over for 2014.