We’ve been here quite busy for the last few weeks with a few outreach events, deadlines for fire rehabilitation monitoring reports, and seed collecting on top of that. Seed collecting is a fascinating process though – it is not a usual practice of work flow when you have a goal, means, and you work on it until you reach a certain result. On the contrary, it is more like a continuous process with an unexpected work load and unpredicted results. We’ve been doing our collections since April – May, through the whole summer and now, in late September there are still quite a few species which are about to be ready. To some extent, it is perhaps the result of the Great Basin climate and plant organisms coexistence – a huge amount of warm days in a year with such limited resources to use. And as a consequence, we have a big time differentiation between different species bloom and physiology peaks. In April we planted few sunchokes around our house and a couple weeks ago, in the middle of September, they just started to bloom. I should say that I’m not the best plant keeper, but for them to flower in September or not must be a tough decision to make. Same in the field, some ephemers and early spring annuals give their second growth right at this moment, which is probably a usual but very interesting phaenomenon at the same time. I guess autumn is a great season not only in boreal zone with deciduous forests and their colours but everywhere, with its own surprises and peculiarities. Until next time!

Andrii,

Carson City, BLM

Our beautiful sunchokes