Hello all!

This past month has been quite exciting and fun! What I love about this internship is that the types of work we do is always changing and we always see new places. My mentor here in Richfield estimated that we cover 8 million acres of land! It is so great that I am getting to see more of the state of Utah than I have seen in any other state I have lived! At the end of May/start of June, we began taking vouchers for our seed collections for Seeds of Success and then shortly after, we all had the workshop in Chicago. So far our crew has made about 25 collections, so currently we are really on a great pace!

Having fun during seed collection!

A lot of the collections we have made are of Needle and Thread (Hesperostipa comata), Indian Ricegrass (Achnatherum hymenoides), and Globemallow (Sphaeralcea parvifolia). But we have also made a few collections of Machaeranthera tanacetifolia, Astragalus lonchocarpus, and a few others. It is a great experience to look at all sorts of different habitats and try to find big enough stands of plants to get a sizable collection from.

Buckhorn Wash in eastern Utah

Seed collections for Astragalus lonchocarpus!

Searching western Utah for new possible seed collections

One of the other things that I have enjoyed so far is when I have the opportunity to go out into the field with other people from our office, or other nearby offices, and we look and discuss different treatments that have been done to various areas. It is really cool to see and hear about what the area looked like in the past, what it looks like now, if the treatment worked or did not work, what could have been done differently. And hearing everybody’s insight makes for a more complete answer to these different questions.

I imagine by the time of my next post our crew will have even more collections completed, and possibly more then our target of 40! Until next time!

Sam

Richfield, UT