Hi all,<\/p>\n
Things have been busy, busy, busy here at the Lockeford PMC so this, regrettably, will be a shorter post (but I will come back to edit and add pictures when I get the time)! This week was very cool for many reasons. First, Jeff and I started herbiciding the invasive blackberries (Rubus armeniacus<\/em>) in our restoration area. On Tuesday we spot sprayed in the more woody areas with backpacks, while today (Thursday), we used a large Case tractor with a tank to get the large areas. I genuinely dislike herbicides, but they are useful for managing invasives during the site-prep stage of a restoration project. I personally believe they should be phased out during maintenance if a restoration is performed correctly.<\/p>\n Another thing I have been working on is preparing for our cover crop adaptation trial. Jeff and I figured out seeding rates for different cover crops, weighed out the seed, created a randomized design and organized our seed packets so everything will go very smoothly when we start planting, which should be very soon.<\/p>\n This Tuesday, Dr. David Morell from the Sonoma Ecology Center came to the PMC to discuss with Margaret\u00a0the possibility of holding biochar trials\u00a0at the PMC. I was fortunate enough to be invited to that meeting, which was a great learning experience in seeing the thought process that goes into making management decisions, and also learning more about biochar, which is\u00a0very interesting thing.<\/p>\n Again, I hope to post pictures soon. I have two weeks left with the NRCS and I expect them to be very hectic. Cheers!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michal<\/p>\n USDA-NRCS, California<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi all, Things have been busy, busy, busy here at the Lockeford PMC so this, regrettably, will be a shorter post (but I will come back to edit and add pictures when I get the time)! This week was very … Continue reading