After the first six weeks of our internship, we are finally ready to begin seed collecting!! Almost…not quite. \u00a0Unlike the previous Spring, when our field office apparently experienced record high amounts of precipitation, this year was quite the opposite. \u00a0We did experience some precipitation, but mostly in the form of rain, and much later than to be expected. \u00a0So, we were a bit dismayed, as there were a handful of days our mentor would send us somewhere to look for a specific population, that perhaps the year before had bloomed out phenomenally, but this year, practically nonexistent. \u00a0It wasn’t too frustrating, but rather a bit unnerving for my partner and I, as this was both our first SOS internship, and we were worried that maybe we were missing something or weren’t looking in the right habitats. \u00a0However, anytime our mentor was out in the field, she reported the same lack of spectacular blooms she’d seen at this time of year in previous seasons, which gave us some comfort.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the timing of our CLM internship training also played into an overall loss of potential seed collections. \u00a0It’s a bit of a conundrum, because the training was truly excellent. \u00a0It was loads of fun getting to familiarize ourselves and work at the Chicago Botanic Garden for a whole week, and the speakers were all personable and full of useful information! \u00a0It just ended up falling on a week that was a prime seed collecting window for where we’re at in Wyoming. \u00a0Not to mention, the week before our training in Chicago, our mentor had a training of her own that she needed to attend, so we missed both the first and second week of June for collecting seeds. \u00a0And the first two weeks of June are pretty critical for many of the potential collections we’d spent the last three to four weeks scouting for.<\/p>\n
So as of now, we’ve only made a couple full collections. \u00a0Many of the populations we revisited had either already seeded out, or been severely damaged due to insects. \u00a0BUT our mentor seems very determined that we’ll find more populations in habitats of higher elevation, and makes the point that this is a good opportunity for the SOS team to branch out and try to make collections that have never been made before \ud83d\ude00 Keep your fingers crossed that next time I report, we’ll have made more progress!<\/p>\n
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Becca Cross,<\/p>\n
BLM- Lander Field Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the first six weeks of our internship, we are finally ready to begin seed collecting!! Almost…not quite. \u00a0Unlike the previous Spring, when our field office apparently experienced record high amounts of precipitation, this year was quite the opposite. \u00a0We … Continue reading