Late May or October?

The first few weeks of field work each spring usually involve some last-minute changes of plans. This year is no exception. Today Scott Prajzner began the first of three experiments to measure pollinator activity within vacant lots and urban gardens in Cleveland. Today we took 48 blooming sunflowers to 8 sites. Scott is using the sunflowers to measure pollination services. He will collect them in 7 days and compare seed set in flowers which were exposed to pollinators with those that were bagged to prevent pollinators from accessing them. He will then determine if the pollination services supplied to vacant lots or urban gardens is significantly different. In addition to using the sunflowers to measure pollination services we also planned to monitor the community of bees visiting the plants within each site. We also plan to measure bee activity at other flowering plant species within each site.

Unfortunately with high winds, rain, and temperatures of ~45 degrees there was nothing to monitor. We were the only animals that decided today would be a good day to visit these sites! We are going to try again on Friday when it is supposed to finally stop raining.