06-01-18 Field Note

06-01-18 Field Note

June 1, 2018

Show Details

Restoration Projects:

Jeff Clarke's early June field note describes high water, sage thinning efforts, bitterbrush planting, and both beneficial and detrimental new insects.

053018_JC-01.jpg

Sage thinning, bitterbrush, floods, weed removal, black grass bugs

053018_JC-02.jpg

Mountain snow pack was greater than normal. We also received more than 2” of rain in May. This combination led to river levels not seen since 1908.

053018_JC-03.jpg

Cattle grazed in the sage lands for many years eating everything except sage.

053018_JC-04.jpg

We cut all the sage and piled it along the edges of the opened landscape

053018_JC-05.jpg

We grew 1,000 clematis plants from seed.

053018_JC-06.jpg

The hops we planted a few years ago are starting to flourish.

053018_JC-07.jpg

We planted more than 5,000 bitterbrush seedlings in groups of 50-100 all over the lower elevations of the ranch

053018_JC-08.jpg

The red dots on the maps indicate where we planted the 2018 bitterbrush islands.

053018_JC-09.jpg

Prairie and Morgan are studying different water catchment strategies.

053018_JC-10.jpg

We seek and destroy hounds tongue, mullein, and black henbane. The battle wages on.

053018_JC-11.jpg

This is the first year we noticed the hounds tongue root weevil.

053018_JC-12.jpg

We assumed that the basin wild rye was water stressed when it turned yellow. Upon further inspection, the robust grass was being eaten by black grass bugs!

053018_JC-13.jpg

Tent caterpillars also enjoy green foliage.

053018_JC-14.jpg

Spring morels lurk in the tall grass of the soaked floodplains.

053018_JC-15.jpg

With a bit of moisture, puffballs burst from the landscape, even in the road

053018_JC-16.jpg

Debbie found a mallard nest near one of our new “Dam Ponds” in lower Woodchuck

What would you like to learn about?

06-01-18 Field Note

Block title

06-01-18 Field Note

Related Field Notes

Related Research

Related Photo Galleries