Snapshots of the season

This month has been a busy one! With all of the projects that we have to tackle, there just isn’t time to write about each one. So for this week’s post, here are some snapshots from our busy month of surveys and monitoring. We may talk more about some of these projects later on–but for now, enjoy the pretty pictures!

Astragalus mulfordiae: Population dynamics and the effect of cattle grazing in the Vale District, BLM


Astragalus mulfordiae with seed pods. Photo credit: Amy Comstock



View down the road near one of our remote field sites in Vale, Oregon. Our crew was in Vale for 4 days monitoring the effects of cattle grazing on an endemic population of Astragalus mulfordiae (Mulford’s milkvetch). Photo credit: Amy Comstock



The crew searching for plots. From left to right: Erin Gray, Tara Callaway, Emma Macdonald, and Scott Orr. Photo credit: Amy Comstock

Sidalcea nelsoniana: Testing propagation methods for recovery efforts of Nelson’s checkermallow

Sidalcea nelsoniana (Nelson’s checkermallow). Photo credit: Scott Orr




Peter Moore (Restoration Ecologist with IAE) laying down transects to monitor plantings of S. nelsoniana at one of our 6 field sites near Corvallis, OR. For this study, S. nelsoniana were planted using 3 different methods (seeds, rhizomes, and plugs) in order to compare propagation rates. Photo credit: Scott Orr Rows of S. nelsoniana plug out plantings. Photo credit: Scott Orr



Lomatium cookii: Monitoring population trends of Cook’s desert parsley in Josephine County



Lomatium cookii (Cook’s desert-parsley) in flower. Photo credit: Emma Macdonald

Working with one of our volunteers to measure L. cookii. This population is located in the Illinois Valley, OR, and is monitored in order to track population dynamics and trends. From left to right: Denise Giles-Johnson, Maressa, Amy Comstock. Photo credit: Emma Macdonald



All of the volunteers and IAE crew posing with a cardboard cutout of John Wayne. John Wayne has connections with the Siskiyou Field Institute, which is where we stayed while in Selma. From left to right back: Tom Kaye, Emma Macdonald, Marcia Locke, Wanda Manning, Sandy Poinsett, Bets Stover, Jackie Shaw, Mark Darrach, Scott Orr, Ian Pfingsten, Clay Gautier. From left to right front: Tara Callaway, Gale Baker, Denise Giles-Johnson, John Wayne, Amy Comstock, Marisa Wampler. Photo credit: Tom Kaye