We are so happy to welcome Destiny Matheson to the Russo Lab!
Destiny is an undergraduate in the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology with a minor in Entomology & Plant Pathology. Destiny will be helping out with fieldwork this summer and working on her own research project matching morphologic traits of native bees and our native study plants. Looks like she's already getting along with the ladies at the Platerau AgResearch Center!
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Once the plants are all in the ground and happy, and all the plant species are accounted for, we wait for the flowers to bloom. As soon as the plants bloom, we hit the ground running...actually hit the ground ready with our vacuums! One of my favorite plants, the Cumberland Rosemary, was the first to bloom this season. Very exciting for both bee and plants folks. This beautiful purple flower, from the mint family, is a source of nectar for early emerging bees like one of Dr. Russo’s favorites, the Osmia genus also known as Mason Bees. Please ask her why…I’d bet her answers include the words “so cute” and “chonky”. From left to right: 1) Cumberland Rosemary flowers. 2) Grad student Amani Khalil sampling with insect vacuum at the UT Arboretum site. 3) Osmia taurus. Taurus mason bee.
When Dr. Russo isn't receiving bee identification pictures, she gets bombarded with plant pictures from the field. This “whorly weed” is a perfect example. Solidago, said whorled weed, really thrived right on top of a lot of our asters. It’s essential to pull weeds from our plots as they compete with our plants, but a gentle touch is also crucial so we don’t damage our study plants.
Entomology one day, and botany the next. The wild world of bee ecology! Happy to share some planting success! After a lot of well wishing and a lot of TLC, these babies look pretty happy. These plants are thriving and surviving in this heavily tilled field of mostly clay. If anyone reading this believes they cannot keep a plant alive, let the plots here be your inspiration. They are in full sun and are watered by Mother Nature and sometimes our helping hands (which you can see evidence of in these pictures). Also the scenery is amazing. Easy to see why this is my favorite site. Springtime feels like the “make or break” month with our perennials. Just when I’m about to give up on plant and declare it DOA, I see a new growth emerging! Just take this beautiful baptisia emerging from a fire ant mound at our semi-natural site the UT Arboretum! Yes, it does look like asparagus, and no we didn’t use a control agent against the ants. They vanished and allowed our beloved baptisia albescens to flourish. Baptisia albescens, Spiked Wild Indigo. Native perennial, gearing up to start it's second year! Here's great example of one of our plots, the "combination" family plot coming back strong! We have two plants from the aster, bean, and mint family represented here.
Thanks to the folks at Overhill Gardens, our beautiful native Tennessee perennials are here!
Here’s a picture of a few of our selected plants in the back of the lab vehicle ready to put in the ground. We’ll use some of these plants as replacements for plants that didn't survive least year and a few will go to the new site as the OCU. When you can’t go to the lab, bring the lab to you. When you can’t have the PI next to you, constantly send them pictures of a green bee’s clypeus because it could be rounded or maybe it’s straight…or maybe Augochlora and Augochlorella females enjoy a bit of anonymity and are okay with me leaving the identification at “pretty green lady” (just kidding, scientific community. I would never do such a thing….or would I…?). Green Bees. I love and appreciate you, but I am unable to confidently identify some of you to genus. Sincerely, Frustrated, but Thankful Graduate Student Feel free to guess who this shiny lady is. I'll give you a hint. It's either Augochlora or Augochlorella :) And yes, she is sucking her tongue out at you. Cloudy skies, “I think this plant is still alive…” and Puppies! – A Plateau AgResearch Tale3/18/2020 One of four Feed A Bee sites is located in Crossville, TN. at the Plateau AgResearch and Education Center. It’s about 90 miles west of Knoxville and features two of our research sites each representing mixed-use agriculture and cattle forage. The Plateau is most well known for its cattle research (where all of our cow pictures are taken) and horticulture outreach. They’ve got a little bit of everything, trust me. The plants in our Feed A Bee study are perennials, so theoretically they should come back on their own each year for a few years, but Crossville is the land of temperature extremes and early/late frosts. Dr. Russo and I made the trek to get an idea of how many plants survived and to give the plot a bit of TLC with a bit of compost and mulch. It’s inspiring how resilient our native perennials truly are. From left to right- The cows, as promised, the hardworking Dr. Russo, our cool borrowed ride for the day, and one of our plots with Cumberland Rosemary looking good and strong! Inexplicably, we were attacked by vicious puppies demanding love while applying weed cloth to the perimeter of one of the plots. This plot will forever be known as "Puppy Plot". We also were gifted Plateau AgResearch hats by Research Director and savior, Walt Hitch. It was a good day.
Amid shutdowns and general chaos, we staked our claim at a fifth research site for the Feed A Bee project at the Organic Crops Unit (OCU). The OCU is one of six research facilities that make up the East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center, but most importantly it’s my favorite site and where all the delicious goodies from the Volunteer Supported Agriculture CSA ( VSA ) come from. What do the makings of a new Feed A Bee site look like? Well, a lot of measuring (more like guesstimating, and finger crossing), post driving, and a bit of help from heavy machinery and a whole lotta help from Farm Manager, Bill Lively. There are 4 garden plots per site and they’re about 2 meters by 3 meters each. The plots need to be measured for posts and for the 24 plants that will be placed inside. We also put up chicken wire to keep rabbits, deer, people, and other pests out :) We also chose to add a soil amendment (compost, peat moss) and some mulch for a little bit of TLC for our tiny plants.
In 2019, we received a Feed a Bee grant from Bayer, which we used to establish 16 pollinator gardens composed of 18 species of native TN perennials. We saw so many beautiful bees on these flowers last summer! Can't wait to see what we find in 2020!
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