This week of work was really weird. Having been away for the 4th of July weekend and working in Biosphere 2 it seemed like we hadn't been in the lab in the longest time. We finished processing (i.e. getting the leaf-area index) of the grasses from our first pre-dawn. There were 12 samples total of 3 different species, thus 4 samples of each species. The lovegrass proved to be the easiest, followed by the cottontop, while the bushy muhly was a massive little plant and we were only able to get two done in a day before we went cross-eyed.
Our pre-dawn on Friday went well (at Walnut Gulch). Our numbers were very consistant unlike our first run in Walnut Gulch. We had about two hours to kill between pre-dawn water potential measurements and the leaf-level gas exchange measurements so we went into Bisby to look around. Bisby is an eccentric little artsy town full of old people and charm, though admittedly most things were closed at 6am. Bisby use to be a mining town, and its painfully apparent as there is the "Lavendar mine" right on the side of the road. This was Erin and my first experience using the leaf-level gas exchange instrument without anyone around to help us as Michelle had never used it before. (http://www.licor.com/env/Products/li6400/6400.jsp) We will see on Monday if we successfully completed our task (though we think we did).
In other Tucson news, the monsoon season has started and its amazing how much life comes into the system once its wet. The people I work with complain that it's much better if things are drier, but I'm kind of partial to the monsoon season...maybe its the new humidity?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment