Selasa, 28 Juli 2015

Challenges for young ecologists - upcoming Ecological Society of America meeting

One of the most important steps in the professional development of young ecologists is attending ecological meetings, presenting their own research, and most important, developing a network of colleagues. This is important for professional growth and collaborations that lead to synthetic research projects. However, one of the biggest challenges for many young ecologists is the ability to participate in meetings fully. Let me explain.


Graduate students, post-docs, and assistant professors represent the next generation of ecology, but are among the lowest in annual income in the ecological society. Many young ecologists are at the point in their personal life where they are starting families.  With the increase in gender equality and representation of women in the Ecological Society of America (ESA) over the last decade, it is very common to see people (both male and female) with children in tow at the meetings. This has been very inspiring.  Personally, I have taken my children to all but 1 ESA meeting (where I was able to arrange other care with family).


But an overlooked cost of meetings (which are often subsidized by grants and university funds) is child care.  For example, this year a half day of child care at ESA is $45 to $49.50 (depending on time of day).  4 half days of child care at ESA will cost between $180 and $198. 4 full days is $378 (more than I spent on registration).  Due to this high personal cost, many people are faced with different choices: 1) not attending the meeting, 2) couples alternate when they go to meetings, or 3) couples bring their children and make decisions about which session they will attend (this has been our strategy recently).


Fortunately, this topic is receiving increased attention and  some institutions are offering financial support for child care.  The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has new regulations allowing scientists to use federal funds for child care costs. NSF does not allow for reimbursement of child care associated with conferences directly from grants, but the awardee institution may reimburse costs with indirect funds (in the process of finding out VCU's policy). This may help PIs, but likely will not translate to post-docs and graduate students. One possible solution is a modest increase in registration fees to help defray the costs of child care. (I do not know if fees currently are used in this manner).


However, even with financial support, one issue remains; child care is not available when the dinners and discussions that move ecology forward and facilitate networking take place. This requires a change in our attitude about the presence of children in different situations. 

Sabtu, 18 Juli 2015

Cucumber Gardening Tips: Care, Feeding, Trellising and Transplants!

Cucumber Gardening Tips: Care, Feeding, 
Trellising and Transplants!


Come mid July from heat, bugs, diseases or all three... your cucumbers can get beat up. A lot of time, here in Maryland Zone 7, I get great production from my cucumbers from late June until the end of July. But then the plants just get beat down. That leads me to my first and most under utilized tip.


TIP ONE: Start some new cucumber transplants mid July. Select a fast maturing variety and start the seeds outdoors in 8 ounce cups. Replace your old beat up plants with 2 week old transplants come the end of July. They should be up producing by the end of August.



Your cucumbers might be a bit weathered and worn. You can use Epsom Salt as a way to green them up and it is probably a good idea to give the a nice large liquid feeding with a balanced liquid fertilizer that covers N-P-K and micro-nutrients. This is true for both container and ground planted cucumbers. If you are growing cucumbers in containers, you should be feeding them at least 2x's a month when they are producing.


TIP TWO: Give them some Epsom Salt and a liquid fertilizer that is well balanced.




Sometimes you get lots of flowers and little cucumbers that seem to turn brown and die after growing. That is because the female flower with the tiny cucumber wasn't fertilized. You can actually hand pollinate cucumbers to increase production.

TIP THREE: Learn the difference between male and female cucumber flowers and try your hand at hand pollination. This will help you get more mature cucumbers.


Cucumbers can take up a lot of space in the garden. Trellising cucumbers is a great way to save space and better manage pests and disease. It is a lot easy to spray cucumbers that are growing vertically. You are able to get both sides of the leaves much more easily.

TIP FOUR: Grow your cucumbers vertically. It makes care much easier!





Cucumbers are often attacked by cucumber beetles and other insects for that I use Neem Oil and soap to make a spray. They also can get powdery mildew. For that I use a baking soda spray. Spraying before problems arise is key. Know when problems show up in your garden. Write down the dates and start spraying 2 weeks before they arrive. AND.... ALWAYS test spray anytime you make a spray, it is important to test a few leaves with the spray and wait 48 hours to see if any damage occurs.

TIP FIVE: Start spraying 2 weeks before problems arise in your garden. I use Neem Oil for insects and baking soda at times as an anti-fungal.





Good Luck with Your Garden, Gary (The Rusted Garden)

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Selasa, 14 Juli 2015

Golden Crest (Lophiola aurea) - Coastal Plain Endemic with strange "disjunct" distribution

Lophiola aurea, Brunswick Co, North Carolina
June 3, 2015


Golden-Crest (Lophiola aurea) is endangered in North Carolina where it is known from only a handful of sites in the extreme southeastern coastal plain. The species is entirely absent from adjacent states of South Carolina and Virginia but populations reappear both further north and south, The nearest populations to the south occur in south-central Georgia, a disjunction of approximately 440 miles!  From there, Lophiola's known distribution (based on USDA PLANTS database) skips over another approximately 140 miles before re-appearing in the panhandle of Florida (where it seems to be most widespread), and adjacent Alabama and southern Mississippi. Interestingly, another widely disjunct population has been reported in western Louisiana. To the north, the species re-appears in New Jersey and a few points beyond including Nova Scotia!  These northern populations may be the most unexpected.  To quote G.E. Nichols (Rhodora 1919), "Lophiola aurea in Nova Scotia. Surely there must be a mistake".  But no mistake...it occurs there along with a number of other disjunct populations of typically southeastern US coastal plain species.

Lophiola aurea population in Brunswick Co, NC
(dark shadow on left is dense woods)

Back in North Carolina, the small population shown here (left) was holding on at the very edge of a power-line clearing. Maintenance activities and off-road vehicles had torn up much of the adjacent ground while the surrounding woods appeared to be too dense and overgrown (unburned) to support the plant.

Last summer I observed Lophiola in all its glory in an open pine savanna in north Florida. It's almost embarrassing how much time I spent watching small bees visit the tiny (~ 10mm wide) flowers. Since I did, I'll include a few images here:
Lophiola aurea pollinator, south of Tallahassee Florida
July 5, 2014





I'd be interested to know what species this little bee is, and whether or not it occurs throughout Lophiola's highly fragmented range.

Minggu, 12 Juli 2015

let's start with exciting news...


Let's start with exciting news

I'm in the process of moving studio to the barossa!
having said that eeeek!!!

It's quite the change moving to The Jam Factory studio space at Seppeltsfield but it will be fabulous for workshops etc. Yep what you see above is where i'll be as of next week when all of the crates and ladders etc will be gone and we'll get some cleaning happening ;)

There's a couple of trusty kilns that need setting up and I'm waiting to see what happens re gas but it's a beauty of a solid brick kiln, wait til I get my hands on that ;)


and new 'fangled controllers' on which is mostly a manual kiln, yey!!


And an interlude of 'Mugs Day' at Milan Rouge CCD Stirling again this winter, unfortunately virus number 3 this season had me knocked out unable to make it but I hear it was a blast!




Also moving Studio Sale day at mine, was rather fabulous seeing so many old and new friends turning out this year. Thank you all for a fab day and hope to see you out at my new location. 
Let's get together and christen the new studio soon!



On to SALA works, held up again by the darned lung infection #2 my Sala efforts were delayed  and only got into the studio last wkd. Lucky for me the sun was shining and a great making / developing 3D tile works time was had. The practical side of developing new ideas takes quite the concentrated effort and finally by day #8 they are made, slipped, decoed and drying…The new processes are now stored for post firing analysis, what worked and what didn't. I've saved the pattern pieces and quite like the 'brick' forms that have resulted from this style of construction…
Thanks so much to Kevin's monster roller! better than a slab roller and my arms survived the workout ;)






At this point on saturday I brought everything inside as no way  was any drying going to happen in this weather. The hail came down along with the occasional downpour of the wet stuff! It snowed at Mt Lofty, usually an indicator of the coldest day in winter but we're not high enough for any retention of the white stuff, aside from the hail which hung around for ages here! Well the wares are drying nicely inside, I have a bisque kiln on firing Kevin's works for the pit firing, which means the kiln will be nice and warm for my loading works tomorrow. Anyhoo that's about it for news, no doubt posting from Seppeltsfield soon...



Oh Dread! Another Naturalized Exotic Plant?




Driving down the highway along the Northeast Cape Fear River near Wilmington recently, I caught a glimpse of the plants shown above.  The 5-6' tall plants with bright yellow flowers were unfamiliar so I risked life and limb and pulled a U-turn on the heavily traveled road to take a closer look.

Ludwigia bonariensis, near Eagle Island, NC
July 7, 2014


The plants were incredibly attractive and intriguing.  I concluded they were most likely Ludwigia bonariensis.  I was excited by the comment in the Manual of Vascular Flora of the Carolinas which listed it as "very local; Brunswick and New Hanover cos." --- this thing was rare!

But then I got confused!

A later check of Godfrey & Wooten (Aquatic & Wetland Plants of the Southeastern United States) listed it as  "Local, s.e. N.C.; Fla." but added, "native of Trop. Am." --- this thing was exotic!

Weakley's Flora stated it is "apparently native of tropical America" and suggested it may have been introduced on ship's ballast, while noting our plants appear to differ somewhat from specimens elsewhere.

NatureServe considers it exotic in NC, SC, and AL, but lists it as "critically imperiled" in Arkansas. Also of interest is the common name used by NatureServe; "Carolina Seedbox" - an odd name for something from the tropics.

USDA Plants lists it as native in NC, SC, AL, and FL and doesn't record it all from Arkansas.

Both USDA Plants and NatureServe omit the record that showed up in an artificially created wetland in VA around 10 years ago....

My head is humming and it won't go - in case you don't know.....


Ludwigia bonariensis sepals and capsules, just west of Wilmington, NC

IF ANYONE CAN SHED LIGHT ON EITHER THE TAXONOMY OR NATIVE DISTRIBUTION OF THIS SPECIES IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED!



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