Mountain morning

Early bird gets the cowpeas

I accepted an offer yesterday to help another lab harvest cowpeas. This doesn't inherently sound like fun, but I heard that there was the possibility of getting some dates (fruit) as well. I thought, well, it's just a morning, and they need the help, so why not?

We met early and headed out to Coachella Valley, to the Ag station out there, owned by UC. This station is a center of research and variety collections of many important and fun crops.

My first surprise was that the cowpeas are not fodder for cows, but beans- actually known as black-eyed peas. The variety was amazing in the different genotypes we were sampling. Wrinkled, smooth, black, brown-eyed, red, etc. I see where Mendel got his inspiration! The researchers I was with are breeding for drought-tolerance as cowpeas are an important food staple in Africa.

One ironic note was that we drove through a very poor Native American Reservation on the way to the station. This, the poorest area in this county is adjacent to one of the richest areas in the county, a Palm Springs outgrowth. We remarked on the irony that the most productive area is the poorest. What value do we put on our food and those who help produce it as compared to how we value other professions?

After a pretty easy (but windy, dusty and dry) couple hours of taking samples, we took a tour around to the other collections. Attached are photos of my "haul." This bunch of dates represents a diversity that is difficult to find commercially. The white puff is... you guessed it... cotton.

Revised GIS workflow

I revised the workflow to eliminate a couple of extra steps. As I was figuring out the process, I missed one thing that would save time and also had done an extra step that wasn't needed.

Can't always use the scientific process when figuring out software.

Getting ready for the holidays and cleaning out the extra room. How fun. Just need to get a bunch of work done in the next few days.

I had an offer to help harvest cowpeas on Friday. It might actually be tempting. We'll see!

Learning to GIS

Well I'm just graduating from beginner-stage at GIS, but I'm getting there. I've done a few free online seminars lately, and I think that helped.

The last post is intended really for myself, as it took about 4 hours yesterday to figure out this system-- there were a couple of snags along the way. I wanted to document the method so I won't forget! Other users with some knowledge of ArcGIS desktop might be able to use this. I'm sure an expert wouldn't need all of these hints!

Finals done... back to my research. At least I have a workflow for the last 7 species I have to run through this.

DRAWING REPRESENTATIONS OF RANGES USING XY DATA

– WORKFLOW—L. S. Revised 12/18/07

DATA PREPARATION
Make DBF IV file with the XY data in Excel
In ArcCatalogue, right-click on DBF and make a shapefile from XY data
Use World GCS_WGS_1984
Close and re-open ArcCatalogue

DRAWING FIRST POLYGON IN ARCMAP
Open ArcMap document, and use the appropriate (Australia) template
Put the new XY shapefile into ArcMap

Go to ArcToolbox/Data Management/Feature Class/ Create Feature Class
Select the coordinate system of the new polygon at the bottom of the window
Import coordinate system from the XY shapefile
Name the new polygon something to do with the "Range"

Also in ArcToolbox make a buffer around the shapefile points (75 km)
Toolbox- Analysis- Proximity- Buffer

Bring up the Editor toolbar and Start Editing
Don’t worry about spatial reference warning as long as everything looks ok
Be sure the target layer is the new "Range" file
Set the snapping to around 10 pixels
Allow snapping to the new buffer file layer as well as the XY shapefile

Use the End Point Arc Tool to make curvy lines (place both ends, then direct arc)
Use inner points and arc outward rather than the reverse to make nice shape
Cover all included land, and don’t worry about going out over ocean
Draw all new polygons and save edits

CLIPPING AWAY THE EXTRA
ArcToolbox: Analysis Tools/Extract/Clip
Input: [...range] (find by hitting down arrow next to box)
Clip Features: [layer with the border to use, e.g. “Australia and Oceania”]
Now the ocean part is clipped away, or in a separate file.
File you want is “…Buffer Clip”—double check in Selection tab
Rename clipped file to what you want the final name to be
E.g. “ARCA Australia Range”

Be sure to delete in ArcCatalogue the temporary files such as the ocean clippings

Fern Shelf

Well I took apart a shelf on the "free table" at school and salvaged the boards. So, here is my fabulous dorky fern shelf. I bought several at botanic garden sales, and the really big one is from the supermarket. They have been getting too much sun now that the sun angle stays low throughout the day, and the big one got fried when I tried to move them, but they'll do better now. They'll be a little higher too.

Luckily frost hasn't been a concern yet. The Staghorn fern (epiphyte on left, attached to board) should probably come inside if we got a frost, as well as the bird's nest fern in the middle. The other haggard-looking one in the middle is the native Woodwardia fimbriata. Supposedly it gets up to 6 feet tall in the woods up north, and I think should be somewhat frost-hardy. I'll need to repot to get it that big, of course. We'll just see if I can keep it alive.
The african violet on the right is just hanging out- obviously not a fern.

Thanks Williams Sonoma

I've made my first cranberry sauce. Recipe from Williams Sonoma online. Only mild trepidations when I wasn't sure what to save- the orange rind boiling WATER, or the orange rind itself. "Drain and set aside" doesn't explain which part to save. And "boil" doesn't seem the correct term for a pan with primarily solid ingredients.

Anyway, it seems to have turned out OK. Luckily I'm not making anything else- just going to a friend's house.

Whew! 2.5 hours to turkey time...

Couldn't help myself

As usual, when my quantitative skills are needed (report due tomorrow), my creativity gets the best of me. This also manifests as a sudden urge to clean the living room.
This time, my new plumeria was just looking beautiful this morning. Well actually I did have a legitimate purpose- I need a photo of a whole leaf to photoshop and make into a logo. Obviously not these photos, but I got a bit carried away. I would have played with these two more (probably burn the bottom part of the one on the right so you can't see the edge of the pot, and also try to burn in some detail on the other one where it's washed out at the top of the leaf).
However, ironically my plant anatomy report calls me. Let's just call this an artistic study in plant anatomy to get my analytical skills flowing? (between us!)

fountaingrass scouting trip

Fieldwork "scouting" trip to San Diego County today. I was looking for fountaingrass Pennisetum setaceum, a weedy grass that's been invasive in Hawaii and is increasingly present along at least the roadsides in southern CA.
Loaded up some herbarium specimen locations on Google Earth and used that as our guide. We managed to find almost all of the locations, plus hundreds more specimens lining the roadsides. Apparently, these are pretty persistent populations.
We were headed into an area recently burned in the fires, and decided that the plants we were looking for were probably burnt. However, we did spot this Arundo (giant reed) plant, with huge sprouts just a couple weeks after the fire. Sadly, these clumps seem undeterred by fire.
Also, sadly, these Christmas trees burned, no doubt the livelihood of a San Diego county family.

Note to self

In four years, I hope to see that this page has documented how nature got me through grad school, or alternately, how grad school got me back to nature.
For now, I hope to post ideas, questions, records of trips and fun. I've traveled a lot in the past, but I won't dwell on the past here.
I hope that soon I'll have some more subject matter. At the moment, my application to NSF is my priority, and there won't be any trips.
"Until then, enjoy our wild America."