09 FEBRUARY 2024 Another dormant season burn in the books for the Alabama Meadows Research Plots! So glad to have students from Auburn University’s MLA program join us again this year.
26 JANUARY 2024 FIELDWORK UPDATE: Back in the basins at Auburn’s Advanced Structural Engineering Laboratory this morning after a few rainy days and loving the wet winter tones. We recently received a seed grant to more carefully observe how the basins perform and how the plant communities continue to evolve. More to come soon!
09 JANUARY 2024 FIELDWORK UPDATE: Allow us to introduce you to PLOT 6! That’s right, we’ve added another plot to the Alabama Meadows research within Auburn’s Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest. We’re not introducing a new mix of seeds into this plot, but watching how annual fire impacts the existing assemblage. Fingers crossed for some good dormant season burns in the next few weeks.
07 OCTOBER 2023 FIELDWORK UPDATE: Upper basin at Auburn’s Advanced Structural Engineering Laboratory is really showing it’s punk side. Basin 01 sports a nice mohawk of perennial pioneers of Goldenrod (Solidago), Fleabane (Erigeron), Dogfennel, and Boneset (both Eupatorium) emerging within the planted woody thicket of Chokeberry (Aronia). Pollinators are all over it. Just lovely to watch these develop.
05 SEPTEMBER 2023 FIELDWORK UPDATE: The cover crops at Auburn’s Transformation Garden are showing off again this season. Sunn Hemp is in the legume family, builds biomass and fixes nitrogen, and was seeded (via seed-drill) in mid-June. For the most part, it has grown to over 6’ tall, except for where it hasn’t. It’s bald spots are doing a great job revealing where the soils are most degraded. Thank you Audrey Gamble for continuing to coordinate the cover crop rotation.