Mojave River Wildlands Rehab Study Setup: Day 4

Day 4: Thursday 11/10/2011

As with the prior three days, the weather was perfect again; the cloud cover pretty much set a gray cast of the day however. The high temp. was about 53 F. The soil was dryer than it was during the first three days. Dr. Ken Lair, Jackie Lindgren, Matt Huffine, about 20+/- JROTC students from a flight composed of mainly freshman, along with a handful other students that joined periodically throughout the day worked together to complete all the tasks started on Day 3, Wednesday 11/9/2011 :

Seed Bed Prep, Planting and Covering

• Tilling seed plot 3.

• Racking and leveling/smoothing out the freshly tilled seed plot.

• Rolling the leveled/smoothed freshly tilled seed plots with a yellow water filled 250+ lbs metal roller.

• Segmenting the rolled seed plots into 3' by 40 foot seed beds bordered by 2' by 40 foot walkways using flagging and colored tape.

• Seed was carefully weighed out and put into paper bags.
• Placing a bag of seed in front of each 3 by 20 foot rolled seed bed.
• Seeding 20 feet of each 40 foot bed with a single species of plant (20 feet received a bare, untreated seed, the other 20 feet a seed coated with clay and microrizal innoculum and a polymer that attracts and holds on to water)
• Microrizal innoculum was spread out over the seed beds that received bare seed.
• Rolling seed beds after receiving seed and innoculum.

• Cutting 4 foot rolls of jute netting into 40 foot long pieces.

• Removing plastic guide tapes and flagging after seeding and rolling.

• Laying jute cloth onto each seeded and roll seed bed.

• Staking down each 4 x 40 foot piece of jute cloth using clear plastic biodegradable spikes.

• Repeating this seed bed preparation for the next 2 additional seed bed plots.
• Broadcasting across the entire site an organic rodent repellent made of pig and beef blood.

What the study plot looked like at the start of day 4:

What the study plot looked like at the end of day 4, the final workday (a panorama from the southwest corner looking back at the school behind the northeast corner of the study site)

Jacob Winsor surveying the finished project.

Jackie Lindgren (MDRCD) and Dr. Ken Lair (NRCS retired) surveying the finished study site.



Jackie and Dr. Lair leaving the location with the tools that were used to set up the study site.