On the afternoon of February 15, 2018, my teammates and I set out to Radford University's Selu Conservancy to find two Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) bushes to monitor. The weather was nice; partly cloudy and in the mid 60s. Selu consists of mixed vegetation types among the 400 acres of land. We chose two Multiflora rose bushes along the trail path, on the east side of Selu. The vegetation consisted of mix grassland; a combination of grass and sedge, with an occasional woody shrub and brier patch. There is no canopy cover blocking the two plants from sunlight. We tagged our plants with pink tape and a metal tag to be consistent with using the same two bushes. Every week we'll monitor the plants for changing phenophase types. This week, our two Multiflora rose bushes had very little breaking leaf buds (3-10 on one bush and 11-100 on the other). The leaf bud is considered breaking when the scales are open, allowing a green leaf to slowly emerge, and the stalks of the leaf are not visible. Both bushes showed less than 25% of full leaf size and less than 5% of the canopy was covered in leaves. Both had a few colored leaves (<5%) due to an environmental stressor, most likely shock from cold weather. There were no flower buds present on either plant. Both plants had ripe fruits present that had not dropped from last growing season (one had 11-100 fruits and the other had more than 1,000 fruits).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2018
Categories |