4. Collect Data
Winterberry making observations updated.MOVHow to Video 3:
Making Observations
Once you have set up your site and tagged your plants, you are ready to collect data! Here is a quick description of how what you will do:
1. Collect your first data as soon as the majority of berries on the plant are ripe (this is usually when you set up your site)
2. Collect data once a week until the plant are covered with snow or until you can no longer monitor them without disturbing them (e.g., by shaking snow off).
3. During the period when plants are covered with snow you will take snow depth measurements once a month and take some pictures.
4. Once the snow melts you start monitoring once a week again. If the snow melts in the middle of winter, resume monitoring until the ground is covered with snow again.
5. When all the fruits are gone OR when the plants flower again (which ever comes first), you stop monitoring.
6. When the majority of berries are ripe, start monitoring again for year 2.
To collect data:
1. Fill out the top part of the data sheet.
Go to the "Step 5: Submit Data" page to find out your options for submitting data and to download the data sheets.
Site name, date and species MUST be filled in for the data to be of any use to us!
2. Check your plant name or number and write it on the datasheet.
We are tracking individual plants, so we want to make sure we know who is who!
Note: youth groups will likely use names while individuals may use just numbers. As long as we can keep track of individuals, we don't care!
3. Count the number of berries ON the plant and record on the datasheet
Count berries in six different categories (see the berry category page for more pictures):
- Unripe - green or only partially colored
- Ripe - red or (for crowberry) black and healthy looking
- Rotten - berries are discolored (black, brown, moldy)
- Dry - berries are shrivelled up
- Damaged - part of the berry was removed
- Both Rotten and Dry -berries are black and rotten looking but also dried out, and you can't tell which category fits best.
In this example, the data for these two lowbush cranberry plants are recorded on the datasheets for youth groups (one datasheet per species, top two images) and on the datasheet for individuals (1 page for all plants, bottom image)
4. Take pictures
- Take a picture of any damaged berries or any other category that looks interesting.
- Take a picture of any obvious animal activity. For example, if you see some animal scat full of berries, take a picture of it
5. Take notes
Make a note of anything interesting that you saw. For example, maybe you saw ants scurrying around the berries, or a bird removing one. Maybe a moose bedded down on your berry patch and knocked most of the berries off.
6. Write down when the plant is done
- When the plant no longer has any berries on it write DONE and remove the tag.
- Make sure to keep track of which plants are done so you don't go looking for it the next time!
- Record zeros for the berries in each category on your datasheet from now until the end of the project for this plant.