Methods in Plant Ecology, Bot 3452

Students in the Methods in Plant Ecology course have used the KFFL to conduct various experiments. Most have taken advantage of the diverse soils underlaying the farm and the topographic variation of the site.

For example, one experiment followed a soil transect marked in red on the figure above. Students found that soil depth at the top (right) of the transect averaged 30 cm and
gradually increased to over 1 m at the bottom (left). Plant height and productivity were positively related to soil depth, but soil nutrient content was not linearly related with
depth. In another experiment, students examined the differences found between a site that has had no cattle grazing since 1977 (inside of the areas marked by the blue lines)
with an adjacent area subject to grazing. Given the nature of the grazing operation (very light, sustainable grazing), students were not surprised to find no significant differences in plant production or nutrient content between the two areas. What was interesting was the difference in species presence. The grazed areas had more annuals than did the ungrazed area. This ungrazed area is also the location of a long-term global warming project run by Dr. Yiqi Luo in the Department of Botany and Microbiology.