Friday, June 23, 2017

The Other Valley

Typically, most of my time in Hengill is spent running the side-stream channel experiment, so I rarely get a chance to visit the other streams that our group studies. However, earlier this month I had the opportunity to assist with checking the nutrient drippers in the “landscape” streams, which allowed me venture away from the channel site and see what else Hengill has to offer.


All I can say is that I’ve been missing out on some beautiful views-


This year we’re adding nitrogen to our four study streams using a rather elegant dripper system that is controlled entirely by gravity. It’s essentially the same setup as the drippers we use for the channel experiment, but slightly modified to fertilize an entire stream as opposed to a small plastic channel. 
 VS.
Although this dripper system maintains a remarkably consistent drip rate once set up, it does require the occasional check, and an occasional refill of the reservoir to maintain the nitrogen supply. Here’s Kate and Bonnie in refill action:
 Just add water...
and stir!
It was a nice change of pace to hike around the streams of Hengill’s “other” valley, and a good reminder of the interconnectedness of the work done with the channels and the landscape streams. We’re all excited to see the results of this year’s nitrogen additions, and I’m particularly interested in how these results might compare (and/or contrast) with our channel data!

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