User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I chose to study a field near my home in Merritt. On this particular trip, I stuck to the east side of the main path, marked in yellow. I went on October 30th from about 2-4pm. It was a clear, sunny day (no clouds whatsoever). It has since snowed heavily, so this field will be a puddle next time I visit.
The entire field is flat, roughly 500m^2, and surrounded to the south and west by housing, to the east by the main road into town. There are a few human-made paths, visible in the map. The only animal signs I found were dog scat and bird calls, and I encountered no insects. The soil is moist and seems to be clay. There was quite a bit of litter at the human entrances, and housing construction at the west entrance.
The field is dominated by a long, yellow grass growing in bunches, with spiky pods (?) at the tips (which will probably take a month to remove from my socks). There are a few sparse coniferous trees and other plants in localized areas. These included:
- A localized, 15m^2 patch of a wheat-like grass and burrs in the north (just northeast of the tree by the path)
- Moss under the main grass in the southeast
- A dead or dying leafy plant interspersed sparsely in the main grass
- Red thornbushes on the slope up the the highway
- Some reddish low plants (called “underbrush” in my notes) on a small northern section of the main path
- A plant which resembled to me a round hairbrush along the edge of the northern section of the path
Possible Questions
- What are human impacts on the area (e.g. walking paths, recent construction, pollution) and how do they affect the local plantlife?
- What differentiates the small areas where the yellow grass does not grow as much from the rest of the field
- What are common factors (e.g. sunlight, slope, types of soil, etc) in areas where this yellow grass grows throughout the Nicola Valley?
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