Barret Wessel

Mayapples, almost ripe. Will I get to them before the wildlife does?

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years.

NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

Have you lost a small object down a borehole? Call the auger whisperer!

Happy Captain Picard Day!

My whole class of employees got laid off when a certain governor took office in Virginia and got rid of all the visiting professors he could. People asked me when I started at my current job if I was coming in with active grants, and I thought it was a joke. I lost valuable years of productivity.

I'm in a similar boat, I graduated with my PhD in mid-2020, before the vaccines were available. The first few years of my career were absolute chaos. I was frequently prohibited from entering labs, from driving to the field, from attending meetings, and so on. I lost jobs due to budget cuts.

MSU's Soil Judging Team: Exploring soil science through competition and community The MSU Soil Judging Team offers students the chance to study soil directly in the field while fostering a supportive community where students can engage in friendly competition and explore soil scie...

www.canr.msu.edu/news/msu-s-s...

I love the old Victory Garden pamphlets from the 1940s. They're less glossy than modern Extension factsheets, but can be just as good

Terrible news, that's over 10% of them

Ok, who sent this to me?

President Jimmy Carter’s message which was included on Voyager.

The Golden Record for the Voyager spacecraft.

jimmy carter’s message that was included on the voyager spacecraft.

rest in peace, jimmy carter 🌌

If it helps with your anxiety at all, four fifths of all animals are nematodes.

This reminds me of the kinds of observations made by @slavojiek.bsky.social

I don't like AC much either, but my main alternative was CA! I do think I might at least run LOI on a few samples of this.

I think the 2nd horizon may have had some fines and organics added since it was laid down as the topdressing. It wouldn't have been pure sand, but mostly, with limits on size classes as an engineered mix. The worms seem to be burrowing deeper, consuming the buried Ap and excreting it on the surface.

That's also assuming the top layer has a low enough carbon content that it's not an O horizon. I'm new to thatch, but it did feel a little greasy and seemed a bit like Oe materials, despite having inherited a fair amount of sand as it formed.

I'm partial to ^A-^AC-Apb-Btb, assuming this field was tilled at some point prior to becoming part of the MSU turfgrass research center.

I got to see a wonderful little turf soil profile today with a sandy layer of topdressing, which itself had a thin horizon of finer material on top of it (perhaps due to worm castings moving fines up over time?). What would you call these horizons?

One of my students said this root plate was from a basswood. It looked like it was growing in a stream, with almost no aerobic soil for a root zone.

I met this nice cat while attending the Tri-Societies meeting in San Antonio this month. It met me on my walks to and from the convention center for 3 days in a row!