Just as the summer harvests begin, it is time to end an amazing summer field season. In total, the soil biogeochemistry research group sampled 1000+ trees and excavated over 200 soil pits across 5 states for five different research projects.
This herculean task was accomplished by UMass undergraduates Brendan Braithwaite and Rudy Marek and visiting undergraduate researchers Raisa Islam from Mount Holyoke College and Jonah Jordan from College of Idaho. The best part of field work is not only seeing all of the beautiful New England forests and soils, but all of the adventures (and misadventures) in between. Some memorable moments include street tacos in Springfield MA, rhodocrosite and ice cream in Cummington MA, clam strips on the beach in New London CT, biting deerflies in Putnam CT, and the nerf football of Oxford MA. Big thank you to everyone for making it an awesome field season and looking forward to analyzing all of these samples over the next few months!