April 6: Adam Wolf led a discussion of a 1964 paper by A. W. Kuchler published by the Amer. Geographical Soc. titled Potential Natural Vegetation of the United States. It was a Manual to accompany a large map of the US showing the location of many vegetation types. Our discussion focused on how the map was constructed and questioned its validity. Adam also showed us a similar-in-design soil map published by the USDA in 1938.
Tasting: Naupaka Zimmerman brought five flavors of Mochi from Japan including orange, melon, grapefruit, chocolate & mango. These were individually wrapped candies made from rice flour and powdered sugar. All were delicious, thank you Naupaka.
April 13: Chris Field discussed recent research, about to be published, by Elliott Campbell, Dave Lobell & himself titled Greater transportation energy and GHG offsets from bioelectricity than ethanol. The data clearly show that using biofuels to create electricity is more efficient than making alcohol for subsequent use in motor vehicles. Chris also presented some results (by Audrey Niboyet et al) from an accidental wildfire at some of the experimental plots on Jasper Ridge. The data show that under certain conditions, fire may cause more release of nitrous oxide (a potent green house gas) than originally thought.
Tasting: To supplement the tortillas from a previous tasting, Chris brought five kinds of salsa. Two used a mango base and the rest tomato. They varied from hot to medium.
April 20: Eve-Lyn Hinckley described her new project with Rob Genova & others using the CENTURY model to look at potential yields of switchgrass (managed as a bioenergy crop) on abandoned agricultural lands in the U.S., as well as changes to soil carbon storage. They will be collecting data from lands under the US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
Tasting: Eve provided a unique tasting of seven kinds of milk made from plants including cashew, almond, hazelnut, hemp, soy, rice and oats. I enjoyed all of them except for the almond.
April 21-23: Chris Field attended the 30th Session of the IPCC in Antalya, Turkey.
April 27: Chris Doughty described five different areas in which he is collecting data with the view of expanding his research into one or more of them in the near future. The include Geoengineering, Paleoclimatology, Remote Sensing, History (of Land Use), & Astrobiology.
Tasting: His tasting was of six varieties of gum, 2 yellow, 2 green and 2 blue. The yellows were fruity, blues were wintergreen, and the greens were minty.