Greetings all Field Notes Readers! We are converting our newsletter to an electronic format beginning with November/December 2007 Issue. This will help us save funds in postage as well as printing, not to mention reduce our waste stream of paper. For those of you who have email, please email Stephanie Crandall at scrandal@uiuc.edu to verify your email with our Extension Office in Rock Island County. Or, if you do not have email and can only have access to Field Notes by mail, you must call our Extension Office at (309) 796-0512 to request that hard copies of future issues be sent to you. Please verify your address at the time of your call. We appreciate your support of the newsletter and hope that we can continue to bring you interesting articles and useful announcements in the future!

Most of us would never use the word cooperative in conjunction with the word weeds, however when we're talking about a CWMA, we are referring to Cooperative Weed Management Area. In this case, it's not the weeds that are cooperative, but hopefully the agencies, organizations, and entities who join together in a partnership to combat invasive plants.

A CWMA is a local organization, led by a steering committee, that agrees to integrate invasive plant management collectively across jurisdictional boundaries in order

to better pool resources and knowledge in our endless quest against weedy invaders! CWMAs are much more common in the Western United States, but they are beginning to pop up in this part of the country as well. Currently, there are three CWMAs established in Illinois and in Iowa. Local members are in the process of forming a Quad City Regional CWMA, which would involve partners from both Illinois and Iowa. We have a steering committee in place and are working out the details of where this effort might lead and best serve our shared needs of invasive species control.

As many of you already know, these weedy invaders do not limit their distribution to city, county, or other jurisdictional boundaries, but instead spread themselves by wind, water, human assistance, and other methods into areas defined by biological limits. Thus, attacking them as divided entities will not likely be effective in managing these persistent plants. What we need is a collective effort with shared goals to make real headway in the combat against invasive plants. And so we are collecting and exploring the possibilities of how we might make this herculean task a reality for our region!

If you'd like to learn more about CWMAs, there are several documents located at http://www.mipn.org/cwma.html. We will keep you informed on our local efforts as we continue to search for new ways to cooperatively manage these uncooperative creatures.

The Rx Fire Crew of our Quad City Natural Area Guardians group is gearing up for a fall schedule of burns. The group was quite active last spring, burning 19 different sites on private and public lands. This fall the crew is hoping to implement burns at Nahant Marsh, Black Hawk State Historic Site, Loud Thunder Forest Preserve, and possibly others. The majority of these burns will be forest burns, which require larger crews, so any help on the projects would be great. Those in the group who are trained in prescribed burning techniques are very willing to serve as mentors, for those of you out there who are hesitant about proximity to flames. To find out more information about the fall plans, contact Marilyn Andress at 309-292-0690 and get on board!

University of Illinois Extension is one of 60 groups working together to cosponsor the 11th Biennial Governor's Conference on the Management of the Illinois River System. The conference will be held October 2-4 at Peoria's Holiday Inn City Centre Hotel. Conference information including schedule, registration, and fees is available online at www.conferences.uiuc.edu/ilriver .

"The Illinois River – Continuing Our Commitment" serves as the 2007 theme. Keynote luncheon speakers include Jon Scholl of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on October 3 and, on October 4, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Nature Conservancy in Illinois, TNC chief scientist John Wiens. Conference topics include public issues ranging from stormwater management, restoration projects, private-public partnerships, and river monitoring to natural disasters including flooding, drought, and the Gulf Coast experience and its implications for Illinois.

Other panels will discuss nature-based tourism, the prehistory and archeology of the river valley, flood plain restoration, and dam removal and safety issues. Several sessions will focus on Asian carp and the Illinois River. Speakers representing agencies and organizations from the state and federal level will share their focus and vision. Exhibits will highlight the work of the various groups. A special workshop will feature new technologies applied to river studies and offer opportunities for networking.

An October 2 conservation tour requires a $25 registration by August 31. The day-long guided motorcoach tour includes lunch and features Peoria's historic and beautiful Springdale Cemetery, a rural subdivision striving to be in harmony with nature amongst the bluffs near Mossville, restored wetlands, a large streambank stabilization project along the winding Mackinaw River, and significant wildlife habitat restoration.

That evening Lt. Governor Pat Quinn will chair a meeting of the Illinois River Coordinating Council at the hotel, followed by a free public forum.

Full conference registration after August 31 costs $175 and includes three meals, two continental breakfasts, breaks, and a reception. The Wednesday-only fee is $130, while Thursday-only will cost $100. On site, each fee increases by another $20-$50. Registration can be completed with credit card online, or by fax or mail. Registration materials are also available from sponsoring agencies or from the University of Illinois Office of Conferences and Institutes in Champaign (toll free 877-455-2687).

The conference is designed to bring together concerned citizens, agricultural, conservation and environmental organizations, industry and government representatives, educators, and resource management professionals. Source: Robert W. Frazee, Extension Educator, Natural Resources Management, rfrazee@uiuc.edu.

Slender, and tightly wrapped in two parallel rolls, the leaf of the American lotus emerges from the river. The water is shallow. If it's a foot deep, it's barely more. But this is hard to judge too precisely since the underwater earth nowhere approaches what could be called solid ground. Rather it is a muddy suspension of dirt in water that can swallow a foot whole to the ankle. It is this ground that the lotus very lightly roots itself in and emerges from. The white root end fades into the green stalk which holds the leaf in a way that the whole appears as a single spear shooting out of the water and aiming for the sky's center. The leaf, once exposed to the light and air, begins to separate itself from the line of the stem and take on its own character. Depending on when this urge arises, the leaf can end up in two places. One is resting on the surface of the river where it receives watery support and is subject to every wake and wave. Here, small silvery beads can quickly roll across it like mercury without leaving any moisture behind on the surface. The leaf can also fully take to the air, supporting itself in the midst of calm and gusty winds. Either way, the lotus leaf begins to tilt and show expansion as air fills out its tight rolls. As it unrolls, it takes on the look of a double scroll being opened at both ends or of a pair of binoculars. When completely unrolled, the leaf finishes its transition from aiming for the sky's center to aiming at every point along the horizon with its roundness. If resting on the water, it lays out flat and shows its radiating veins like several trickles of water emerging from a spot on the ground and going in every direction. If resting in the air the leaf shows more of its own strength taking on a sort of fountain shape. We can follow this shape in the veins of the leaf as they arise singularly in several directions out of the central stem and carry the leaf up at an angle away from the water as water spurting from a fount. When these veins begin to branch at a little over half way between the center and the edge of the leaf, the leaf itself angles back down, as falling water, towards the river. So the leaf stands, or floats, and the time has come for the bud to show itself.

On a separate stalk, close to the leaf, an egg shaped, green bud appears with two sepals on each side. The bud wells up as more sepals are pulled out of the top, leaving the original two at the bottom of a complex swirl of sepal/petal points. From above, this appears as a sort of vortex which could trace out the path of some wandering planet over the existence of the bud. One could imagine the outer points referring to the past and then swirling from the two original sepals into the more present center. In this swirl, a transformation is traced out from the outer green sepals to inner near-petals which are whiter. Fully white petals finally show in the gush of the opening bud that gives a cup shape and exposes the yellow pistil to the air. At first, the top of the pale yellow pistil is exposed showing many glistening yellow stigmas which form two concentric circles with one or two individuals in the center. The petals more and more fall back from the pistil then and expose its full shape as a sort of inverted cone. After pollination, as the stigmas begin to darken and the petals fall back until they trickle down to the river, the pistil expands towards a full fruit and shades toward green. The fruit takes on a rippled wall as the seeds within grow larger. As expansion continues large holes replace the once small glistening stigmas and the fruit dries out leaving us with a brown pod which holds the seeds for new generation.

- –by Andy Hahn

Simply purchase a $5 coupon booklet for use at the Community Day Sale at Younkers and Elder-Beerman on Saturday, November 10.

You pay $5. You GET a $10 store coupon.

The Master Naturalist Program gets to keep the entire $5!

PLUS, your donation is matched by the University of Illinois – doubling your impact!

Those who purchase coupon booklets are able to take advantage of a single regular or sale price merchandise item of $10 or more, which means that you have been doubly paid back for your donation. It's a fantastic deal! Coupons are valid on all regular and sale price merchandise. (Excludes Door Busters and Bonus Buys) This is a tremendous opportunity to purchase items that are rarely discounted like Liz Claiborne, Jones New York Sport, Waterford Crystal, Fossil and more.

• Eight 20% off coupons.
• Two merchandise bonus buys.
• Stores open early at 6 a.m. and stay open late for convenient shopping times.
• Take advantage of the pre-sale October 31 – November 9. You may select merchandise prior to the day of the event. You may pick up your presell anytime between November 10 and the close of business on Monday, November 12. No waiting in lines! And you can shop even if you won't be in town that weekend.
• Coupons are good at any Bon-Ton, Bergner's Boston Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Elder-Beerman, Herberger's or Younkers – so you can buy them for friends and family around the country!

To order your coupon booklets, send $5 per booklet, made payable to University of Illinois Extension, 4550 Kennedy Drive, East Moline, IL. Include your name and address and we'll mail them to you. You can also buy them at the Extension office. If you buy one at the store (Younkers or Elder Beerman) be sure to indicate that you want the money to go to the Rock Island County Extension & 4-H Education Foundation (that's our non-profit 501 C 3).

Thank you for your support!