Happy 4th of July!

• Thank you I'd like to start by saying thank you for participating in the Great Sunflower Project. What a wonderful group you are. As a bee biologist, it has been so gratifying to see how many people are willing to help us take the steps to preserving our pollinators. I especially wish to thank those who have donated to the project. We are so, so, so grateful for your contributions.

We are getting our last seeds shipped out. As it is getting late in the year, we are going to ship seeds next spring to anyone new who signs up. If you are already a participant, we'll ask you later this summer if you'd like to participate again. Next year, provided we have funding, we'll get seeds out early!

Thanks!

The Sunflower Team

We are currently working on raising some extra money to cover the cost of mailings. At the moment, we plan to send seeds out to people who sign up through June 15. If you sign up after that, we will add you to the list for next year.

If you feel like helping our finances, we would love any contribution. You can find more information here

Hi Everyone!

It's been an exciting spring. The Great Sunflower Project (www.greatsunflower.org) has almost 30,000 participants and people are planting in every state in the United States and every province in Canada. Wow!

We've had a few issues getting seeds out and appreciate your patience. We originally planned to have four of us stuffing all the envelopes! When we had 12,000 people sign up in one week, we realized we needed another plan. At the same time, we tested the seeds that American meadows had sent us. Instead of the guaranteed 80% germination rate, we planted 102 seeds and got SIX plants. I have to say that this was about my worst nightmare.

Fortunately, American meadows has replaced the seed and sent us a new shipment of packets. So, if you haven't received your packet of seeds yet, they are being mailed tomorrow from San Francisco. I haven't had the opportunity to test these seeds but American meadows says 80% germination - again.... I've got my fingers crossed.

Thanks for your patience!

From thedailygreen.com

4.14.2008 7:49 AM

Survey: Beekeepers Lost 35% of Bees This Winter

Bumblebees Also Hurting ... And Where's That Government Aid?

There was a Senate Briefing last week, called by Senators Boxer (D-CA), Casey (D-PA) and Collins (R-ME) on the decline of honey bees and native pollinators and the threat posed to agriculture. Speaking at the briefing besides the senators were:

May Berenbaum, Chair of the National Academy of Science Committee on the Status Of North American Pollinators; Jeff Pettis from the USDA;

We've had a huge response to our sunflower project and have been scrambling to keep up with mailing seeds. Because of that, we've chosen to use a variety of different seed packets while waiting for our "custom" ones. If you got a pack labelled wildflower, know that all those seeds are sunflowers. We had just run out of sunflower packets and wanted to get them to you quickly!

Thanks to Daniel for including us in the Extension Newsletter

http://okeechobee.ifas.ufl.edu/News%20columns/Fertilizers+Sunflowers.htm

Ginny Stibolt, who took our signature bee photo, has done a marvelous podcast about the project for the Jacksonville, FL paper. You can find it right here.

Look at our coverage in Sunset magazine online!

Link to sunset

For those of you who weren't up at 5:40 AM and listening to KCBS, you can listen to my interview about the Great Sunflower Project! Right here!

The SF Examiner did a great interview about the project. It's always so funny to see what a news story picks up. I was surprised by the interest in bee stings this time! You can see it at:

http://www.examiner.com/a-1280496~3_Minute_Interview__Gretchen_LeBuhn.ht...

Gretchen