Sunday, November 18, 2012

Observations and Tweaks

Some additional insights were gained today, leading to some minor changes in the experiment.

First, most of seedlings started a strange behavior not observed before: they started to straighten vertically, towards folding the needles. They do not seem to be sick, but continue to become more a more vertical. Here is a look at all of them, with #4 and #15 well visible (click on image to see better):


The completely new thing I introduced was the light. It is logical to interpret this behavior of the seedlings somehow related to this change.

It is recommended to use soft light for seedlings. I checked my light that I bought yesterday. It was a high intensity (HO) 24W 6500K, meaning it's quite hard light, not soft. I went to a hardware store to get a softer light. I got 3000K bulb, but only at 14W. They did not have HO. I ordered a couple of HO lamps at 3000K. For the time being I will use the soft low intensity light to see how things progress.

Next adjustment was the use of a slightly modified plastic cover cups. An advice was given to make a small hole on top of the cup to let some of the moister escape. In fact, if there is still too much vapor on the cup walls it was recommended to wipe it to further remove the moisture. I made eight cups with 5mm holes on top and placed on all samples under the light:


The "dead" seedling #26 appreciated the newly enhanced damp peat moss and apparently is not dead anymore. It raised above the soil level rather quickly today:

#26 November 18, 2012. DOB Nov 18 2012, 0 days old

Finally, six more brand new seedlings were planted today as "brown patch v2". All six were very tiny, with virtually no growth outside the seed. The largest one, which now gets designation #31 looked like this:


All six were placed in the damp peat moss:

I placed all new seeds very close to the surface, just barely covering the seeds with dirt. I would say less than 1/8 of an inch.

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