And off we go.
I started sprout trials in the horticulture greenhouse at UBC yesterday. Last night I prepared trays of growing medium and soaked seeds to be planted this morning. Everything went according to plan! I have posted three videos and a picture below detailing some of the work I did yesterday and today. Now really I just have to wait for ten days and see what happens. I will check on the sprouts daily and take some pictures as the sprouts grow.
I also did a test to determine how much the seed expands when soaked in water. The confection variety expands 20% and the black oil variety expands 20.7%. I did this by measuring the volume change when the seeds were submerged in a graduated cylinder full of water. I also, as you will see in the video, prepared a few trays of what will be the new growing medium ingredients: sand and compost. I originally thought I would do about a 3:1 sand:compost mix but upon mixing, I ended up doing 2:1 compost:sand. To be honest, it just looked right! So that will be a good precursor to the growing medium trials which I will do immediately following the planting density trials happening now.
Here are my beautiful pictures:
And some videos:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il3X9wEorh4]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKyotKD2d3M]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC58YRTmfjM]