June 7, 2024

Week 2 is more research cloud.  Adaptations have had to made in the preliminary stages of the research.  The initial plants for the study had to be germinated from seed and the collected seeds of Johnson grass decided to be stubborn germinators.  Johnson grass is in the Sorghum genus and it did not germinate in enough quantity to plants the sprouts for the initial stage of the study.  The crop plant relative of Johnson grass that we are using is Sorghum bicolor and it germinated beautifully.  The study uses cogener plant pairings of a native and a non-native (invasive) plant.

The germination of Johnson grass is notoriously difficult and it involved giving the seeds a sulfuric acid bath as part of the scarification seed preparation.  More tweeking of the germination protocol for Johnson grass (Sorghum halapenses) is needed.  The initial plant pair was switched to Chenopodium quinoa which is grain crop and an invasive “weed” cousin called lambsquarter, Chenopodium album.

We got sprouts from both of the plants and both germinated with a simpler water germination procedure.  Lambsquarter on the left and quinoa on the right.  The invasive still did not germinate with the same success as the grain crop but it did a lot better than the Johnson grass seeds.

It feels good to have a small success that allows the reearch to proceed.  A little light shone through the cloud.

We also had to do some troubleshooting to get a good standardized soil for the study and that is a work-intensive process that involves manually seiving the soil and mixing it with sand and clay in measured proportions.

It will be exciting to get the initial study plants in the greenhouse. Stay tuned.