Zimmerman Blog Week 4

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We germinated a new pair of cogener seeds this week and got enough sprouts to begin the first planting stage of the study of underground traits of invasive vs non-invasive plant pairings from the same genus.  One of the original seed (Johnson grass) choices did not have a germination rate sunstantial enough to allow it to be used for the first round of greenhouse planting.  Johnson grass had required a complicated scarification protocol including a sulfuric acid bath.

The first pair was switched to lamb’s quarter and quinoa.  They are relatives from the Chenopdium genus.  Lamb’s quarter ( C. album) is considered an invasive weed and quinoa (C. quinoa) is an agricultural non-invasive plant.  Seeds from both plants germinated sucessfully with a water germination without a complicated scarification protocol.

The cogener seeds
The sprouts in the incubator
Sprouts from the quinoa.

On the upcoming Monday the Chenopodium sprouts will be planted and grown in drought stress conditions and control conditions for periods of two and three weeks.  There will be six replicates of each growth category which totals to 48 seperate plantings.  Root traits data can be collected allowing for an analysis of the drought vs control replicates and the two vs. three week replicates.  Root scans will one of the main data collection categories.   The next study chapter of stage will add a flood stress category and six more cogener pairs of an invasive and non-invasive.  This will require a substantial greenhouse space and we have been planning and setting up this logistical component this week.

I also autoclaved enough soil for this stage of planting next week.  Around 8 autoclave cycles of 90 minutes each were needed to get the soil ready for this stage of planting.  There is still a large amount of soil mixing and autoclaving for upcoming stages of the research.

An autoclaved bag of soil with the autoclave tape showing the stripes as an indicator of sufficient sterilization.

I enjoyed the field trip to the Sugarland Water treatment plant.  The treatment plant extracts water from Oyster Creek that is augmented with water diverted from the Brazos River.  Posted below are pics and captions of many parts of the process needed to produce potable water from the Oyster Creek surface water supply:

The bus to the treatment plant.
The Owl logo on the bus.
The plant control center.
The fume hood in the lab room where water qualities are monitored about every 4 hours.
Supply lines in the lab room that bring in water in various stages of the treatment process.
The flocculant tank where particulates are adsorbed and eventually settled out.
A continuation of the flocculant settling process in tanks that provide time and space for heavy particulates and solids to settle out and eventually be seperated from the water headed toward the filtration stacks.
The water is separated from the flocculant and particulates in this device that slowly scrapes the bottom of this tank section.
Water heading through more settling to remove as many particulates as possible before heading to the filtration.
The water being pumped onward toward the filtration stacks. There is also a 40 micron filtration at this point in the flow.

 

Cross section of the 1 micron filter tubes that pass the water across the 1 micron filtration substrate.
The full filtration tubes that water passes through after the water is clarified with a flocculant process.  These filtration tubes can be back flushed and they are on a scheduled rotation.
Chlorination tanks where the water receives the  final chemical  treatment in the process.