In our recent study (Valkó et al. 2020 NeoBiota) we found that laundry washing is a major driver of the dispersal and germination efficiency of cloth-dispersed seeds. You can read about our previous study in this blog post. Now motivated by the interesting results of the first experiment we aim to dig deeper into this topic and started a new, way bigger germination experiment. Here we added a twist and use many types of detergents with different effect mechanisms and also three types of washing temperature.
The preparation of the experiment was a heroic job - many thanks to everybody, especially Kata, Ági and Réka. Just to illustrate the amount of work: seeds of 20 species were collected, counted and sewed into a total of 1680 fabric sacks, then after cold stratification, the seeds were washed in 21 different laundry cycles (poor washing machine, it was also a hero...). The germination experiment has been running for three weeks now and the results seem very interesting, so it worthed the efforts.
Please see below some pictures about the preparation and running of the experiment.
 |
Seeds were put in these tiny fabric sacks, which were then closed and washed in a laundry treatment.
|
 |
Seeds washed together with washnut (Sapindus mukorossi).
|
 |
Despite the huge amount of work, we love this project 💚
|
 |
Sample processing, all day, from early morning...
|
 |
... till late night
|
 |
Washed propagules of Cynoglossum officinale.
|
 |
Washed propagules of Torilis arvensis.
|
 |
Washed propagules of Bromus hordeaceus - my precious piece of art, finally I could arrange the propagules in a more or less regular pattern in the Petri dish
|
 |
The samples in the plant growing chamber.
|
 |
Silent night in the lab
|
 |
Counting and removal of the germinated seeds
|
 |
Germinated propagules of Hordeum hystrix
|
 |
Germinated propagules of Dianthus pontederae
|
 |
Germinated propagules of Bromus hordeaceus
|
Despite the many working hours, this research is still fun :)
No comments:
Post a Comment