Bioassay Part 2

Well, the bioassay is still going strong in the Institute of Environmental Sustainability Ecodome. We have only had one casualty in the 4 weeks that the corn has been in there. While they've been in there, we have had everything from 95 degree days to 60 degree days. There have been days where the experiment has needed watering twice a day and days when the soil is still moist after 24 hours. Okay, before I start sounding like James Taylor's 'Fire and Rain', I think you get the picture.

The plants look pretty good-aside from the purple stems and some withered leaves. This could be due to either/both a lack of sunlight or nutrients. We will hopefully have a better answer once we harvest the plants in the next couple weeks. To do so, we will pull the plants out of the cones and separate the roots from the stems/leaves. We will then be boiling the roots to clear out their interiors, then dyeing them for viewing under a microscope. We will be taking the rest of the plant and placing them in drying ovens for a couple days in order to measure the organic carbon that they are composed of. I will post links for these experimental methods once we harvest! 

I am also continuing to make graphs to see the correlation between different variables for the roof plots from which the samples were taken. Starting to see some really interesting graphs that will certainly contribute a lot to our experimental results. 

Planting

Thursday, August 29, we began the bioassay experiment.

The purpose of the bioassay is to study the impact of the different soil samples from Loyola's green roofs on the growth of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. We germinated the Zea mays before planting it in the conetainers of soil, and had to replant a couple on September 3rd as they had not yet sprouted. I took note of which samples those were, and now most of the samples look healthy and strong.

It's been so fun to watch these guys grow up! I will post more detail about the qualities of plants of different roots soon-as they are all the same species of plant, it is pretty easy to see subtle differences in the leaves and size of the individual samples. With the opening of the new Institute of Environmental Sustainability that houses our research lab, it's been a little chaotic to gather a lot of data!

Beyond watching the bioassay, we have been working to add more data elements to the data sheets we have been creating all summer regarding the different green roofs. As with all science, there is much to do and so many great ideas of things we can do, but time also flies by!

In the words of one of my favorite scientific creatives, Albert Einstein, " If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"