1 Preliminary plant experiments
Finding methods
The preliminary experiments are used for practicing the handling and finding the best methods for growing the plants in the boxes.
First the seeds have to germinate on special agar plates:
If the germination is successful, the seedlings are plated on plates for further growing. There we tested if we can grow the plants on wet filter paper (layed on the agar), to simplify the handling with the nodules later.
Next to the experiments with the plates, the first boxes were plantet, too. Unfortunately it wasn't able to clean the cover plate (covers the plant roots, to protect them against light and drying up) properly, so we got a fungal infection in our boxes.
Due to the fungal infection we have to do further experiments with better cleanable materials. We also have to find methods to improve the accumulation of nodules.