We have officially started our germination recipes in 24 MV1 units. The breakdown is as follows:
As of the end of this post we will not be back in the lab for one week and we are going to see how our recipes come along.
There was some concern about the 100mL treatment not being enough for the growing media we had selected. Given the absorptive ability of both the rockwools and wicking mats, we decided to charge each of the beds with 250 mL to ensure saturation. Any standing water will serve to raise the humidity inside the units which should help to promote germination.
I decided to place the output tubing of the pumps in the center of the rockwool and container fields. The hope it to prevent any vibrations from causing the tubing to fall out of the watering tray. In the past we have taped it against the rim of the tray.
I have future plans to modify this output tube slightly with Y and 4-way barb fittings that would allow us to lay an output manifold flat on the bottom of the tray and dispense water evenly for applications like these.
@Drew did a fantastic job with the Trial Manager. It made assigning recipes to 24 MV1s super convenient.
The Device Manager is also great because I can get a snapshot of the conditions inside the MV1, verify if it is online, and have a look in on the condition of the medium itself.
If I notice that things are looking dry I can simply update the trial with a new recipe to boost the water. Coupled with the recipe manager and the GUI I stitched together in THIS POST, I can modify just about anything on the fly. Super useful when you’re out of the lab for a week! Hopefully my next update will show “something green”! 