Fast Week with Progress

The plants that were seeded last week didn’t germinate this week, so the new approach was to use another type of soil known as vermiculite. Vermiculite holds more moisture for less watering for the inexperienced gardener. The green thumb isn’t in my DNA structure, but I still have six pots of regular soil and another six of vermiculite. Also, the Sonora Wheat is still being used but the soy beans were change to Anasazi Beans for germination. Figure 1 below shows the arrangement of seeds planted.

Figure 1. I should start to see some sprouting next week by Monday at least if not then I'm a horrible planter. Furthermore, these seeds grow in places with less water like Arizona or other states along the Southwestern States.

I haven’t sampled this week for my fomite project but I have some potential ideas of where to sample at. The gym has some exercise equipment that can be sampled, and maybe the smartphones students use around campus can be sampled. I can prepare and pour TSA in the contact plates with no problems now.

Furthermore, I took my sample from the residential property across the street from the DB building. Figure 2 and 3 below show how I took my sample with a couple of carpenter tools although the incremental borer would make it easier. Once the sample arrived in the lab, a simple protocol was used to isolate the potential specimen for Agrobacterium. On the other hand, the results were not what I expected because of lack of ascetic techniques and storing areas.

Figure 2. Approaching the area where the sample was taken is shown above. The inside volume is like a pyramid that is scraped out with tools like a flat head screwdriver, mini sludge hammer, box cutter, and some tweezers.

Figure 3.  This side view shows the measured depth of the sample obtained on Wednesday October 16, 2013.