Interesting WEEK,

In the beginning of this week I started mixing my own soil for perfect growing conditions for my pea plants. The taxonomic name would be Pisum sativum (P. sativum). These dicot plants would be a good host for infection of the Agrobacterium tumefaciens (A. tumefaciens).  Figure 1 below show the arrangement of the seeds in the pots, and I used 70/30 of soil/vermiculite with a pH of 6.23. I was, also surprised on how to calibrate a pH meter. Furthermore, Josh told me that there was a pH meter for the soil that Matt had in his room. This meter gave a reading of 7 and the calibrated meter gave a reading of 6.23. On the other hand, the soil needed to be slightly acidic for growing conditions. Thus, the top row would have only DI water and the bottom row would have regular faucet water. I, also, trained newbie intern Alex on my procedure to prepare media and sampling technique used to obtain bacteria on the made contact plates with TSA.

Figure 1. The pots are set up just the same way as this previous pic, but there is a divider in the middle so the water I put in don't mix.