Welcome back! We’re covering our second week update in this video, and it’s been very busy!
Important note before the update: we still have 16 unnamed plants! Comment below what you would name one of our plants and we’ll randomly assign it, or check out our “buy me a coffee” page about naming a specific plant and getting an adoption certificate
Most of the pots have sprouted this week, though there are still two that haven’t. I have reseeded these in the hopes they can catch up, but it might be too late for them if they don’t spring up in the next couple of days.
We also got a new humidistat/thermostat. I was getting frustrated with how much I had to baby the humidifier to stop it from becoming too humid or too dry, so this will be a huge help in controlling it. The thermostat function will be useful later in the summer when our place heats up a lot, but right now our temperatures stay in-range and pretty stable as our forced-air heating is keeping air moving and somewhat evenly warmed throughout the house.
We also had an interesting development with some green growth on some of our pots. This is likely just algae and not a big deal, but what is odd is that it is only occurring in the simulant pots that have had fungal inoculant (LHS_F#, LHS_MF#) and none of the other ones. This could be an indication of better water retention because of the fungal inoculant leading to the soil being moist enough to support algae, but that would be a pretty quick impact on the soil if so. We’ll continue monitoring it, and we took a sample we’re going to take a look at later. If you ever have algae in your soil, check if you are overwatering and how wet your soil is. Algae can choke out plants and attract pests, but it’s pretty easily dealt with compared to other things like pests or mold.
As our seedlings started showing large enough true leaves, we’ve done some thinning out. Waiting until true leaves develop is a good way to make sure you’re picking good plants to keep, as the seed or baby leaves can often be supported entirely from the nutrients in the seed and doesn’t indicate a plant is actually going to be more robust than another. to restart with a new pot a week in.
I'm feeling optimistic about the chances of these tomatoes to successfully grow in the lunar highlands simulant!
If you want to name one of the plants, leave a comment below and we’ll assign it to one! If you’d like to name a specific plant and get an adoption certificate, check out our Buy Me a Coffee page: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/rainbird/e/21798
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Preparing for this experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W0csI-fUn4
Check out our instagram! https://www.instagram.com/rainbirddelalune/
Plant the Moon Challenge (#plantthemoonchallenge): https://plantthemoon.com/
Lunar Highlands Simulant (LHS-1) fact sheet: https://sciences.ucf.edu/class/simulant_lunarhighlands/
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