Plantbreeding@home Update #2: Sowing the seeds
All kids agree, Playing with dirt is fun!
Since yesterday, I am running a slight cold, with my fever ranging from 37 to 38 C. So, today I started my day with gardening which is scientifically proven to be the best method to fight any sickness! And not just any gardening!
As I told you a few days ago, I received my seeds for the steemit exclusive, "plantbreeding@home" experiment, organized by @dysprosium. I will leave more info about the experiment at the end of the post in case you want to learn more or maybe even participate!
So, I woke up at 8 o clock, headed to a place I call the "storage room", looks more like a dump actually, and picked about 20 seedling pots:
And then I started filling them up with soil, duh:
By the way, they say real men don't use gardening gloves:
Wish I was a real man though. The sad reality is that I am just a poor Greek that can't afford gardening gloves. So make sure to upvote this post at 100 %! I promise, I will only buy beers and drugs XD
It took me about 15 minutes to fill enough pots to fill this big plastic beer box thing that I don't know how is called in english:
At this point thanks to my fever I was exhausted so I went upstairs, took a nap for half an hour and returned.
I headed down again as it was time to start planting the seeds. We are using two types of seeds for the Plantbreeding@home experiment. A variety that produces super small and super chilly peppers and a small sweet bell pepper. I started with the latter and decided to place one seed per pot.
Normally, I would go for 3-4 seeds per pot to save time but since this is gonna be a science experiment we are required to take scientific measurements and stuff. One seed per pot will make things like calculating germination percentage and shit so much easier. Plus, transplantation will also be so much easier as I won't have to break the root ball.
Before starting, I went out and bought a greek Frappe to help me with my cold since it has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties. Again, 100 % scientifically proven, no BS!
So, I started by making a small hole in each pot, placed the seed, covered it with soil, watered it and placed a whole toothpick next to each of them:
8 pots, for 8 seeds :)
At this point my dog was getting really curious and wanted to eat and pee everything so I chained him. That will teach him:
His response was "fuck you human, I will just chill in the sun":
And then it was time for the other variety. God... these seeds were truly tiny:
They were so small that the best way I found to plant them was to just water the pots first and gently push them inside. And by push, I mean barely touch them. The one you see in the photo above was actually the biggest one!
11 pots, for 11 seeds :)
This time I used a toothpick broken in half to distinguish them from variety no.1.
At this point I was starting to get cold and dizzy again but there were some more pots with no occupants inside :(
So, I grabbed some luffa seeds:
Now, these seeds are big and don't need much care. Water and love is more than enough! And they are not part of the experiment so I don't care about doing everything perfect. So, I just watered the remaining pots and pushed 3-4 of them per pot:
And now all pots were ready and happy :D
The nights are still a bit cold here in my small corner of Greece but the days are at 20 C or more, so I will be moving the pots indoors after 7-8:00 pm and get them outdoors when I wake up, around 7 o clock.
And that's pretty much my update #2 for Plantbreeding@home. I hope @dysprosium is happy with my work. I know I am :D
And to paraphrase a steemit friend...
~ Beer and out!
What Is PlantBreeding@home?
PlantBreeding@home is a community project run on Steemit to enable everyone willing to participate in the creation of a new plant variety. @dysprosium is the one who came up with the idea, inspired by Gridcoin which awards people cryptocoins (gridcoins) for running BOINC on their computers.
After some thinking, it was decided that for the first round of Plantbreeding@home the participants will grow (or at least try) a new pepper variety, one that is small and sweet.
@dysprosium is also kind enough to offer steem and gridcoins to the people participating in the project if they successfully follow all his instruction :D
Here's the first parent, a super small pepper with a flavor that is more intense than a typical Jalapeno. The fruits are barely 1 cm long. The chilliness is something we hope to remove:
And here's the second parent, a sweet variety producing small bell peppers:
Hopefully, we will end up with a variety that is small and sweet. Will we succeed? Time will tell :)
And that's pretty much the summary for the plantbreeding@home. For even more info, just read the official updates by @dysprosium:
- Plant breeding with the Gridcoin-Community: Project "plantbreeding@home"
- plantbreeding@home #1 - The Beginning
- plantbreeding@home #2 - We will breed peppers!
- plantbreeding@home #3 - it is decided!
- plantbreeding@home #4 - Meet the parents!
- plantbreeding@home #5 - Small setbacks
- plantbreeding@home #6 - Let's grow!
- plantbreeding@home #7 Spring is here, spring is heeeeere!
Feel free to contact @dysprosium if you want to participate in the experiment!
P.S: Fuck you @jamezz :)
Good work, dear Trumpman!
I am very happy with your work. :) It turns out, we are "sick-buddies" as well; I have stayed at home the whole week. And thanks a lot for keeping on promoting the project! :)
Can you consider the option of sending seeds to Russia? Where can I read the rules?
Dear @nsbachurin,
of course! It could take some time to check for Import-Export regulations, but if you are patient, this should be no problem. You can find everything to the project in the posts trumpman kindly linked. :) In short: To register, send an email with nickname, name and adress to [email protected] . I will keep your data private and will not use it for anything else! I would be glad to have you as an participant!
Dysprosium
Thanks for the invitation.
I sent you a letter!
Just curious, how many participants did you get? :D
Around 20, which is really nice for the first round. It is very good if we can build a big community until round 3, where we need to plant as many plants as possible. In round 1 we will cross, in round 2 we should have a pretty uniform first genereation(F1) and in the third round it will all start to split again. When it splits (e.g. the genes into different combinations), it will get really interesting, and the more plants we have, the more interesting it gets! I promise I will hurry up with the crossing-science post! ;) But I am very happy if we together can gather more people, the more, the better! :)
hopefully by round 2 we will have even more people and this thing becomes huge :D Are all participants here on steemit? And how many years you think it would take for the project to finish ?
Not all participants are here on steemit, but most of them are. :)
The second question is a good one. To really have a stable line after selection, it will take a few years, depending how different the plants will look like. But this is only the long term goal; we can achieve so much more already in the meantime!
If the first crossing, which we will perform this very first year, results in a nice F1, this is already a huge success. We would have a variety which is genetically unstable, that is true, but as we know the parents we can always recreate the crossing. F1s often perform really well, but unless we crossed it, it is hard to say what "really well" means in our case. :P
So the first possible "finish" is already next year in round 2. Originally I wanted to start with round 2, but as you know my plants died in winter before I could cross them.
What we can achieve next is a relatively stable selection for our desired traits, this can be done, again depending on how heavily our traits separate - in maybe 4-5 generations. I do not expect a fully stable line in less than 8-15 generations, if I am honest. At some point I might look into possibilities to grow more generations per year (maybe a greenhouse with artificial light, or distribution in the northern and southern hemisphere), as two generations per year would speed up the breeding significantly!
At the end, I would like a few things to happen. if we get a nice F1 we can consider registering it already and make it an "official variety". Also at the end of our breeding, once our line is stable again, I would like to register it as well. Also, at the end of the project, we could think about a scientific publication. In all these cases, I would include the names of everyone who helped along the way, with focus on the people who were involved the most! In the meantime, it is "just" free seeds for participants and nice homegrown peppers and experience. ;)
You are not in the greenhouse sprouting seeds?
No, haven't made one yet!
I bought ready-made greenhouses (set of 4 pieces) in the Liddle store. They are very comfortable. I in them now sprout seeds.
This post was upvoted by Steemgridcoin with the aim of promoting discussions surrounding Gridcoin and science.
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Have a nice day. :)
you are a good bot!
Actually he does it manually ;)
Then, good human I guess 😂😂
Yeah I have to. 1. I suck at coding and 2. I dont want to upvote things that are not scientific or related to gridcoin
Wraios ! Vale kai kanena provataki omws re file, otan erthoume panw mono me laxanika tha ti bgaloume ???
Έχει προβατακια αλλά δε θα βρεις μέχρι το καλοκαίρι. Έρχεται Πάσχα..καταλαβαίνεις ..
Kala sou re ! kala sou tha ferw egw apo athens ! :P Sti valitsa !
Καλημέρα καλή Βδομάδα,περαστικά...
Ωριαίες οι πιπιριτσες... έκανες εξαιρετική δουλειά..
Και το ps ολα τα λευτα...είναι
Sayonara @trumpman! Sayonara!!!
He certainly is mad!
It would be better to take care of health.
hehe, you didn't get the joke :P
By sayonara she is referring to the sandals I am wearing. It's an insiders joke (because i tend to wear them even on winter )
Sayonara=sandals in greek
Our winter "sandals" became spring "sandals" )))
lol XD
What's the temperature these days there ?
At night -6C, in the afternoon -1C.
In the daytime in the greenhouse + 20C, but this is only in the afternoon.
We are waiting for heat at Easter.
I decided that @ruth-girl said goodbye to you in Japanese.
In any case, this is not an excuse to kill yourself. Get well!
LOL!!! No, trumpman already explained what sayonara means in Greek, so I did not tell him goodbye :P
Difficulties of translation. Force Majeure. )))
Sayonara is a must have accessory when gardening! (and hiking!)
Especially montain climbing! :P
I will be following your updates on this. I would consider the project but not a fan of peppers. Good luck with this project and feel better!
I am not a fan either :D Actually, I don't eat most of the stuff I grow! But I love the process of growing something from seed to fruit and of course giving the food I make to my loved ones :) If you change your mind contact @dysprosium :)
Faking awesome post. Hilarious. Except for all the crying about being sick. But perastika sou.
So the experiment is for more new pepper plants? And the pepper plants at the bottom are yours?
Should I just read all the links next time I’m taking a hess truck out for a spin?
Glad I made you laugh, I enjoyed this post too :P The plants in the bottoms are the two varieties we are trying to cross breeds and they belong to @dysprosium. Do you do any gardening ? Maybe you want to participate in the experiment too ? :D
"P.S.: I’m taking a hess truck out for a spin?"
I have no idea what that means!
I do a bit of gardening. Maybe I’ll look into it... which link should I read or you can just explain to me.
hesimo. google: Hess truck. [Grika]‘Murica[n]. And see below for perfect unintentional googling for this meaning:
ok, now i get it :P
Just go to @dysprosium's profile and tell him you want to take part in the plantbreeding experiment :D
Did you leave the seeds in the sun for a while? Are you sure that they do not jump? )))
Yeah, they were on the sun for many hours. Thank god, no jumping! I would have to replant them if they did XD
By the way since you like gardening too (I think!) why don't you participate in the experiment too ? :D
Thanks for the invitation. Winter decided to stay in my homeland this year. I hope that in a month the night temperatures will allow me to plant the seedlings in the greenhouse. So far, my plantations are on the windowsill.
Well it will take about a month I guess until @dysprosium sends you the seeds so the timing is perfect, haha!
Let's try.
you are really a creative farmer
I am 😎