Crisis in room 215!

In conducting field work, I have learned that everything you plan will probably have to be altered in some way in order to account for the unknowns that occur in the field! Lab work apparently is not void of these alterations and mishaps, as this is yet another example of research not going as planned!

Apparently, all the moisture from my first germination trial run is “too taxing” on the new growth chamber I am using. On Monday (yesterday), I came in to check whether the contraptions that we constructed in order to keep the samaras moist had actually worked over the weekend. The temperature on the growth chamber was at 5.9°C, when it was supposed to be at the set temperature of 5°C. I thought perhaps it was simply within the fluctuation range of the machine, but when I came in today (Tuesday) to check on it the temperature was all the way up to 6.9°C, which seemed unacceptable since what I wanted it to be set for was 5°C. We called the company and that’s what they told us, I have too much moisture in the chamber for the current cycle of the fans. Therefore, I had to remove my experiments in order for all the ice to melt from the fans and then reset the fans to cycle between cool and defrost faster so that it can keep up better. It put a slight kink in my experiment, but I was able to temporarily move my experiments to the older growth chamber until tomorrow when we can readjust the new one. We also thought it best if we reassign this trial to be the 7°C trial instead of the 5°C trial, because the temperature seemed to range closer to 7°C than it did 5°C. Oh the woes of research…and I thought lab work would run much smoother than field work!

On the plus side however, the contraptions that were designed to keep the germination paper moist for longer so as to reduce the frequency needed for watering the samaras seemed to work like a charm. I finished assembling all the experiments on Friday and when I checked on Monday they were still very moist! At least that seems successful thus far!