The Experiment - last day, the day of reckoning

The moral of the story is to not have a family crisis when in the midst of important scientific research.

So... if you don't give plants any water at all for several weeks and leave them in the hot sun... they die! wow. groundbreaking stuff.

Here are the links to what this experiment was all about...
Is Microwaved water safe?
The Experiment - day 1
The Experiment - day 7
The Experiment - day 15
The Experiment - day 23
The Experiment - day 32
The Experiment - day 33
The Experiment - day 41
The Experiment - day 48
Read more...

The Experiment - day 48

Well, still no difference between the pottles. This is looking more and more like a 'nil result' experiment. ah well. At least I'll be able to use my microwave happily.

Here are the links to what this experiment is all about...
Is Microwaved water safe?
The Experiment - day 1
The Experiment - day 7
The Experiment - day 15
The Experiment - day 23
The Experiment - day 32
The Experiment - day 33
The Experiment - day 41
Read more...

The Experiment - day 41

Well, here they are, a week after I began watering them with the different waters. No discernible differences as yet - they all look pretty healthy to me. So that's a bit encouraging and a bit disappointing. Part of me was secretly thinking that this experiment would be my ticket to 15 seconds of internet fame. Still, there is hope. The experiment has another few weeks to run...

Is Microwaved water safe?
The Experiment - day 1
The Experiment - day 7
The Experiment - day 15
The Experiment - day 23
The Experiment - day 32
The Experiment - day 33 Read more...

The Experiment - day 33

Merl duly concealed the identities of the water last night and I added water to the drip tray of each pottle this morning.

Top left = A
Top right = B
Bottom left = C
Bottom right = D

So I'll refer to each pottle by their letter from now on.

I'm very curious now to see what will happen as the weeks progress...

Here are the links to what this experiment is all about...
Is Microwaved water safe?
The Experiment - day 1
The Experiment - day 7
The Experiment - day 15
The Experiment - day 23
The Experiment - day 32 Read more...

The Experiment - day 32

"What Experiment?" I hear you ask. The links at the bottom of the post will see you right.

Well, here is what my little seedling pottles look like this evening. Lovely and lush, a little overcrowded, but that's okay - I want a good number of plants in each pottle to give a more reliable result.
I have not moved their positions around - so the one that is "top left" has always been "top left" and shall stay that way for the next 4 to 6 weeks, and ditto for the other three pottles.



On Tuesday I set up the different water treatments but have been slack about blogging (while being un-slack about parenting), so here goes now.
As you can see, I have used 4 more-or-less identical jars (Chunky Marmalade for those with insatiable curiosity about such things). There may be minor differences in the amount of scratching each label has received but I have not paid much attention to that. Right this second, each lid has got a label on it identifying which water is in the jar, but when Merl gets home from being a responsible youth group leader (they're playing Laser Force, the lucky dog) I'll get him to label them A,B,C,D so that I won't know which plant is receiving which treatment. The jars and lids were washed in the dishwasher all at the same time.
Details of the treatments are;

1. Plain tap water - from the cold tap after it was running for a bit
2. Boiled in the electric jug - start with cold tap water as above, boil it, let the jug turn itself off, let the water cool to lukewarm before pouring it into the jar. We have a stainless steel jug with a concealed element.
3. Microwaved in pyrex - start with cold tap water as above, fill a pyrex measuring jug, use the "Auto reheat" function on the microwave and repeat the 'reheating' until the water is properly boiling. Stir cautiously with a stainless steel teaspoon each time the microwave beeps or stops (but not the last stop - just leave it - microwave-boiled stuff can be extremely hot). Leave the jug in the microwave until lukewarm then pour water into jar.
4. Microwaved in plastic - as with pyrex but using a 'microwave safe' plastic container from the last time we had Indian takeaways.

So here we are, all systems are 'go'. And now... only time will tell.

Here are the links to what this experiment is all about...
Is Microwaved water safe?
The Experiment - day 1
The Experiment - day 7
The Experiment - day 15
The Experiment - day 23 Read more...

The Experiment - day 23

This is how the seedings look today. I'm thinking that I'll grow them for another week and then start feeding them the differently treated waters.

As you can see, there's a mix of plant types coming up. Each pottle was sown randomly from what I plucked from the mixed seed packet. They're still mostly at the seed-leaf stage but they're so closely sown that they might run out of room if I leave them too much longer.

The Experiment - day 15
The Experiment - day 7
The Experiment - day 1
Is Microwaved water safe? Read more...

The Experiment - day 15

Checked my wee seedling pottles again today. They are looking good. Lots of germination of a variety of plants in all the pottles. They're still at the seed-leaf stage so I'll let them grow another week or so before using the different types of water on them.

Have had a thought about the water treatments too. I'll get Merl to mix them up for me so I don't know which water is which - just that they're A, B, C, and D. Must remember to get him to write it down too, otherwise it'll be a complete and utter waste of time.

The Experiment - day 7
The Experiment - day 1
Is Microwaved Water Safe? Read more...

The Experiment - day 7

What with everything that's been going on in the last few days (vomiting children and parents, big family meeting about Mum's health - more on this in the next post - my brother in town... not to mention a stack of good books from the library) I have rather neglected to look at my little plant pots by the back door. Also, the weather has been filthy the last couple of days so I wasn't up to lingering outside in the cold drizzle.

Still, pathetic excuses aside, I noticed 'my experiment' on the way to the compost heap this morning and on closer inspection discovered that some germination has happened! yay! So that's exciting. I raised the glass off the pots and angled it in front of them - like a cold-frame I guess, but open to the elements from the side. There will be more sprouts to come, since this is a mixed lot of seeds and they'll all have different germination times, but it's nice to know that they're growing. Read more...

The Experiment - day 1

For the background to this experiment, see here

Miss 3 is at kindy, the baby is napping, dinner is in the crock-pot, all seems quiet... so I took the opportunity to set up the four seed pottles.

I used Yates Seed Raising Mix as the potting mix, Mesclun Original Mixed Species from Kings Seeds, and followed the instructions on the back of the potting mix bag.

The pottles were filled to near the top with potting mix, then firmed down. I watered each pottle with tap water (I ran the tap for 20 seconds before collecting water to minimise metal leaching from the plumbing - I will do this every time I get water but won't mention it again). Then I sprinkled seeds into each pottle, trying to keep each one evenly covered and about the same as each other. They are quite densely sown. I covered the seeds with a light covering of potting mix, placed the pottles in their drip trays (old takeaway containers), put them in a sunnyish spot and covered them with a plate of glass (an old car window I found under the house).

So we shall see. Read more...

Is Microwaved Water Safe?

A good question, I thought. I have been bothered by this thought since seeing this website. Basically, a school student fed two plants some water - one with water which had been microwaved and one with water that had been boiled on the stove. Both lots of water were cool before she watered the plants. After being watered like this for a couple of weeks, the 'microwave water' plant died.

Yep, died.

Now a plant can die for all sorts of reasons, so before abandoning my beloved microwave I have decided to check it out myself. I figure that with my (somewhat rusty) background in scientific endeavour (I have an MSc) I should be able to design an experiment that will at least indicate whether there is any difference between microwaved water and other water. Personally I hope not, because I love my microwave for defrosting stuff, and reheating stuff, and melting stuff... And the husband in the family loves to make our daily porridge in it.

So. The basic plan is;

Hypothesis
Plants watered with differently treated water will thrive, regardless of the treatment that the water has received.

Materials
1 new packet of Mesclun Mix seeds
4 plant pottles with separate drip trays, all washed and rinsed in municipal supply water
1 new bag of 'seed raising' potting mix
municipal supply water
microwave
stainless steel kettle
pyrex jug
'microwave safe' plastic container

Method
OK, I'm still thinking about this, but I'll probably grow all the seeds to the first true leaf stage on normal tap water and then change their water supply. The four groups will be 'normal' (unheated) water, water microwave boiled then cooled in a 'microwave safe' plastic takeaways container, water microwave boiled then cooled in a pyrex jug, and water boiled then cooled in an ordinary stainless steel electric jug (element concealed, as it happens).

It's spring in this part of the world, so just the right time for sprouting seeds and all that fun stuff Read more...