Week 4- Bacterial Blight, Ergot, and Cruciferous Transplants

There was a lot going on during week 4! One of the main projects we worked on was a bacteria blight assay.

These carrots were infected with the bacteria in the greenhouse so that their growth wouldn’t be influenced by outside factors.

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One of the visible effects of the blight is the presence of yellowed, unhealthy leaves…

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Additional visible cues of bacterial blight are pockets of bacterial goo…

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Kind of hard to see, but look near to where the small shoot is extending from the plant.

We chopped off the tops of the carrots and cut up the flowers, stem, and leaves.

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We then soaked the chopped carrot medley in phosphate buffer to allow the bacteria to transfer from the plant to the buffer, which we then plated onto petri dishes.

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The carrots were then drained from the buffer and dried. The dried leftovers were weighed. Once we get the bacteria information from the petri dishes, we’ll be able to see how much bacteria there is per gram of carrot folliage.

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The second project was scoring ergot, which meant counting the number of sclerotia (the infected seed heads) caused by ergot. A couple of weeks ago, I harvested some Kentucky Blue Grass from one of the experimental fields that had been inoculated with the ergot. There were twelve different trials being tested to see which ones would best combat the ergot. These twelve trials were each tested in four different sections of the plot, making a total of forty-eight sampling bags. When picking the blue grass, I took ten handfuls down one side of the row and ten down the other, to make for an even sampling.

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First step, dump it out!

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Spread out the grass evenly…

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Then you randomly choose a seed head without looking.

This seed head is looking healthy!

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These two each have multiple sclerotia on them. The sclerotium are the black parts of the seed head.

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I tested 100 stalks per bag. For each bag, I wrote down how many stalks were infected and how many seed heads on each stalk were infected. This information will be used to see which trial (type of blue grass) combats ergot the best.

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One of the other projects we worked on was continuing the cruciferous plant project. This is what they looked like after planting them

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Tiny forests of micro-mustard, arugula, and broccoli!

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We transplanted five to six plants per pot, and six pots per flat.

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When we transplanted them, their chance of survival was looking slim. However, they’ve continued to grow stronger and are now looking like healthy little plants again!

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