Week 1: Lab Tour

Welcome back to my blog, and thank you for joining me!

In this first week, I confirmed my placement at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and focused on constructing the layout for plant groups that will grow during my internship.

As the Lab itself contains up to nine plant-growth environments, including greenhouses, CO2 chambers, and incubators, selecting the ideal conditions for alfalfa growth took priority before germinating our seeds. Therefore, early on in the week, I coordinated with Prof. Dave Jackson of the Jackson Lab to predict possible formations for growing Martian, terrestrial, and project control groups.

According to previous agricultural studies, alfalfa grows most efficiently at approximately 70 degrees Fahrenheit (or room temperature). Since the CO2 chambers and incubators were needed to accommodate plants of more fragile temperature ranges, Prof. Jackson agreed to place the alfalfa in CSHL’s outdoor greenhouses. Because the goal of this project is to determine the viability of bacteria fertilizers on Martian soil, the results are dependent on comparisons between my alfalfa’s survival in Martian and Earth soil; this meant that I had to organize the flats in a way that would accurately address each factor I was concerned about.

I decided to test my hypothesis using four factors: the presence of alfalfa, ammonium nitrate, Azospirillum bacteria, and type of soil (Mars/Earth). After establishing at least two positive and negative controls each, and four total experimental groups, my flat prototype was prepared and compiled into Figure 2. The chart will be referenced during the final plant-growth trials in April.

Following my remote research, I traveled to Cold Spring Harbor in Long Island to tour the lab and plant informal testing groups. The Jackson Lab specializes primarily in plant biology and genetic engineering, so I learned about some of their research that increased the seed/kernel yields of corn from ~16 rows to 20-24 rows. Prof. Jackson and my assigned Lab mentor Matias Gleason also familiarized me with the resources around the facility, including growth chambers and lab desks (Figures 3 & 4). Finally, I planted trial seeds in 4 flats (Figure 5) using the two different soil types of the lab, Arabidopsis and Maize, in order to determine the Earth soil that we will use for final tests. The trays were laid in Greenhouses B & A and will continue to be monitored by greenhouse staff (Figure 1).

After spring break, I hope to test concentrations of Azospirillum bacteria on the plants and shadow Matias in his PhD research labs. See you next week!