Friday 14 December 2012

Some early results

  The week's numbers are up on their respective pages.  Jake is pretty much dead.  Growth was seen in Bella and Rosie, whilst Tiny 1 has shrank.  Tiny group aren't doing well, which I suspect is due to the lack of direct sunlight.  Milo and Doodle have shoots of 2cm apiece, and those shoots are showing tiny leaves.  That Rosie has grown in the week since going outside is pretty awesome.  Fizz is turning very green at the tip.  It seems that maybe a purple shoot transplanted without roots to a sunny spot turns green to make the most of the Sun.  Any further growth by Fizz will require sugars made in the green parts of the plant.

  Bella has rotated.  Alas, stupid me didn't get a top-down photo of Bella and Jake at the start of the experiment, which means I can't now measure how many degrees Bella has rotated by.  I can show you the face-on pic from the start though, which shows Bella to be pointing a scant few degrees anticlockwise of the centre of the label.  Today Bella is pointing approx. 45º clockwise of the centre of the label.  That's a big difference.  Also, Bella has not gotten any straighter.

  What Bella's rotation means in the grand scheme of things is unclear.  If Jake hadn't died then I could say that, with cuttings of this species, under these conditions, heliotropism beats phototropism.  As it happens, this result is only borne out in 50% of my sample.  I cannot say what Jake might've done because Jake didn't do anything.  I can say that there is an isolated instance where, with cuttings of this species under these conditions, heliotropism has beaten phototropism; but I cannot claim evidence of a general tendency within R. fruticosus without further evidence.  The behaviour of Bella is exciting though, as it suggests that I'm fishing where the fish are.  I guess we know the shape of Rubus 4...

I'm going to throw some pictures at you now.
Bella


Milo

Doodle

Tiny Group

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