I'm primarily using it as a record of the work I'll be doing this summer, but there be life details and commentary as well. I haven't been in very close contact with remote friends and family lately, so if anyone is curious about what I'm up to, this should help.
So this is what I did today:
I moved the sulfuric acid to Y2E2 for use tomorrow. I also moved the macronutrient chemical jars to the greenhouse and cleaned the rotary mixer and 10 maize pots to use for testing the nutrient solutions. I tried to use the mixer to make a 75% sand 25% vermiculite medium, however the density difference between the sand and the vermiculite made this very inefficient. The rotation caused the very light vermiculite to accumulate as a layer atop the heavier sand rather than mixing :-/ From now on I am just going to mix the sand and vermiculite by hand in a five gallon bucket.
I discovered that I need to buy some screen to cut up and place in the bottom of the pots to keep the sand from running out as well. Dave suggested felt would also work, maybe better for sand-retention purposes, but felt will also accumulate salts. I'm going to try a double layer of screen and see how that works.
Before I left the greenhouse I did the calculations to make the high, medium and low macronutrient solutions for testing (starting tomorrow).
[Nutrient] Stock PO4 Stock NO3 Dillution [PO4] [NO3]
H 60 mM 100 mM 1% .6 mM 1 mM
M 6 mM 10 mM 1% .06 mM .1 mM
L 1.2 mM 2 mM 1% .012 mM .02 mM
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