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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 30, 2018 22:15:52 GMT -5
These heat pipes, used for cooling a root cellar, would be the exact same technology as what is used in the far north to keep the permafrost frozen around buildings, or pipelines. I'm thinking 1" to 1.5" diameter piping would be more than adequate for a root cellar. Probably with fins on top to enhance heat exchange. Then whenever the outside temperature was colder than the ground, or inside of the cellar, the pipes would be pulling heat up and out, and releasing it into the air. For example: Two-phase Musing
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 28, 2018 23:47:51 GMT -5
The Common X Runner hybrids that I am growing have been flowering for a month or more. They finally started setting seeds this week. Weather turned decidedly cooler. And I've been triggering flowers when I'm in the patch.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 28, 2018 9:24:09 GMT -5
Good project William:
If the difficulty of using S peruvianum in interspecies hybrids is due to seed size, then S pennellii seeds are a close match.
I planted one S habrochaites plant inside the S peruvianum patch last year. It flowered but did not set fruits.
I planted one S pennellii plant in the mixed species crossing block this year. It is supposedly self-incompatible, but set lots of seeds. Most likely pollen donors were selfing, S peruvianum, or interspecies crosses: [domestic X pennellii], [domestic X habrochaites]. Less likely sources were pimpinelifolium, cheesmanae, habrochaites, corneliomulleri. There were other pennellii plants growing in the greenhouse. I don't know what the likelihood is of pollen exchange from inside the greenhouse.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 24, 2018 22:45:41 GMT -5
I took slips from the two seediest sweet potatoes and brought them inside today. Our first fall frost is typically the first clear night after the first rainstorm in September, so that's coming right up. Can't predict the future, so I figured that I might as well be preemptive.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 23, 2018 19:42:31 GMT -5
You could probably pick a flowering vine, put it in water and bring it in if frost threatens. That might get you a few more seeds for next year. Most of the seeds I harvested last year were done in that manner. I dug the plants a few days before frost. Stuffed any plants with immature seed pods into a bucket of water. Forgot about them in the greenhouse. Remembered them once in a while, and picked seed pods. My sweet potato seeds were started in coconut coir. Heated to 85 F for 16 hours per day. Cooling to 65 F at night. Under florescent lighting. I have already collected 5 seeds. (Technically 6, but the last one had such a thin shell that it disintegrated during threshing.)
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 20, 2018 1:16:06 GMT -5
My first chicks hatched this week. Incubators are not my style, so a broody hen raised them. I don't think I have the community organizational skills to turn them into a local landrace. Four flocks provided eggs to the hen, including Icelandics, Silkies, and a couple of mixed breed flocks. Some of the parents:
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 19, 2018 15:11:15 GMT -5
Going the other way to 3/4 wild- BC1 hasn't done anything exciting for me yet. Maybe a fruit or two. Looks like habrochaites so far- I only got hab type leaves. This summer I gave plants to a bunch of neighbors which were one S habrochaites, one F2:[domestic X pennellii], and one F2:[domestic X habrochaites]. I inspected one of those plantings this week. The pennellii cross died. The flowers don't show any bruising like they get when bumblebees have been visiting. The domestic X habrochaites has an exerted stigma, but no fruit set, seeming to indicate that it is self-incompatible. I found two fruits on the S habrochaites plant. Perhaps a BC1? Perhaps a break-down of self-incompatibility? I harvested 7 fruits from a S pennellii plant that was grown away from other S pennellii, but with F2:[domestic x habrochaites] or F2:[domestic X pennellii], or S peruvianum, or S corneliomulleri as possible pollen donors. Guess that I'll check for seeds in a week or so. I'm likewise not finding many seeds in the inter-species hybrid fruits. Enough to continue the project, but not near as many as I had been hoping for, compared to the quantity of fruits that I have harvested. Fruits that I hand pollinated early in the season were much seedier than mid-season fruits that were allowed natural pollination. Nevertheless, I've been harvesting fruits and eating them! So I must feel like I have sufficient seed. The fruity and sweet flavors have been really pleasing to me!!!!!!!!!!! It's hard to leave them alone.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 19, 2018 0:49:23 GMT -5
What would remain to be seen is whether it is fixing nitrogen like the bacteria mentioned in the study. Hmm... I wonder if the nitrogen in the mucus is of a type and concentration that would show up in a soil test kit that can be bought at most any garden store?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 14, 2018 22:26:18 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse, I love the look of that bushy plant although it's a little on the small side for this time of year, don't you think? Ha! And that's one of the larger plants... Hee hee. I'll take what I can get, when I can get it... I'm hyped about 24 seed pods! Once I get reliably seedy plants, then I can fuss with leafiness and tuber productivity. The plants seem smaller this year than last. I planted them in a place that seems to not get as much water as last year's location. And this summer seems hotter to me. It's only about 3 weeks till the first fall frost. With seeds germinating in 3 days, I'd like to explore direct seeding as a possible technique. Editing to add: I found photos from last year. The plants were larger in mid-July last year than they are in mid-august this year.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 14, 2018 22:16:44 GMT -5
I usually give tomatoes about a week in fermentation before trying to rinse them, as opposed to the month some people here are suggesting They might ferment a month at my place, because I put them in an out of the way place so that I don't have to smell them. Then, since they are of of the way, and I am not smelling them, they just sit there, until one day I think, "Rats! I forgot all about the tomato seeds. I guess that I'd better do something with them." And even then, while going to the out-of-the-way-place, there are so many things to distract me from actually arriving at my destination, that they might sit there and ferment for another few days or weeks. I haven't noticed degradation in germination with long fermentation, so I don't worry about handling them in a timely manner. If I were really on the ball, I'd aim for a week.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 14, 2018 20:39:19 GMT -5
Most of my sweet potato plants are growing sprawling. One has an upright growth habit.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 14, 2018 16:26:52 GMT -5
I checked my sweet potatoes yesterday.
Among this year's seedlings, one plant had 15 seed pods. One plant had 6 seed pods. About 3 plants had one seed pod. I harvested the first seed, and managed to get it into a seed envelope a couple hours later. I'm sure that it's already lost in the seed stash.
When I planted, I put the most vigorous plants on one end of the row, and the least vigorous on the other. That has tended to continue. The clones I managed to save from last year are bigger plants than the seedlings, but are not flowering much.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 14, 2018 9:41:31 GMT -5
I felt bad that the f2 pennelli seed i shared had lots of gel gunk with it, but i didn't know how to fix that. Top priority was saving seed. Thanks. They got very widely disseminated and are now growing all over.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 14, 2018 0:53:56 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 14, 2018 0:48:27 GMT -5
For my own use on small lots of seeds, I love extracting tomato seeds with a blender. It's quick and easy. My blender tends to damage about 40% of the seeds so I can't do it for seeds that I sell, but for my own use and for gifted seeds it works well.
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