Celebration of the harvest time and the cornucopia

For the last hour of the last class, the students made a cornucopia. We studied the Greek mythological origin of the cornucopia, Latin for horn of plenty, that is used traditionally for harvest celebrations like Thanksgiving. We discussed the development of our culture from hunter-gathers to farmer to industrialized agriculture. Most of the plants we eat today are not natural meaning no human intervention. Human intervention has hand picked the mutants most beneficial to us and crossbred them to give us the market food we have today. Mankind exists in a symbiotic relationship with plant, and when they harvest we celebrate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K_I51E6AKM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4_Vl8VR70&list=PL418488781D0784E0

Harvest time: counting the seeds to determine crop yield.

Here a student is counting her seed yield, 220 seeds. Each student started out with eight plants, and thus 220 divided by 8 is a 27.5 times increase. The student observed that plant multiply it population by 27.5 in one generation. We noticed that even on this day 42, some of the seeds were still green. Some of the pods could have used more time to mature.

Week 6 of the plant life cycle, end of class course, and time to harvest the seeds.

It is week 6 in the fast plant life cycle and time to harvest the seeds. The plant had been trimmed to promote drying. The seed is mature if it contains a brown coating. The seeds were harvested by rolling the seed pods between the finger tips. The eight plants produced approximately 220 seeds or a 30 fold yield. The seed were stored in a dry container.

Raw peanut used to study part of a plant embryo

Raw peanuts were used for dissection and the identification of the plant embryo part. It is easy to see the epicotyl embryo leaves.

Week 5 in the fast plant life cycle and the embryogenesis is reaching maturity

It is week 5 in the life cycle of the fast plant and the embryogenesis is reaching maturity as indicated by the browning of the seed pods. Water has been removed from the planter and we expect to harvest the seeds from the dry seed pods during the next and last class. Note the microscopes used to study the dissected embryos.

Pollinated versus unpollinated seed pods. How to tell the difference.

Week 5: How can you tell if the flower was pollinated or not? The pollinated seed pods (pictures on the left) are significantly longer and bigger than the unpollinated seed pods (pictures on the right). The pictures on the bottom row are opened seed pods. Inside the pollinated seed pod on the lower left is the maturing embryos. Inside the unpollinated seed pod on the lower right is the unfertilized ovules that never started growing.

USB digital microscope for examining the Fast Plant

This is one of the best student USB microscope systems for about $100, in my opinion and I tried a half dozen. It consists of a Celestron 5 MP USB microscope ($80) and an Aven 26700-311 Digital Microscope Universal Stand ($42). The microscope comes with it own base, but the Aven was preferred because it has X-Y adjustability and backlighting. The power is 20X to 200X allows one to see most of the single cell microorganisms. The cost is $122. It comes with software and can can provide picture as large as 2592 x 1944 pixel. This microscope was used to examine the fast plant.

The role of the honey bee in the pollination of plants and production of honey

The students made a model of a bee out of Styrofoam while discussing the role of the bee in flower pollination. Why did flowers evolve to have bright colors, sweet nectar, and fragrance. What advantage did that give the flower. What benefit did the bee get from the flower. What would happen to flowers if bees died off. Colony Collapse Disorder is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear. https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNWAiWBup2Q

Pollinated versus unpollinated flower pistils

This picture illustrates the difference between pollinated and unpollinated pistil. The pistil turns into a seed pod, if pollinated. The pollinated pistil becomes enlarged. The blue circle marks 5 unpollinated flowers. The red circle marks 3 pollinated flowers. The pollinated pistils become enlarged and elongated. The longest seed pod in the red circle also shows the outline of the growing seed inside the pod. So in time, it becomes obvious which flowers got pollinated and which didn’t.

From flower blossom to seed pod. How efficient was the hand pollination?

So how efficient was hand pollinating the flowers? To the left are the blossoms and to the right are the later seed pods. The blue arrow points out the small seed pods that did not get fertilized. The green arrow points to a fertilized pod. It appears that efficiency could be improved if the pollination process started sooner, when the first blossoms appear. If yellow pollen can be collected, then the flowers can be pollinated. About half of the flowers got pollinated in this experiment.

Student make a model of the Fast Plant flower.

It can be difficult to teach the skill of hand pollinating flowers to students. Making a model of the flower to identify the parts of a flower helps teach the concept. The students can then be shown where the pollen is collected and where it needs to be placed for fertilization using the model.

How to hand pollinate Petite Wisonsin Fast Plant flowers

The fast plant was hand pollinated by collecting pollen on the end of a Q-tip from the stamen on one stalk and using that pollen covered Q-tip to touch the tips of all the stigmas on all the other stalks. The only exception is that one can not cross pollinate to the same stalk. To pollinate the stalk that was used to collect the original pollen, pollen was collect from a different stalk with a fresh Q-tip and used to touch the tips of the original stalk.

How to collect pollen from the Petite Fast Plant flower video

Pollen was collected from the flower anthers using a Q-tip. A hard flat object, knife blade for example, was placed behind an the Anther of a flower and the Q-tip was pressed against both of them. The process was repeated up and down the same plant stalk until the Q-tip became yellowed. The yellowed Q-tip was used to touch to the ends of Stigma on all the other stalks.

Week 3 in the Fast Plant life cycle, the plants are blossoming.

This is a picture of the Petite Hybrid Fast Plant within the light box. This breed was a much better than the Standard hybrid that grew too high to the top of the box. The Standard Plant grew to the top of the box where the light radiation did not uniformly cover the plant. The Petite plant fit perfectly under the lamp. However, this dwarfs version also produced a smaller blossom that was harder to hand pollinate. The blossoms were smaller than the size of a dime, but it was manageable.

Why the Wisconsin Fast Plant was Chosen for Studying Botany

1) The plant completes its life cycle in 6 weeks and fits into a 6 week course.

2) It was intelligently developed by Prof. Paul William crossbreeding 1000s of plants.

3) It has a large library of reference materials for teaching.

4) It is a plant chosen by teachers nationwide.

5) The experiment can be done at home on a benchtop.

Give Credit where Credit is Due

Fast Plants® were developed by Professor Emeritus Paul H. Williams, in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After about 20 years of planting, growing, and selecting, his breeding process had reduced a 6-month life cycle to 5 weeks that has been used by K-16 teachers around the world for nearly 30 years as an educational model-organism.

experts.news.wisc.edu/experts/paul-Williams

fastplants.org/origin/

The Fast Plant Seed

These are Fast Plant seeds are small seeds and average about 0.2 cm in length or less than 1/8. About 100 seeds can fit on top of a penny. The seeds have thin brown shell. These have been hand harvested out of a seed pod and stored in a jar. In nature, the seeds stay in seed pod until they germinate under the right conditions.

DNA in the Seed is like a Computer Chip that Contains all the Information Needed for a Movie.

Fast Plant seeds are like computer memory chips. Just at this computer memory chip contains enough information to play an entire movie on a computer screen, the small Fast Plant seeds contains enough information to tell the plant how to grow into a new plant and produce more seeds. The computer stores information on chips as electrical charges while the seed stores the information inside the seed as DNA code.

Starting the Fast Plant project.

There are two ways to start the project: 1) first make a continuous watering planter and plant the seeds and then make the light box a week later or 2) make the light box and then make the planter a week later. There is not enough time in one 2-hour class to do both. If the planter is made first, then the plant has to be kept under a lamp during until next class. A standard white light florescence bulb will work. Fast plant need both light and water all the time, day and night.

The Continuous Watering Planter.

This is the Fast Plant continuous watering planter made out of an empty 2-L soda bottle, a sponge, and potting soil. The label was removed from an empty 2-L soda bottle and the bottle was cut into two piece. The bottle was cut one inch below the point on the neck where the curve became straight wall. A sponge is cut into a square rectangle and inserted up the neck of the bottle. The top section of the cut bottle is filled with potting soil.