As had been mentioned in the previous blog post, Future Food expertise and extension is dedicated to working on things that we hadn’t done in Future Food exploration. In this expertise, we worked mainly wiring the power supply, which is one of the components of the automated system of the hydroponics system that we implemented. Once finish working on the power supply box, we worked mostly on the water flow system, as well trying to install the sensor that will measure the water flow rate and the quality of the nutrient solution.
Tomato Investigation
I had learned that as a reaction to the gravity, plants grow upward towards the sky. The idea got me thinking, “How will plants react being blocked from growing upward?” To answer my questions, I set up an experiment and observed with my own eyes with a hypothesis that the plants will grow upside down through the bottom hole of the bottle when there’s no way for them to grow upward. My initial intention was to observe tomato, but my tomato never actually germinated, so I ended up observing grass. With a clear plastic cover covering the grass, I observed that the grass seems to stop growing when it hits the cover and instead use its leaf to search its way through by having it growing longer and touching the cover. As, a conclusion, grass would stop growing when entering a blockage and use their leaf to search for a new approach in order to grow upward, but dies when there is no way for them to grow upward. My hypothesis ended up being wrong, but it was fun and interesting to see how the grass grow.