My sister dropped off the Walter Jones wheat seed at the lab in Madison earlier today. There are 500 wheat seeds, which I counted out and separated from the weed seeds. The weight is 12 grams, meaning that the TKW (thousand kernel weight) for the sample is 24 grams. For comparison, I have some certified Turkey Red wheat with a TKW of 30 grams. I actually feel like this is a pretty high TKW considering all the time these seeds have had to shrink.
The sample had about .5 grams of wheat seeds, which I am hoping the lab will also try to germinate. I don't think the harvest had quite this many weed seeds in it originally. I think the lighter weed seeds migrated to the top of the museum jar over the years, from being shaken and jostled. At the museum I just dipped the spoon into the top without jostling or shaking up the jar at all, so my sample has more weeds seeds than the sample as a whole.
Update: Edgar informed me that the germination trial began this Thursday (Mar 24). He is hoping that an example of every seed in the sample will germinate. Oh man! Could you imagine if there are sprouted seeds to look at on Easter Sunday, 2016?????
Any word yet??? Waiting with bated breath for news of sprouted seeds!
ReplyDeleteMe too! I think it will be a few days before we know anything. I'm not sure if the lab did all the seeds at once, or if they are experimenting in small batches. I'll leave them alone and let them do their work!
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