Bob,
We grow Arabidopsis plants in 5" plastic pots. Eight pots are held
in 22" x 11" trays and 12 trays fit on a growth cart on wheels. I've
purchased all of these items from a place called Grower's Supply in
Ann Arbor MI (313-426-5852). Another source of Arabidopsis-specific
growing supplies is Lehle Seeds (http://www.arabidopsis.com/). I'm
sure there are other good suppliers out there. I fill the trays
1/3-1/2 full with nutrient solution at planting and then add tap
water when they run out - about every third day initially and almost
every day when they get larger.
I had the same problem with seedling death-for-no-apparent-reason
earlier this year so I checked the archives of the Arabidopsis
newsgroup (http://www.bio.net/hypermail/ARABIDOPSIS/) and learned
that this is a somewhat common problem! No one appears to have has
spent the time to figure out the cause, but the most frequent advice
I saw was to switch soil brands. I was using Pro-Mix BX when the
problem started so I tried Sunshine Mix and MetroMix and plants grew
normally on both of them. Interestingly, people had the same problem
with a variety of soil mixes so when it happens again I'll switch
back!
Hope this helps.
Jon
>Does anyone have a good system for growing Arabidopsis? Mine get to the
>seedling stage but then die because I can't seem to keep them from getting
>either too dry or too wet.
>>TIA
>>Bob
>Dr. Robert R. Wise
>Department of Biology
>University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
>Oshkosh, WI 54901
>(920) 42403404
>wise at uwosh.edu>http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/wise/wise.html
---------------------------------------------------
Jonathan D. Monroe Associate Professor
Department of Biology office: 540-568-6649
MSC 7801 lab: 540-568-6045
James Madison University fax: 540-568-3333
Harrisonburg, VA 22807 email: monroejd at jmu.eduhttp://csm.jmu.edu/biology/monroejd/jmonroe.html
---------------------------------------------------
