Their are three (3) m-state trap water plant experiments on this page, all seeds are from the same package planted in the same kind of soil.

EXPERIMENT ONE

M-STATE PASSION VINE
February-10 & 11-2002

Three months ago I purchased a passion fruit, brought it home and let it sit in the frig for stratification.  Yesterday I took the VERY shriveled passion fruit out of the frig, broke it open and pulled some seeds our of the pod to dry out a little over night.

The next day I began pulling some of the fruit pulp off of the seeds.  Then I used the tip of a pair of very sharp scissors to slightly nick the side of each one of the seeds.

As each seed is done, it is placed into warm water to soak over night and then planted the next day.  I have soaked one batch of the seeds in m-state trap water and the next batch in regular tap water.  I nicked 20 seeds per batch, some may not germinate due to the fact that I accidentally cut some totally in half, these seeds are not easy to hang onto to do this.

Next I filled 2 small pots with soil, watered the soil thoroughly, one with m-state trap water, the other with tap water.  Then I placed the seeds on top of the wet soil and covered the seeds lightly with dry soil, the seeds need light so they will germinate.  I placed the pots on aluminum foil to protect my table.

A better look at the m-state trap water passion seed pot below................

And the tap water passion seed pot.

As soon as the passion plants grow and bloom, only then will I be able to identify which one of two types of passion fruit plant this is.  Now we wait to see how long it takes for each one to germinate. Passion vine seeds are very erratic at germinating and it can cake any where from 2 weeks to 4 months or more for seeds to come up. Typically they begin appearing around 4 weeks after sowing and continue sporadically thereafter.

FEBRUARY, 24, 2002

The first two passion vine seeds to sprout are in the trap water pot.  So far nothing seems to be sprouting in the tap water pot.

Something extra that I have done since the floor of my greenhouse is a hard dirt floor, I planted the extra seeds in the dirt floor of the greenhouse.  The dirt is hard clay with lots of rock that is naturally embedded which makes for difficult digging no matter how shallow one digs.  I watered the dirt throughly and scrapped some of the hard dirt away from both areas, then put down the same soil that is used in the passion seed pots and then lightly covered the seeds..

These are night time photos which I feel come out better due to lighting.  This is the northwest corner of the greenhouse that is being watered with m-state trap water.

I backed away from the area to show the corner a little better.

This is the southeast side that is getting tap water.

Again I backed away to show the area a little better.  The floor of the greenhouse has cedar chips spread over it.  Both corners of the greenhouse will receive the same amount of sun but at different times of the day.

Night time temp inside the greenhouse, some times it does drop to 50 inspite of the 2 heaters that are helping to keep it heated through the winter months.

This is our thermometer in the living room, it reads both, indoor outdoor temps.  The lavender color on the left is the temp inside and the red on the right is the outside temp, as you can see it is cold outside.  If you look down and to the right of 0 on the thermometer, you can see about 3 inches of  newly fallen snow on the porch railing.

EXPERIMENT TWO

M-STATE TRAP WATER STRAW FLOWERS
February, 12, 2002

A friend gave me some straw flower seed heads (below) to plant.  The flower on the left is the underside of the dried flower, the flower on the right is the top side where all the tiny seeds are attached that have a feather like plume attached to each seed.  Some of the unattached seeds can been seen laying around these dried flower heads.

 After filling two (2) small flower pots with soil and watering them throughly, again one with tap water (right) and the other with m-state trap water (left), I placed 12 seeds with the use of tweezers in each pot and gently nestled them into the damp soil without covering them.  The seed germinates in one to two weeks at 70 degrees and it needs light to germinate, now we wait for something to happen.

FEBRUARY, 17, 2002

This morning I had the best surprise when I checked on all of the plants, the straw flower seeds are beginning to come up.  This is the first m-state trap water straw flower seedling in the pot to come up.  Look at how this first seed popped up and has shoved off the seed shell exposing its first two leaves.

Another photo of the same m-state trap water straw flower seedling as above.

TAP WATER

Here is the first tap water straw flower seedling to come up in the tap water pot.  Notice how much shorter this seedling not only is, but how it has not pushed off its seed shell to expose its first two set of leaves.

Same seedling as above at a different angle.  Do you think the m-state trap water made a difference?  From the 12th to the 17th is only 6 days!  Compare them!!

FEBRUARY, 24, 2002

Seven days later now and as you can see, several more little straw flowers have sprouted up.  The trap water seedlings are doing better than the tap water seedlings.

So far only two of the straw flower seeds have sprouted and the one on the right is still laying under the soil.

EXPERIMENT THREE
February, 12, 2002

M-STATE TRAP WATER INDOOR TOMATOES

Today I came across 16 indoor tomato seeds that I misplaced 2 years ago.  We will find out if they will still germinate and grow into nice tomato plants.  If the germ in the seeds stand any chance at all after 2 years of waiting to be planted, I am sure that the m-state water will bring out the new life that they hold.  Again, I filled the pots with soil, watered each throughly, one with m-state water and the other with tap water and covered the seeds with 1/4 inch of dry soil.
Below is the tap water tomato pot......

This is the m-state trap water tomato pot.

Once again, now we wait.

M-STATE TRAP WATER TOMS
FEBRUARY, 18, 2002

This morning when looking at the experiment seed pots, nothing had really changed.  But this evening at 11 p.m. I decided to look at the plants again and found that the trap water indoor tomato pots started germinating.  The trap water pot has more plants are germinating than the tap water pot, their are 3 plants coming up.

TAP WATER TOMS
FEBRUARY, 18, 2002

In the tap water pot, their are only 2 plants coming up, I had the tooth pick positioned to far away from the plant on the left so it is not seen in this photo.

I repositioned the tooth pick and turned the pot a little so the plant on the left would show better.

M-STATE TRAP WATER INDOOR TOMATOS
FEBRUARY, 19, 2002

This morning about 9:45 when looking at the plants again, I got a very nice surprise at just how these seedlings are growing and germinating.  I decided to mark some popsicle sticks at one inch intervals and place them in the two seedling pots.

The color of the trap water plants have a richer color to them

TAP WATER INDOOR TOMATOS
FEBRUARY, 19, 2002

The tap water plants are not quite as straight, they have a bit more kink in the stems and the leaves seem to have a little more arch.

And now the race begins, which plants will grow the fastest, the tallest, be the strongest, have the best tasting and largest fruits?

FEBRUARY, 24, 2002

Five days later and the trap water indoor tomatos are doing GREAT and with NO losses.

This morning I found one dead seedling in the tap water tomato seedling pot.  Now if these seedlings had been given trap water, perhaps this would not have happened?

The rest of the seedlings in the tap water pot are in good shape.