TRAIN Scholar Steven Gonzalez's Blog

      My tomato seeds are slowly starting to sprout, so now it is just a waiting game until we can begin running experiments on those plants. In the meantime, with the help of Josh, I am continuing to familiarize myself with the ECG equipment by testing a healthy aloe plant. These test runs on the aloe plant are allowing me to nail down the procedure for when we are ready to start the actual experiment with the tomato plants. I have definitely run into various issues along the way, but as Josh has reminded me, there is going to be a lot of trial and error along the way, and this is all a part of the process. So while we wait for these tomato plants to grow, I plan to continue to refine things and then get on to a hopefully successful experiment.    

        Plants have an intricate system of communication. Research has found that plants use volatile organic compounds to communicate with other nearby plants (Meents & Mithöfer, 2020, p. 1). Furthermore, research has also shown that plants use electrical signaling as a means of communication (Chen et al., 2016, p. 1). However, there is still much to learn about how and why it is that plants communicate. Plants provide essential resources for the planet and all living things. Humans rely on plant food sources for nearly 85% of their calories (Fernando, 2012, p. 1). Yet plants face many threats to their very existence, including disease, injury, herbivory, and extreme weather. (Ueda et al., 2012, p. 2). These factors contribute to the nearly 33% of crops that are lost even before they are harvested (Baker et al., 2019, p. 1). Gaining a further understanding of plant communication can help address this and many other issues.     The primary resea...

        This week I continued to refine my research project with the help of Josh. I have a pretty good idea of the direction that I am headed with this project, but we are still tweaking things around. Josh got me started playing around with the EKG so I can start familiarizing myself with it. We ran tests on a few volunteers in the lab just to get familiar with the equipment/readings before moving on to testing plants. I have an exam for my math class on Friday and then an exam for my physics class this coming Monday, so I am shifting my focus to that for the next few days. I am very much looking forward to getting back in the lab and continuing to make headway on this project once these exams are behind me.