Greenhouse Experience

Throughout the process, we have learned the most basic and important facts for carrying out the assignment. All we know now is useful to be applied on the Mars Greenhouse. You have to realize that you are handling a living being. It requires responsibility to take care of the plants, check every day for updates, and provide the plants with everything they need to survive.

We are aware of the abiotic and biotic requirements that are substantial for the survival of the plants. Given the experiment we are carrying out, we have had the chance to observe how the plants react as they adapt to their environment. First, we know we have to make sure to provide the plants with an adequate habitat to grow in, with adequate temperature, enough light energy sources, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and a support medium, just to mention a few. All of these aspects will be needed in Mars as well. For growing the strawberry plants in a greenhouse using the hydroponics method, you have to give the plants special nutrients. The specific nutrient solution we apply is called Jipipe. The Jipipe contains all the nutriments the plants need, since the soil won’t provide them, because in hydroponics the plants are not supposed to have contact with the ground. In Mars we would have to obtain all those nutriments.

We have learned as well that plants must be stressed out so they will flower, otherwise they will never flower at all. Plants also need an exact amount of water so they can feed themselves, otherwise if you give them more water than needed, they will drown; experienced that already. Also the water PH is really important, so we have to be careful of the level of PH the plant receives and keep it between 5 and 6. The conductivity also matters, because it tells us how much salt the plant is receiving. Temperature is important factor we have to be careful of. Another factor we have come to acknowledge is that plants have to be protected from radiation. Even though they need sunlight, they also have to be away from rough radiation and protected from the gamma rays that can cause mutation as well as burning the strawberry plant.

Besides the scientific part, we also have learned the collaborative part. We have learned about each other as a team, we have learned the importance of taking care of a living thing, how important is to take care of plant, they are living things like humans. We learned about the plant, we tried to connect with the plant and about the things that the plant does. Before the project, we saw a plant as a  simple thing, now we have another perspective of plants, we learned about how plants are important to life.

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