Good and Bad News
So…I have good and bad news today. Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. We’ve been running into some small but noticeable issues with growth across all of our test plants. After a bit of digging (no pun intended), we think we’ve figured out the root cause: an oversight during soil sterilization. When we autoclaved our soil, we didn’t account for how that would impact its water retention. Soil retention is in part determined by something called soil aggregates — clumps of soil held together by organic matter, microorganisms, and a few other minor factors. When we autoclave, we’re basically pressure-cooking the soil. It’s meant to kill off bacteria using high heat and steam, and we bag up the soil before putting it in. But this process also evaporates all the moisture, breaks apart organic matter, and wipes out the microbes that help maintain those aggregates. What we’re left with is dense, compacted soil that holds onto water way more than it should. At the start of the experime...