First experiment:Spring onion root
At the beginning of the course I was not sure what to start with, the topic of rot and decay has always been a good starting point for me. The start of this small experiment was done at home and was simply cutting off the root of a store bought spring onion and placing it in a petri-dish wish a mixture of table salt and tap water in hopes of speeding up any chemical changes.
20.10.2018
After a substantial amount of time in my room by the window the changes were not very noteworthy. Yellowing/browning and deflation, the root seemed to be losing moisture to the highly saturated salty water.
27.11.2018
On 27.11.2018 the root was put into an incubator at 20 degrees Celsius however this was for some reason increased to 30 at some point in 5 days so it dried out more than expected. Least blurry photo available was black and white.
2.12.2018
The root interestingly seems to have been pulling water into it even after over a month of being cut off of the rest of the plant. Shown by salt crystals that formed on the upper surface of the plant and patterns of salt that crystalised towards the root as the water dried. Could be an interesting way of portraying how the roots are structured/evolved to passively absorb nutrients and water. I could easily see an iteration of this as an experiment to demonstrate or introduce the efficacy of the organic structure of the root.
Gallery of root images on 2.12.2018
