Generate 2 Trial

Due to the interesting results of my Gen 2 trial I have started a full scale test on all the Gen 2 plants.  I cleaned out the container, refreshed the media a bit, and then planted 4 seeds from each of the 10 plants that I harvested seeds from this year.  This part of the test is to verify the germination rate and see if the seedlings develop and grow normal.  The numbers relate to the plant numbers and locations that I previously posted.  The first 3 seed trial I mentioned was done with the plant #6.  That plant was located in the non-aerated grass area of the test plot.  Despite the location it was the first plant to produce a tomato.  The biggest question I have right now is will there be any difference in growth between the different parent plants.  Some plants grew aggressively and very large while others were smaller plants with fewer tomatoes but still produced quality tomatoes.  

Day 1  - 9/8/2020



Day 12 - 9/20/2020




Day 20 9/28/2020  Looking back a page, the first test it took 45 days for seedlings to get decent size true leaves.  Only 2 of the whole tray in that test actually developed.  The Gen 2 seeds are growing like tomatoes in regular soil, at 20 days in some already have decent sized true leaves.  

"puppy"

Update on the three tomato plants I transplanted on the previous page.

@Kitties-with-Sigs
What are you thoughts on this?  I know we have talked before about a squirrel burying a walnut in garden being enough to cause problems.   This is a tomato plant in 100% walnut material and walnuts added to the root area for good measure.  With what we both know about juglone and tomatoes, how is this even possible?  Size is hard to tell, it has grown from a 3" plant to a 6" plant in 20 days.  I've also updated my Gen 2 trial above with a picture showing the seedlings developing and at the normal rate.  

This still is conclusive proof of anything but the results so far are astounding given the material they are being grown in.  

9/8 - At transplant time.




9/28  The plant is growing great with no deformities.  The other plant is also growing well and even has a blossom on it.

My goal at that point was just to find something that wasn't stunted in growth, deformed, or died.  The tomato plants in my test plot have all almost died off now, where as the plants in the side garden are doing much better.  I added no fertilizer and only watered the test bed only twice during the summer.  I wanted their growing conditions to be as rough as possible in order to stress out the plants as much as possible.  They were also hit by that late frost which zapped the plants pretty good.  

I'm waiting for one more tomato to ripen and collect seeds from.  That plant is a sucker from another plant that was growing well.  Early in the summer I lost a plant that got hit hard by juglone, wilted and died. It is documented somewhere earlier in this thread.  Either that part of the soil was a hot spot for juglone or the plant just had bad genes.  I took that sucker from a plant that was growing well and just stuck it in the ground where the other plant had died.  That sucker managed to root, grow, and then produced tomatoes late in the season.  The first tomato produced is just now starting to ripen.

I haven't worried about nutrients or nutrient uptake yet.  I have run no tests on the walnut matter and have no idea what the PH or nutrient content is.  I haven't added any fertilizer or anything else to the Gen 2 test material.  This was just organic matter gathered 6 feet away from the trunk of an 80 year old walnut tree and then added additional walnuts, green walnuts, walnut branches, and walnut leaves.  I should take it to the extension office and have them run a soil test on it and see what the results are, just to get an idea of what I'm dealing with.  

The plant is a little pale.  I moved it to the grass to get some better coloring in the picture. It isn't terrible but it could be greener.  I haven't tried any type of fertilizer on the test plants. I will look into that in later tests.  

With my war on the squirrels there should be a decent number of black walnuts that drop from the tree.  I will have to arrange for Gen 2 test 2 with new walnut matter with freshly dropped walnuts.  Some material I'm reading said juglone decays rapidly if exposed to air or if it is composted.  Most of the material in the Gen 2 was reused from the Gen 1 test I started in July.  It is possible the juglone toxicity did decay which is why the Gen 2 test started out so well.  

This experiment has some scientific significance.  You saw the picture of me planting the tomato plant next to 2 walnut hulls and the plant didn't die or become deformed.  That is significant.  It isn't double blind testing with a control significant but it shows that not all tomatoes die just because a walnut tree is nearby which is what pretty much every published article says, even those from universities with horticulture programs.  

That makes complete sense.  I have the green house area I've been using to start my plants every spring.  I plan to test all winter long with seedlings, media, fertilizer, and proper note taking.  I will have 11 different possible lines to test and narrow down before spring.  

Thread needs Title change..."SWIRE's long term tomato breeding project"

That is just my current side distraction.  I'm really surprised no one commented about the gray fox that I posted.  I feed him, I mean I leave scraps in the compost pile, every night.  He is feeling more comfortable around me but still very skittish, he's been within 3 feet of me the last couple nights though.  

I'm doing work on my bridge as well.  The stream has washed way 18 inches of the foundation for the bridge abutment.  I have to block the creek around it and pour concrete to rebuild it.  That is what I should be working on this afternoon.  There is another project that I was working on for months but it isn't complete so I haven't posted any pictures of it yet.  

I've also being doing fall yard work.  Finally got something nice going just in time for the cool evenings.  

Not sure why some of the lights weren't working.  It was the first time I put that string together and tried out.  Everything clean, organized and illuminated made it seem fake.  Like a display at an RV/Camping show.  There was also zero wind making it seem like we were indoors.  The fox showed up too.  I managed to get 3 off us sitting on the ground and he came within 3 feet to get a bite of hot dog.  











It really wasn't as bright as the camera makes it look.  Just a nice glow so it wasn't totally dark.  This is closer to what it looked like.

I believe it is legal to feed him but didn't want to too much about it just in case.  I see and feed him every night right after dusk.  He is fairly comfortable with me around no matter what I'm doing but keeps 30-40 feet away.  Sitting on the ground he will come within feet of me now to grab some food but then backs off to 10-15 feet away.  He is either storing food for later or taking food back to the den for others.  He will grab a large chunk of food and then trots off in the direction of his den.

When he comes out it is too dark for color video which is really disappointing.  

He is still very skittish or smart like a fox. If anything is off he is standoffish.  I brought a tripod for the camera to get the above pictures.  It was something different and he did not like it.  It took him five minutes to get comfortable laying down 30 feet away from me because of it.  If I stumble while walking he runs off 40+ feet and then watches me.  If I toss out some food too quick or with the wrong motion he runs off like I threw something at him.  One dog barking and he is watching his surroundings 80% of the time. Two dogs start barking and he will grab food and disappear.  He has some very strong self preservation skills.  As long as people don't find the den I think he will do just fine.

Tonight he was burying some of the food since winter is coming.  That is the first time I've seen that.

Still one of my favorite threads to click on.

Bumping it to keep it alive.

Thank you for that.  

I did a bit more work in the back yard after the previous test of the fire pit area.  I added a second set to string lights and ran a cable between two maple trees to hang them.  It is 100' long line of string lights stretched across a 90' gap between the two trees.





Compare that to the area when I first bought the place.  Same view, the tall trees on each edge are the same maple trees pictured above with the lights strung between them.  Everything was over grown and it doesn't even look like the same area.  




Here is another after and before picture.  Exact same view and the maple tree on the left can barely be seen in before picture on the bottom.  That area still needs work but at least it is usable now.

The bridge project is one that I have been working on lately.  The retaining wall failed as tree roots had grown through it and when the water was high it started eroding the dirt.  In the second picture look at the water line of the stone supports for the front corner of the bridge.  You can see under them.  That corner of the bridge had a 16" deep hole that extended 18" under the bridge support.  You can see straight under the rock support, meaning there is nothing holding up that corner of the bridge.  I didn't realize that until I bought a pair of waders and was trying to work on the bridge.

Twice I have seen something fury and gray as big if not bigger than the fox near the house.  I know it wasn't the fox because the fox was sitting in the yard both times this happened.  It scatters very quickly when it sees me, I hear the commotion and just catch a glimpse of it.  Either there is another fox, a coyote being very brave, or a huge long haired gray cat.  A cat typically wouldn't run and disappear like it. I'm not sure how a coyote would behave, from video clips they don't seem skittish the way a fox would be.  The first encounter I thought it was the fox, just getting oddly close to the house.  After the animal ran off I looked in the yard and regular fox was sitting there.  What I saw last night seemed to be bigger than the fox.  

I do have trail cameras setup but not in area that I've seen this other animal.  I will need to pull some memory cards and see if I happened to catch anything passing by those areas.

The Gray Fox still comes nightly.  I finally got a decent video of him after bringing a portable light out.  He looks to see what every little noise is but as you can see he isn't too concerned about my presence.  He still doesn't get too close and prefers to a minimum of 10 feet away from me.  

I'll be interested in seeing pics of the repair.

The repair is finally done.  I will have lots of pictures of the process to post.  I'm trying to clean up the area and finalize the placement of additional rocks along the edge of the bank to help eliminate future erosion.  After that I will take my final set of pictures.

The fox has gotten a bit chunky.

Shorter Enhanced Clip




Longer raw footage clip with a lot more activity.

That would be excellent if that happened.  Do you or anyone else have knowledge on building fox habitat?  I have plenty of room to build structure for a den.  I rather have them on my property instead of where they are at now.  The fox has to cross a dead end road to get my property.  I rather it not have any possible exposure to the random public and vehicular traffic on a daily basis.  Not sure how I would convince it to move but if there is a family of them then they will need additional dens.

That would be great.  The back yard is all one slope down to the creekl, about a 50 foot elevation change.  There is lots of brush, rocks, and dirt available for me to utilize.  With my backhoe digging some type of den isn't a problem.  

I have not seen the fox since I posted that last video.  For months he has come by every night and now it is getting close to a week where I haven't seen him. It gets dark earlier, so maybe he has been coming by later.  I still put food out but I have no idea if he is what is eating it.  I will have to move a trail camera over to the new spot where I have been putting food out to see if he comes by.  

I finally got the fox against last night.  He is doing fine and looking well.  He got several pieces of raw bacon along with grapes and dog food.  

As for what foxes eat I'm not sure if they have limits like dogs do.  I recently heard that grapes are supposedly bad for dogs...but I give the fox a handful of grapes several times a week and he is fine.  I haven't been too concerned about what he might eat out of the garden as I've given him blackberries off my vines, which he enjoyed, but there was no evidence that any animal had eat any of them.  The main veggies I grow would be tomatoes and peppers.  Not sure if they would appeal to a fox.  Also this fox only seems to come out at night to eat which means I can harvest the ripe produce at the end of the day.  

The garden at the Craig house has always been a disappointment.  The only thing it was good for was the juglone experiments, which other than a hobby isn't worth much.  The juglone isn't the only problem, the soil is the worst soil that I have ever encountered in my life.  The soil samples I had don't see to be too terrible but the problem is it is non-aerate heavy clay with no organic matter.  Throw in a hot dry spell and that soil turns hard as a rock. Even when I water the plants a couple hours later the leaves will be wilting again and this is in the non-juglone area.  The soil needs to be aerated and a lot of organic matter added to it.  I'm thinking of having truck loads of dirt/compost brought in.

I have plenty of the materials you described for a den.  Some key points I need to figure out is what type of ground do they prefer?  Would they want the den at the top of a hill so they have the widest point of view, partially down the hill, at the bottom, next to big structures like a tree so it is concealed or out in the open with maybe some larger rocks for a slight bit of cover?  Do they have escape tunnels or just one entrance.  How big should the opening be, how large inside, is it flat or do they keep digging down?

I'm circling back around to the walnut soil tomato plants.  They are still alive and under grow lights inside but they have severely neglected.  I had 3 pots, two were the Gen 1 plants that did well and one was a Gen 2 plant.  I transplanted them it into 100% walnut material and added walnut shells.  As the plants were neglected and the soil dried out the two Gen 1 plants showed serious deformities.  One of them was half deformed and half normal, the normal half has produced a tomato.

Almost no good leaves after letting the dirt go dry.




Half deformed and half normal.  Not sure how that exactly works.  The tomatoes are on the half normal side.  Not sure yet if will bother trying to harvest those seeds since it is still a Gen 1 plant.




The Gen 2 plant shows the stress but no deformities.  



Here is the tray of Gen 2 seeds. They have all grown without deformities but they were not subjected to completely new walnut soil but did have some walnut shells and matter added on top.  All the different test cases did about the same.  I'm still debating on how I will select the top verities or if I will just run a second test.  

I have a bridge update, I promise.  It has been done for months now.  I just haven't grabbed all the pictures to post.

Been following this tread for a couple years..
Look forward to all updates and the vids you post.
Are ya gonna refresh the tulips??? They were gorgeous!
ETA.. I recall ya had some trouble with trespassers / cameras etc..
Did that situation get resolved??
Also..How's the fox doing?
Update on the solar for the year??
Thanx..FN

It was only after I bought 1,200 tulip bulbs and planted them did I learn that in this area they pretty much need to be treated as an annual and replanted every year or two.  I was hoping for something that would come back and not require a constant replanting.  I've been looking for a suitable replacement since.  Daffodils are about the only low maintenance item that I have found.  They would look like but not as nice as tulips.  

Most trespassers have learned to stay away from the property.  However, the homeless population seems to know they get to the creek through my yard and I still catch them on camera a couple times a year.  

The fox I saw last night.  He's lost some of the weight he gained from the fall.  I haven't been putting out scraps as much lately.  Standing out in the cold and freezing isn't as much fun as sitting in the grass on a warm summer night waiting for him to show up.  

The war on the squirrels was pretty effective.  Previous years they would be running all over the roof and climbing inside the house.  This year I haven't seen any on or going into the house.  There is still at least one ground hog living under the neighbors garage.  As soon as I capture that one I will fill in the hole with concrete.  All the other dens that I have found have been removed with the backhoe.  

The tractor needs a new clutch and brakes.  I need to get that into the shop before it starts to warm up.

The solar system and electrical projects are still not complete.  I had started building the frame for the second set of solar panels when I noticed the shadow of a maple tree starting to cover the area around 4pm.  A spot 30 feet behind that had full sun. So now I want to move the first array but might just settle on putting the second one up in the new location first.  

There is a big project that I did not complete before the colder weather came.  I will probably hold off that update until I get further along in the spring.  

The bridge project is where I spent the rest of the fall.  I will be posting that update soon.

Is it soon yet?

Just for you I will start posting the project pictures.  I spent a couple hours just trying to find all my pictures from the last 4 years and I'm still not sure I found them all.  

This was March 2017.   This is when I first started to notice that I had a problem.  It looked like the top part of a stone wall had fallen over, which is pretty common, so I wasn't too worried.  Unfortunately the problem turned out to be much bigger than that.  The bridge was still easily passible and I figured it was just some high water that caused the top of the wall to fail.





With leaves on the brush it was difficult to tell what the problem was or if it was getting worse, so I didn't worry about until July 2018 when I decided I should get a better look.

With the brush isn't doesn't look terrible.





I cleared out all the brush to get a better look and create an area where I could work to rebuild the wall.









It still didn't look terrible from most angles, if you go back and look the first picture in this post you will notice that it more than just the top of the wall that is missing.  You can see straight down to the water.  The whole structure of the wall was gone.  Add to it several years of higher than normal water levels which prevented me from working on it and which eroded it faster and the open area shown below quickly grew.




Most of 2019 was very wet.  When the water level did drop I started pulling some of the rocks from the wall out of the creek. I had one quote from a concrete contractor to put a retaining wall up, it was ridiculous high so I started working on a plan to do it myself.  Then the rains came back.


October 2019.

High water, instead of 12 to 16 inches the water is over 4 feet deep.  Deep water is fast moving water.




You can see how the bridge support backs up the water, pushing into into the bank where it eats away at it.




The opening has gotten a lot bigger in just under a year.





You can see the water churning behind the bridge support, that helped losen the dirt and pull it away increasing the erosion.




December 2019 and you there is still high water.  For some perspective the bottom of the bridge is about 6 feet from the bottom of the creek.  There is still 3 1/2 - 4 feet of water in the creek.  




May 2020. More high water.

There's always something to fix!

Obviously not a SME, but my approach would be to first stop the erosion.  Something along the lines of a pig panel from Tractor Supply (like cattle panel but with small 2" openings) and some rebar.  Cut the panel to fit the gap from the bank to the support with a slight outward bow.  Stake in place with the rebar and backfill with sandbags along the panel and infill with rocks behind that.  That should buy the time and maybe the workspace to fix the wall behind it.  

Something along the lines of:



I'd also be tempted to permanently have something in place like the panel to change the contour and keep the water routed away.  Maybe backfilling with cement bags in leu of the sand bags would suffice and/or sinking some sono-tubes in and filling with rebar and concrete... your backhoe will come in handy for getting the foot of the "wall" low enough to have a chance of lasting.  Might also be a use case for a gabion cage.  The road crew on some of our rural roads do that sometimes using chainlink fencing for the cage, infill with rock and cover the exposed chain in concrete.

Water is pita to keep where you want it (or away from where you don't!).  I have a similar issue on my hands with a pond overflow eroding and adjacent embankment.  Get the wrong eddy developing and undercutting gets serious in a hurry.

All that aside, how's the fox?

That's my plan with everything related to the property.  Doing proper permanent fixes.  These pictures are the before pictures.  I do have part of the permanent fix in place and the wall rebuilt.  Those pictures will get posted "soon" too.  The problem pictured has been resolved but I want to put in additional measures to strengthen the base of the bridge and the other support needs some work as well.  The high water has gotten behind the other side and eroded some of that way but being on the inside of the curve in the creek it isn't as bad.  

The fox is around.  His schedule started to change when it got colder so it is rare that I see him.  He has lost some weight, I haven't been putting out scraps as often is part of the reason.  But from his tracks it is clear he comes around often looking for them.

The bottom of the creek is bedrock.  That helps in some aspects but makes things difficult in others.  There is no driving a stake into bedrock.  I did buy a large hammer drill but ended up not using it during this part of the project.

The high water level we have had the last few years has been the biggest factor in not being able to fix it.  I did line the front of the area with rocks to help keep some of the water away and slow down the erosion.  It still got to the point where I could not get my tractor across.  In 2019 and 2020, mid-July through September were dry and when the water level finally dropped.  Even in 18 inches of water that is a lot of pressure to work against, water that is 3 to 4 feet is a complete no go.  The bridge was built to small so it backs up the water, which creates fast and deep water.  Once you get away from the bridge wading in the creek isn't that big of a deal but at the bridge the water force is much different.

June 22 2020 still have a high water level.






July 3rd 2020 things finally start to dry out, the water clears and it starts to drop.  You can reference the position of rocks on the bank with the water level.

At this stage I had started the prep work for the project, pulling all the big rocks out of the creek (again) and getting them staged near the area to go back in.  I had pulled most the rocks out in the fall of 2019 but a few months later some "helpful" neighborhood kids got back there and decided throwing big rocks into the creek was fun and had thrown most of them back in.  








The last pre-fix picture that I can find.  There is something a bit unsettling in the picture which made the project a lot larger and more difficult.




The arrow points to the problem which is right at the water line.  You can see the bottom of the creek through the water that is under the end of the bridge support.  The only way to see through rock is if there is no rock.  There is no rock under the last 18" of the bridge support and it wasn't just a couple missing rocks, it was a hole 16 inches deep!  I posted a previous picture about the bridge support backing up the water and causing it to eat away at the bank, well that fast moving water was going under the support and also eating away at the bedrock.

 It is hard to convey the depth with the picture.  If I was standing on the left side of the red arrow the water would be 8 to 10 inches deep in this picture.  If I moved to the right side of the arrow the water was a knee level.  That is how deep the hole was under the bridge support.

I am missing some of the pictures from this point on and will pause the updates while I look for them.  The rest of the updates are of the rebuilding process.  I'll leave a teaser though by the end the effort involved 52 of the 80lb bags of Quikrete.

My first thought would be to divert that water away from the hole by whatever means and get some quick drying concrete and stones in that hole for a foundation. Maybe dump it in dry in layers to let the seepage wet it.

Interested to see how you handle it.

My plan was to build forms, use some heavy plastic and sand bags, pumps, and remove the water.  I know I took pictures of that effort but I cannot find them.  The plan failed in a big way.  Even with 2 pumps running the most I could do was drop the water level 2 inches inside the forms.  Water was flowing up through the bedrock cracks and it was coming in from the backside and behind the bridge supports.  Running the pumps actually created more current in the water than if I had just left it alone.  The end effort required dumping concrete in the forms to displace the water.  It worked but I have no idea how strong that concrete will be since in ended up extra wet.  Like you mentioned, building in layers is how ended up doing things.  The first layer was built thick enough to get the concrete above the low water level.  

A rough estimate of what I was working with was 40 cubic feet of water inside the forms, approximately 300 gallons, and the pumps pulling water out at 30 gallons a minute.  In 10 minutes the inside of the forms should have been dry but after dropping the water level about 2 inches the water level stayed steady.

It sounds like you're gonna need a drought to fix that, or have to make a bigger diverter. Obviously, without the pics, I can't see what you were doing. Is it possible the hole goes further under the bridge support to let that water in?

The whole bridge support is made of stacked stone with a minimum of a foot of standing water around it. The hole under the front edge of the support is 12 inches deeper than the regular creek bottom.  I would would need 2x the plastic sheeting and 100 sandbags instead of 20 to even try to limit the water inflow.  

I have the whole structure rebuilt now.  Last August through most of October was very dry and I was able to get the project knocked out.

I went with thicker concrete verses the extra time and expense to try to stop the water inflow.  From what I read as long as there isn't a current the concrete mixture will displace the water and everything will be fine.  My only concern was initial concrete was being poured through through water, it took 3 times the concrete than I expected, and there was a delay while mixing up the concrete.  It was at least 30 minutes from the time I first poured concrete into the form full of water before I got the concrete level above the water line.  I'm not sure how that 30 minutes in water might have affected the first batch of concrete.  They do make additives for pouring water into concrete, it is my understanding that just helps it stick together so any current won't wash away the cement from the mixture.  Since I was pouring it into a form there should not have been much if any current.

Could you shape the support to divert the water? If it was diagonal on the face versus flat it seems like the water would push past easier.
If it was a V it would be easier still but it seems like would divert water towards the bank
Thanks for posting

That is sort of what I did. The new face of the wall is built at an angle and the footer is built at a steeper angle.  We had heavy rains the other day and the creek was way up.  The water was being funneled pretty well.  

I had/have a larger plan of running a 4' tall concrete retaining wall from the bridge upstream about 30 feet as that is where the most erosion has occurred.  The one contractor that came out quoted me $18,000 to do that as he tends to over build and also wanted to divert the creek during the process.  I won't be going with that option but will be looking at doing something myself if I have time.