Re-Constructing the world’s largest greenhouse experiment for EW
After dismantling 80% of our 2023/2024 greenhouse experiment (discount from 400 to 80 pots, the remaining ones will run for 1-2 extra years) we’re going to put together our subsequent experiment, twice the scale!
We’re planning on doing greater than 600 pots, however with an up to date layout-strategy, based mostly on the outcomes from the earlier experiment. We’re considerably shifting our strategy. Somewhat than extensively replicating a smaller variety of soil-rock mixtures (as we did 2023/2024), we have now chosen to intentionally prioritize testing a broader variety of mixtures, every with fewer replicates. This strategic pivot goals to maximise the variety of soil sorts and rock amendments assessed, responding to our earlier findings that highlighted the dramatic variability in CDR outcomes relying on particular soil-rock interactions (see “Why we are ditching most replicates in favor of having more variations”).
So per week in the past we ready the primary 22 soils for our new greenhouse experiment for enhanced weathering. These soils are from throughout Germany, Denmark and Eire and from varied european international locations. About 15 extra soils from all around the world (from Australia, India, Africa, and the Americas) are anticipated to reach over the summer time and also will be used within the greenhouse (if every thing works out high quality with the logistics).
On at some point we sieved and thereby homogenized greater than 10 tons of soil in whole. From every soil we took varied samples, a few of them shall be despatched to a lab instantly for evaluation, different samples shall be saved in case extra analyses are wanted sooner or later. Our aim was to homogenize the soils and to take away stones, roots, and so on, so after we create pot experiments every of the pots will comprise just about the identical soil.
We labored nearly from nightfall til daybreak. Here’s a video documentary:
