Making and Maintaining an EcoTube - By Sarah Pellkofer

Soil Collection

Jun 19, 2012

Soil was collected from 3 different agricultural sites. These soils will be used for forming the various soil communities in the EcoTubes.

Seed Sterilization and Germinating

Jun 25, 2012

Seeds were sterilized and plated on agar in order to start germination and have seedlings ready for the EcoTube planting.

Soil Gradient and EcoTube Contruction/Planting

Jul 2, 2012

A 4-level soil diversity gradient was created for each site soil and planted into 64 EcoTubes with 40 plant individuals of 10 different grassland species.

EcoTube Harvest #1

Sep 12, 2012

All plants were harvested from each EcoTube at 5cm and soil cores were extracted for later analysis.

EcoTube Harvest #2

Nov 28, 2012

All plants were harvested from each EcoTube at 5cm and soil cores were extracted for later analysis.

EcoTube Harvest #3

Feb 13, 2013

All plants were harvested from each EcoTube at 5cm and soil cores were extracted for later analysis.

Final EcoTube Harvest

May 1, 2013

Final harvesting of all plants out of EcoTubes.