carrots

[spec]

Apparently some mushrooms love radioactivity.
**broken link removed**

That is an interesting link. What a strange world we live in. Apparently if man wiped himself out in a global nuclear war, bugs would would carry on as normal because they are immune to radiation. In fact, the vast majority of the worlds living organisms are not attractive cuddley things, like humans, pandas, tigers and so on, but creepy crawlys.

 

[spec]

 

[granddad]

{ Scratch head ...} many plant parts will grow roots if placed in a growing medium, sorry in this case it does not mean you are going to grow usable carrots , it will keep growing send up a flower seed and die ....
edit
But I see your not interested in the roots ? , however the seeds will probably not come "true" .

 

[spec]

{ Scratch head ...} many plant parts will grow roots if placed in a growing medium, sorry in this case it does not mean you are going to grow usable carrots , it will keep growing send up a flower seed and die ....
edit
But I see your not interested in the roots ? , however the seeds will probably not come "true" .

Yeah,
It seems that one of the big problems with plant breeding is producing a fertile/viable specimen. I'm no expert in this, but I understand that many exotic trees, for example, don't grow properly on their own root stock so they are grafted on to the root stock of the common species. If you look near the base of some trees, especially apple, the grafting is quite clear. Some hybrids don't produce seeds at all and are only propagated by grafting/cuttings. Its a fascinating subject that I have meant to read up about for years, but only so many hours in the day

 

[large_ghostman]

Sorry gents, utterly un interested in the seeds or the root, the top pic shows normal carrot roots and the thin tiny hair roots they sometimes have, my pics show a totally different kind of root. But its not the root as such that I am after. The picture isnt great so i will redo just to tease you, and those leaves wont set seed , those roots wont grow in soil (look close they are smooth and only suitable for hydroponics).

It was part of a pm so the actual significance of the pics isnt intended to make sense to a general audience, its also extremely hard to guess why the pics are special lol.
But I do love the fact people are trying to work it out, all the comments are spot on so far.

Just for fun I will take a pic of the leaves, so you can see the growth is actually only 3 weeks old, the cut bits are stems I cut off early to test. if you want to try this get a carrot from the supermarket with NO leaves on and chop the top off. Use sterile water and anything else you want and at a temperature around 10c try and get whats in the pic.

One other thing, there is actually a use for these carrots, they were made to grow this way for a reason. Seeds and eating is not what I am after, and should you guess what I am after then I still dont think the significance of the roots will sink in.

 

[tvtech]

LOL..LG at top speed

Good to have you back here

Regards,
tv

 

[synaptic]

Apparently some mushrooms love radioactivity.
**broken link removed**

Good point !

Early explorations in the area around Chernobyl showed that Lichens and Cockroaches were getting by just fine.
The former are one of the most ancient and hardy life forms on Earth
The latter have been found in the reactor sections of nuclear submarines.

 

[large_ghostman]

Ok I have been unfair! I just looked at said carrots and decide for yourselves, the old pics were taken just before posting, the new pics I am going to post I have taken today. I will tell you exactly why I want them and what I tried to get to my aims that didnt work. The only bit I am not going to tell you is how I have achieved my goal, I will say ALOT of work has gone into this. You might decide its a bit pointless but not to me, And thaks for the idea about seeds!! its given me another idea I will explain after the new pics.

 

[large_ghostman]

Ok Here we go, I apologize for the background!! only after viewing the pics to post them did I realize the background was a bad choice, I was trying to not get liquid all over the place. I didnt notice the background is distracting and makes its a bit harder to see!

So first the pics.

So first off now I know what I did/use works, I am going to redo it but this time get rig of all the orange root when I do it, I left a bit on because I had to try many things to get this to work and it was quicker easier to just use kitchen scraps as was. Now I have found what I was looking for I will micro propagate using nutrient gel with the compound I separated.
I did try commercial rooting and hormone powders but the carrot just rotted, if you look at the pic of the bottom of my carrot there is zero deterioration.

So the question is what would I want the leaves without the root?

I want the essential oil in the leaves so I can extract the compound responsible for the smell, I will use it as a fragrance for soaps etc.

So why not just use normal carrots?

I need a carrot that grows more like a herb such as say basil, and one you can grow all year in a pollytunnel easily. I need to be able to crop the leaves constantly and they need to be fast growing so it saves space.

Reasons normal carrots grown with the main root dont work

As the carrot grows and the bit you eat gets bigger, the amount of oil decreases in the leaves as the plant concentrates its energy on the main root.
Once the root gets to a certain size it goes woody and the oil content drops right off in the leaves and it then puts energy into making seeds.
Carrots or a mare for attracting carrot root fly, the fly lays its eggs near the carrot and the grub burrows into the root and start to destroy the carrot. The big problem however is once you get carrot root fly in your soil it can take YEARS to get rid of!!
Carrots need good soil stone free etc and are a PITA to grow for max oil content.

The carrots above actually get more oil the bigger the leaves get (upto a point but larger than ones with the big root).
These carrots can be grown in hydroponic set ups like mine that use 2.5 inch pipe for the main root chamber.
The carrot you can crop the leaves just like any other pot herb so you need less plants for same amount of oil.

These as you can see in just a couple of days grow rapidly! They are also growing roots like normal plants instead of the spindly side roots you sometimes get on carrots, this is why I think the oil content is so far 600% higher.

The seeds I am now interested in, since it was mentioned I started thinking about the oils in the seeds and they contain an oil which gives soap a softness, but you need alot of seed, these if left to grow would seed rapidly.

By all means try and copy the experiment to prove me wrong, I have tried many methods to get this to work, none have worked like this had and none grow at such a massive rate.

So apart from not telling you what the compound I extracted to make this work is, there you have it thats is why these carrots are special to me. I can grow them like herbs without the normal set backs. SIMPLES

Hard to see from the pics but root mass and size in 24 hours has increased, I have upped the amount of extracted they are fed on from 150mg to 200mg, this will cease in a week and normal growth nutrient introduced once I have good root mass.

I will start to cell culture in the next few days so there wont be any orange root at all.
Probably boring to most but as I said it was the only way I could get someone to see the pics in a pm I wrote about what I was currently working on that was non electronics related.

I did ask for the post to be deleted after posting the first pics, but if people are remotely interested then I will keep it updated so you can see how it pans out. Thanks for the comments I loved the guesses, I didnt intend for the post to stay long, but it turned out fun.

I have no idea why we cant upload pics in pms though?? But at least it may have given you a laugh, by the way parts of the oil in the leaves smells fantastic in cold process soap!

 

[large_ghostman]

I know why mushrooms get big around radio activity, its the same reason commercial tomato growers with acres of environmentally controlled glass houses drop the temperature in them at night by 10c. Dont cheat and google it

 

[large_ghostman]

Ah ****, I just noticed in one the pics I have a contamination, it dosnt matter for these as they were proof of concept. The next batch it will matter and I need to start using to bio containment hood and aseptic technique.

If you look close at the second pic of the new lot you will see fine hairs starting to grown on a section of one root, this is my foof up!! While messing about and doing other things the other night I stirred the solution with a glass rod I hadnt cleaned properly, what you see is hairy root virus. I culture it for certain types of micro cell plant culturing, its easy to get hold of as you can find it in most gardens. When you pull up weeds of the same type sometimes you might notice some the roots are really 'hairy' this is hairy root virus.

It does harm to most plants and is a bonus and used extensively in some types of micro cell plant culture. Except your not meant to be a muppet and go putting it where you didnt want it! I would infects the roots for hydro with it for carrots but not as this early stage.

 

[granddad]

GM thanks for the explanation , there isn't an emoticon available that describes the look on my face !
I grow loads of carrots every year , many ways to defeat "The Fly" planting chives close by, or having a barrier around (fleece) them works for me , I also grow them 2' off the ground... Carrot soap ? or did you mean soup...

 

[large_ghostman]

Its true you can try and fight the fly, but when you want the oil from the leaves then little point putting the energy of the plant into the root. Also this means I can grow 9 plants per foot in a hydro pipe 2.5 inches in diameter. And grow them all year, also the smell of carrot and coriander leaf in soap is a good seller.
I also grow veg in a veg plot for eating, but this was entirely different and looks like it will work well.

French marigolds planted around the edge of carrot plots also help with root fly, but why battle it when I can avoid it totally and crop the same plants all year round? Celery and cellery seed is another good seller smell wise

 

[granddad]

HI bought some almond oil hand wash , now that is nice

 

[large_ghostman]

HI bought some almond oil hand wash , now that is nice

Not if you have a nut allergy lmao

 

[granddad]

"Carrot leaves contain significant amounts of porphyrins, which stimulate the pituitary gland and lead to the release of increased levels of sex hormones."

https://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/carrotops.html

 

[large_ghostman]

I want the essential oil in the leaves so I can extract the compound responsible for the smell

One reason I use Gas chromatography and thin layer chromatography, and a long laborious process with columns and different polarity solvents to extract only the bit I want. Nence my reference in the other post about extracting only the compound of interest and not using the entire oil.

One of my favorite ones is Tomato and basil smelling soap, but 20% of people are allergic to tomatoes and the leaves contain an alkaloid that can be nasty. In the UK cold process hand made soap is covered by alot of the rules that apply to cosmetics. I am very careful to stay on the legal side, also dont do a business any good to hurt people lol.

Although aphrodisiac soap might have a good USP lol

 

[granddad]

FYI ,You lost me ... ps just read my almond hand wash ingredients..... guess what.... no almonds... ?

 

[large_ghostman]

FYI ,You lost me ... ps just read my almond hand wash ingredients..... guess what.... no almonds... ?

Sadly that is often the case (with Almonds ect) I totally forget what its called now, But many many smells and flavors are actually produced by synthetic chemicals. John might pop along and remind me what the system is called.
You would be astounded how few chemicals mixed with different alcohols produce an astonishing array of smells and taste. As soon as I remember what the process is called I will look up a table for you. My soaps are cold process (real soaps) handcrafted and designed and use natural colours and fragrance. It takes a great deal of work but then again my soap int cheap .

Take a light red colour for example.

Excuse the background making it look like something is in the round flask, because the colour has to be natural and withstand highly alkaline conditions you get before cold P soap cures, you have to use a natural colour that isnt affected by alkaline conditions (think plants used as indicator solutions).
The colour in that flask is extracted from this

The colour balance was off on the camera when I took the pic a while back, I have arrowed the two small parts that contain the colour, this is a large (really large) green pine cone that grows on some our our trees. I extract with a solvent mix then distill off the solvent, I can get 3 colours from these cones so depending which I want I then use the correct solvent to extract just the single colour I want, I then distill again so I am left with just the colour.

For orange colour and nice orange smell I use tangerines and oranges, I extract D,Limonene for the smell (thats what makes oranges and such smell like oranges), oddly enough car tyres also contain alot of d,limonene as does some kitchen cleaners!! But because of the other stuff in the tires etc its very hard to extract and distill a product without an off smell in it, so I do it like this

That is soaking in an ethanol and IPA mix, in this case I am after just the colour, I would then distill off the solvents (saved for reuse) and normally then use something like Chloroform on the waste to extract the D,limonene, again distill it off after.

While you can use steam distilation to get d,limonene from oranges alot of shop fruit has a wax covering, if you use steam this can come over as well. You also risk other components coming over.

 

[granddad]

Still using Wrights Coal Tar You should be Little Soapman