Protocol ‐ Growing maize to maturity - wallacelab/lab-wiki GitHub Wiki

Protocol for growing most types of maize to maturity in the greenhouse.

Protocol from Matt Johnson (lab's first grad student)

Items Needed

• Maize seed
• Growth media (i have been using a peat moss mix)
• Vermiculite
• Broad Spectrum fertilizer (15-15-15)
• Iron rich fertilizer (If growing full plants for longer than a few weeks)
• Orange stakes (use this if you don’t want greenhouse crew to water your plants)
• White stakes (or whatever you want besides orange) for labeling plants
  • If doing microbiome experiments might want to use something that won’t contaminate soil

What to do

• Mix growth media: i found 80:20 peat moss:vermiculite mix works well for maize
• Wet growth media until you see water drop through bottom of pot
• Plant three seeds for pot (for plants that don't have germination issues, if they have germination issues plants 5 seeds per pot) equally spaced at about ¾ inch depth
• Cover seeds with growth media
• Watering should not be done every (day if you watering instead of the greenhouse crew), and if you water consistently until you see water dripping out of the bottom you will be leaching out nutrients
• Slow release fertilizer should be applied at planting, and some iron chelate if you are growing plants for more than a few weeks (not sure if fertilizer applications could contaminate microbiome experiments)
• Water enough to keep soil moist but not soaked (twice a week should work)
• After seeds germinate rouge out all but one
  • If working with inbreds don’t rouge out the sick looking plants, rouge out the healthy plants (healthy plants could be hybrids and the sick looking ones are likely inbreds)