Second Week:Thinning the Lettuce Sprouts

Dear readers,

Surprisingly, I got more sprouts came out than I originally expected, which is great! But sadly, I need to thin most of them out, in order to make some space for selected one to grow in each pot.

So for today, all you need for thinning is just forceps.
If you got more than one sprout in each pot, that is great. You can just thin out everything else except for the one in the middle. (However, you should make sure that you do it really carefully so that you can use these "left-over" sprouts to be replanted in the pots which did not grow any sprouts. But just to make sure to do it only within the same population.)

If you got only one sprout in each pot, that is fine, too. You do not need to thin anything. However, if you got sprouts from the side, there are some extra work that you need to do.

You can simply take the sprout from the side out with the forceps. However, if you only have sprouts from the side grown, be really careful when you take these sprouts out. (Try to remove it gently.)

Here is the pile of left-over sprouts. Most of them has to sacrifice their lives for other selected sprouts. If you are a person who does not want to waste these, you can simply eat them by putting them into your salad after rinsing them off. (I tried and some of them were very bitter. So, it is not recommended.)

These pictures were from after the thinning process. Some of the pots in the picture have more than one sprout since I wanted to make sure that one sprout to survive. (I was not sure whether I pulled out some of the sprouts gently enough.)
So, for the observation, the germination for Freedom Mix population was great. I did not have to transplant from any of the pots from this population. (I just had to thin from most of the pots.) On the other hand, I observed the lowest germination from Philosophers Mix population. It did not require me to thin much but, I had to transplant for some of the pots.