Joe

Day 4
July 20, 2012

Today, we started off with sampling new and old fungus from our colonies into petri dishes. The new fungus is grey and lies on top of the garden. The old is on the bottom and is much more white. We stored multiple samples to find where the good and bad fungus lives in the gardens. After that, each group developed an experiment to test how to prevent ants from eating crops on Pablo's farm. My group decided AJ had the best idea, so we are using his. We are going to test if it is possible to stop an ant colony from harvesting a tree by spreading a different colony's fungus and soil around it. This may work because leaf cutter ants are territorial, and each colony has a unique scent. We worked in heavy rain digging fungus and dirt out of multiple colonies. I was a little scared after I got bit the first time two days ago. After several attempts, we successfully got our fungus and dirt without injuries. We also found the trees that we will put the soil and fungus around, but we have to wait until tomorrow to test our ideas.