1st Survival Summer Course Basic Survival Medicine Personal Hygiene

After a long long pause due to fatherhood, here I am again to go on covering the rituals of survival, a course started this last Summer here in The Toxicologist Today.

When ones on survival mode hygiene is a must for infections and disease can weaken the individual. Poor hygiene can reduce the chances of survival. If a bath is impossible, a cloth and some water will do the trick. Feet, armpits, crotch, hands and hair are prime areas for infection. In the absence of water you can go for something as simple as an "air" bath; this can be easily made by removing as much cloths as possible and exposing the body to the sunlight for at leas 60 minutes.

If soap is a commodity you do not have at your disposal, use ashes or sand, or use a recipe that consists of animal fat and wood ashes to cook your own soap. The recipe consists of:

- extracting grease from animal fat by cutting the fat into small pieces and cooking them in a pot;

- adding enough water to the pot to avoid fat from sticking to the vessels wall;

- remember to cook this mixture slowly with frequent mixing;

- when the fat is rendered transfer it to another container to harden;

- place the ashes in a container with a spout near the bottom;

- pour water over the ashes and collect the liquid that drips out of the spot in a separate container (this mix is called the potash or lye).

- In a cooking pot, mix two parts grease to one part potash/lye, give it some fire to thicken and cook. Cut it into bars if it will make it easier to use.

The following video helps you understand the making of soap with pig lard and wood ashes. Watch it, understand it and maybe try it. I promise Ill be here soon to keep covering the hygiene part of this survival course:

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Moving to town

Recently we have moved to town.  We had to sell the property for a number of reasons.  I will miss a lot of things about the property but unfortunately selling was the right thing to do at this point in time.  We are now renting a nice house in town.

Moving to town has been difficult, we have had to sell our animals and alpacas and they are sorely missed.  Our daughters were born in our old house and I developed Immali corn and a few other varieties of vegetables there.  It has a lot of memories and moving was far more difficult than I thought it would be.
In our last few days someone stole our firewood and someone else broke into the mud brick house and cut/took the antenna cables (yet didnt steal anything).  We know who did both of these things but unfortunately can do little about it.  That made moving even harder and more emotional.  I have been praying that I can forgive them, yet I find this very difficult.

Babingtons leek flowering after the move

We have also been very lucky, we asked our new landlord if we could keep two guinea pigs and he allowed us to keep them.  This has made the transition far easier for the kids and they often sit outside holding and patting the guinea pigs.  I think guinea pigs are amazing little animals and very under-appreciated pets.  I should write a post on guinea pigs at some point.

We also asked if we could keep some chickens and the landlord graciously agreed.  I truly appreciate being allowed to keep them.  This has been great as we still have eggs.  It has been many years since we have had to buy eggs and I dread the thought of that ever having to buy them again.  I dont have a rooster so will not be hatching any eggs in the immediate future.

Araucana cross and silkie cross chickens

We took our last two sheep to the butcher and they are now in the freezer so we will not have to buy meat for some time.  I doubt we will be growing our own meat here in any way.  Perhaps I will get some quail or be able to set up a small aquaponics system and raise some edible fish when we move next.

This rental house is very nice and the street is pleasantly quiet, but it does not have a vegetable garden.  I dont understand how people grow food without a vegetable garden.  I am at a loss here.  I guess they pay someone else to grow all their food and simply buy it from a supermarket?  That seems odd to me.  There are so many things that I like to eat which I can not get from a store, other vegetables are so much better fresh.  What I would give for even a tiny plot.  They are a bit precious about grass here so I can only grow things in pots which I have to keep on concrete or pavers in fear of damaging the lawn.

Vegetables but no land in which to plant them

The same vegetables from the other end

Duck potatoes, they grow well in a bucket

I dug up some of most types of vegetables/herbs and brought them here with us.  I could not take many of each, just enough to start again.  Some things do well in containers, others do not.  Many plants have died in the move and many more are looking weak.  I hope that we get to move somewhere with a vegetable garden before many more things start to die.

Micro Tomatoes - unfortunately not all survived the move

Chilli seedlings from rare imported seeds

When I get set up somewhere with a vegetable garden I plan to grow and sell vegetables and seeds again.  I miss having a garden.  I may have some Babingtons Leeks and perhaps some other things things for sale soon but cant get too serious or have too many spare plants when growing in pots.  When I do start to sell vegetables again I will list them on my For Sale page.

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The effects of static magnetic fields on seed germination and plant growth

I have heard anecdotal evidence from people who claim exposing seeds to a static magnetic field increases germination rates and makes seeds germinate a lot faster.  I have heard other people claim that exposing seedlings to a magnetic field increases health of young seedlings.  To be honest I had no idea if this was accurate or not.  If this is true then I want to use magnets in germinating some seeds.

I did some research on the internet and found various papers that have been written on the subject, they appear to have conflicting results and many of the tests were often run is sub optimal conditions (often funded by companies that have a conflict of interest) with far too many variables often in completely non-scientific ways that can not be used to provide unbiased results.  Most (ie all) of the people who I know of that have tried this have not included a control, which in my mind is a waste of time.  I often read statements such as "try this and you will be amazed by the results", so I decided to try it.

To find out for myself if there is truth in this my children and I decided to run a small experiment.  If static magnets do increase the germination rates of seeds (which would be great for old seeds with low germination rates), or decrease the amount of time it takes for seeds to germinate (which would stop weaker seeds from rotting), or increases the vigor of young seedlings (which can die in the first few days while they are tiny) they could be extremely useful for me in germinating difficult seeds or very old seeds of rare varieties.  Lets face it, if this works I have a lot to gain and nothing to lose.

The three pots, unfortunately one was a different colour

The Experiment
I will probably try to write this up properly some time in the future, include some graphs of the results and try to submit it to some journal for peer review, but I dont have time right now.  For now I will write it up very simply so that you can see what happened and possibly repeat it with your own kids.

This experiment was conducted to determine if a static magnetic field would affect seed germination or the early growth of seedlings.

This study divided wheat (Triticum spp) seeds into three groups.  Each group was comprised of 100 wheat seeds randomly chosen from a sack of feed wheat.  The first group was to germinate in the presence of a strong static magnet field delivered from a Neodymium magnet (approximately 0.6751 tesla).  The second group was to germinate in the presence of a weak static magnet field delivered from a small refrigerator magnet of unknown strength.  The third grew was to germinate in the absence of any added magnetic field to act as a control. 

Several growth parameters were observed throughout the experiment including the germination rate, leaf length, and root length.  In addition the health status of seedlings was measured through observation of leaf color, spots, visual presence of disease, stem curvature, and seedling mortality.  Plant growth was observed continuously for the duration of the experiment.

Three square 10cm plastic pots were filled with potting soil from the same bag to the same depth.  The three pots were watered by submerging the pots in water until the soil was thoroughly soaked.  Each pot was then surface sowed with 100 wheat seeds.  For the duration of the experiment each pot was watered from below once a week so as not to disturb the magnets or the emerging seedlings.  Each magnet was wrapped in a single sheet or 3 ply toilet paper inside a small plastic zip lock bag and placed on top of the seeds.  This was done to protect the magnets from corrosion as well as obscure which magnet was in which group.  To reduce the presence of any variables the control had a small non magnetic stone of similar weight to the magnets, wrapped in toilet paper inside a small plastic zip lock bag.  The three bags were then shuffled and chosen at random to be placed on the seeded pots of soil to ensure a blind test.

The magnets were placed on their side so that some seeds would be close to the North pole, some close to the South pole and others along the edge.  This was intended to show if either pole had a positive or negative effect on germination of the seeds.

After 5 days seeds in all three pots began to germinate.  It appeared as if seeds from all parts of all pots were germinating at the same rate.  It appeared that all three pots had similar germination in terms of the number of seeds germinating, progression of root growth, progression of leaf growth, as well as angle of root or leaf growth.

After 14 days seedlings from all three pots were counted and measured.  Seedlings from all three groups had similar height, similar health as indicated by colour, lack of spots, and visual stem curvature.  All three groups had no seedling mortality throughout the duration of the experiment.

The high magnetic group had 98% germination.

The low magnetic group had 100% germination.

The control group had 99% germination.
The time to germination from all three pots was identical which indicates that magnets have no noticeable effect on germination time.

In addition to the germination rates being similar (98% to 100%), the leaf length, root length and health of seedlings from each batch appeared to be identical.  I had planned on weighing the seedlings from each group to determine fresh biomass but discovered that separating the roots from the potting mix was not possible.

A blind test, I didnt know which pot has the magnet or stone

The results from this small experiment indicate that there is no noticeable effect on the germination of seeds in terms of germination time or germination rate due to either strong or weak static magnetic fields.  It appears that a static magnetic field has no noticeable effect on the vigor/health of young seedlings.  The pots with magnets had similar looking seedlings growing on all areas of the pot which indicates that the polarity of the magnet also had no noticeable effect on germination or early growth.

This was a blind test and it was not until after the seedlings were counted and measured that I opened the little zip lock bags to discover which pot had which magnet.  I figure if this was worth doing it was worth doing properly.


My thoughts
While I was kind of disappointed by this result in hindsight it is not overly surprising.  If any positive difference would be seen then seed magnetisation would be used by commercial farmers.  Farmers have tight profit margins and often grow in hostile environments, they are willing to do whatever it takes to make their crops thrive and magnetisation would be reasonably cheap and simple to apply.  The fact that seed magnetisers are only seen being sold by a few sketchy online sellers and are not seen in rural stores or used by many commercial farmers hints that it may not be all that useful.  It was still worth testing to see for myself.

I have already started to run a similar experiment again and changed some of the parameters, the use of sand instead of soil will allow me to weigh the fresh or dry biomass and see if there is any difference there.  An extra 100 seeds in each group is only going to make the data better.

I am using seeds from a dicot instead of a monocot to see if that makes any noticeable difference.  Doing this experiment using seeds with naturally high germination rates as I did possibly obscures the results as germination rates could not really get any higher.  The seeds in the second test are older and have lower germination rates so I should be able to see if the magnets make any noticeable difference on germination rates that are not close to 100%.

I am also planning to grow seedlings for a longer time to see if any noticeable difference is made as they get larger, in the future I may even grow them to maturity to determine if any difference is made to overall yield or time to maturity (Micro Tom tomatoes seem like a great choice for this).  There are also a few other things that I may considering trying in the future that may make the experiment a little more robust.

Micro Tom tomatoes, tiny plants with a short lifecycle makes them ideal for experiments

When I conclude this second experiment I plan to post the results (or a link to the results) here.

If you also try this little experiment please ensure you are removing as many variables as possible and do it as a blind test with a control so that the results are accurate.  Feel free to let me know your results.

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I repeated the experiment using some old cress (Lepidium sativum) seeds that would have a lower percentage of germination and I grew them out for a bit longer.  Again I used 100 seeds per group but this time all of the pots were exactly the same.  

The time to germination was identical in all groups.  The plants in all groups looked similar in terms of height, number of leaves, colour, angle of leaf growth etc.  The motality rate was identical in all three groups (4 seedlings germinated then died in each group).  I did not weigh the seedlings as I assume they would weigh less than 1 gram collectively and my scales are not accurate enough to record any differences.  Due to less than ideal conditions all 3 groups then started to grow mould which infected all seedlings similarly and all plants are succumbing at a similar rate.  I am going to let this continue to see if there is any noticeable difference in the groups but at this stage that looks unlikely.

The percentage germination was the only area where I could see even a slight difference.  The control group had 24 seeds germinate, the strong magnet had 22 seeds germinate and the weak magnet had 30 seeds germinate.  

This is certainly not the miracle difference in growth and/or germination that I had hoped for, it is not going to be the magic bullet to help germinate tricky or weak seeds.  The difference between 24% germination of the control and 30% germination for the weak magnet is not enough for me to think that the magnets are creating a difference of any kind.

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If it is worth doing it is worth doing right. 

Some people have asked me why I only have 100 seeds in each group.  The answer is because if I have any more seeds they are too far from the magnet to experience the magnetic field.  I agree this test would be more valid with larger numbers, to help overcome this I have run the experiment several times using several different species to see if I obtain any significant difference.

I repeated this again with some older garlic chive (Allium tuberosum) seeds that I had left in a paper bag.  As the seeds were aging I had expected germination rates to be low. 

I used 100 randomly chosen seeds in each pot and used three identical pots filled with sand.  Again I used the strong magnet, the weak magnet and the non magnetic stone as a control.  As before I did not know which group was which until after I had counted the seedlings.

The time to germination was identical in each pot, the health and size of seedlings in each pot was also identical.  The early growth rates of the seedlings was identical.  I tried to weigh the seedlings after the experiment but my scales were not accurate enough to record any differences.

The control group had 64 seeds germinate, the weak magnet had 61 seeds germinate and the strong magnet had 65 seeds germinate.

Just like the previous experiments I am far from amazed by these results.  Their seems to be little to no effect of a static magnetic field, either strong or weak, on seed germination and early plant growth.

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From here I want to run this little experiment again using the Micro tomatoes from planting the seeds until maturity so I can count and weigh the fruit to see if there is any improvement in crop yield.  I will probably only be able to grow 3 seeds of each in this experiment as I do not have enough magnets to grow larger numbers. 

Due to moving etc I may not get around to this for some time though, if I do I plan to post the results here or if the results are interesting I may write another post and link to it from here.

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Seed Sellers

I have recently moved in to town and have no access to any form of garden, I am also in the middle of moving again so my potted vegetables are struggling.  As such I can not sell vegetable plants or seeds at the moment.  When I get set up again I will list everything on my For Sale page, hopefully we sort everything out soon as I miss growing and selling vegetable plants and seeds.

I have had a few people ask me where to buy seeds or they have asked my opinion of different companies so I thought I would write a post about some of them.  Some of these companies have bought seeds from me in the past, some I have bought seeds from, others I have heard about from other people.  I have probably forgotten to include some, if I remember them I will try to add them later.

Please note that I am not affiliated with any of these companies and that the views expressed are based on my personal experiences.  I am in no way liable if they do not live up to expectations.  This is based on past experiences and they may or may not treat you better or worse than they have done to me in the past.

Useful seeds  http://usefulseeds.com/

Range:  Limited (for now, but increasing) but what he does have are rather rare and/or amazing

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  Reasonably high, but you can not buy many of these varieties anywhere else and the quality is excellent so the high prices are more than justified

Seed numbers:  Good

Service: no idea as I have never bought from him but I know him and he is a good guy.  He has given me seeds in the past and they were of very high quality.  I assume he would provide excellent service as he loves what he does

The Seed Collection  www.theseedcollection.com.au/

Range: good, nothing particularly rare

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  Low to very low prices

Seed Numbers:  Great, always contains more seeds than stated in each packet

Service:  Great, they are willing to answer questions and even include extra packets of seed in each order


The Dwarf Tomato Project  http://dwarftomatoproject.net/Releases-SH.php  

Range: small range of newly bred, various colours, dwarf tomatoes
Based: Australia
Prices: Low prices, they are simply trying to recover costs instead of make a profit.  They have given their seeds to some seed companies who sell them for almost tripple the price of the Dwarf Tomato Project
Seed Numbers: Good, about 20 seeds per pack
Service: Excellent, Patrina bred many of these varieties and wants them to be more popular.  She is willing to answer questions and offer advice.

Rangeview Seeds  http://rangeviewseeds.com.au/

Range:  Good, some rare things

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  Good/variable

Seed Numbers:  Good

Service:  Good

Eden Seeds  http://edenseeds.com.au/

Range:  Great

Based:  QLD Australia

Prices:  Good

Seed Number:  Good

Service:  Good

Green Harvest http://greenharvest.com.au/

Range:  Great, they sell seeds, plants and other garden products

Based:  QLD Australia

Prices:  Good but postage is high

Seed Number:  Good

Service:  Great

Phoenix Seeds  www.phoenixseeds.net.au/

Range:  Great, some very interesting and rare varieties

Based:  Tasmania

Prices:  Good but postage is high

Seed Number:  Varies

Service:  I dont know as I have not bought from them yet

Diggers club

Range:  Great but sometimes they rename things or make erroneous claims of exclusivity to appear better than they are.  Descriptions of varieties are often embellished

Based:  VIC Australia

Prices:  High to extremely high, postage cost is unreasonable for smaller orders

Seed Number:  Extremely low, but it does vary

Service:  Dreadful.  They have sold me out of date seeds as well as bulbs covered in mould and then tried to blame me when they failed to sprout!  They have also sent the wrong seeds and getting replacements or refund from them was a nightmare.  Hopefully this changes as they are one of the best known heirloom seed sellers in Australia

Pepper Lover http://pepperlover.com/

Range:  Only sell chilli and capsicums, they have a great range of these.  Some they have bred themselves

Based:  America - only some species are allowable imports into Australia so please check AQIS BICON database prior to ordering

Prices:  Good with free postage to Australia!

Seed Number:  Good, extra seeds in each pack

Service:  Great, they even include extra seed packets in each order

Ebay

Range:  Varies from time to time

Based:  All over the place

Prices:  Varies a lot

Seed Number:  Varies a lot

Service:  Varies.  Beware that many seeds sold on Ebay are for things that do not even exist (such as multi coloured blue roses) and they are stealing from you.  You will get seeds, but by the time you grow them and work out what has happened it will be too late to get back your money.  I have also bought some great seeds from excellent sellers through Ebay.  Please do your research prior to ordering anything from Ebay

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Saving seed

One of the main reasons we are farming is to try and establish some sort of food security for ourselves.  We want to acquire valuable skills so we can be beneficial members of a resilient community.  Saving our seeds is perhaps one of the most important actions we can take.  Since this is fairly new to us, we are still discovering the best ways to harvest and store the seeds from each species we grow.  This week I decided to cut down some of the plants I had been allowing to go to seed, in order to make room for new plants.  The pods are not quite ready but I am hoping that if I allow them to dry in the sun they will mature nicely.  There are way more Siberian kale seeds here than we can possibly use so I will bring a bunch back to our local seed library, which is a satisfying feeling since our original kale seeds came from there.

Siberian kale seed pods drying in the sun

I am very interested to know some systems others choose for storing their seeds. At first we stored our seeds in paper envelopes in a special drawer.  Eventually this got messy and seeds were scattered all over. We have now opted for glass jars covered in paper and labeled, which we store in a dark cabinet.  This has been efficient but the glass is problematic (living in earthquake country). 

Our first season starting all of our plants from seed, almost everything we planted came from free seeds; either from our local seed library, a nearby ecology center, or traded from friends.  I also found out about the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN).  It is listed as a source for rare seeds in the back of Perennial Vegetables.  GRIN is a national collection of plant materials of hundreds of crops and thousands of wild crop relatives from all over the globe.  Free seeds and plants are available for research purposes.  What intrigued me about GRIN is that I could order seeds collected by hand in the forests of the Ukraine, some rare variety of quinoa from Peru, or a stash of corn seed that has been saved by some farmers wife in Nebraska for decades.  The downside to GRIN is that you have no way to know if the seeds are organic so I tried to stick with the wild species that interested me.  To be honest, I have not planted many of the seeds I received from this source but the ones I have planted I am quite happy with, like the tree spinach (aka lambs quarters).  


It has been fun experimenting with mystery varieties but this year we opted to purchase specific heirloom varieties (from here) that we had read about and were excited to try; for flavor, size, appearance, and which are the best keepers.  Learning about the varieties that grow well in our micro-climate is taking our gardening to another level and teaching us yet another invaluable aspect of sustainability.  

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The microwave militia is bad for your mental health

A few weeks ago my mum, very customarily, emailed me a compilation of web articles about the dangers associated to the use of microwaves. I read it vertically in a flash, but lacking time for an appropriate evaluation decided to dedicate my time to other posts. Now, on a Saturday morning with my wife on my side and my baby resting asleep, boring Bundesliga highlights showing on TV, Pepe Guardiola distributing autographs in a very safe-mode competition where only one team wins the title, my eyes were incapable of doing more than reading slowly... conditions are perfect to analyse this microwave issue carefully.

The question here is understanding if an appliance used on a daily basis by basically everyone in the modern world is threatening our health or some anal retentive people have been saying more than they actually know.

Many articles widespread in the Internet blatantly state that the Russians banned the microwave back in 1976 following a study that was used to evaluate health hazards. Well, the Internet is flooded constantly with misinformation or really poor sourcing. The microwave was never banned in Russia, and if you need reassurance this page contains plenty references to make you sure of that. Biased? I dont think so, for in the bottom of the page there are article references for you to read through if necessary be. It seems that conspiracy theorists confused financial incapacity to buy a microwave back in the days with a supposed ban elevated on grounds of health and safety research.

The immediate question is then if microwaves do actually present any short or long-term health hazards. Where some crazy heads claim that there are countries that have banned the microwave, truth surfaces and tells you straight away that that is a perfect lie. No country banned the microwave, what happens is that different regions have different regulations in place to control electrical and electronic appliances; but such is a regulation, not a ban altogether.

What about health concerns in using microwave to prepare food? The microwave works by emitting microwave-band electromagnetic radiation of 2.5GHz through food. Molecules with electric dipoles in them (water is the perfect example - see image) vibrate/rotate along this electromagnetic field with friction creating heat (dielectric heating). Molecules that have a more complex structure are not affected at all. Thus, the microwave presents a clean, clear, straightforward way of heating food.

The myth must end immediately until someone really produces scientific-supported information. Until then, there is a great webpage [Skeptoid] deconstructing the myth and doing for us what science should be doing, allowing progress, knowledge and understanding with the least damage possible. So lets look at the facts that Skeptoid analyses:

"ever since microwave ovens came on the market in 1954, not one person has ever exhibited a single symptom of any illness resulting from having eaten microwaved food, or from having used water that had been microwaved.Burns are the exception, but burns are caused by heat from any source; thats not unique to microwaves." [1]

"chain email, and many of these web sites, also state that giving a plant water that has been microwaved will kill it. There is even a series of unsourced photographs of two plants, one of which withers and dies while its sibling flourishes. The awesome web site Snopes.com tested this particular claim. They all did exactly the same." [1]

"Probably the most flagrant error that the Microwave Militia propagates is that microwaved food or water contains what they call "radiolytic compounds" — new chemicals created by the tearing apart of molecules in a microwave. These new chemicals are said to be dangerous, cancerous, radioactive, unnatural, or otherwise harmful. This is a demonstrably false claim. Radiolysis, which is a real process and which the Militia believes creates these radiolytic compounds, is the process by which molecules are dissociated under ionizing radiation. Water can be dissociated under ionizing alpha particle bombardment, which is a natural process. Microwave radiation, as mentioned earlier, is not ionizing radiation. It is thus scientifically incapable of causing radiolysis. The differences between microwave radiation and alpha radiation are huge. With the claim that microwaves cause dissociation of water molecules, the Microwave Militia is either deliberately lying, or they are grossly ignorant of the very subject on which they claim superior expertise." [1]

There are loads of studies available and you can make your own judgement, but facts are facts and it is a fact that the only issue associated to microwaves is using the wrong container for heating food in a microwave, as the wrong vessel can leak toxic substances if not prepared to accept microwave radiation. Apart from that, these stories are just bullocks.

[1] Are microwave ovens safe? - Skeptoid, Critical analysis of Pop Phenomena; [http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4080], last visited on the 07th of December 2013, last update on the 25th of December 2007.

1st image taken from [http://we-are-star-stuff.tumblr.com/post/63702840093/are-microwave-ovens-dangerous-the-typical]

2nd image source unknown

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