Fodder Sprouting Results

If you've been following our progress in growing fodder, you know that I've been conducting an experiment to compare various sprouting methods.

Wheat sprouts after 24 hours of sitting in the trays.

24 hours after being put into the tray (total time 48 hours), it's becoming a little more obvious that the shorter soak time in the vinegar solution seems to be doing the best, as far as sprouting time goes.

Wheat sprouts after 36 hours of sitting in the trays.

That same trend continues through the day, although it's starting to look like the 1- and 8-hour batches are lagging behind the most.  I suspect that may be because they're in the middle of the trays and thus may not be getting as much water as the ones on the edges of the tray.

Progress of sprouts that had vinegar for first 1/2 hour of soak.

Progress of sprouts that had vinegar for first 1 hour of soak.

Progress of sprouts that had vinegar for first 2 hours of soak.

Progress of sprouts that had vinegar for first 4 hours of soak.

Progress of sprouts that had vinegar for first 8 hours of soak.

Progress of sprouts that had vinegar for first 12 hours of soak.

The above pictures were taken at 51 hours, 72 hours, and 103 hours in the tray, except for the 12-hour-vinegared batch, which was 12 hours older than the others at each of the pictures.  The 1/2-hour-vinegared batch was the first to show green on the sprouts, and continues to be the furthest grown, which tells me that it's the best environment for sprouting.

I did see some hints of fuzzy white late on Day 4, so all batches got a spray down of white vinegar, and a repeat treatment on Day 5, which doesn't seem to have affected the wheat's growth.  I didn't tweeze any out, but the white fuzz has dissipated anyway. Looks like we should be on schedule for serving this batch in a few more days.

< Start of the Experiment

Fodder Sprouting Solutions

When last I left you on my fodder project, I had managed to defeat the mold and got to feed it to my rabbits.  Since then, I've been doing a number of experiments, specifically on what the best sprouting solution is.

To start off with, I tried to make a solution which I estimated should have come out to a pH of 6, which I understand is generally too low for mold to grow in, but should still be in the range for wheat to grow (at least, if it were soil instead of water).  My math was averaging out the pH of water (7) and vinegar (2), which should have been 4 parts water and 2 parts vinegar.  I still have some doubts whether averaging actually applies to a solution like this, but I thought I'd give it a try.  (It probably would have been more accurate if I had dug out the pH test strips).  Unfortunately, even though I only soaked it in that solution for 1 day, after 4 days (the last 3 being in water-only), I still wasn't seeing sprouts.  I gave up on that batch.

4 different solutions for trying to sprout fodder.

My next trial was to compare soaking in only water to soaking in a bleach solution, and soaking in two different concentrations of vinegar.  The bleach solution ended up being 3.7% bleach just because that was exactly how much bleach I had when I poured it into the water.  3.7% is in range of the recommended 3-10%.  For the vinegar, I did a 5:1 concentration (just a little less acidic than my previous experiment) and a 10:1 concentration (works out to 9.1% vinegar).

41 hours since starting wheat fodder in various solutions.

I left them in those solutions for 24 hours, then let them just sit in their jars.  By 41 hours after initially starting their soak, the water-only batch had very obvious sprouts.  The bleach solution had less, but there was at least signs of sprouting.  Neither of the vinegar solutions showed any signs of trying to sprout.  I really wanted vinegar to work (I keep hearing so many people crying out about using bleach), so I gave the vinegar trials a little longer to do their thing.  After 3 full days, there was still no sign.

3 days into 3% vinegar trial.

My next trial was to see if maybe the vinegar jars weren't sprouting because I was using distilled white vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar (often called ACV).  I also decided to reduce the solution down to 3% vinegar.  I set up one jar that was 3% white vinegar, and another that was 3% ACV, let them soak for 24 hours, rinsed them thoroughly and took a peak at their growth.  Nothing.  Let them sit in their jars for a little longer. Nothing.  At 3 days, it finally looked like they were warming up to the idea of sprouting, but there didn't appear to be a difference between white and ACV.

Bubbles in the water over soaking grains.

What if I was soaking the seeds too long in the vinegar solution?  That was my next trial.  For the time trial, I set up 6 pint-size jars, each with 1/2 cup of seeds and 200 mL of 3% ACV solution.  The first one was drained after 30 minutes, rinsed thoroughly, drained again, and re-filled with plain water. The second had the same thing done to it at 1 hour.  The rest were at 2 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours and 12 hours.  I did have some concerns about the about of bubbles that I was seeing in the jars.  I crossed my fingers that the grains weren't actually fermenting.  At 24 hours, I drained all of them, and spread them into seedling trays.  There were already differences between the various times.

Differences between exposure to solution in 24 total-time soak.

This trial seems very promising, although I'm still holding back any conclusions.  It's been over 12 hours since they were dumped into the trays, and the growth is obvious on all of them, in various degrees.

36  hours into timed-exposure trial.

See the Results >

Finishing Out Fodder

Fodder after 5 days in the tray.

Fodder after 6 days in the tray.

Spraying down the grass to get rid of vinegar flavor.

After the mold fiasco, I still kept the fodder going, and it continued to grow.  Finally, I decided that the fodder had probably grown enough that I should probably feed it to the rabbits.  Since I had been spritzing the whole thing with white vinegar after every watering, I rinsed the whole thing off with water before taking it out to the rabbits.  (Vinegar is usually not regarded as a pleasant flavor, especially not white vinegar).

Whole growth after 6 days in the tray.

I dumped the whole thing out onto the top of our house rabbit's cage.  I thought it would be funny to watch her nibble at the grass upside down (she's a white rabbit, and the idea struck me with a kind of Wonderland madness).  Plus, I wanted to get a good look at the root mat.  It was surprisingly thick, which made me happy.  Our last run had a disappointingly thin root mat, despite having grown a day longer than the current run.

Nice thick root mat for this round, compared to the thin one from our last run that took 8 days.

House rabbit, Margaret.

BamBam, Cali herd buck.

Ixis, white Rex buck.

< Previous: Defeating Mold on Fodder

Defeating Mold on Fodder

Mold growth showing up 4 days after putting in tray.

Darn it! Four days after dumping the seeds into the trays, I've spotted mold! It appears that there are at least two varieties: a fuzzy white kind and a blue kind. I've heard some debate about the white kind actually being a normal growth of the roots, but it's not appearing on all of the roots, which makes me suspect that it's a contaminant.

Fuzzy white mold.

Blue mold.

Tweezing out mold growth.

The last time I saw this, I just chucked the whole lot right away and counted it a loss.  This time, I'm not giving up.  The mold was visible, and in only a few places, so I should be able to cull out the infected areas. I got out a pair of clean tweezers and thoroughly scanned the entire tray for any signs of mold.  Any time I saw something growing that shouldn't be, I pulled it out.

Jar of sprouts culled for mold.

It may be weird, but I put all the culled sprouts into a container and doused them with a strong solution of distilled white vinegar and water.  The intention was that I would be able to see if the vinegar had any effect on the mold.

The next day, I was still culling sprouts for mold growth.  In fact, I was culling more! I decided to try adding vinegar directly to the tray.  I would have bleached, knowing that it kills mold well (in theory), but being so close to feeding (6 days since first starting the seeds), I didn't feel that bleach was safe. I filled a spray bottle with white vinegar, and my watering routine became: cull, flood, drain, spritz.

I had much less culling to do on the day after that.  I'm not sure if it was the vinegar or the near-OCD culling that did it, but we'll see how things go with the next batch.

Day 8 culls were much less than Day 7.

< Previous: Going Green with Fodder

Next: Finishing Out Fodder >

Going Green with Fodder

Draining out water.

After the equipment has been sterilized, and the seeds soaked in bleach water for 12 hours, it's time to get serious about making this seed grow into fodder.  One of the handy things about using these reusable jar lids is that I can just loosen them slightly and dump the water out without losing any of the seeds.

The seeds have started to sprout after soaking 12 hours.

Most of the instructions I've seen about growing fodder suggest continuing to soak the seeds for about three days, changing out the water twice a day.  However, when I looked at my seeds after the initial drain, I saw that many of the seeds were already starting to sprout.  So, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to move the seeds to a growing tray right then.  I dumped the drained seeds into one of the washed trays, peeling back a corner of the plastic wrap that I had covering it.

Dumping seeds into tray.

Seeds spread out in the tray.

In order to spread the seeds evenly in the tray without contaminating the seeds, I washed my hands thoroughly.  If you've ever taken a food safety course, you know that truly clean hands is only possible with water as hot as you can stand it and scrubbing with antibacterial soap for at least 20 seconds, especially between the fingers and under the fingernails.  One trick for getting a full 20 seconds of washing is to sing "Happy Birthday" to yourself, twice through.  Follow up with a bit of hand sanitizer, and rub until your hands are completely dry.  I didn't measure exactly how deep my seeds were in the tray, but I know that anything much more than 3/4" tends to mean lack of seed sprouting, and excessive mold. Mine should be well below that, especially since I can still see the black of the tray under the seeds.

Filling the tray with low water pressure.

From there, we use the hydroponic method of flood and drain, which means filling up the tray with water, and then dumping it out.  Even though the sprouts just came out of a soak, I did a flood and drain to help remove any traces of bleach that might still be on the seeds.  While the seeds are still in the sprouting stage, some of the seeds try to float and escape the container as I'm dumping it out, but I use the plastic sheet as a kind of dam filter to keep the floaters in the tray.

Draining off the water.

Covered back up with plastic.

Temp at the growing shelf.

After dumping, I covered the tray back up with the plastic wrap, and set the tray at the growing station, which was at just over 64 degrees at the time.

Every twelve hours, I repeated the flood and drain.  Each day, the sprouts could be seen getting just a little bit longer, and after 3 days in the tray, I was starting to see green in the shoots.

After 24 hours in the growing tray.

After 48 hours in the growing tray.

After 72 hours (3 days) in the growing tray.

< Previous: Clean Start on Fodder

Next: Defeating Mold on Fodder >

A Clean Start on Fodder

Fodder from one of our former runs at it.

I've tried growing fodder a couple of times, now.  I know my rabbits absolutely love it, but unfortunately, most of the times I try it, I end up with mold (a common problem).  This time, I'm going to try it by sterilizing everything and keep the environment more controlled and monitored.

If you want to learn more about fodder, Peak Prosperity is where I first read about it.  There are many other resources available online, with a few different methods.  My own method differs somewhat from the method they discuss, and I'm considering eventually going to an automated system for it once I get the kinks worked out.

Boiling jars to sterilize them.

As I've said, mold has been a problem for me before, so this time, I'm going at the whole process with a "brewer's mind," as my sweetie likes to say (he brews beer, which requires sterilized equipment).  Being a canner, myself, that's more what I like to think of it as.  Either way, the idea is to sterilize everything.

The first few times, I've soaked the seed (whole grain wheat, bought from the feed store) in plastic tubs, similar to how The Urban Rabbit Project does it (he uses margarine tubs). This time, since I'm wanting to sterilize everything, I figure it's best to use some of my canning jars, which I can boil without risking any chemicals leaching where they shouldn't be.  Just like in canning, I put clean (read: no visible residue, washed in soap and hot water) jars into hot (not boiling) water in a deep pot on the stove.  I also put some reusable jar lids in the water to sterilize.  You want the water to be at least an inch above the top of the jars.  I don't have a canning rack, otherwise I would have used it.  A canning rack will keep multiple jars from bumping into each other while the water is boiling, and also make it easier to remove them from the water when they're done.  Once the water starts into a rolling boil, start your timer.  For elevations under 1,000 feet, it only takes 10 minutes.  If you're over that, add another minute for each 1,000 feet.  So, if you're at 4,000 feet above sea level, you'll want to boil for at least 14 minutes. Extra time just means extra sterile.

Removing jar with a jar lifter.

When time's up, I removed the jars (and lids) from the water and set them aside to cool to a handleable temperature.  (For those who aren't familiar with canning, the red contraption in the picture is a jar lifter, which--if you don't have a canning rack--is the only way to remove jars from boiling water.)

Fill the jar 3/4 with seed.

Once the jars got cool enough to handle, I put the fodder seed into the jar.  I filled the jar about 3/4 of the way with seeds.  You don't want to fill all the way because the seeds will swell as they drink in the water.  I then topped off the jar with water and tiny splash of bleach.  The bleach is to kill any mold spores that might be hiding out on the seeds themselves.  Some people have used distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar, but at this point, I'm not quite ready to switch to that method.

Give the jar a good shake.

After I got the lid on the jar, I gave the whole thing a good shake to make sure it's all well-mixed and hopefully work out any bubbles of air that are still hiding in there.  From there, the jars were set aside to soak for some time.  I'm letting mine soak for 12 hours (others only do a one- or two-hour soak with bleach, and then let it soak in straight water; still others will soak for a full 24 hours).

Temperature within optimum range.

The optimum temperature for growing fodder is between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  The last few times I did this, I was worried that I may have been working outside of the optimum temperature range, but I'm apparently good for this round, with temperatures hovering between 66 and 69 degrees.

In the meantime, I wanted to sterilize the trays that the seed will be going into when they're done soaking.  I'm using nursery trays bought from the local hardware store.  Other people have used organizer trays, plastic totes, disposable roasting pans, and other things.  Many people punch holes in their trays, but for the time being, I'm leaving mine as-is.

Bleaching the seedling tray.

In order to sterilize the trays, I started by scrubbing the whole thing down, inside and out, with soap and water.  After that, I poured some bleach into the tray and scrubbed the entire inside down with bleach.  Then, rinse the whole thing with hot water.

Since I'm taking extra precautions to control the growing environment and reduce the risk of mold, I then covered the tray with plastic wrap and taped it down.  If I had thought about it when I bought the trays, I should have grabbed the clear plastic lids that come with them.  At the time, I didn't think I would ever use them (oops).  The plastic wrap will keep anything from getting into the trays while we wait for the seeds to sprout.

Plastic wrap taped down to keep contaminates out.

Next: Going Green with Fodder >