I was supposed to start collecting data of plants starting earlier this month. However, the plants that were part of the experiment, they all died unfortunately.

The plant we choose to work with was Abroma augustum. A very nice shrub, having plethora of medicinal values to it, containing a native secondary metabolite named after the genus itself, Abromine. We prepared all the necessary hormones and everything for the plant to propagate through cutting, however, after probably 20 days, all the plants were dead. This made me very demotivated, and at some point I even considered not doing thesis at all.

I read online couple of places that, the plant can be quite easily propagated through cutting, by seed or through root suckers. So, we went with the cutting approach. We even collected huge number of seeds of the plant to see if they were viable. The seeds were very much viable and even gave good amount of seedlings while we planted them locally on our rooftop. Although, these plants also died

Reason for their premature death

I think the most obvious point we missed was the fact that, Abroma augustum needed soil with well drainage facility, which we didn't have nor in the actual plot or on the small buckets they were planted on the rooftops. The reason I'm jumping to this conclusion is because of the fact that, the people who were in-charge of watering the plants on the plot, watered them regularly and from reading online portals, the plant can barely tolerate excess water, which resulted in the plants death. The same goes for the plants on our rooftops. The initially grew so well from the seeds, I thought these might actually be used as an alternate, however, at one point there was an excess rain for a whole day, and due to poor water drainage, water probably didn't properly leave the bucket and probably caused the plant to completely rot. This is such a shame. This all happened due to probably my negligence/low interest at that time, or I was busy doing something else, which made me to completely ignore this whole thing.

Plans ahead

I don't know what to expect of the nature, and this is probably the whole beauty of it, and I'm glad I was able to experience it. Hopefully next time I'll be more careful and probably chose a more rational and mindful approach and be more attentive instead of jumping through other works.