Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab

We are scientists developing bio-fertilisers using nitrogen fixing bacteria . Get your hands dirty with us at the Imperial Festival (Hands-On Zone)! 👩‍🔬☘️

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

@mariucha77 Hi Maria and Federico!
Your plate has an even bacterial lawn on it. You can just about make out where you stroked the soil/water mix on the plate and from there, the bacteria spread, covering the entire plate.
Great job for growing some very active bacteria!

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

Hi everyone!

All the images of your plates are online now!
You can take a look and find your own plate by following these links to our website:

https://t.co/tzZ7CEJI2N for those of you who visited us on Saturday;
https://t.co/4nX9TK2oTC for the Sunday group.

Great job!

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

@nicknicksmummy Great! We're so glad!
Well done Nick! That's some fantastic swarming growth you've got there :-)

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

@nicknicksmummy Hi Nick and Emma!
We've gone through the Sat plates again. Unfortunately, the red pen was rubbed off from many plates, so we're having trouble identifying yours. We've photographed our best options for you. Do you think Nick's is among them? Sorry about the trouble ...

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

@nicknicksmummy Hi @nicknicksmummy !
We're sorry to hear this and definitely want to find your son's plate!
If you let us know what day you were at our stand and what exactly you wrote on the plate, we'll do our best to find it.

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

And here are our favourite plates from the Sunday group.
Some of these look like works of art!

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

The results of the Clever Clover soil bacteria growth experiments are in!
While we’re uploading all the photos of your amazing plates, here are some of the most exciting ones we've seen from the Saturday group. #ImpFest

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

So a sneak preview of the results of our soil bacteria isolation experiment - young Gustave’s plate from Saturday seems to contain a cool pattern forming bacterium. We think the asymmetric, clockwise curving of the radial filaments might mean it’s Bacillus mycoides! #ImpFest

[Giorgio Perin @PerinGiorgio]

Come to visit @ICLCleverClover stand at #impfest

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

How do you like your bacteria? Fuzzy, coloured, shiny or smelly? Come and take part in our big experiment to extract bacteria from roots and soil. We’ll send you a picture of what grows on your plate after a few days incubating in our lab! Find us in the Hands-On Zone. #ImpFest

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

SCIENCE SUNDAY PICTURE QUIZ: I’m a symbiosis between the green and the (very) small, I am crucial to feeding the planet and you can find me in the soil around the Princes Gardens. What am I? Come look under the microscope for yourselves in the Hands-On Zone! #ImpFest

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

Two Cyanobacteria (green photosynthetic bacteria) fresh from the lab! But only one can fix nitrogen - come look under the microscope and guess which one! #ImpFest

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

Join us on a clover hunt in Princes Gardens and look at their amazing nitrogen-fixing nodules under the microscope! #ImpFest

[Rob Bradley @robwbradley]

I'll be at Imperial Festival tomorrow with @ICLCleverClover - there'll be lots to learn about nitrogen's role in biology, plus activities for kids #ImpFest

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

Friendly soil bacteria are great for plants - they feed them important nutrients and fight away nasty diseases. Colourful, wrinkly, shiny or hairy - come play lab microbiologist and see how many you can grow! Here's one we prepared earlier ;) #ImpFest

[Clever Clover: The Nitrogen Lab @ICLCleverClover]

@SusFoodTrust and @michaelgove will discuss the agricultural nitrogen crisis at #FirFarm2018 today, asking whether we should disincentivise industrial fertiliser use. Our research will hopefully make microbial bio-fertiliser a sustainable and viable alternative. See us @ #impfest https://t.co/uGlyoAYTlm

[Sustainable Food Trust @SusFoodTrust]

We can produce food in harmony with nature without the use of chemical fertilisers, says Patrick Holden on @BBCr4today Follow our conference and discussion with @michaelgove today #FirFarm2018