Alfalfa Finale

Getting to the end of this experiment and should eat my sprouts (the wages of science is health food?) but first a arty close up:

Also a camera photo of the tangled collection.

Alfalfa almost Leaves

After another day the remains of the seed are looking more like leaf than ever.

Alfalfa Leaves and Shoots

A day later and the alfalfa is growing dramatically, some of the tops have opened into tiny proto leaves:

And the roots are growing tiny hairlike protrusionsvisible here at 50x:

More Sprouts

36 hours after soaking the sprouts are full of activity, some of them having achieved 15mm of root.

I took this 50x close up of a root tip all wrapped around itself:

Alfalfa Sprouting

Having tried to sprout alfalfa once I have learnt a few things:
Retail people don't actually have any knowledge of their products; but they rarely/admit know it.
You need to explain to anyone who might clean the house the difference between a science experiment and a dirty plate.

However on attempt two my little seedlings started to sprout:

I took an even closer shot of the area where the casing has cracked for the sprout to grow:

Alfalfa Grows!

I bought some tiny alfalfa seeds from a health store - the idea is to germinate them and take some photos under the microscope.

This is what they look like dry, about to be soaked for a few hours to start the process: