Testing phloem uptake again

We are still testing how plants take up a new insecticide. This insecticide is made from natural ingredients.

Today we experimented with the leaf stems of capsicum plants.  We had to cut off the leaves under water and then place them in little containers called Eppendorf tubes. 

We leave them for 24 hours before we put them into bags and send them off to the South Island. There they have a special machine that can see if the leaves had sucked up any of the "poison". It costs $50 to test one leaf sample! So we have to do this correctly and precisely!

If you are a Curious Kiwi and you can answer how many containers of leaves you can count in the first photo, there is a surprise for you!