ESSAY ON WHY MY PLANT DIED
By Ben Bier
By Ben Bier
Introduction
The objective of my project was to test whether adding bacteria could help the growth of the bean seedling or the opposite.
Rationale:
Plants often interact with micro-organisms to grow. One example is roots interact with soil bacteria. In the case for the pine trees in Cuyamaca forest fire, the necessary bacteria in the soil were killed because of the intense heat. Now it is extremely difficult for the trees to grow in that area because of the absence of bacteria.
Materials and Methods
Materials:
1. 2 pots
2. bacteria [Dr. grow]
3. soil
4. hot water
5. 4 bean seeds
Methods:
First get 2 pots , then label them 1 and 2, Take the soil and put it in to the plant so that there’s only about a 1/2 in left make sure to pat it down, then dig a hole that’s about 1 inch deep, Take the seeds and place them in the bag and shake it up then take the seeds and put 2 in each hole and cover it up. Then take some bacteria and mix it with 200 ml of water that’s about 85°f. Then water the seeds with bacteria + water the first day and with regular water every other day.
Results:
My seedlings died and never even sprouted. After I drew the conclusion that they were dead I went through the soil to see why they didn’t even sprout. What I found was that in one pot the seeds were completely destroyed. there was pretty much nothing left beside a few little pieces of it scattered around the soil. In the other pot the seeds seemed intact at first put when I touched them to see why they didn’t sprout or what went wrong I saw that they were just a decayed mush that had sat there and rotted. It smelled extremely bad at the time.
Discussion:
You can’t really tell 100% why my seeds didn’t sprout but I did my best to narrow down the possible reasons.
One reason was that I used old decrepit beans that were smelly, so they were put in a vase that had saran wrap covered the top preventing air from coming in. Also, when I used the seeds they were dry and sticky and weren’t very healthy. Another reason could have been the bacteria. I used a large amount of bacteria instead of a small quantity which may have helped the plant. A large quantity of bacteria might outgrow the seed and start competing with its food supply. Another reason could be I scorched it to death using the water, maybe it was to hot or hotter than 85° because I couldn’t really read the thermometer.
Improvements
-Maybe next time I could do a control group instead of just using test groups.
-Maybe I could of looked under the dirt at the seed to see if it was growing cool.
-or I could of used a different type of bacteria instead of Dr. grow.
