Mint Squad
Natalie, Sam, Rachel, and Lily
- Overview
- Jobs:
- Natalie - Engineer
- Lily - Note taker
- Sam - Programmer
- Rachel - Researcher
- Hypothesis: If we add 1.5 times the recommended amount of nutrients, then it will grow bigger and stronger faster because having more nutrients will promote more growth.
- Variables
- Independant: Amount of nutrients (tsp per gallon, will be adding 3 tsp in all) (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium)
- Dependent: Growth of plants
- Control: All besides nutrients
- What each nutrient does
- Nitrites
- Help make green and healthy leaves
- Phosphates
- Help the roots and growth
- Potassium
- Help with changes in temperature + protection against diseases
- Day 1
- Assembling bucket
- Label our bucket with our names
- Drill holes in bottom to allow water passage
- Rinse + add in clay beads to act as soil
- Rinse dirt off plant + place plant in beads
- Add water (with nutrients already in) + pump + light
- Taking data
- Temperature: 20 celsius
- pH: 6
- Phosphates: 1ppm
- Nitrates: 40ppm
- Observations: Starting to grow a little bit
- Pictures
- Day 2
- Taking data
- Temperature: 20 celsius
- pH: 6
- Phosphates: 1ppm
- Nitrates: 40ppm
- Observations: Thriving! Leaves are very green compared to most other groups, and the smell is amazing! It seems to have been a very good idea to add more nutrients than needed, because it is clearly helping our mint plant!
- Pictures
- Day 3
- Taking date (no data was required to be taken on day three besides observations)
- Observations: Visibly taller, thicker in mass, bright green and healthy looking
- Pictures
- Our instagram page!
- Visit us at @biomintsquad
The biotic factor (mint plant) really "blossomed" compared to most other groups! It seems like adding the additional nitrogen to one of the abiotic factors (water) really made those leaves bright green. It seems as if we have successfully created a model ecosystem, and I even believe that out bucket could be self-sustaining with minor modifications in the future!
ReplyDeleteYour roots look really healthy and strong! your pictures are also really helpful to understanding your data.
ReplyDeleteSo glad that your mint plant it thriving! It sounds like adding extra nutrients really helped your mint plant thrive. My teams mint plant is looking a little dull with not much smell, so I think we will take your advise and add more nutrients than needed!
ReplyDeleteI see that you started off with a lot of mint in the start. do you think that is the reason you have so much? when comparing the first and second photo, there is growth but not a ton. why do you think your mint is developing slowly? possibly lack of water or nutrients?
ReplyDeleteBecause we were using clay beads instead of dirt for our bucket, we used artificial replacement for the nutrients via water. We used General Hydroponics' FloraMicro for nutrients which are liquid nutrients. Our team (Mint Squad) added one tsp of nitrates, phosphates, and potassium per gallon for our plant and we added 3.5 gallons overall in our experiment. Nitrogen is the most important nutrient needed for plants specifically for proteins, which is essential for cell growth. If there were no nitrogen added, chlorophyll, the organelle in a plant in which photosynthesis takes place would be delayed if not damaged, causing energy deficiencies. The plant leaves, being damaged would result in pale yellow color. Phosphate is the second most important nutrient in plant growth. It is used for respiration and general plant growth. Plants without adicute amounts of phosphorus may grow slower and grow less and smaller leaf sizes. Also, this may cause issues in carbohydrate storage which causes leaves to grow darker. Potassium is needed for respiration and photosynthesis enzymes. Potassium deficiency in plants is most common out of the three nutrients. Symptoms include brown or yellow curling leaf tips. It will also cause the plant to grow slowly and become less disease resistant.
ReplyDelete