My hypothesis is that fertilized plants will be bigger than those that are not fertilized.įrom zero to a fluffy leafy plant in only three weeks! B. “Will they focus on growing above or below ground?” she asks. The question is whether the fertilized plants will have bigger roots, bigger leaves or both. With fertilizer, Savage explains, plants should get bigger, because they’ll make more sugar. Those sugars can be made into more plant materials. With more leaves, she notes, they’ll have more sugar. That might mean the plants end up with more leaves. “If are given a lot of light and nitrogen, they might increase chlorophyll and photosynthesis,” Savage says. With all the extra nutrients, the fertilizer ads say, plants will grow bigger and faster. Gardening fertilizer contains nitrogen and phosphorus in forms that plant roots can easily slurp up. Soils have plenty of nitrogen and phosphorus in them. They also have to get phosphorus in the form of phosphate (phosphorus bound to four oxygen atoms), which is broken down from rocks in the earth. They have to rely on other plants or fungi to transform nitrogen for them.
They can pull nitrogen from the air and transform it into nitrogen-containing molecules that plants can use. Some plants are known as nitrogen-fixing. Usually, plants get nitrogen and phosphorus from the soil. Proteins - molecules that do much of a cell’s work - need nitrogen atoms. So does ATP, the chemical that helps transfer energy around a cell. For example, the backbone of DNA - the molecule with the plant’s genetic instructions - has phosphorus atoms in it. She works at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. But it’s growing out of the air.” As a botanist, Savage studies plants. “A lot of times people think the plant grows or is built out of things from the soil. “Most of a plant is made from carbon dioxide,” explains Jessica Savage. Using carbon dioxide, light and water, they can make sugar out of (almost) thin air. Explainer: The fertilizing power of N and P But will fertilizer do that? Here’s an experiment to find out. The first thing some people might suggest is to add a little fertilizer to make your plants bigger and taller. Maybe they’re short and stubby, or not as leafy as you’d like. Sometimes when you tend a garden, your plants end up looking oddly sad. You can repeat the steps here and compare your results - or use this as inspiration to design your own experiment.
#Tinykeep i have a bone to pick with you series
This article is one of a series of Experiments meant to teach students about how science is done, from generating a hypothesis and designing an experiment to analyzing the results with statistics.
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