1. Bloomsdale Spinach
Created by:
Hannah

2. How did our science mentor guide us about Research Questions?
How do added organisms affect germination rate?
We have thought about plants growing outside, and all the organisms that come in contact with a plant everyday naturally, such as worms, insects, and bacteria. We were wondering if these organisms affect plant growth. We will be investigating the affect, focusing on spinach growth, in a controlled experiment with different organisms.
How did our science mentor guide us about Research Questions?
What did we observe (or remember) from everyday life/class that made us come up with this question?
We have experimented with and observed many different scenarios to see what factors affect growth. Sunlight, temperature, amount of water, and the impact of soil have all been things we have talked about and considered. Something that we never discussed was if extra organisms in the soil or around the seed will have an affect on the germination. From experiences outside of school, we understand that plants growing outside come in contact with many different organisms. We are interested in seeing the impact that different organisms have on plant germination and growth.
Kelly was very insightful with providing some background information on topics of research. She even provided two articles for us to look at regarding growth of plants and the different variables that can have an impact on it. After some discussion amongst our group, with referral back to the insight our science mentor provided us, we decided to go with the idea of focusing on the impact that different organisms have on the growth of Bloomsdale Spinach. We then asked Kelly if she had any further suggestions for what other types of organisms would be good to use in our research.
Predictions:
We are planning to test multiple different organisms, including earth worms, mycorrhiza fungi, and bacteria powder, and comparing them to a plant with no added organisms. There are definitely different possible outcomes for our study, but we predict that the seeds planted with earth worms will have the best growth. We feel this is a good prediction because earth worms are the organisms that seem to be the most commonly found in soil in nature. Worms help to aerate the soil and we feel this will be beneficial to seed growth. We think organism that will attribute to the second best growth will be the bacteria powder, and following that in growth will be the plant with the mycorrhiza fungus. We predict that the plant with the least amount of growth will be the control plant, since there are no added organisms to this plant. We believe the bacteria will beat the fungus, because we think that bacteria is more commonly found in soils compared to fungi.
List of materials that we will need for our design setup
Recyclable Planters - 8 Planting Pots All Together
Bloomsdale Spinach Seeds. Three Seeds In Each Planter. (24 total)
Top Soil
Red Worms
Fungi Bacteria: Myco Blast Mycorrhizae
Fungi: Supre Myco Tea Mycorrhizae & Trichoderma
Water (30 mL each time)
Natural Sunlight

3. How did our science mentor guide us about Experimental Design?
We have chosen to use 8 different pots of the Bloomingdale Spinach. Each pot has 3 seeds per pot. The seeds were planted 1/2 inch down in the soil. The pots each have 6 Tablespoons of Top Soil. Each plant will be watered once a day, Monday-Friday, with 30mL of water.
2 pots will be our control for the experiment. These pots will include the 3 seeds and the top soil. No additives are necessary.
2 pots will include red earthworms. There needs to be 2 red earthworms per pot (4 total).
2 pots will have a Mycorrhizae Superpack. The Mycorrhizae pack is mixed with a gallon of distilled water. After the Mycorrhizae is dissolved completely in the water, 30 mL of the solution is added to each of the 2 pots, one time. After, the pots should be watered with just 30 mL of distilled water.
The last 2 pots will have a the Supre Myco Tea packet-this is the compost tea alternative that has bacteria infused within the mixture. The bacteria pack is also mixed with a gallon of distilled water. After the packet has been completely dissolved add 30 mL of the solution to each of the pots, one time. After, the plants should be watered with 30 mL of distilled water.
The plants need to be measured as soon as the first sprout is formed in whatever pot has the first sprout. After the first sprout is visible on the surface of the plant, the plants should be measured during class time, Mondays and Wednesdays, until the end date of the experiment.
How did our science mentor guide us about Experimental Design?
Photo of the design setup
Kelly was very helpful throughout the entire process of creating our experimental design. After we gave her our initial ideas for the experiment design, she then gave positive feedback and also some thoughtful suggestions of what we could do to improve it further. She liked how we mentioned the key aspect of having a control group for our experiment too. She gave us several ideas of the types of organisms that could be used in the experiment, which allowed us to make our selection of the organisms we wanted to try out for our experiment.

4. Photos across time

5. Qualitative Data Findings

6. Quantitative Data Findings

7. Conclusion: What does the data tell us?
After watering, measuring, and recording data about our plants over a period of time, we found results and came to a conclusion. We averaged the heights of the plants and stalks of each category, with the categories being control group, plants with worms in the soil, plants with bacteria added to the soil, and plants with fungus added to the soil. The averages for each of the categories came to the following: Final Average Height of the Control Group: 3.48 cm Final Average Height of the Worm Group: cm Final Average Height of the Bacteria Group: cm Final Average Height of the Fungus Group: cm In conclusion, the plants that had fungus added to their soil had the best rate of growth. We had not predicted that this will occur, we predicted that worms will lead to the best growth since they are found naturally in the soil. We think that the worms were not as successful as we thought because the worms did die in the beginning because they did not have enough soil. We are thinking the lack of soil made the worms less successful than what we expected. Through research we have found that fungus helps plants absorb nutrients and water. Fungus also helps digest organic matter that is already found in the soil such as nitrogen. We believe that this explains our results, because the plant was able to absorb nutrients and water more efficiently which lead to increased growth. It would be important to repeat the experiment multiple times to make the results always line up. It would also be interesting to test different types of fungus to see if a certain type of fungus is more successful than others.
How can farmers use the data to help a sprout farming business?
They can use this information to understand the benefits of various organisms on plant growth for their sprouts. They can then determine what organism(s) would be best and which ones they want to use. Based on the results, the farmers should use the fungi & bacteria mixture for the best results of growth in their sprouts. They could make the mixture in the water like we did, then apply it to the plants and follow the directions of applying the mixture every few weeks or so. This will allow for the most beneficial outcome from the mixture for the plants.