Info
| Explore |
Work on this next! What do we know about plants from our experiences outside of school? What have we discovered in class and background research? What questions about plants interest us? |
|---|---|
| Research Question | How does water percentage effect growth of soybeans? |
| Predictions | If the water conditions are ideal(75%-80%), the soybean growth will proceed at optimal rate. If exposed to standing water (100%+), then growth rate will be stunted. If enduring less then 25% water, growth rate will decrease. |
| Experimental Design | Our group germinated three separate trials of three seeds in groupings of three pots each and only two trials ended up germinating. Once germinated, we proceeded to expand the time between watering to one of the groups to 25 mL every seven days. Another group we kept as control group, which we... |
| Conclusion | In the end our flood trial had the biggest and boldest leaves as well as grew to be the tallest and had the best overall growth rate. Our drought trial slowly stopped absorbing water and towards the end started dying from the top down showing that water was no longer being transported throughout... |
| About this Project |
Updates
We were one of the winners of the star awards for planting science!! Thank you so much for helping us along the way we couldn't have done it without you!!
That's wonderful!! Congratulations! You all put in a lot of effort and it showed :)
Looks like you are in the final stages of your projects
It’s great to see that teams from your school are wrapping up and posting conclusions. Enjoy the final stages of your project, and feel free to post any final comments or questions you have for your mentors.
Farewell and Best Wishes
As this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping-up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. We appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community.
Scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! There are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share.
Please come back and visit the PlantingScience Research Gallery Archive anytime (Found under Community>Projects) to view this project in the future. You can search the Archive by key word, team name, topic, or school name.
Good bye for now.
Warm regards,
The PlantingScience team
Hi Muskateers!
Thanks for letting me accompany you on your science journey this semester it. I am glad you had fun and learned a lot I also had a great time and would not have guessed the flooded plants would grow the best! Stay curious and keep science-ing!
Jennifer
Today is supposedly our last day of communication so I'd just like to express how thankful all of us in the group are for you being our mentor, you've helped us so much with conducting information and solid evidence as well as been just down right wonderful at responding in a quick and informational manner- so thank you from us to you! We'll be following you on YouTube and hope you the best!
Ideal growth rate: 2.5% each day (stoped calculations after decapitation because this stopped growth completely)
This is also our control group and the trial that we used to base optimal growth off of.
Drought growth rate: growth slowed down until complete depletion of nutrients on 26 April, 2017.
growth rate at beginning = 2.5%
after 1 week 0-25% water = 1%
after 2 weeks 0-25% water = .5-0%
Flood growth rate: best growth over-all! ( this portion of our hypothesis was rejected: that the standing water would stunt the growth of the plant)
Growth rate at beginning = 3%
after 3 days w/ standing water = 3.5%
after 1 week w/ standing water = 4%
End growth rate = 4%
In the end our flood trial had the biggest and boldest leaves as well as grew to be the tallest and had the best overall growth rate. Our drought trial slowly stopped absorbing water and towards the end started dying from the top down showing that water was no longer being transported throughout the entire plant and lack of nutrients in the area with lack of water died off.
It's our belief that the are paler and limper because the aren't actually rooted in the soil, their roots are floating. We believe this is effecting the amount of nutrients they are able to absorb, as for the limpness this could be because their roots aren't offering them any real support because they themselves aren't really stabilized in/ around anything
Fantastic hypothesis! That makes a lot of sense.
One of the biggest differences I have noticed is that the ideal trials soil is mainly dry on the days we have to water them (every other day) and the drought trial, which we have only watered on fridays, soil seems to almost be rationing the water if that makes sense, the soil is still damp even though we haven't watered it since Friday but the beans are still growthing just at a slower rate. The flood trial seems to have gotten even paler and gone almost limp like.
Interesting observations! Why do you think the flooded plants might be pale and limp?
Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear of the decapitation! It is possible the weight of the growing seedling was too much for the stringy stem. Other than your one loss do you see/measure any differences between the groups?
We have loss amoungst us. One of our thinner and tall beans in the ideal group was decapitated.... we are guessing that the effect the classroom lights have on their growth also effected the strength of the stem..
We have loss amoungst us. One of our thinner and tall beans in the ideal group was decapitated.... we are guessing that the effect the classroom lights have on their growth also effected the strength of the stem..
Nice photos! I see what you mean about paler for the flood. Have you been measuring length? Another aspect you can measure is how many nodes, the part of the stem the leaves attach, to see if one is growing faster or slower developmentally than the others.
Ah yes growing under classroom light makes sense why the look stringy Are there any differences between the treatments yet?
The plants that are under flood conditions are looking paler then the other plants. The ideal and drought conditions have not had significant differences yet.
Your seedlings look a little long and stringy, how bright is the light they are getting? The seedlings will reach towards light so if light is low they will grow longer trying to find it.
We aren't allowed to use are school greenhouse due to some "misbehavior" our fellow classmates chose to partake in so the are really only exposed to the classroom light
We have officiallly started our experiments and they are growing really well so far. At what point do we need to transfer them into bigger pots?
Once they have their unifoliate leaves you should be ok to transfer. If you see roots sticking out of the bottom of the pot you can damage them by moving them to new soil.
How are they growing today?
Can't wait to see them grow! Thanks for sharing photos I greatly enjoy seeing them Also good catch and fix for your off-set planting!
Here are all the trials together!
Germination starting date for trial 1: 29 March 2017
Germination start date for trials 2&3: 31 March 2017
Your predictions look great. I agree with them completely. When will you be planting?
We already started planting one trial and that has been germinating for 3 days now! We made a little oopsie and didn't plant all 3 trails at the same time but that's an easy fix we just have to record the first separate from the second and third!
We just updated our question and hypothesis in the project information, if you could take a look at them and give us some feed back that would be great!
Under ideal conditions how much water is used?
What is the estimated growth rate of a soybean under ideal conditions?
We know that to classify a flood you need greater then 100% or with standing water and for a drought it is less then 25% but approximately how much more or less water do you believe that is in comparison to the ideal amount?
When I grow my soybeans, I water them 3 times a week and ensure the soil stays moist. I believe the optimal field capacity is 75 - 80 %.
Soybean growth rate is variable based on their development stage and temperature. I grow everything at 22 degrees C so I can tell you how they behave under those conditions. They emerge 3 - 5 days post-planting, 4 -5 days later the cotyledons are full expanded and the unifoliate leaves are arriving, over the next 5 days they grow a centimeter or more per day, around 14 days after planting the first set of trifoliate leaves arrive. If it is warmer they will grow faster and if it is colder they will grow slower.
Hope that helps :)
When you are laying out your experiment be sure to control for all the variables except the one you want to test. Soybeans prefer to be planted about an inch into the soil.
Also do not start with a full drought or they will not germinate! Seed imbibition, that's a fancy science word for a sucking up water, jumpstarts the germination process. Soybean seeds will double in size when they are fully imbibed! At the beginning I would suggest all of your trials start with nice and moist soil and vary the amount you water them after planting.
You can actually watch me plant some soybean on my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbKb6ZhV1eg
Exams week is almost over the plan is to start our trials next tuseday. We are finalizing and narrowing in on our final hypothesis and question! If you have any other information that you believe will benefit our research and help move us forward with the trials please feel free to share!
That sounds like a great set up! keep me informed And if you have any questions please ask. Good luck on finals!
Hi Musketeers! How are things going?
It's finals week so sorry we've all been busy! Project is going good we will be beginning trials next week. We WILL be measuring water percentages and our quantitative data will include the germination rates and the percentages that do germinate, a sell as measuring the growth of the germinated beans. For our trials we will have our stable environment with light/ mild "precipitation" for our drought environment we will have little to no "precipitation" and for our flood invirnment we will have severe "precipitation" with standing water. We are planning for 2 tests of each environment with 5 seeds in each
pot. Hopefully all works out and we can get some good data!
Water availability could be very interesting. The way we do drought studies is to weigh the pot when the soil is bone dry and when it is soaking wet. That represents our 0% and 100% field capacity. 1 milliliter of water weighs 1 gram. Thus if your 100% field capacity weighs 100 grams, you would want your 75% field capacity to weigh 75 grams. We weigh our pots every day and add exactly the amount of water needed to keep them at the given field capacity. Let me know what you decide!
That is a fairly broad question. You might consider narrowing it down to a single environmental effect (water, temperature, or salinity).
Water availability can vary greatly year to year in the same area. For example 2 years ago in Indiana we lost over $300 million dollars worth of crops to continual flooding (http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q2/300-million-in-indiana-crops-value-lost-to-flooding-so-far.html">ttp://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q2/300-million-in-indiana-crops-value-lost-to-flooding-so-far.html). Before that in 2013 there was a severe drought which wiped out large swaths of Indiana crops as well (https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2013/Q3/hot,-dry-spell-damaging-indiana-corn-and-soybean-crops.html). Same area, both extremes exist.
As for worldwide conditions, salinity is the leading cause of agricultural land loss. I've read estimates that by 205 up to half the current agricultural land could be too salty to continue growing crops! Here's some general information on soil salinity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_salinity
Low temperature is what I study so I know a fair amount about what you can expect. I've actually got a paper under review looking at soybean germination during cold and chilling conditions. I've never looked at heat, but that is a concern as worldwide temperature averages continue to increase.
This is getting long. Sorry about that! Let me know tomorrow what you decided but I'd encourage you to pick from:
water (25% which is considered severe drought, 50%, 100%, >100% aka standing water/flood)
salinity (water with varying salt water concentrations)
temperature (if you have a way to control it, remember they will still need light so you can't shove into a fridge or dark hotbox!)
Could you possibly share that paper with us or do you have to wait until its done being reviewed? I'd like to look more into that, another group is already doing the effects of salinity so I think that's off the table but water percentages/ amount could be interesting as well!
For all of our different trials we need some information on what the conditions for these environments require, such as how much water is necessary for ideal conditions, how is drought defend, how much precipitation is required to reach potential flooding. We've tried researching ourselves and have continuously come up empty handed it would be a great help if you could lead us in the right direction.
Our question is:
How does implementing different environmental elements effect the germination and growth of soybeans?
Is this too broad of a question and do you have any ideas of how we could possibly narrow it down to on specific grouping such as: climate/ precipitation, or temperature?
I added a picture of soybean seedlings in the files tab. The first image is a soybean seedling 5 days after I planted it (my thumb is there for reference) and the second picture is a set of soybeans that were all planted at the same time 9 days before I took the photo. I wanted to show you these so you don't think they will all come up at exactly the same time. There might be some germination delay which is natural in a mixed population. Be sure you plant enough seeds to account for natural genetic variation!
Have you started laying out your experimental design? Do you have any questions about that process?
I think your environmental conditions are perfect! How will you maintain them under those conditions? You could plan to do measure germination and growth rate since they have to germinate to grow. Your final report could include germination percentages and then of those that did germinate how did they grow.
I could write you an entire book about soybean! Instead, here are some highlights:
- Soybeans scientific name is Glycine max
- Used to make lots of different products, not just food! One avaerage soybean acre produces 44 bushels which can be used to create 8gal oil, 2500 gal soymilk, 320,000 oz tofu (640,000g protein), 66 gal biodiesel or 82,368 crayons! (more fun facts about soybean: http://www.americasfarmers.com/learn-about-farming/soy/)
- Soybean is typically nodulated, which means it forms a symbiosis with soil bacteria that provide the plant with nitrogen while the plant provides a space to live (nodules, or bumps, on the roots).
- Soybean seeds do not like to be planted deeply, they should only be inserted about 1 inch into the soil. They need to absorb moisture (a process called imbibition) in order to germinate, the seed will actually swell up to twice its size before it can germinate! It takes 5 - 7 days before the soybean seedling breaks through the soil.
- For details about growth and growth stages of soybeans: http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Crops/Soybean/L004.aspx
I hope that information is helpful for planning your experiment If there are any specific questions you have about soybean please ask!
I like the idea of measuring germination percentages and then of the ones that do germinate measuring the growth! Thank you so much for all of that information it helped a lot- we could not find the germination rate! If there's any other information that you are willing to share it would help loads.
Right now we are getting together our lab notebook and orginizing it properly. Our first page is mainly background research and we were wondering if you had any cites or information you would be will to share with us ON soy beans that could contribute to our notebook?
I am very excited to work with you! I LOVE the project name, very creative. Sydney mentioned working with soybeans under various environmental conditions for your project. Since I am the soybean queen I could hardly say no to that idea What kind of conditions were you considering? Do you have any ideas about how you will be measuring the impact of these environmental conditions on the soybeans?
We plan on implementing different environmental elements. These include drought, flooding, frost and having our control goup being the ideal environmental conditions. We are thinnking about using either the ability to germinate or the rate or growth to measure the impacts!
Hi, my name is Jacob. I'm currently a senior in high school. I am taking 3 college classes and I work 2 jobs. I work at the local bowling alley and just got hired at Walmart. In my free time I like to be out with friends driving around town, or to stay home cuddling with my puppy and playing some games on either Xbox or PlayStation. I currently have no future plans for college.
Sounds like you have a lot going on! What kind of puppy do you have? Any favorite video games? Personally I love all the LEGO ones, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Batman, etc.
Hi, my name is Jasmine and I am an eleventh grade student at Medford High School. I currently live with my mom, and two triplet brothers. I also have a cat named Spirit
I am unsure about what I am going to do after High School, but I have interest in anything English related. I really enjoy reading and writing, so that could be something that I have interest in. I am mostly taking this college course to get some of my science credits done for college. Science has never been my best subject, but I still find science to be interesting. Biology is definitely my favorite type of science course. Have you always wanted to do something in the science field?
In my free time, I enjoy reading, writing, and spending time with family and friends. I also enjoy playing soccer, but I have had to give that sport up for the time being.
I am excited to work on this project!
When I was 8 I decided I wanted to be a dolphin trainer, that morphed into a marine biologist who studied nudibranchs, then kelp, then finally coral reefs (which I did study for my masters degree), so yep always been a science geek I also enjoy writing, every year I participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I've started 9 novels, finished 3. What topics do you write about?
Hi Jennifer, my names Sydney I'm currently a junior in highschool and taking the college biology class offered at our school. I'm taking this particular class because I plan on double majoring in biology and physics before I have to enter pre med. Some of my favorite hobbies are reading, hanging out with my bird, and creating succulent terrariums for the local hospice house with my church. As much as I love plants and nature I plan to go into either forensic psychology or forensic anthropology, my true love going to the studies of human behaviors as well as the investigation of a crime through the study of bones. I have a soft spot for birds and plants though that will always be prevelant in my life.
Thank you for agreeing to be our mentor, we have been brain storming ideas for our research and we've decided to devulge into the world of soy beans and the effect different environmental climates have on their growth. Hopefully your knowledge in this field will help aid us in our research.
Glad to meet another plant lover! Making terrariums must be fun, my son did that last year as a Cub Scout project and he loved it. Forensics is certainly an important and growing field!
Hello scientists! I'm Jennifer a 4th year PhD Candidate studying soybean. In about 18 months I will be Dr. Jennifer but right now I'm still a student :)
In the lab, I look at how soybean responds to periods of cold stress. Soybean does not like to be cold at all. My work is trying to find a way to help soybean survive cold days.
Outside of the lab, I enjoy hiking and playing LEGO video games on the XBOX with my 4th grade son. What do you like to do for fun?
I can't wait to work with you this semester! Please ask lots of questions, I love questions! :-D