How+does+pH+effect+plants

Title: How does pH effect Plants

Purpose: The purpose of this experiment is to see if different levels of pH effect the growth of plants. I personally think that the higher pH level, the better chance the plant has to grow. The scale of pH ranges from 0-14 with 7 being neutral. (Soil, 2012) I think that water is the one of the only neutral substances in the world, so that is why most plants use water to grow to their maximum potentiality. The best pH level for plants to grow is between 6-7.5.(Soil,2012)Plants tend to prefer soil that is slightly acidic and suffer in soil with too high of a pH level. Soil pH is important because it influences several soil factors affecting plant growth.(pH,2012) If the pH is too low, some materials like manganese may increase to toxic levels.(How,2012) Based on this I think that if we keep the pH level between 6 (which is slightly acidic) and 7.5 (which is slightly alkaline), then the plants will be able to grow to the maximum confidentiality We are also going to grow some plants in soil with a higher pH level and a lower pH level. We will use radish seeds and just grow it in soil, watering it with the different pH solutions.

Hypothesis: If we put plants in a 3, a 5, a 7, a 9 and a 12 pH level, then the plant in the pH level of 7 will grow to its full extent in the time given.

Materials: Radish seeds, 1 Base, 2 Acids, 2 Alkaline, Dirt, and a Camera

Procedure: First, we will plant ten radish seeds each in six flower pots; one centimeter down. Next, we will water each plant with the different pH solution, marked so that we do not use the wrong solution. We will use ten milliliters of pH solution everyday. Then, every other day we will take pictures of the growing plants. The first week we will measure it, and the second week we will measure it on the same day.
 * ~  ||~ 3 pH ||~ 5 pH ||~ 7 pH ||~ 7 pH ||~ 9 pH ||~ 12 pH ||
 * ~ Week 1 || 3.5 cm || 2.5 cm || 8 cm || 4 cm || 4.5 cm || 6 cm ||
 * ~ Week 2 || 4.5 cm || 3.5 cm || 10 cm || 6 cm || 5.5 cm || 7 cm ||
 * ~ Week 3 || 6.5 cm || 4.5 cm || 11 cm || 7 cm || 6.75 cm || 8 cm ||

Analysis: As you can see, in week one our plants grew quite well. One of the 7 pH's grew the highest just like we hypothesized. The 12 pH surprised us growing 6 cm in a week. One thing we couldn't believe is that the pH of 3 grew better than the pH of 5. We have no reason why it grew as good as it did. The pH of 9 grew well at first but then didn't grow as well as the pH of 7. We thought that we would be able to see a steady incline of height in the plants, but as you can see in our table that didn't happen. One can argue that our resources were incorrect. Based on a resource, the higher pH's would've grown less than the neutral bases. In our research, the highest pH was one of the best plants to grow reaching a height of 6 cm in only a week.

Conclusion: Our hypothesis was "If we water plants with a 3, a 5, a 7, a 9 and a 12 pH level, then the plant watered with the pH level of 7 will grow to its full extent in the time given." We accepted and rejected our initial hypothesis. We wanted to see roughly the same height in our Controlled plants with a pH of 7. There was two of them and one grew twice as high as the other. Another reason we rejected it was because the highest pH grew almost as high as one of our controlled. One reason we accepted it was that our control plant with a pH of 7 grew the highest just like we hypothesized.

Limitations: One thing that went wrong was that we couldn't water the plants everyday because of snow days and the weekends. Another reason was that the water wasn't exact every time we watered them. The last reason was that the plants didn't get at least twelve hours of sunlight a day, they only got 8. We would fix the first reason by keeping the plants at one of our houses so we could water them everyday. We would fix the second one by using a more exact beaker or water measuring tool. We would fix the last reason by putting them in a greenhouse outside to make sure they get enough sunlight all day. Our new hypothesis is "If we water plants with a 5, a 6, a 7, a 8, and a 9 pH level, then the pH levels of 6, 7, and 8 will grow to their full extent in the given amount of time."

Works __#|Cited__: "Soil PH." //Wikipedia//. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Nov. 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. []. "PH for the Garden." //PH for the Garden//. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. []. "How to Test Your Soil." //- For Dummies//. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. []. "Acid or Alkaline? What PH Means in Gardenspeak." //Acid or Alkaline? What PH Means in Gardenspeak//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. "Soil PH." //Soil PH//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. "Soil: Understanding PH and Testing Soil." /// Royal Horticultural Society//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.