By Jamie King, James Needham, Curtis Williams, Sam Parsons and Saul Ashbridge.

P.E.S

.T Professional Economics & Science Team

Feed The World

Introduction:

How different concentrations of fertilisers affect plant growth and crop yield.

Why is nitrogen important in plant growth.

Comparison of commercial fertilizers with in-house prepared fertilizer.

Aims:

Research the effect of nitrogen on plant life and growth.

Educate farmers about the commercial use of nitrogen fertilizers.

Investigate the feasibility of producing in-house fertilizers.

Educate the people on how to use these findings and methods to help feed the world.

Primarily, Feed The World!

Preparations:

Plant type used. Quantity of plants used. Experimental test

conditions. Measurement of fertilizer

performance. Timescale of data

collection and data display. Fertilizer concentrations

investigated.

Method 1 – Commercial Fertilizers

1. Grow broad bean plants for 2-3 weeks.

2. Select the three most similar plants from crop produced.

3. Add different concentrations of nitrogen to two of the plants, and distilled water to the other.

4. Leave the plants to grow for 2-3 weeks, topping them up with water when required.

5. Measure plant height every five days.

Method 2 – In house prepared fertilizers

1. 1M ammonia solution was titrated with 1M nitric acid to yield an 8% ammonium nitrate solution.

2. This solution was split into three portions.

3. Two portions were diluted to yield 4% and 2% solutions.

4. These solutions were tested on broad bean plants as described in method 1.

The Results – Method 1

This graph shows the final height of each plant, the 4% Nitrogen fertiliser and the 6% Nitrogen fertiliser didn’t produce results as they had died.

Heig

ht

of

pla

nt

in

mm

Time in weeks

The Results – Method 2

After 3 days of growth in the three concentrations of the in-house prepared fertilizers the experiments were deemed complete due to all three plants dying.

Conclusions:

Fertilizer concentration is important when optimizing plant growth.

Distilled water alone can help plant growth, however growth is stunted.

The use of a soil free medium may have a negative effect on plant growth.

Evaluation:

What would we change? Investigate the use of a soil

substitute as a growth medium. The use of a wider range of fertilizer

concentrations. We would take more frequent

recordings.

By Saul Ashbridge, Jamie King, James Needham, Sam Parsons, Curtis Williams.

P.E.S

.T Professional Economics & Science Team

Thank you forListening