Extra Info

What is Urea?

Urea, also known as carbamide, is an organic compound which is the waste creates when the body undergoes protein. It is a compound produced by humans, many mammals, amphibians, and some fish. It's usually used in fertilizers, and is also an important raw material for the chemical industry. It's apperance is usually solid, colorless, odorless, neither acidic nor alkine, highly soluble in water, and is non toxic.

Agriculture Urea:

More than 90% of world production of urea is used as a fertilizer. It has the highest nitrogen out of all the fertilizers in common use. Because of this, it has the lowest transportation costs per unit. Urea is usually spread at rates between 40 and 300/kg but rates vary from time to time. During summer, urea is often spread just before, or during rain to minimize the loss from volatilization, or the process when nitrogen converts to ammonia gas in the atmosphere.

Fertilizers:

Fertilizers are soil amendments, a material added to soil to improve the plant growth and health. The type of conditioner added depends on the soil, climate, and type of plant. The main nutrients in fertilizers are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and other nutrients in smaller amounts. They are usually directly applies to soil and are sprayed on leaves. Organic fertilizers have been used for many centuries, while the chemically made inorganic fertilizers had only started during the industrial revolution.

Salt tolerance of plants:

Plant species vary in how well they are able to tolerate salt-affected soils. Some plants have the ability to tolerate high levels of salt, while other plants can tolerate a little or no salt at all. The growth of plants affect on how much salt is put in their soil. The growth of salt tolerances are are over a range of electrical conductivity (EC) levels. Electrical conductivity is when a solution is able to pass on an electrical current. To find out the is "soil sanity"an EC, electrical current is put in a glass using two electrodes in a solution taken from the soil being measured.

Results and Conclusions

Results:

The more the Urea added on the plant, the slower its growth is, and same goes with salt. We started off with the biggest amount of salt on the first day, and it grew only 1 cm. As we decreased the amount of salt, it grew even more. This proves that salt cant grow in a healthy manner if salt is put in their soil. The plants apparently didnt STOP growing, but it did SLOW down.

Conclusion:

Our hypothesis was defintely correct, but not entirely. We predicted that the growth of the plants would be affected after putting in some salt, and it did. However, we didnt test an even bigger amount of salt (more than 5 grams) which may have actually killed it. If we were to do the same project again, we would test a bigger amount of salt, starting at perhaps 15 grams, and then decreasing it. Doing this, would create a larger variety of plants: a couple dead, some growing at a slow rate, some growing faster than usual; it would allow us to compare more and would allow us to create even more analysis.

Data

Data: It turns out that our plants didnt stop growing, but definetly SLOWED down. It took only about a week to get the plants growing, and we could clearly see the change after a few days.

U : Urea

5g :

date: 6 of January: 1 cm

date 7 of January : 3 cm

date 8 of January : 5 cm

date 9 of January: 7 cm

o.5g :

date 6 of January : 3 cm

date 7 of January: 5 cm

date 8 of January : 9 cm

date 9 of January : 12 cm

0.1 g :

date 6 of January: 2 cm

date 7 of January : 5 cm

date 8 of January: 7 cm

date 9 of January : 11 cm

2g :

date 6 of January: 2 cm

date 7 of January: 5 cm

date 8 of January: 6 cm

date 9 of January: 11 cm

1g :

date 6 : 1 cm

date 7 : 3 cm

date 8 : 5 cm

date 9 : 8cm

0.19g

date 6 of January: 1 cm

date 7 of January: 2 cm

date 8 of January: 4 cm

date 9 of January: 6 cm

0.5g U

date 6 of January: 2 cm

date 7 of January: 4 cm

date 8 of January: 6 cm

date 9 of January: 11 cm

2.9 g U

date 6 of January: 1 cm

date 7 of January: 3 cm

date 8 of January: 5 cm

date 9 of January: 7 cm

5g U

date 6 of January: 2 cm

date 7 of January: 4 cm

date 8 of January: 6 cm

date 9 of January: 8 cm

1g U

date 6 of January: 1 cm

date 7 of January: 3 cm

date 8 of January: 5 cm

date 9 of January: 8 cm

Procedure

Procedure:

The first thing I did, was weighing the salt and urea, to the specific weighs for the plant - there were :

*0.1g

*0.5g

*1g

*2g

*5g

This took about 2--3 classes to do.

The second thing I did, was that I made Salt solution and Urea solution using the salt and urea I weighed.

I made : 100%, 99.5 %, 99%, 98%, and 95%s of solution. I used 1-- ml of water, and subtracted it by the amount of grams of salt.

I, then poured the solution to the soil that is already in a pot, with a few seeds sitting inside the soil. I chose moong, or green beans, since it doesn't really take a long time to grow.

After all of the steps above, I waited for the plants to grow, and used a ruler to calculate how tall the plant has grown daily. I finally have my results and comparisons.

Materials

Materials:

For this project, we used Salt, Urea, Soil, Green Beans, Pots, and Water.

Question and Hypothesis

Question?

How much amount of salt affects the growth of plants?

Hypothesis:

Salt and Urea are known as being fertilizers for plants, which is why we think this project can actually work. We predict that the plants would die if we put excessive amount of salt, and should be given a "safe" amount of salt. This project should be able to work, yet we don't think we'll have a big difference of numbers in our results and conclusion.