Effects of Macronutrients on Tomato Growth

Objectives:
• To discover the effects that the macronutrients have on a plant’s growth
Materials:
8 tomato seedlings (All same height, approximately 4in. tall)
8 flasks
Light Source
All Purpose Fertilizer (10-10-10)
Nitrogen Fertilizer (10-0-0)
Phosphorous Fertilizer (0-10-0)
Potassium Fertilizer (0-0-10)
Copper Fertilizer
Sulfur Fertilizer
Magnesium Fertilizer
Mineral Water
Distilled Water
Hypothesis: Different macronutrients affect different aspects of a plant’s growth
Procedures:
1. Slide the tomato seedlings out of their containers and in tepid water carefully remove all dirt from around the roots.
2. Insert roots into flasks.
3. Label the flasks -N, -P, -K, -Cu, -S, -Mg, +control, -control.
4. Fill all flasks but +control and –control with mineral water, fill the remaining two with distilled water.
5. Put all fertilizers except for the one on the label in the first six flasks. In +control put the all purpose fertilizer and in -control don’t put anything.
6. Watch, wait, and fertilize

PS- You dont have to use tomatoes.In fact, it would be realy cool if diferent people do it with diferent plants.

Except for the day-to-day reports, that sort of experiment has already been done many times on many plants. It is possible to "read" the appearance of a plant and identify a nutrient deficiency or deficiencies. You can find lots of this kind of information by using Google or some other good Internet search tool.

A few examples of what you can find are Plant Nutrient Deficiencies, Plant Nutrient Deficiency Symptoms, Essential Plant Nutrients, and Color Pictures of Mineral Deficiencies in Plants.

MM

Any or all of these may have micronutrients as contaminants that far exceed the need of the plant. One would need to mix these from reagent grade chemicals for the experiment design to have any validity. I recall one time we were testing for the affect of zinc on tomatoes and found that one commercial fertilizer had more zinc than was needed even though no zinc was on the label.

Joe 'YMMV' DeRosa