Science Project - The Miracles of Plant Foods: Too much or too little?

Too much or too little?

Max Ruppel

Mrs. Hoffman Period 2

It is hypothesized that the suggested serving of plant food listed on the boxes of plant foods will be the best choice when growing a plant instead of twice the suggested amount and half the suggested amount. This hypothesis is based on the supposed expert knowledge of plant food manufacturers.

A brief summary of the procedures are as follows. First there are 30 plants. Each has a different amount of Miracle-Gro® and Organic Fertilizer put into 6 pots. Half of the pots had Miracle-Gro® in them and half had Organic Fertilizer in them.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 6

In both halves of pots, one pot had half the suggested serving on the box, then the suggested serving, then twice the suggested serving. There were five trials using five plants with 3 different servings of plant food. Every other day, the plants were measured using a millimeter ruler. Data was taken and recorded.

The results of this experiment do not support the hypothesis. The amount of plant food applied using Miracle-Gro® that received the highest increase in growth was 1 Teaspoon, half the suggested amount.