Dirty Beans

Analysis of Soil Quality and Bean Growth

Bryan Glosik, Nick Delphia

Experiment

• Original plan• Four soil types: Clay, Sand, Topsoil, Metro• 24 plants per soil type, half fertilized, half

unfertilized• Hypothesis: the plants in the topsoil would

fair better than the other soils.• We would offer the same amount of water

to all the plants.

Predictions

• We thought the plants would have a hard time actually growing in the clay

• The sand would support the beans for a while, but that in the end the beans from the sand would not be as healthy as the beans from the other soils

• Fertilized soils would yield more successful plants than unfertilized soils.

How did we measure “success” or “health” in plants.

• Agriculturally speaking, success is determined by overall yield of the plant.

• We recorded what we felt were good indicators of a healthy and productive bean plant.

• Height, Leaf-count, stem-count, bud-count, final dry biomass (roots not included).

A Second Experiment

• Our original setup did not yield as many plants as we expected.

• The clay didn’t even yield one plant.• We started a new experiment after about

three weeks or so.• Experiment B was same as A but no

fertilizer, greenhouse watered for us, soils were metro, organic topsoil, and composted cow manure

Experiment B Hypothesis

• We thought the composted cow manure would yield more successful bean plants due to natural fertilizer qualities.

Results for Experiment A

Nothing grew in the clay

Fertilized plants had more leaves, sand yielded plants with fewer buds

Soil had no significant effect on biomass

Fertilization had no significant effect on bud-count or bio-mass.

Trends in Experiment A

And some more…

Results for Experiment B

• Nothing grew in the composted cow manure

Metro-Mix plants yielded significantly more buds and more

leaves than the organic topsoil

No significant differences in height or bio-mass

Trends for Experiment B

Conclusions

• Don’t grow beans in clay or manure• When given the choice, a farmer should

opt for topsoil over sand• Fertilizer increases the number of leaves,

but not necessarily the number of beans on the plant

• Potting soil yield the more beans than organic topsoil, but realistically, farmers can’t actually have a field full of metro-mix.