Background Research

~ Our topic is soil nutrients. This topic takes a part in the world we live in because you can’t grow a plant without soil, and without nutrients in the soil, the plant doesn’t have as much energy as it needs. Through our research, we learned about homemade organic fertilizers.

~ In the article,” Growing healthy plants” the topic of soil is explained. They say Healthy plants grow better when you use sandy, organic materials, and sometimes none at all. Most potting soils need to be replaced every one or two years, and composting soils do not need to be replaced. Some soils can be good or bad. Natural Fertilizers: seaweed, weeds, molasses, cat and dog food, worm tea, manure, dead fish, and many others. A combo of sandy, silty, clay and organic matter is an ideal choice for soil.

~ The article, “Fertilizers,” discusses what certain fertilizers do for a plant and for the soil. For example, the article explains how seashells, clay, and vegetable waste are great components for the soil. Seashells are great for the soil because they have a decent amount calcium. Vegetable waste is called compost. This is where you take the scraps from vegetables and fruit, such as melon rinds and orange peels. Another organic fertilizer are grass clippings and other plant extracts. Plant extracts and the grass clippings have that old plants nutrients and when you put it in the soil, the plant absorbs the nutrients.The nutrients in the soil is a form of energy and helps the plant grow.

~ Based on our research, we learned that most plants get their energy from nutrients in the soil. From this, we identified soil as the control in our experiment and organic fertilizers as our variable. We hypothesize that if organic fertilizers are used, then the plant will grow fast and become healthy from the nutrients.