Significant Growth of Spinach Leaf Length with Ethylene Gas Supplementation
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Sandy Lin, 2nd year |
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Julia Matalon, 2nd year |
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Sarah Okeke, 2nd year |
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Scarlett Shaman, 2nd year |
Research Question: How does ethylene gas from apples impact the growth of crop plants?
Hypothesis: If ethylene does promote maturing fruit and was compared with a control group and a group of apples surrounding the spinach plant, given the growth was accessed in millimeter per day, we would expect the spinach plants surrounded by apples to promote plant maturation.
This is a novel experiment because while there has been a lot of research on how produced fruit ripens faster when placed next to other fruit, there has been little research on whether produced fruit next to the plants themselves will cause plant growth. This is ecologically relevant due to the fact that faster plant growth is a necessity in an exponentially growing population. Additionally, by testing the effects of ethylene gas, this shows significance in an agricultural setting. It is interesting to note how the experiment could result in determining if the quantities of apples in proximity to the plant will enhance or deter plant growth due to ethylene gas being known for plant death, or if the enhancement of plant growth will cause a negative impact on the production of beans itself.
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