I need help to select and research an idea of ​​my science project

[Daniel3012]

Greetings!
Well, I have to prepare a science project that'll help my community. More than something theoretical, it must be something practical (With a prototype / experiment)
I've identified some problems in my community with a (Maybe posible) solution, I would like to know which solution / topic is the most viable and if some resources could be spent to investigate.

- Problems with pesticides.
Pesticides often harm the soil and sometimes the people who eat the food that was sprayed with these substances.
· The solution in which I have thought is to work on a natural repellent that can scare away the most common pests of rice and beans, but I think it is something unreal: /

- Oil pollution.
* Well, honestly I have not yet thought of a possible solution, but I think it's a somewhat worn issue, I do not know: /

- Streets with excess of cars passing and without traffic lights.
* I have thought of a device that indicates when the cars are going to pass.

- Pollution by C02
* I thought of a paint that absorbs these gases, but there is a company that does just that. XD

- Electronic devices that end up in the dumpster.
* Without ideas.

- An extremely large and polluted lake.
* Without ideas.

I would like you to tell me which problem would be best to treat and where / how I could investigate to try to create a functional solution. I have 1-2 months to create it.

Thank you very much! (Please forgive my bad English, I'm from D.R.)

[SciB]

Hi Daniel,

D.R. Dominican Republic??

You have a lot of good ideas for a science project to help your community and I think that is a wonderful thing to do. But as you discovered, coming up with a workable plan for doing such a project is difficult. I would suggest for a start that you run through the Scibuddies project Wizard if you haven't already done so and check out the ideas for projects there. You may be able to see something related to one of your community ideas.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/search?s=project+wizard

Once you have a little more of a specific idea what area you want to work in, we can help you choose a good hypothesis and set up the necessary experiments to test it.

Do some more reading and thinking and get back to us--but don't wait too long. Projects always take longer than you think they will and you want to do a good job.

Sybee

[Daniel3012]

Thanks for answering!
Yep, I'm Dominican.

I was reviewing some project ideas and I think what I'm going to concentrate on is this:

- Since my country owes a large part of its economy to agriculture, I am thinking of devising a project to improve it.
I want to see if I can create natural fertilizer and pesticide to prevent soil damage to the waters and I will propose this to facilitate farming: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ronmental- science / smarter-farming-with-aerial-photo-analysis

This will be my plan of action, where and how should I investigate to start experimenting with the natural fertilizer and pesticide? (It's possible?)

From the project ideas that inspired me are these:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ilizer-use
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... gal-growth
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... o-analysis

[SciB]

Hi Daniel,

That's a great idea to try and improve agriculture in your country through green technology. For thousands of years before chemical fertilizers were invented, farmers improved the fertility of the soil with animal manures, composting and crop rotation. Many countries with limited budgets for fertilizers and pesticides still use these methods and they are mostly successful on a small scale.

Mega-farms in the U.S. are the ones that use vast amounts of expensive chemical fertilizers, herbicides, GMO seeds and pesticides which may pollute the environment, kill beneficial insects and can destroy adjacent crops.

The most hopeful area now that I have been studying is the soil microbiome. I'm sure you have heard the word 'microbiome' in the news for a long time and all it means is the population of bacteria, fungi and viruses that inhabit a specific area, whether it be the human gut or the soil.

The soil microbes, especially fungi, are turning out to be incredibly important for the growth of 80-90% of the world's crops. So, what could be done to create a better home for these beneficial microbes? First, stop using artificial fertilizers and tons of chemical sprays. If the farmers in your country are already using manures and compost and non-chemical methods of insect control then all you need to do is find out what types of soil fungi are best for certain crops and try to create the conditions that favor them. You can, in some cases, buy cultures of beneficial fungi as samples and try them to compare treated with untreated crops to determine whether the microbial inoculants give a better yield. Sometimes, just a simple change like adjusting the pH of the soil or adding lime or some trace elements that are lacking can create the right environment for the soil microbiome to flourish.

Do some reading online about this and see if it is something you can get excited about. I think it has great potential. It is easy to do, not expensive and does not pollute. Nature has been using this method of microbial symbiosis for millions of years, so it has certainly been tested to work!

Post again with your ideas and we can go from there.

Regards,

Sybee

[Daniel3012]

Howdy!
I like this idea a lot! Biology is the science that I like the most, but I have some doubts about this:

Can the soil microbiome ward off pests or will it only work to grow crops quickly?

What green alternatives to repellents / pesticides are there?

is my objective to see how to make microbiomes grow in crops without intervention or to achieve an environment in which they can be applied and grow well?

I'll see if I get a fungi crop, but how should I apply it to the crops to analyze them?

Is a little more than a month enough to achieve all this?

The good thing is that I have access to my school's laboratory , Should I get some samples of soil or crops to experiment?
I'll continue looking for information while, thank you very much!

[SciB]

Hi Daniel,

I'm glad my suggestion got you interested. This is a great area of biology and really hot right now.

You asked a lot of questions and they are all good ones. Do you have a couple of hours to talk? Didn't think so. Well, you have access to a lab--that's good, but limited time--not so good.

Beneficial fungi exist naturally but farmers would like to have something they could add to the soil to boost production or make plants more resistant to disease. This could be some 'additive' that would enhance the fungi already in the soil or it could be an inoculum of different fungi that would supplement and improve the existing ones to make the crops grow better.

Do some more reading about soil fungi symbiosis with food plants. You will soon see the term 'mycorrhizae' which is the technical name of fungi that are associated with plant roots. Now there are two ways this can happen. The fungal hyphae which are kind of like the 'roots' of the fungus (although technically they are NOT roots) are associated with the plant's roots and that's how the exchange of nutrients happens symbiotically--both fungus and plant benefit.

Now the cool thing about mycorrhizae [you need a microscope for this!] is that they can actually enter the cells in the plant's roots to get direct access to the system. This is called an endo-mycorrhizal fungus--the prefix 'endo' just means inside, referring to the fact that the fungal 'roots' have penetrated inside the plant's cells. You can see this with a microscope. Look online. There is lots about this.

The other type of fungus is called ecto-mycorrhizal because it associates on the outside of the roots--'ecto' means outside.

Ok, enough technical jargon--for now. If you want to understand the papers and articles on the net, however, you are gonna have to learn the correct terms.

So, what experiments would you like to do? A month is barely long enough because with plants they need to grow and flower or make fruit or seeds, or something that you can measure and compare like height or leaf surface area. See if you can come up with something that can quickly boost the soil fungi. Usually this is the same thing that makes plants grow well--compost, organic matter, healthy balance of soil pH and composition. What you need, then would be a chemical compound that stimulates the soil fungi specifically.

Alternatively there are soil 'probiotics' that you can purchase that claim to boost plant growth by adding the proper fungi to the soil. This might be your best bet because it should work fairly quickly [read the claims carefully!!] and you can see the effects on plant growth simply by measuring height or weighing the plants at the end of the experiment.

Post again with what you think you want to try and we can help you set up a hypothesis and some good experiments and statistics to test it.

Good luck!

Sybee

[Daniel3012]

Greetings sybee!
Due to the time difference I can not take a couple of hours to talk: /

I've already been reading about Fungi Symbiosis and from the articles that I saw I found out about a couple of things.
I found that "metagenomic analysis" I am interested in applying it but I think that maybe I need an advanced laboratory.

I'm interested in trying to inoculate another type of fungi to see if it makes crops grow better and with more resistance to diseases / pests. Is it possible to extract fungi directly from the earth to inoculate another?

By the way, I saw that there are fertilizers that do precisely what I want to achieve with the experiment, will not that be a problem?

[SciB]

Hi Daniel,

Fungi are everywhere--some good, some bad. Yes, you could get some from soil but what is your hypothesis going to be?

Some soil fungi are good symbiotes for some plants but not for others. Finding a fungus that will 'marry' with your chosen host plant is a real shot in the dark. It's more fun looking in the dirt yourself and testing what you find, but I just don't think you have a year to finish your project, right?

What I would do in your place with limited time would be to purchase three commercial fungal probiotics for garden or crop plants and do a comparison with the control being no fungus added. The plant that you choose to test should be one that is easy to start from seed, grows quickly and has an upright habit so that you can use height as one of the growth measurements in comparing the efficacy of the fungal culture against sterile dirt.

You will need a planting mix that is sterile so that you are not introducing some unknown microbes into the mix. You'll have to search for this online. Make sure you get one that does NOT contain fertilizer. Feeding the plants might mask the effects of the fungi.

Water the plants with distilled water and keep the pots in a warm, sunny location. Take photos and measure the height and approximate leaf area every week. Note such things as when buds appear, when flowers open, and when seeds form.

I'm sure you will have more questions--I'll be here.

Sybee

[Daniel3012]

Greetings!
It's a pity, taking many types of soil looking for different microorganisms sounded pretty fun!
Something good that I was recently informed, is that I've a month but to deliver a written work about what my project will be about, if they select it for the next phase they will give me a considerable amount of time to prepare my Project. For now I just have to concentrate on thinking about how I'll do the project and then do the experiment and the presentation (Although, should I start from now on so that the plants grow properly?) should I translate the bases into English so you can take a look ?)
This is a relief, for now we must concentrate on formulating the theoretical work.

I'm beginning to understand almost everything about how to do this.
I'll take the option to buy a crop of the plant in question with which I plan to do my experimentation, then plant two more of these. Then, one of the seeds I plant in a sterile planting mix, then I should inoculate the fungi that facilitate their growth, right? And find a way to increase the effectiveness of fungi by adjusting the PH level, adding lime, etc ...
The second plant, under what conditions should I plant it?

Achieving a good participation in the contest is very important for me, I am very grateful to you.

[SciB]

Hey--you're welcome, It's what I like to do.

Project, project....hmm!

Now you have more time--that's good. But still have to come up with a great idea. Yes, you could tweak the soil conditions but that could also affect the plant--pH, for example.

The growing conditions for soil fungi are not real well characterized. It is a complex ecosystem that we're just starting to get a handle on. It's kinda like the human gut microbiome that seems to be involved in everything from mood disorders to heart disease but we don't exactly know how.

I would get down and dirty with a microscope. I want to see the fungal mycelia engaging with the plant roots on a cellular level. This generates lots of great photos, especially if you use a dye to make the mycelium a different color from the plant cell. Just don't know how to work this into a project.

The first thing, and the hardest thing is to state the hypothesis. Everything depends on that. I would try to think it out as a practical goal--what can I do to make corn grow better, or beans or wheat. That's what commercial growers need. I'm sure they are paying attention to the new ideas coming out about soil fungi but they don't know what they should do. They understand fertilizers and herbicides, but fungi are something new.

OK. My first idea was to buy several types of soil fungi additives and do a comparison. That's worthwhile but not particularly exciting. One thing I don't know is how long it would take for the symbiont to engage the host. If you mixed the fungal spawn with soil and planted a bean seed, how long would it take before the fungal mycelium grew towards the plant's roots and then attached itself and established the mutual relationship? Days? Weeks? Months?

If it takes months you have a problem.

If you go to the websites of companies that make products that are supposed to provide beneficial soil fungi, or the conditions to promote the existing fungi, they will have information about using the product. This will give you some idea of the time involved. And you may read some other things that give you an idea--so it is worth doing this.

Sorry, I can't come up with the perfect plan just yet. You'll have to do some more reading and thinking about this. Come back later with your ideas and we can talk some more. I'm sure there's a great project here--we just haven't nailed it yet.

Good luck!

Sybee

[Daniel3012]

Hi!
Well, I'll use beans in the experiment because they grow fast and give their first seed quickly. It sounds a bit complicated to raise the hypothesis, I will continue reading to see if I get ideas to form it.

See you later!

[SciB]

Sounds great!

Good luck with the reading and if you get stumped on anything give me a shout and I'll see what I can do.

Sybee

[Daniel3012]

Hello!
I've already been investigating, and it seems to me that if I unearth the plant after it's taken root, and I place the additive (It's like a mycorrhiza "powder"), the symbiote won't be long in reaching the guest!
But this has made me doubt. if there are products that already have this function, Does it make my project unuseful? Would not it just be like "advertising" for these products?
I just got that doubt, sorry if it seems I'm being ungrateful with your help :/

[SciB]

No, no--perfectly logical and reasonable question.

Testing products is certainly helpful to the users, but I understand what you mean that it is not really a 'science' project. That' why I initially suggested grubbing in the dirt to unearth the fungal beasties where they live. But you're still left with the problem of WHAT will your hypothesis be?

When I write a grant proposal it is for 3-5 years, but you obviously have a lot less time--hence the suggestion of a commercial fungal additive.

You could pick one of the fungi products and a range of host plants and see which one benefited most from the fungus. You would have to carefully read the product statement, however, because you need a fungus that will start growing and colonizing the plants roots immediately, not 6 months or a year from now.

If you want to try a project like this, I would suggest strongly that you call the companies that make these products and talk to one of their scientists about whether their product would grow quickly enough for you to do a project in a reasonable length of time. You don't want to go to all the trouble of setting up these experiments only to find out that the fungus is asleep and won't wake up till next year!

I wish I had a clearer answer to tell you what to do but hopefully these suggestions can simmer in your brain and pop out an IDEA.

Keep in touch,

Sybee

[Daniel3012]

I'm understanding better.

My question will be: Can we avoid the damage we do to the environment with pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides?
(Possible) Hypothesis: We can use mycorrhiza "powder" to avoid the need for fertilizers, and use biological control to avoid having to use pesticides or herbicides.

It's more or less what I've for now, but, I think that because I don't have so much time to do the proyect, I think I won't be able to carry out the project: /.

I'm gonna look for some large trees to extract the different types of mycorrhiza. I can extract the mycorrhiza without damaging the plant, right?

See you!