Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Greetings! My science fair date is creeping closer, and I have completed everything that is required in my booklet. However, there's this one thing. A part of my results were inconclusive or unusable.

Problem: During the harvest season, many cane farmers remain with acres of cane that are deserted and eventually, disposed. This wastage can alternatively be used for other purposes for the welfare of the cane farmers and the country.

Objective: To create Panela and fertilizer from sugarcane as alternative products for subsistence and waste utilization.

Hypothesis: If panela and fertilizer are produced from sugarcane, then there will be less waste products and more income for the cane farmers.

The "Panela" is a more nutritious, healthier type of unrefined sugar and the fertilizer was an NPK fertilizer consisting of bagasse, manure, EM and saw dust. The cane juice was used for the Panela and the remaining bagasse was used for the fertilizer.

The results for the panela were fairly well. However, the results for the fertilizer weren't as dynamic as expected to be... We tested the fermented fertilizer on a corn seed. We planted 3 pots with fertilizer and 3 pots without - 2 seeds in each pot. These were the results:

Final Height of Corn Plants (cm)
Amount of corn plants sprouted per pot
1 (Soil + fertilizer)
23.5 cm
1
2 (Soil + fertilizer)
25.3 cm
1
3 (soil + fertilizer)
0 cm
0
4 (only soil)
0 cm
0
5 (only soil)
17 cm
1
6 (only soil)
23 cm
25.5 cm
2

As you can see, the growth of the test subject for the "only soil" turned out to be better than the ones with fertilizer. We want to do something about this to make it somewhat better or usable for the experiment so that it could be successful. Our hypothesis DID turn out to be supported but we want to do something about these results that would make it more... Positive or supportive, per se. We cannot cross the fertilizer out of the experiment (it wouldn't make any sense if it was just the panela) nor can we perform another trial for it. Do you have any other ideas?

Thank you for your time and for any service you may provide. It is truly appreciated.

Hi, this is a very interesting project! It looks like you got a total of 3 sprouts for the only soil group and 2 sprouts for the soil and fertilizer group. If you have time, I would suggest trying this with a different type of seed, since corn grows best in large quantities. If you don't have time, you can try taking measurements of organic matter and nutrients in the soil and rationalizing that it should aid the growth of plants. The simplest approach to measuring organic matter content is by measuring the Loss on Ignition (LOI). You would essentially compare the weight of a soil of sample before and after heating to a really high temperature. Here's a detailed method for this technique: https://www.sfu.ca/soils/lab_documents/ ... By_LOI.pdf

I hope this helps!
Jen

I had a couple of other ideas of what you could quickly test on the soil. These are less accurate of measurements than the LOI technique, but they would be quicker and can add value to your project as well. You can also test the pH and the water holding capacity of the soil samples. You can look up the optimal pH for corn growth, and compare it with the pH of the soil samples. Also, soil high in organic content has a greater water holding capacity. You could easily test this by pouring the same amount of each soil into separate planters with a hole in the bottom. You could then slowly pour water into the planter until it starts to drain out the bottom, and determine how much water you had poured. This will correlate with the organic matter content of the soil.

Thank you so much for your help, Jen! I suggested this idea to my teachers and they agreed that it would be helpful. Thank you once again! Have a wonderful day.