Matching nutrient ppm in soil

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roerica7
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Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by roerica7 »

Hi all! For my experiment, I'm comparing vermicompost tea and Miracle Gro water soluble fertilizers in terms of nitrogen runoff in soil. So ideally, I want the nitrogen ppm of the vermicompost tea and the water soluble tea to be the same.

In order to find the nitrogen ppm of vermicompost, I added 1 part of solid vermicompost to 5 parts water, waited for the sediment to settle, and tested the solution. The test told me that the nitrogen was about 90ppm.
I used an online calculator for the Miracle Gro and found that the nitrogen of the fertilizer was about 180ppm.

How would I go about making a vermicompost solution that has 180ppm nitrogen? Would I use half the water? Double the compost? Or something else entirely?

Thanks in advance!
koneill18
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Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by koneill18 »

Hello!

You've got it! To make the nitrogen in your vermicompost twice as concentrated, you just have to use half the water. So using 1 part vermicompost and 2.5 parts water should get you to 180 ppm.
roerica7
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Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:59 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by roerica7 »

Ok, thank you so much!
roerica7
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:59 pm
Occupation: Student

Measuring nutrient runoff in treated soils

Post by roerica7 »

Hi all! For my experiment I'm planning to measure the amount of nutrient runoff of two different fertilizers, miracle gro water soluble fertilizer and vermicompost tea. I'm trying to see if an organic fertilizer like vermicompost can be a suitable substitute for industrial fertilizers.

I'm going to have 9 samples in total, 3 with vermicompost tea, 3 with the water soluble fertilizer, and 3 with nothing as a control. I'll also be growing mung beans in each cup to measure the efficacy of each fertilizer. To measure the amount of nutrient runoff, I'll be flooding each sample with water and testing the water that drains out for nitrogen and phosphorous. I plan to do this twice - once at the beginning of the experiment and once at the end.

I also want to test the soil itself for additional data points. So my question is, when should I test the soil? Before I flood it, after I flood it, or both? Also, should I flood the soil more than two times? I would also really appreciate it if anyone knew any good soil test kits or labs that I could send the samples to. I'm having trouble finding reliable, accurate tests online. Thanks in advance!
MadelineB
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Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by MadelineB »

Hello roerica7,

Since your most recent post is related to your previous post, I'm merging the posts so the expert who has been helping you can easily see that you have follow-up questions. Science Buddies requests that you keep all related posts in the same thread. Thank you and good luck with your project.

Madeline
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koneill18
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Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by koneill18 »

Hello,

This sounds like a really cool project! Flooding the samples twice is perfectly fine.

In terms of soil tests, here's a link to a website that lists soil testing labs in each state.
https://gardeningproductsreview.com/sta ... n-offices/

I believe they also sell soil testing kits at Lowe's that you could use. Testing the soil both before and after flooding would be ideal for comparison purposes, but if that's too many samples to test, I think it's fine to just test the soil after you flood it so you can directly compare it to the runoff. Soil tests could get expensive though, so I think it's also fine to just test the runoff since that's the main purpose of your experiment. Between measuring the nitrogen and phosphorous in the runoff and the growth of the plants, you should be able to get plenty of data from that alone if you decide you don't want to pay for so many soil tests. It's totally up to you!

I hope this helps!
roerica7
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:59 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by roerica7 »

This helped me so much, thank you again!!!
roerica7
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:59 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by roerica7 »

Hi! So I just finished the first trial of my experiment. For my data, I had three mung beans in each of my nine cups of soil. I recorded the average heights of the beans in each cup in centimeters for 21 days. Along with the plant growth, I also have the amount of phosphorous in each cup's runoff in ppm. I want to analyze the rate of growth of each cup to see the efficacy of the compost tea and fertilizer, and I also want to compare it to the runoff to see their environmental impacts. What's the best way to analyze all the raw data? And are there any more statistics that would be beneficial to have? Thanks!
koneill18
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Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by koneill18 »

Hello!

I would say that the best way to analyze the plant growth would be to subtract the plant height at day 0 from the plant height at day 21 and divide that by 21 to get the average growth rate for each plant. You can make a bar graph to compare those 3 values to each other to see how the different fertilizers affected plant growth. You could also make a line graph with the average plant height per day if you want another way to visualize the growth over time.

How many phosphorous measurements did you take per plant? I think a bar graph would be the best way of representing that data too. If you took 2 measurements- one from the beginning of the experiment and one from the end- you can plot the time point on the X axis and the amount of phosphorous in ppm on the Y axis. Each time point will have 3 bars- one for each experimental group.

Once you plot all these values, you can draw conclusions on whether or not the plants that got the compost tea grew as much as the plants that got the fertilizer and whether or not the tea causes less phosphorous runoff than the fertilizer. I think you have all the data you need to answer your experimental question and see if your hypothesis was correct!

Let me know if you have more questions or need more clarification on anything!
roerica7
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:59 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by roerica7 »

I actually changed the experiment and only took one phosphorous reading per plant. Would a bar graph still be applicable?
koneill18
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Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by koneill18 »

Yes a bar graph would still work! You can just write the names of the three experimental groups on the X axis and graph the ppm values on the Y axis. So you would just have one bar for each group.
roerica7
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:59 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Matching nutrient ppm in soil

Post by roerica7 »

Ok great! Thank you so much for your help!!
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