Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

In order to answer this question, you should look up the components of fertilizer (I suggest looking on wikipedia) and then look up what molecules are in vitamins and see if they are the same thing. If they are, then I suggest doing an experiment to find out if you can increase plant growth with ground-up vitamins!

Hi Julie,

This is an interesting idea for a project. Plant fertilizers contain mostly nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, along with trace elements like sulfur, iron and magnesium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer

Vitamins are small organic molecules that are composed of mostly carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/imagescli ... tructures/

Since vitamins only contain one of the three major elements needed for growth, do you think vitamins would work as well as a balanced fertilizer?

You might want to think more about your experiment so you can develop an idea for a good science project. You could do more research about fertilizers and develop a project on fertilizers. Or, learn more about the science of vitamins and do a vitamin project. It will help if you identify a real purpose for your project and doing more background research will really help.

Please do let us know if you need more help developing your project idea.

Donna Hardy