Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

hi i am doing a project with watering seeds with different liquids including motor oil, shampoo, achohol, moutain dew and water. on sevaral of them, the seeds have risen to the top of the soil. can we push them back down???
we just started the experiment on friday.
thank you
lil jo

Hi Lil Jo,

Your seeds will dry out if they are on the surface of the soil, so you should definitely cover them with soil. Rather than pushing them back down, it might be better to use some new soil and sprinkle it on top of the seeds to cover them. Presumably, one of your controlled variables is the depth of planting, so you want all seeds to be covered by the same amount of soil.

You should also reevaluate how you are adding the liquids to the plant containers and switch to a more gentle method, such as a spray bottle or eye dropper, if your watering technique is the reason your seeds have floated to the surface.

Incidentally, some seeds require dark for germination and some seeds require light for this process. What type of seeds are you using? Do you know if light or dark affects their germination process?

You should be recording your results and observations in a lab notebook. I'm sure that floating the seeds to the surface was not part of your original experimental design, so you should make a note of what happened and what you did to remedy the problem. That way, if you get unexpected results, you will have documentation that might help explain the outcome of the experiment.

I hope this helps!


Donna Hardy

hi we need some help with our project. what does motor oil do to plants???????? does it effect plant germination???
thanks
lil jo

hi we need some help with our project. does motor oil effect plant germination??? we couldnt find any articles on it. can you suggest any websites or articles??????.
thanks
lil jo

Hi lil jo,

I found an abstract about this. You might be able to get the full article for free with some searching around on the web, or your library might be able to help you. The abstract is actually pretty detailed though.
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10 ... 4773087345

Try searching in google scholar and google for "motor oil germination"

We have a couple of articles about how to find research papers online:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... aper.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... pers.shtml

I would also suggest googling or looking in books about:
-Germination - what are the different phases of plant growth, and what happens during this time?
-What nutrients do plants need when they are germinating?
-What is motor oil made up of? (what are the main components, and their chemical structures?)

You might want to read wikipedia to get started. It shouldn't be a primary source, but it can give you a good overview of the terms you should study and it often has links to good bibliography sources at the bottom of the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_oil

As you are doing research, you are probably going to come across words and concepts that are confusing and don't make sense at first. Don't get discouraged, as this is perfectly normal. Just keep reading things over and over again (sometimes you have to read something more than 10 times!), and look up any words you don't understand. Eventually it will start to make sense!

Our project guide might also be helpful to you. Take a look at the "Doing Background Research" sections on this page: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

Good luck and let us know if you have any more questions.

Hi lil jo and Donna,

I answered your question in your other post. I'll merge these two topics so we can keep everything together.