Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

hi I started researching on Echinecea Purpurea and Angustifolia since Agust to do my science fair project on, I am experimenting on the antibiotis proties of both species against E. coli.

This i s the problem, I cannot find Echinecea Anywhere because it is not the season
I was given two websites from someone on science buddies, but one is not shipping till Spring, and the other Have only Pupurea but its dormant

I do not know what to do, this is a project I have been working on for a a long time
and I have to conduct my experiment in 3 weeks time

do you have any suggestions on where I can get it or on my whole project as a whole weather I should change the whole thing(which would be very hard)
If you know anywhere I could check, online or a plant store that I could even call please tell me please I don't know what I would do if I don't find it , I might not enter the science fair this year! please someone help me anyone :

I understand your problem that this is late autumn in the northern hemisphere, so this is not the time to start growing Echinacea plants. Perhaps a seed supplier in the southern hemisphere might have supplies, for example, in Argentina or Australia. If you do find a supplier to get the seeds, you will probably have to grow the plants under artificial light to simulate the longer daylight hours of late spring and summer when the plants do grow.

Hi,

It's going to be difficult to grow Echinacea at this time of year. If you are working on antibiotic properties, why don't you get some dry plant material to work with? I know my local health food store sells it in bulk, but it is also available in tablet form.

One idea for an experiment would be to make a water or alcohol extract of the dried material and put it on a piece of filter paper cut with a paper hole punch to dry. You could place the paper disks on agar plates with bacteria and measure the inhibition of bacterial growth in millimeters. I don't know anything about the purpose of your project, but perhaps something like this would work. I can give you more details about this type of experiment if you are interested. It's very important for you to do something soon if your project is due in January.

Echinacea is a perennial plant and is extremely slow to grow from seed. If you are not a senior in high school, perhaps you could get some plants early next spring and do your live plant experiment over the summer. That would make a great project.

If you are interested in more experimental details, please let me know what the purpose of your project is and I will try to make appropriate suggestions for the experiment.

Donna Hardy

Can you give me more details on this, I am interested, but cn I still use Echinea dried plant materil? if not, you can just give me more info on what you were talking about

Hi!

You can try using the roots of the plants to test. From the articles I looked at, it says that the roots of the plants is the part of the plant that is used to make the medecine. If you go this way, you should easily be able to buy roots. Hope this helps!

Hi!

Sorry, about those websites. I thought they would work. Anyways, I told you about buying roots. That might work, but here is another idea. You can try buying extracts. It contains the plant processed in water or alcohol. This sounds like it is very easy to use, and should work better than the plants because the alcohol extracts the active components of the plant. So, I believe it would have more of an effect than the plant would. However, I'm not sure. Here are the websites for the extracts:

1. http://www.thehealingsun.com/detail_her ... atch_type=

2. http://www.wisconsincommonmarket.com/sh ... tem_ID=461

I hope this will help you this time.

Hi,

Here's a little more detail about a possible experiment:

To detect the presence of anti-bacterial activity in the Echinacea, you would first identify bacteria to test. There are two major types of bacteria, Gram-positive and Gram-negative and you would probably want to include one example of each type. The bacteria are grown in a broth medium overnight and then spread out in an even layer on an agar plate of growth medium in a Petri dish. Filter paper disks containing the substance to be tested are placed on the "lawn" of bacteria and the Petri dish is incubated overnight. If there is anti-bacterial activity in the filter paper disk, it will diffuse into the agar, and the bacteria will not be able to grow near the filter disk. The inhibition of growth can be measured from the edge of the filter disk to the edge of bacteria growth.

You would need test bacteria, agar medium, broth medium, Petri dishes, filter paper to set up this test. You would need to have samples to test, perhaps two or three brands of Echinacea to compare results. The bacteria would grow better in a 30-37 degree Centigrade incubator. You would probably want to test both a water and an alcohol (isopropanol or rubbing alcohol) extract of the Echinacea roots.

Have you had chemistry yet? What do you think you could use as controls for this experiment?

Let us know if you need help in locating supplies, or if you have more questions about a possible experiment.


Donna Hardy