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kgould's picture

Luisana, Andy, Kate

In this lab we chose three characteristics to compare between the different plants. The data we gathered was of the following eight specimens:

1) LL, S, HF (low light, standard, high fertilizer)

2) LL, S, LF (low light, standard, low fertilizer)

3) LL, P, HF (low light, petite, high fertilizer)

4) LL, P, LF (low light, petite, low fertilizer)

5) HL, S, HF (high light, standard, high fertilizer)

6) HL, S, LF (high light, standard, low fertilizer)

7) HL, P, HF (high light, petite, high fertilizer)

8) HL, P, LF (high light, petite, low fertilizer)

The characteristics we looked at were: the number of petriolar trichomes on the first true leaves, height, and foliage (number of leaves).

Petriolar trichomes on the first true leaves (an average):

1) LL, S, HF: 5

2) LL, S, LF: 1

3) LL, P, HF: 2

4) LL, P, LF: 5

5) HL, S, HF: 4

6) HL, S, LF: 8

7) HL, P, HF: none

8) HL, P, LF: 10

--No correlation that we could find. 

Height (on average):

1) LL, S, HF: 14

2) LL, S, LF: 9

3) LL, P, HF: 11

4) LL, P, LF: 4

5) HL, S, HF: 18

6) HL, S, LF: 3

7) HL, P, HF: 11

8) HL, P, LF: 3

--There is a definate correlation between height and fertilizer: the high fertilizer plants are taller. 

Foliage (number of leaves) (on average):

1) LL, S, HF: 7

2) LL, S, LF: 2

3) LL, P, HF: 4

4) LL, P, LF: 3

5) HL, S, HF: 6

6) HL, S, LF: 1

7) HL, P, HF: 5

8) HL, P, LF: 2

--There is also a correlation between foliage and fertilizer: the plants with more leaves were those with high fertilizer. 

Observations:

LL, S, HF and HL, S, HF are both "droopy;" that is, instead of growing vertically they chose to grow outward, or horizontally, in a curve.

Forty-five minutes into the experiment and all of the high-fertilizer plants are drooping.

HL, P, HF had no trichomes on the petrioles because the leaf directly grew from the main stem of the plant.

Low light yielded taller plants in both varieties, but the stems were slimmer than those of high light plants.  

According to our data, the environmental factors, (namely that of fertilizer), made the most difference on the varying characteristics of the plants. The high fertilizer plants grew the tallest and produced the most foliage, where as the low fertilizer plants were smaller and produced only a sparse amount of foliage.

It is obvious that there is a general difference between the standard and petite plants in terms of height, but it seems that genes only play a basic role in height; fertilizer affected the height of the plants more than the genes. 

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