Does Water Ph Affect The Growth Of The Bean Plant?

By Author: Henry Ford
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This experiment is carried out with the intent of understanding bases and acids, finding out the different types of soils needed for different crops, creating awareness on contamination and further the study to other botanical projects required and of course the effects that negative and positive ions have on crops (Nardozzi, 2009).

This particular experiment is relevant to botany but it touches a bit on chemistry as well. The pH scale measures how acidic or how basic a substance is. PH is the acidity or the basicity of a substance. It is percent hydronium ion in full. The experiment explores ph basics and eventually one learns how pH affects the growth of the bean plant which is a leguminous plant.

Problem statement
Plants require a number of favorable conditions for their growth; Ph is one of them, the other factors that need to be considered for growth of plants include water, light and soil or any other growing medium. This experiment attempts to solve the problem of Ph of water and how it affects the growth rate of bean plant. Forming a hypothesis will help get a general understanding of what Ph is. ...
... Liquids are either basic or acidic depending on the ion they possess. An acidic liquid has more positive ions while a basic liquid has more negative ions. For this experiment the ph is controlled in water by using certain substances in the water used to plant the beans. The water used as a control experiment is distilled water. Distilled water is of neutral ph. A ph scale starts at zero and ends at fourteen. More acidic substances register the lower numbers while the basic substances the higher ones, the majority of liquids encountered in the day to day life are always around the neutral bar or little above or below it. Liquids acquire ph from the splitting of molecules into negative and positive ions. Ions are as a result of gaining or losing of electrons from an atom. In order to establish which soil the bean crop can grow in we need to carry out an experiment. In the end we will know whether the bean crop grows best in acidic or basic soils.

Hypothesis development
The pH of the water and soil in which a plant grows is very important. A plant cannot growth the same way in acidic condition and alkaline conditions. Therefore its s important to establish the conditions at which a plant performs best. In this experiment, the testable question is whether the bean plants’ growth is affected by water pH, and the relevance of the question is that different soils have different ion content and they can determine the rate of growth of any plant. Other experiments that show an equivalent hypothesis but different variables include the planting of the bean plant on different media and the rate of growth in medias such as cotton, soil, rocks and the control experiment, on no media. Many plants grow best in acidic soils while others best in basic soils. Those that thrive best in acid soils include: holly, pine, oak, willow, spruce and crabapple tree that flower. Others are the rose plants, cranberry, blueberries and crocuses. Those that prefer alkaline soils are clematis, mock orange, ash, filbert and maple trees. Landscapers and gardeners always use this approach of determining the acidity or alkalinity of the soil before they plant a particular crop in the products available for this purpose include Mir acid for increasing the acidity in soil. Garden lime boosts the alkalinity of soil (Brooklyn Botanic Garden 2000). As described in the experiment, distilled water is used as the control and water with different ph levels are the variables. This will show the effects of different ph levels on the growth of the bean plant. This project is beneficial in fostering the knowledge of factor affecting the growth of plants or a better understanding of the same.

Hypothesis
Ho: Bean plant is will grow (in cm) longer in alkaline conditions compared to acidic condition.

Experimental design
Experimental design acts as the guide map for the study. It gives direction on how the experiment is to be carried out. Experimental design must be relevant to the kind of experiment that is being carried out. A good experiment design ensures that the study is valid and the data collected is not only valid but it is appropriate to measure the given variables. A good experimental design helps the study to measure variables that are under study. In most cases, it may be difficult to note errors in experimental design unless at the later stages where data is being collected or during pre-testing of the data collection tool. If the experimental design is faulty, then the experiment cannot be carried out and will have to be redone again under an appropriate experimental design. Replication affects validity in different ways. Replication ensures that similar procedure or results are repeated which is important in ensuring validity of the data collected. In an experiment, external validity can be ensured through sampling process.

Literature review
Plants thrive best under specific conditions. The conditions favorable for their growth include the following: water, sunlight and soil. In cases where a crop requires any conditions and they are unavailable the plant may adapt to the surrounding. For instance some crops are susceptible to drought. They have smaller leaves so that they do not lose a lot of water through evaporation. Others like the cactus have leaves reduced to thorns to ensure minimal loss of moisture. The soil type required for growth of crops is varied. The bean crop thrives best in alkaline soils. The soil should however not be moist or of clayey nature. In germination the bean is very sensitive to the nature of the surface of the soil. It has very shallow roots and very sensitive roots for that matter (Herbert, 2004).

Experimental design
Materials
The experiment will need enough time for the conclusions to be drawn. Approximately a month is used to get to the conclusion of this experiment. The materials are mostly household items. They include:
Ph up and ph down for adjusting the levels of ph in water
Litmus papers or ph strips or test kit for measuring the ph. (50)
At least seven large plastic drinking cups of 500ml
Soil to be used as the planting media, is filled in plastic cups three quarter way.
Bean seeds about twenty one are enough for the experiment.

Distilled water
Metric ruler
Plastic bottles at least seven (two -liters) empty and well washed
Small cups for measuring water
On conducting of the experiment one should be keen to ensure that the cups containing the bean plants are kept in similar conditions: light, heat and any other surrounding conditions it most important that the amount of water for each plant be the same. Incase this is adhered to one will be able to determine whether the plant is affected by ph or any other factors (Glenn 2004).

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