Week 4th Report Bunga Telang

Bunga Telang Week 4 Report

Plants Observation & progress

 After about 2 weeks the plants is cover with the box, some plant shows a changes in leaves colour and the growth rate.

Pot 1 : This plant shows the best growth. This because this plant does not covered and act as a control plant where it has a good sunlight uptake. This plant show the most germination and has 90% of germination rate. 

Pot 2 : This plant is covered with a box for 1 hour everyday and watered every day with the same amount of water that other plants have. The box prevent the plant to uptake sunlight for 1 hour in the morning which means the growth of the plant may be disturbed. As a result, some of the leaves turned yellow especially the young germinated plant. The germination rate of this plant is 60%.

Pot 3 : This plant is covered with a box for 2 hours in the morning everyday. The water amount for watering is fixed as other plants have. As can be observed, unwanted grass grow abundantly in this pot which means the rate of competition for water, nutrient, space and sunlight is higher. This plant have 60% germination rate which means the other 40% is the mortality rate of this plant.

Pot 4 : Two weeks ago, this plant has the highest germination rate of 90%. But for the fourth week, the germination rate is 70%. This is because the effect of sunlight uptake of this plant. This plant is covered with a box for 4 hours everyday. Although the watering is fixed as other plants have, the sunlight also important for the growth. As can be observed, some of the leaves of this plant has turned yellowish.

Pot 5 : This plant is covered with a box for 6 hours everyday. As can be observed, the leaves turned yellowish and the unwanted grass is growing abundantly in the pot. This may be the effect of the lack of sunlight to this plant. This plant has the lower germination rate among the other plant which is only 50%.

Sieve Analysis Test

The soil that has been dried for 3 weeks is sieved using a set of sieves of different opening mesh sizes. The soil is sieved for 15 minutes with the speed of 50. Sieve analysis helps to determine the particle size distribution of the coarse and fine aggregates. This can reconfirm the soil texture test by using the jar test and soil texture triangulation.

Sieve Analysis Test Result:

Based on the soil texture analysis that we have done on the first week through jar test analysis and the calculation using soil texture triangulation. The texture that result from our jar test analysis is sandy loam. Sandy loam composed mostly of sand with the particle size is larger than 63 µm, silt with particle size larger than 2 µm, and a smaller amount of clay with particle size is larger than 2 µm. 

Figure above shows the particle size distribution. As can be seen from the sieve result, there were many types of sand size. Particles that left on the first, second and third sieve plate is coarse sand while particle that left on the fourth sieve plate is  medium sand and particles left on fifth sieve plate is a fine sand. The last plate which is pan is the amount of particle that has size of smaller than 

63 µm . That means the particle left on the pan is silt. For the clay, since clay particle is less than 2 µm, it is hard to say that our soil has clay particle. This is because the smaller opening mesh size is to big which is 63 µm. Maybe clay particle may be exist in our soil, but so far, our group confirm that our soil texture is a sandy loam as the result of jar test and triangulation state too.

Based on this sieve analysis result, the permeability of soil can be determined that affect the plant and root growth. The ability for a soil to retain water is partly determined by the size of the soil’s particles. The smaller a soil’s particles are, the greater the soil’s surface area is, and so the more water the soil retains. Clay soil has small, fine particles, which is why it retains the most amount of water. Sand, with its larger particles and low nutritional content, retains the least amount of water, although it is easily replenished with water. Silt, with medium-size particles, retain a moderate amount of water. Based on that, since our soil mainly composed of sand particle, it can absorb least amount of water. This can be seen from the growth of our plant which is the germination still not achieve 100%.

Week 2 question

Why does pot 4 has better germination rate?

On the week 2 report, it is stated that pot 4 have highest germination rate which is 90%. The germination rate that affects pot 4 is light and temperature. Plant in pot 4 was planted in bottle pot. Extremely low or cold temperature is not favorable for seed germination. They prefer higher temperatures. The germination rate of seed is directly proportional to the rise in temperature. Since the bottle pot 4 more thinner than the others pot, it absorb more heat. So the germination rate will increase. The bottle pot was transparent, thus more light was able to pass through.  Pot 4 absorb more light than others pot . This will increasing the germination rate in pot 4. This can be sure that sunlight plays big role in plant growth. After about 2 weeks plant 4 is covered with a box for 4 hours everyday, it germination rate decrease to 70%. This is because of the sunlight uptake is less for the plant in pot 4.