School expirement......advice needed please!

[MuranoFarms]

My son is 11 and his science class is doing a mythbusters style project. Each kids picks their own topic then has till April to prove or 'bust' the myth. My chicken loving DS has chosen "is chicken fertilizer better then store bought fertilizer for plants?" I'd like to pick 3 different types of plants. He chose 6 pots (2 different colors) we're using bagged potting soil so all pots are equal to start with. Which plants do you think he should use? What is hardy and easy to grow indoors? He suggested grass, so we're doing that. (On the off chance that it doesn't want to grow I didn't want the experiment to be blown, hence the 3 different types) On hand I have corn, tomato, beans, chives, many different types of flowers, basil, parsley, catnip, turnips, watermelon, quinoa, amaranth....I think that's it, but there may be more. lol Also, the feed store put their display out already so I'm sure I could pick up just about anything if I needed to.

So which do you think?

 

[silkiechicken]

My son is 11 and his science class is doing a mythbusters style project. Each kids picks their own topic then has till April to prove or 'bust' the myth. My chicken loving DS has chosen "is chicken fertilizer better then store bought fertilizer for plants?" I'd like to pick 3 different types of plants. He chose 6 pots (2 different colors) we're using bagged potting soil so all pots are equal to start with. Which plants do you think he should use? What is hardy and easy to grow indoors? He suggested grass, so we're doing that. (On the off chance that it doesn't want to grow I didn't want the experiment to be blown, hence the 3 different types) On hand I have corn, tomato, beans, chives, many different types of flowers, basil, parsley, catnip, turnips, watermelon, quinoa, amaranth....I think that's it, but there may be more. lol Also, the feed store put their display out already so I'm sure I could pick up just about anything if I needed to.

So which do you think?

Sounds interesting. Something to consider is finding a way to quantify store bought fertilizer vs using chicken fertilizer. I assume your chicken fertilizer will be composted chicken poop with bedding vs most commercial stuff being purified quantified liquids?

Perhaps using 3 ounces of dry chicken manure from your birds, vs 3 ounces of dry store chicken manure, vs 3 ounces of dry steer manure vs no manure added so it can be easily compared across 3-6 pots in each condition?

An easy one-two punch with controls for a simple experiment would be the hypothesis "Chicken manure is better than Steer manure when growing grass". You can have like 5 pots of plants in chicken poop enhanced soil, 5 pots of plants in cow poop enhances soil, and 5 pots of no enhancement soil. Evenly spread 1 gram of grass seed into each pot containing the same mass of dry soil, grow under lights for 4 weeks, all sitting in the same water tray so they get the same water supply. Then you can compare visual density of grass, among all pots, or rinse away all soil and measure the average biomass (weight of grass) grown in each condition too see which one supported the most growth.

Since you'll be indoors, something leafy would probably be better suited to a south facing window unless you have a grow light. If the plants have 3 months to show a result and there is a science fair where you want to show the plants grown, lack of light is something to think about because that would be the limiting reagent vs soil nutrients. Grass is a decent choice, but when seeding it, might want to measure out or count seeds some how to reduce variables. Basil grows very well inside under grow lamps too. Bush beans might work, and that would be easy to quantify the number of seeds on.

Good luck! Science fair projects were always fun when I was in school! Science was so fun I managed so some how drag myself into science... lol

 

[lesa]

Sounds fun! Remember to use only aged/composted chicken poop. It makes wonderful fertilizer, but not when it is fresh... I think I would try with plants that were already growing. Start your seeds without fertilizer- and then add when they have grown a bit. Let us know what you find out!

 

[joz]

Don't forget your "control" specimens, with same potting soil and NO fertilizer at all.

Good luck!

ETA: I think I recall doing similar experiments with beans, or sunflowers. Here's a similar example that's not exactly the same, so you can work with the format and produce your specific independent results: http://www.free-science-fair-projects.com/20060511-1.aspx

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

you could also try this with the fish fertilizer. i've used my fish tank filter muck in my pepper plants and they seem to do very well with that as a natural fertilizer.

 

[MuranoFarms]

Wow...Thanks! So many great points! I had completely forgotten about 'control' pots. We were going to use compost from the compost pile in the beginning. Then make compost 'tea' to add every week when we add the chemical fertilizer to the other pot. I will probably get a light to put on them for at least a few hours a day, but we have a big windowsill they'll be going in. It faces south west I believe. We don't have a fish tank right now but that is a great idea. I have no idea how to equalize the strength of the manure with the chemical fertilizer. We were going to use powdered miracle-gro since we have it on hand. We've made compost tea before, so DS knows how to do it. I don't want to take over so I was just going to let him make it as usual and use it to water the plants once a week. It's not highly scientific, but I think we should get a decent result.

 

[ninnymary]

Murano, you've answered my question. I was wondering what kind of store fertilizer you were going to use. Wheter natural/organic or synthetic. I think using Miracle-gro verses "home grown" chicken poop is a good one.

Mary