Pothos Lab Report

Discussion: The results of the lab showed that the Pothos plant that was planted in the sand and dirt combination soil grew the most in 17 days. This result does not support the hypothesis that the Pothos plant growing in regular potting dirt will grow the most. The results of the qualitative observation portion of the lab show that the Pothos plant that is growing in the dirt and water soil shows the most signs of being a healthy plant. The leaves on the plant are stable and thick, and the plant stays in the upright position during the duration of the lab (Fig. 3). The dirt and water plant starts to grow a new plant in the pot on day 15 (Fig. 4). The soil and water plant is the healthiest of the five and this observation does not agree

Pothos plants are not suited to growing in soil that is too moist or non-draining because the moisture in the soil will lead to root rot (Antosh, 2021). The reason for this conflict could be a result of only watering all of the plants once a week. This means that the water in the water and dirt soil had time to dry out before being watered again every week, meaning that the plant was just growing in regular soil. To attain a more accurate result, adding water every time the dirt dried out could keep the plant’s soil at a half-and-half water-to-soil ratio during the entire experiment. If the soil is consistently half soil and half water throughout the duration of the experiment, the Pothos plant could obtain root rot, potentially changing the results of the lab. The Pothos plant that is growing in only water has grown 2 cm and shows signs of being a healthy plant. For future studies, the experiment should be conducted for more than 17 days. This will leave time for the plant to show signs of root rot, which occurs when the plant is growing in a soil that is too moist or non-draining

The sand and dirt plant grew 8 cm according to the measurements this growth does not follow the rest of the results showing that the other plants’ overall growth is only 1-2 cm (Table 1). A reason for this abnormal range of growth could be that the initial measurement of the height of the plant is wrong. On the first day, the sand and dirt plant's height is measured to be 15cm, then two days later the height is measured to be 22cm (Fig. 1). If the plant's day 1 measurement is wrong and the plant is 22cm at the beginning of the experiment it would mean that the plant only grew 1 cm, which is a more realistic number. In addition, on day 15, the dirt and sand plant is measured and the plant’s root is exposed (Fig. 5). This observation could explain some of the inaccuracies with the sand and dirt plant’s growth. The plant is being stretched to accurately measure the height but the stretching of this plant could be causing the plant to be slowly pulled out of the pot, making the height of the plant