Rootone, Greenhouses, and Root Growth

Medium

Does a plant hormone or a greenhouse do more for root growth? Rootone is a hormone powder designed to speed up root development. A greenhouse traps heat and moisture around plants. You take cuttings from four plant types: - coriander - marigold - germander - pineapple sage Half the cuttings get dipped in Rootone before planting. One pot goes under a cellophane greenhouse cover. The other stays in open air. After eight to ten days, you pull each cutting and measure its longest root. The greenhouse turns out to matter more than the hormone. Cuttings under the cover grow longer roots with or without Rootone.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that the roots with the plant hormone Rootone under the greenhouse effect will grow the fastest.

Science Concepts Learned

Vegetative Propagation

You gather cuttings from four plant types and plant them in soil. Growing a new plant from a cutting instead of a seed is vegetative propagation. This project compares whether a greenhouse or the hormone Rootone helps those cuttings root better.

Root Development

A greenhouse traps heat and moisture, giving cuttings a better environment for root development. Cuttings under cover grow longer roots than those in open air, with or without Rootone.

Greenhouse Effect on Plants

A cellophane greenhouse cover traps warmth and moisture around cuttings. Cuttings under that cover grew longer roots than cuttings left in open air. The trapped heat made a bigger difference than adding Rootone hormone.

Method & Materials

You will get metal clothes hangers and twist them into a support to hold the cellophane over one of the pots, put loose soil in each of two pots, gather eight different plant cuttings from each of four types of plants, dip four of each cutting into the Rootone, plant half of the cuttings into one pot of soil and the other half into the other pot of soil, take the other four of each cutting and plant half of the cuttings into one pot of soil and the other half into the other pot of soil, and cover one of the pots with cellophane wrap over the coat hanger wire support.

You will need metal clothes hangers, cellophane wrap, loose soil, four types of plants, and Rootone.

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Results

The results showed that the roots with the greenhouse effect and Rootone grew the fastest, but the greenhouse effect had a greater impact for growing roots than the Rootone. An interesting observation was that the stems of the Corianders that were under the greenhouse effect were redder than the ones that were not under the greenhouse effect.

Why do this project?

This science project is interesting and unique because it investigates the effects of the plant hormone Rootone on plant growth, as well as the effects of the greenhouse effect.

Also Consider

Experiment variations to consider include using different types of plants, different amounts of Rootone, and different lengths of time for measuring root lengths.