THE GROWTH EFFECTS OF VARYING SOIL COMPOSITIONS ON CARROTS

Abstract

The process of gardening, cultivating, and farming has been on this earth for thousands of years. Records date back to the first attempted farms nearly 12,000 years ago [1]. Since that time, humans have sought to produce larger, tastier, and effectively growing crops. The composition of the soil plays a key role in in the end products of the crop. Contents such as minerals, organic material, and microbes play important roles in plant development [7]. This study seeks to test vary-ing soil compositions in an arid region of Arizona on carrot growth. Carrots were selected as the choice plant because of their ease to grow. Additionally, as a root crop, the size and shape of the carrot can infer characteristics on the quality of soil [3]. The testing area comprised of a garden bed separated into six equally sized boxes approximately 2ft by 2ft with a soil depth of 8 inches. The various soils comprised of a box of 100% store bought soil additive, home compost with natural soil, a 50/50 mix of store bought additive with the addition of chicken manure, a 50/50 mix of store bought addi-tive and natural soil with out chicken manure, natural soil with chicken manure additive, and one of natural soil. A wa-tering system was established which watered the plants three times a day for 10 minutes on a regular basis. In total, ap-proximately 350 seeds were sprinkled in each box. After a growing period of about 4 months, the carrots were harvest-ed, washed, weighed and measured. Analysis of the data was then performed to compare the samples. The results indi-cate significant differences in the amount, quality, and consistency of the different samples. The at home compost addi-tive and the 50/50 mix of store bought additive with the addition of chicken manure performed the best.