Re: questions about my tropism experiment

Jake,

Your project is one of the more interesting experiments related to plant tropisms. It is absolutly incredible the tiniest amounts of light that a plant can detect.

For your experiment I would use only one maze for a couple of reasons. First, your plants will detect the light that is reflected off the maze walls and will choose the shortest route because the light intensity will be greater than a longer maze. Second, if you use one maze design it will be easier to construct several, enabling you to do multiple plants at one time.

Instead of treating your plants you might want to try painting the walls of your mazes different colors. Each color would have a different reflective property for the light and your test plants may grow faster with one color compared to another. If you choose this route I definately would use red, white, and blue not to be patriotic, but colors in these ranges have some influence on plant growth.

I wouldn't be concerned about the time frame and using bean plants. As long as you use pole beans they will grow fast enough for you to collect good data.

Which ever way you decide to conduct your experiment email me with the results you observe as I am interested in what you find out. My email address is gbachman@tntech.edu

Good luck,

Gary