MadSci Network: Botany |
Hello! One of the hardest parts of science is determining why an experiment did not turn out as planned! The best way to trouble-shoot is to start with the set-up of the experiment. Has this set-up ever been tried before? Have all the controlling factors been accounted for? Is there any ambient light that may be interfering with your particular light source? Are your coloured light really filtering out the other wavelengths? Below are a few links to answers that other mad scientists have provided. These answers contain information such as discussing problems with the coloured- light-on-plant experiment, providing other experiments for measuring the effect of coloured-light-on-plant-growth as well as other references on the subject. You can try other search engines with key words such as "plant growth" "color/coloured light" etc. Good luck! Evelyne Tsang Mad Scientist David Hershey explains the effects of different colours of light on plant growth, potential problems and provides a simple experiment: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar2000/954386777.Bt.r.html Here is a more detailed explanation: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/apr2000/954889693.Bt.r.html He also gives a detailed explanation of the effects of blue light on plant growth: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/sep2000/969074919.Bt.r.html Mad Scientist Gary Bachman wrote about the ability of plants to detect light and provides a variation of an experiment for plant growth: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/nov99/943325741.Bt.r.html
Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Botany.