Antimicrobial properties of plants

Introduction There are many different types of media, which are used for the culture of
microorganisms. These may be obtained in ready-formulated preparations, or can be made
using separate ingredients. In this practical, we look at the method for preparing and
sterilizing nutrient agar medium. Nutrient agar medium can be used for the culture of
bacteria. If ready-formulated media are used, then it is made up using distilled water.

MaterialsAim: to investigate the antimicrobial properties of three different plants.

Hypothesis: as mint, garlic and clove tissues will be used to indicate bacteria repelling
abilities, mint and garlic should show better results due to higher concentration of
antimicrobial chemicals.

Variables:

 Dependent: size of the clean area around the tissue sample in agar.
 Independent: tissue sample of garlic, mint and clove.
 Controlled: temperature, humidity, size of samples, amount of bacteria rich agar,
time.

Equipment: agar plate seeded with bacteria, clove, mint, garlic, tape, knife, pen, sterile
forceps and Petri dish.

Method:

 Plants samples were made by cutting the same size and shape tissues from garlic, mint
and clove.
 Petri dish was opened just enough to place tissue samples in agar using forceps.
 Petri dish was closed and cross-tapped not to allow any anaerobic conditions to
develop.
 Name and date were written and plate was incubated for 48 hours at room
temperature.
 After two days observation was made without opening Petri dish.
 Antimicrobial properties were measured using ruler and radius was taken into table to
be compared later on.
 Hands were washed thoroughly with soup and water after completing the practical.

Risks: bacteria leak could cause stomachache or harmful infection.

Results:

Sample Length in radius (cm)

Garlic 1.0
Mint 0.4
Clove 0.0

Reliability of Results:

To make sure my results were reliable I repeated it many times and found the average.
Extreme anomalies have been left out of the data used.   I also recorded the results of a
control for both variables. The control was soaked in methylated spirits to see if this inhibited
the growth of bacteria also.

Conclusions:

After analysing the data obtained from the experiments I worked out the average diameter or
bacteria cleared by each disk. I can see from my results that the garlic was more successful at
clearing the bacteria. The average clearing by garlic was 9.56 mm. However the mint solution
made an average clearing of 7.43 mm. This is a lower value than the garlic and so I can
deduce that garlic has better antibacterial properties than mint. The results vary quite a lot
which suggest unreliability.

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