State the Problem: (this is a question) Will 20% salt and 80% water improve plant development,

or will it be better with just 100% water?

Research: If you use lots of salt, it can create soil conditions that cannot support plant
development for a while. SOURCE=https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/organic/using-
salt-to-kill-weeds.htm
Damage from salt happens to plants when salt is, by spray from passing cars
onto vegetation. Salt spray can initiate a condition called salt burn on buds,
leaves and small twigs. Salt spray can also cause damage by dehydrating the
bud scales, revealing the tissues of the developing plants. The exposed
vegetation dries out and is often killed by the winter breezes. Often, the
desiccation is not obvious until late winter or spring. Damage to deciduous
vegetation is unseen until growth resumption in the spring.
SOURCE=https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-sheets/impact-of-salts-on-plants-how-to-
reduce-plant-injury-from-winter-salt

Rock salt is often cheaper and can be utilized to cover a larger range when
you choose to end plant development. It may alter the salinity of the soil for
quite a while, so use it in your yard with care.
SOURCE=https://homeguides.sfgate.com/rock-salt-concentration-needed-kill-plants-
56853.html
Only having salt in the irrigation water is not hurtful to plants right away.
The salt is hurtful if it reaches an amount too high for the maximum concentration to
support vegetation development and yield. ... Excess amounts of sodium
chloride dissolved in the consumed dihydrogen monoxide is harmful to the plant in
multiple ways. SOURCE=https://ucanr.edu/sites/uccesc/files/51474.pdf
Sodium chloride kills off plants effectively. It desiccates vegetation when water is
added, causing them to die. Vinegar, when mixed with water, can be sprayed
onto plants and around the soil to soak into the roots.
SOURCE=https://www.hunker.com/13427953/quick-ways-to-kill-plants-trees
When sodium chloride dissolves in dihydrogen monoxide, sodium and chloride ions will
separate and can then hurt the vegetation. Chloride ions are easily absorbed by the
roots, are transported to the leaves, and amass there to toxic levels. It is these
poisonous levels of accumulation that cause leaf scorch.
SOURCE=http://www.uvm.edu/pss/ppp/articles/salt1.htm
Plants, like people, need a certain amount of sodium chloride to survive, but too much
can be toxic. Most plants can put up with saltwater on their foliage, but they will
desiccate if they drink saltwater from the soil. Even if they don't desiccate, they may
be poisoned by an extra amount of sodium chloride in their systems. The takeaway is
to not water your plants with salty water if you want them to survive.
SOURCE=https://sciencing.com/happens-put-saltwater-plants-6587256.html
     It’s the first day of spring…  think about roadside plants that have been exposed to
excess sodium chloride. Runoff from treated pavement contains dissolved salts that can
injure adjacent vegetation.  In plants sensitive to excessive salt, affected foliage may
scorch and drop prematurely.  In severe cases, the death of twigs, branches, and
sometimes the entire plant, may occur. SOURCE=https://plant-pest-
advisory.rutgers.edu/impact-of-road-salt-on-adjacent-vegetation/
Plants exposed to salt stress undergo changes in their environment. The ability of plants
to tolerate salt is determined by multiple biochemical pathways that facilitate retention
and/or acquisition of water, protect chloroplast functions, and maintain
ion homeostasis. Essential pathways include those that lead to synthesis of osmotically
active metabolites, specific proteins, and certain free radical scavenging enzymes that
control ion and water flux and support scavenging of oxygen radicals or chaperones. The
ability of plants to detoxify radicals under conditions of salt stress is probably the most
critical requirement. Many salt-tolerant species accumulate methylated metabolites,
which play crucial dual roles as osmoprotectants and as radical scavengers. Their
synthesis is correlated with stress-induced enhancement of photorespiration. In this
paper, plant responses to salinity stress is reviewed with emphasis on physiological,
biochemical, and molecular mechanisms of salt tolerance. This review may help in
interdisciplinary studies to assess the ecological significance of salt stress.
SOURCE=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0147651304000922
Rationale:

Hypotheses:
(e): I predict that the plant with 20% salt and 80% water will grow a little faster, and longer, but
we will see if this is true. I also predict that the plant with 100% water plant will be healthy too,
with the 20% salt and 80% water.
(r): I disagree. I think the one with 20% salt and only 80% water will die.
(k): I predict that the plant with 20% salt and 80% water will grow longer and the plant with only
water will grow good but not as much.
(z): I predict that the 20% salt and 80% H2O will give us TONS and TONS of information
because the plant (we need to decide what that is going to be) might react differently to 20%
salt than 19% or 21%( that means that the amount of salt we put in the H2O will change
drastically depending on how much salt we put in the H2O). Also, we may figure out a way to
save a plant (read the first message in parentheses) with a fluid or something else. Now to talk
about the 100% H2O, there is not much to talk about that because it is control and if you want to
do good science (word in the wild) you must have a control or else you don’t know what regular
100% H2O would do to the plant(read the first message in parentheses). Finally, my hypotheses
is that 20 \\\\\\
Our final hypothesis is that…

Our supplies:

Our Plan: Our plan is to start growing the plants at the same time and put the water in at the
same time then the salt. We also are going to make sure every day that it is not near a fan or a
window and one is getting more air then the other is because that could be the reason that our
experiment is not right. We will choose one person to check on it daily in the morning then
report back to us. We will make sure that we will put a little sunlight and some air on both plants.
Then we will add a little water droplets to make sure the plants won’t run out of hydration.

The results: (usually a picture or a graph). The results are interesting to us. Here are the results:

Our Conclusion:

Looking at our results, it’s clear that our original hypothesis was _____________. One way we know it is
(wrong or right) is that _____. We think this happened because _________________. Another interesting
that that happened was that __________________. I think this was because ___________________. In
conclusion, it turns out that _____________________. If I were to do this again, two things I would
change would be ___________________.
Sources:

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/organic/using-salt-to-kill-weeds.htm