Are Vegetables Safe to Eat?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to see the effect that pesticides have on plant growth. Methods/Materials 10 organic garlic, 10 conventionally-grown garlic, 10 organic potatoes, 10 conventionally-grown potatoes, and 10 organic avocado seeds and 10 conventionally-grown were bought from a local supermarket, planted, measured and observed during a 9-week period. Results Although the potato plant died within a week, both the garlic and avocado were able to grow. The organic garlic was taller and grew faster than the conventionally-grown garlic, and looked greener and healthier as well. 4 out of the 10 sprouted within the 9-week period reaching a height of 7.04cm, while only 1 conventionally-grown avocado grew, only reaching an average height of .82cm. Conclusions/Discussion Many state that using pesticides on vegetables does not harm the food. With this in mind, we decided to compare organic vs. conventionally-grown vegetables, which are found in the local supermarket and sprayed with pesticides while growing them. If indeed pesticides did no harm to the vegetable, then they would grow at about the same height and rate as an organic plant, a statement not supported by the experiment.

Competition history

• CSEF 2015 Toxicology · Entry S2103

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Biomedical and Health Sciences projects
• CSEF Biomedical and Health Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2015 project