Can a Homemade Natural Herbicide Made out of Mistletoe Berries Control Unwanted Daisy Growth?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective is to see if a homemade natural herbicide, can be used to help control unwanted daisy growth. Methods/Materials HERBICIDE MANUFACTURE:I blended mistletoe plants berries,w/1 gal.of soft. water to liquefied mixture(MTH)to meet exper'tal needs. I put 2 Tbsp liq. Soap w/ MTH in spray bottle, for surfactant. HERBICIDE APPLIC#N:. In 4 pots I used seeds to test my herbicide#s pre-emergent treatment. In 4 pots Daisy plants tested my post emergent treatments. In pot 1&2 I put Daisy seed & grass seed. I applied the Mistletoe herbicide to the first pot PE1 & softened water to the second pot PE2. PE2 was the control for PE1.In pots 3 & 4,I put Daisy seed,no grass seed. I applied the Mistletoe herbicide to the 3rd pot PE3 & softened water to 4th pot PE4. PE4 was the control for PE3. In pots 5,6,7,8 I put Daisy plants, ea.w/ 10 flowers. I sprayed herbicide on the flowers & leaves in Pot (C1:contact herbicide tx.). I mixed the herbicide into the soil of Pot 6(SA1: soil applied tx.). In Pot 7 I did whole plant herbicide applica#n SY1:systemic tx.). In Pot 8: Cont., the Daisy got soft.water as my control for 1,SA1,&SY1. For 18 days, results were watched & recorded. Materials:Gloves,Pens&markers, Plastic Spray Bottle, Camera & Film, Scissors,Blender,Gallon Containers,Soften Water,8 Flower Pots,Mistletoe Berries,Potting Soil,MeasuringCup,Tablespoon, Large bowl,Labels,Ruler,Daisy Seed,Pencils,Grass Seed,Paper,Liquid Soap, Display Board. Results My observations revealed the contact herbicide treatment as most successful against Daisy weeds killing 9 of 10 flowers. The soil applied treatment worked moderately well:killing 4 of 10 flowers &3 leaves.The systemic herbicide tx.was the least effective,killing only 2 of 10flowers, 2 leaves. Conclusions/Discussion Mistletoe plants can be an effective natural herbicide on Daisies. Contact, systemic & soil applied treatments were effective, contact herbicide was most effective. I feel this resulted from its direct impact on plant parts cells. A reduced concentration of toxin reached the cellular level in the systemic & soil applied treatments thereby having a reduced ability to inhibit cell growth. I concluded that the mistletoe herbicides# inhibition of pre-emergent Daisy Seeds growth came from the Grass Seeds presence & neutralization of the mistletoe 's lectin/alkaloid toxin on the Daisy seeds, while providing nutrients aiding the growth of Daisy Seeds.

Competition history

• CSEF 2002 Pharmacology/ Toxicology · Entry J1401

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 2002 project