Comparing Soil Substrates for Moisture Retention

Overview

People that live in hot and dry regions like the Central Valley struggle to grow crops and plants. People can benefit from knowing what to use in their plants to retain soil moisture during intense heat or droughts. The goal of this experiment is to test different substrates such as native soil, pumice, vermiculite, and biochar to see which group of plants would have the most growth and lose the least amount of moisture over a span of four weeks. A total of fifty tomato plants were potted, ten plants per substrate, and ten plants with only soil for the control. Each week, the plants’ height and moisture percentage in soil were measured. After the four weeks, the biochar had lost the most moisture on average (moisture loss of 68.5%), pumice lost the least amount of moisture on average (moisture loss of 17.8%) but slow growth, while Vermiculite averaged the greatest plant growth (27.2 cm) while being second to first with the least amount of moisture loss (18.6%). These results can contribute to ongoing studies on moisture retention and help people living in dry areas who want to grow crops or plants that are healthy. The data can also provide useful information about each substrate and how well they did or did not work. This experiment may also help someone who is looking for a healthy outcome to a plant but does not want to mistakenly buy a add-on component that will not work well and end up malnourishing the plant.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Plant Biology (Junior Division) · Entry J-18-14

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