Weeding Out Erosion

Overview

Objectives/Goals How do different types of weeds affect soil erosion by water? Which holds more dirt in place: soap root, milk thistle, or narrowleaf plantain? Methods/Materials For each trial, I used cardboard boxes with a volume of 1206.5 cubic centimeters as controlled environments for my experiment, and gave the plants a period of seven days to grow, watering them every three days. I put a different species of weed in three of the four boxes, and left one empty as a control. Results My hypothesis was that the soap root would protect the soil the most against water erosion, then the narrowleaf plantain, and finally, the milk thistle. However, the soil eroded the least with the narrowleaf plantain holding it in place, second least with the soap root, and the milk thistle's soil eroded the most, so overall my results disproved my hypothesis. Conclusions/Discussion Given the extreme rainfall and subsequent landslides that California has suffered from in recent years, it is important for us to study how we may be able to minimize the damages. Although many people think of weeds as being useless, my results indicate that they may be useful in erosion control. Weeds may not work as well as expensive cover crops advertised to prevent erosion, but unlike cover crops, weeds are free. They are also optimal for spreading over large areas, because they have adapted to reproduce quickly, and require very little care. Therefore, I think we can make use of this data by knowing that if we were to plant one species of weed on a hillside prone to landslides, plantain would be the one.

Competition history

• CSEF 2018 Environmental Engineering · Entry J1126

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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