Opposing and Beneficial Mycorrhizal Effects on Flower Growth

Abstract

Our study tested whether plants grow better in sterilized soils with no mycorrhizae, in sterilized soil with mycorrhizae, non-sterilized soil without mycorrhizae, or non-sterilized soil with mycorrhizae. Each lab group had different plants to test and had different commercial mycorrhizae inoculated into their soil. The purpose of the experiments was to determine how different strains of mycorrhizae affect different plants’ attributes. How we tested this was by having 48 with 24 being the common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and 24 being the Mexican Hat (Ratibida columnifera). We further divided the 2 groups into 4 groups of 6 plants per species. We tested these plants by growing a group of each species in soil that is sterilized inoculated, sterilized not inoculated, non-sterilized inoculated, and non-sterilized non-inoculated. In our results we found that Sterilization of soil to be the greatest effect to both species with it being negative relationship with Ha and a positive relationship with Rc.