Growing plants with Wood Ash Nutrients

Part TwoJadyn Yoo Hudson

John Jay Science and Engineering Academy

Problem and QuestionProblem: Growing plants with Wood Ash to help with the regrowth of deforested areas.

Question: What plants will benefit the most from the Wood Ash when growing?

Purpose: To determine what plants benefit from the Wood Ash the most and compare the plants that have the Wood

Ash in the soil to their regular plants.

Hypothesis / Null Hypothesis

Hypothesis: Adding wood ash to plants will benefit the growth of the plants.

Null Hypothesis: Adding wood ash to plants will slow the growth of the plants

BackgroundIn these past 2 years, there have been many big wildfires that have caught the media’s attention. A recent forest fire that is well

known and happened recently is the wildfires in California. Another wildfire that was big on social media last year was the Amazon

Rainforest forest fires. This fire did a great amount of damage to the forest itself killing many animal inhabitants and deforested most of

the forest. Even in 2020, the Amazon Rainforest is still recovering from the big fire. These Forest fires bring along the ashes caused by

the forest fires. To the normal eye, these ashes can be seen as useless and harmful to the land when in reality it can help rebuild

ecosystems. What people don’t realize is that wood ash can be used as a source of nutrients and can help regrow plants and rebuild the

soil. For plants to be able to grow with ash there must be soil present for the ash to provide to. This process is most commonly found in

secondary succession and has proven to help rebuild ecosystems.

A major cause of forest fires is greenhouse gasses, and as a result of the greenhouse gasses, they cause a rise in temperature with

fire along with it. With the number of fires increasing along with the greenhouse gasses more and more forest fires have been happening

around the world. Ashes that come along it bring heavyweight and is considered to be a pollutant to an area. But people can also use ash

as well. Maintaining ash and preserving it can be useful for rebuilding a forest ecosystem and growing plants. Even though wood ash

does not benefit all plants, they tend to benefit plants such as vegetables but can still grow plants normally. Wood ashes can tend to all

things the plant suffers. For example, if there is a plant that is suffering from severe potassium deficiencies you can easily tend to it by

adding wood ash to it. For this Hardwood and maple, ash would be recommended because Hardwood and maple have about 7%

compared to soft tree ash which is lower and has about 3%. Another thing that ash could do is help little things like your lawn by

providing the right amount of nutrients and controlling acidic soils. One surprising thing that ash can also provide for lawns and such is

pest control such as killing insects and other stuff that may invade plant species and fewer pests mean fewer diseases. An example of

this is that raising the pH in soil with ash can help effectively eliminate the disease. Broccoli and cauliflower are often affected by root

disease and raising the pH level would effectively kill and destroy the disease of the plants.

Scientists and farmers often practice the use of wood ash on plants and often study 3 variables of the plant growth. These

Variables are nutrients in wood ash, the effect of wood ash on nutrient levels, and the effect of wood ash on plant growth. The most

common types of elements found in wood ash are sodium, phosphorus, magnesium, aluminum, potassium, and carbon, carbon is the

element most commonly found in the ash itself. Heavy metal elements found in wood ash consists of cadmium, chromium, copper, and

lead. But one negative of these heavy metal elements is that if chromium, cadmium, or lead levels are too high, they might not be good

wood ash to use on the plant because they would simply cause a defect in the plant which would be bad. Like before it has been proven

that using wood ash on plants could be used as a leveling agent raising or lowering pH levels in the soil. Adding ash to plants would just

benefit the plant either wait not in growth but it’ll at least help balance the different acidity levels in the plant.

Materials● Radish Seeds (12)● Cups of Wheatgrass Seeds (2)● 10 in. x 20 in. Germination Trays (2)● Hardwood Ash● Water moisture pH Light meter (1)● Window boxes (2)● Coconut coir● Soil● Water● Beige masking tape (1)● Sharpie (1)● Ruler (1)● Trovel (1)

ProceduresWheatgrass

1. Get your Germination Trays and lay them down

2. Label the Germination trays

3. Get 2 cups of Wheatgrass seeds and put them in 2 jars

4. Fill the jar up with water and let the Wheatgrass seeds soak for 8 to 12 hours

5. After the Wheatgrass has been fully soaked lay coconut coir in the Germination Trays

6. Grab the ash and sprinkle a little over the top of one of the Germination Trays

7. Get your cups of soaked Wheatgrass seeds and spread them evenly on the Germination Trays

8. Once the Wheatgrass seeds have been planted cover the trays with paper towels and pour a cup of water over the paper towels to

soak them

9. On the next day grab some water and sprinkle it over the paper towels

10. On the third day remove the paper towels

11. If the coconut coir becomes dry add a little water to the trays

12. On day 6 add a little bit more water; this will be the last time you will water the Wheatgrass

13. After the tenth day the Wheatgrass is ready to be harvested and juiced.

Radishes

1. Get your Window boxes and lay them down

2. Label the window boxes

3. Fill the Window boxes up with loose soil

4. Run your Trovel through the soil to create a row

5. Grab your radish seeds and drop them into the row

6. The radishes should be at least 3 inches apart from each other

7. Cover up the seeds with the Trovel

8. Grab the ash and sprinkle a little over the top of one of the Window boxes

9. Water the tops of each of the Window boxes

10. Grab your pH meter and place it in the boxes to keep track of the acidity levels of the soil

11. Water the radishes every 2-3 days and if it rains water once a week or not at all

12. At the beginning of every week sprinkle the ¼ tablespoon (1.2 milliliters) of ash to the top of the soil

13. After 4 weeks the Radishes are ready to be harvested

Results and Discussion

In these 2 tables, the growth of the

different Radishes is being compared. The

average of the Ash Radishes was 1.86 in.

The average for the Radishes grown

without the Wood Ash was about 1.84 in.

In these 2 tables, the growth of the

different Wheatgrass is being compared.

The average of the Ash Wheatgrass was

5.16 in. The average of the Wheatgrass

grown without the wood Ash was 4.98 in.

In graph 1 it shows the progression of the growth between the plants that were grown with the supply of Wood Ash. The Wheatgrass that was grown with Wood Ash was shown to have grown to a maximum of 9.5 in. within its 10-day growing period. The Radishes that were grown with Wood Ash was shown to have grown to a maximum of 5.7 in. within its 30-day growing period.

In graph 2 it shows the progression of the growth between the plants that were grown regularly without Wood Ash. The Wheatgrass that was grown regularly was shown to have grown to a maximum of 9.2 in. within its 10-day growing period. The Radishes that was grown regularly shown to have grown to a maximum of 5.5 in. within its 30-day growing period.

In graph 3 it shows the progression of the growth between both sets of plants that were grown with and without the Wood Ash. When looking at both Wheatgrass growth progressions it is clear that the Wheatgrass with Ash grew more than the Wheatgrass that didn’t. When looking at both of the Radish growth progressions you can see that the Radishes that had the Ash grew slightly more than the Radishes that didn’t have the Wood Ash.

ConclusionThe hypothesis stated that the plants treated and planted with the ash would have benefits when grown. The analysis of the data

revealed that the hypothesis of “Plants treated and planted with the ash would have benefits when grown” was to be accepted because

not only did the plants grow regularly but both plants was shown to have grown a bit more than the plants grown without the Wood Ash.

With the information gathered from last year's project and this year’s project, it can be concluded that the reason why last year’s

hypothesis was rejected was that the plants weren’t treated properly and the amount of ash being added was too much. Another reason it

was rejected may be because the plants weren’t spaced out enough for them to properly grow.

Ways that this project can be expanded upon and further experimented with include testing out ash on other plants and plant

categories, trying different types of Wood Ash to see if there’s a great difference between the Ashes and other variables in measuring.

Further Studies1. Expanding the test days

2. Adding different measurements of Ash for the plants and different types of Wood Ash

3. Testing on more plants for further study and to get precise results

4. Testing on more plant categories

Practical Applications1. There can be less Wood Ash in the environment if the Ash were to be redirected to regrowing ecosystems and used in local

environments

2. People can use wood Ash in their local gardens to help with the growth of their plants

3. New soil mixtures can be created for gardening when using Ash