do plants grow bigger in soil or water?

soil

Soil, all plants need soil for anchoring and nutrients, they are better able to develop and spread their roots and I would think that the roots might be more sensitive to light than the upper part of the plant so the soil might act as protection as well (personal opinion).

Water on the other hand is only one of many things that a plant needs, the plant might do ok in water if you added nutrients yourself like liquid compost or fertilizer, but the plant wont really have anything to hold onto with it's roots to keep it stable and this would make it much more difficult for the plant to grow towards light.

So ultimately the winner would be soil.

To sum it up in a brief comparison:

Soil gives:

•Protection (for the roots)

•Supports and anchors the plant

•Contains nutrients (such as minerals etc.)

•Usually has some levels of humidity (don't know if you may water the plant that grows in soil during this project but oh well...)

Water gives:

•Water...just water... : /

(i also don't know if you may add nutrients yourself, if not then the plant in the water will likely die of malnutrition)

If you want to test this then i would suggest growing one in a glass or see-through plastic "bowl" or "container" or vase (the water one), and one in just a regular ol' pot. If you want to measure the roots as well then i would suggest one of two things:

1. put both plant subjects in glass or "see-through" pots and measure the whole plant in every few days (this way you can see the growth rate as well eg. 2 inches every 4 days blah blah blah)

2. Use normal containers and after they seem to have grown enough for there to be a difference in size you remove them both (remember which is which) and measure them simultaneously.

I would suggest method 1 because while it may be a bit more effort you will have measures more and have more statistics to work with which will most likely get you better marks.

On side note: If you decide on method one and try to measure the growth rate, remember to put some sort of marker (write it down or put a peg in the soil something like that, to see what the plants height/length was when you last measured it.

Sorry for such a long post :P

Good luck with your project and enjoy it!

Hope this helped :)

Here's a brief synopsis:

PURPOSE

The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether plants grow better in water or soil. I became interested in this idea when I started my experiment last year, and looking through books for research. The information gained from this experiment will help gardeners know how to grow their plants healthier, taller, and faster.

HYPOTHESIS

My hypotheses are that the vegetables will grow better in water, the flowers will grow better in soil, and the grass will grow equally well in both. I base my hypothesis on the science books I got an idea from, because when I started my research all the books and encyclopedias said the same things about hydroponics.

Read more for results and experiment design:

http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_f...

soil because plants grow towards 2 things light and water so if u see a tree for example that looks like its growing diagonally its because it growing towards water if a plant is submerged in water the plant can actually die from over watering of course depending on the plant also without soil the plant has no way of obtaining minerals from the earth into the roots which also add to the plants growth

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RE:

do plants grow bigger in soil or water?

science fair project, how to do experiment

Soil

Well, this is a hard one, as I've been out of elementary school for 50 years, but I'll take a guess and say, " put one in soil, put one in water and measure the progress of both"

Soil. But if you don't water them it will die. I don't think a seed can actually grow in just water. Sure it can sprout but i don't think it would be able to grow.

Plants need nutrients also to grow, not only water.

you really cant have one without the other. water keeps the plant hydrated, bbut the soil provides nutrients the plant needs to live