Posted: May 22nd, 2023

Seed Germination and Osmosis Research Paper

Soil salinity is a key abiotic factor that is important in limiting plant yield and is responsible for unproductive land that accounts for approximately ninety-five million hectares the world over (Mine 239). Saline soils are responsible for undesirable effects in plants that include ion toxicity and rivalry. Furthermore, it results in some other detrimental effects due to osmotic potential.

Essentially, there are two key effects in plants that are understood to be the reason behind “high salt toxicity in plants” (Herr 45). These two include the osmotic and ionic effects. The latter is responsible for the change in enzymatic processes, and also influences the transportation of ions within the plant, eventuating in ion imbalance. Consequently, these effects manifest themselves on the overall rate of germination in seeds. Salt concentration is vital in influencing the rate of water intake in plants in a process called osmosis. Water is a vital component in the germination of seeds, acting as a medium through which the mineral salts are transported.

In this experiment, “the main objective was to study the effects of salt concentration on the rate of germination in mung beans” (Herr 46). As such, the above results (Table 1) were recorded, with mung beans recording maximum germination (100%) in the control and when in low salt concentration (at 0.1M KCL) as at the end of the experiment. Ideally, the total number of mung beans that germinated due course decreased with an increase in salt concentration from 0.1 to 0.5 Molar KCL.

Importantly, when the results of table 1 were plotted on the graph, the above trend (Graph 1) was observed, portraying the rates of growth under the different environments of salt concentrations. From the above trends, as expected, it is evident that the rate of growth of mung beans in both the control (de-ionized water) and at low salt concentration (0.1M KCL) was higher than when they were grown in the other salt concentrations. As shown by the slopes of the trends in graph 1, the rate of germination of mung beans decreases from DI H₂O to 0.5M KCl.