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Microplastics are an emerging contaminant of concern to our crops, and we believe it is essential to understand the consequences of this contamination on our food chain. Our study investigates if having microplastics in soil affects a plant’s ability to absorb nutrients from the soil, hence negatively impacting its growth and nutrition. We grew garden cress in soil containing 0%, 5% and 7% (w/w) microplastics.
To measure root growth, we calculated the area of roots covering the bottom of each sample’s container. We held a grid over the roots and counted the number of boxes that were half full or more. We crushed our cress plants to create a solution, on which we performed titrations to analyse which group absorbed more calcium from the soil.
After analysing the data we had gathered on root area and dispersion we found that, although the root area decreased from 560 mm² in group 0 to 468 mm² in group 7, the t-tests showed no statistically significant difference between the groups in both root area and dispersion. This suggested that the microplastics did not have an impact on root growth.
Once the titrations were completed we found the median value for each sample and used that in our t-test. It showed no significant difference in calcium concentration between group 0 (average value = 1.86E-03) and group 7 (average value = 1.43E-03) when p < 0.05 (p = 0.17). This indicates that the microplastics did not have a statistically significant impact on the plant’s ability to absorb nutrients from the soil.
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