Depth of Sowing Activity Part A
What's the difference?

Billie Bean has told us that lupins have a hard time emerging from the soil if they're planted too deep, but that chickpeas would be O.K.. Let's do an experiment to see if he's right.

Materials Needed

Each group of students will need:

• 4 small plant pots with drainage holes - the pots need to be about 15-20cm deep (washed out milk cartons will do the job)
• 4 popsticks or straws to use as pot labels
• pen with waterproof ink, or pencil, for writing labels 
• potting mix or soil to fill the pots
• a stick with a mark at 5cm, and a mark at 10cm for making holes in the soil to put the seeds in
• 8 lupin seeds
• 8 chickpea seeds
• slow release fertiliser
• watering jug or watering can
• ruler for measuring plant height

What to do

1. Fill each pot with soil or potting mix.
2. On your popsticks or straws write the following labels:- "lupins 10cm", "chickpeas 10cm", "lupins 5cm", "chickpeas 5cm".
3. Place a label in each pot
4. Place the pots on a tray and water the soil thoroughly. Stop adding the water when you see it coming out of the drainage holes at the bottom of the pot. Empty the tray as needed.

1. Use your stick to make four holes 5cm deep, in the pots labelled "lupins 5cm"and"chickpeas 5cm"
2. Use your stick to make four holes 10 cm deep, in the pots labelled "lupins 10cm" and "chickpeas 10cm"
3. Place 1 lupin seed in each hole in pots labelled "lupins", and place 1 chickpea seed in each hole in pots labelled "chickpeas".
4. Cover the seeds with soil and add a quarter of a teaspoon of slow release fertiliser to the pots (you won't need to do this if your potting mix already contains slow release fertiliser).

1. Add a little more water to the pots to make sure the seeds are well watered.
2. Place your pots in a warm sunny spot and water as necessary. Keep soil moist, nut do not let pots stand in drained water.
3. Check the pots every day for 2- 3 weeks and record your observations. Some ideas on what you could record are given in the next section.

* * You will need to record what the leaves of the emerging seedlings look like for Part B of this activity.

What to Record

"Brainstorm" some ideas of your own on what observations should be made, and how you can record them. Once you have done that, you can look at our suggestions and boast about how much better yours are!

Some Suggested Recording Sheets

1. Record the number of seedlings emerging from the soil in each pot over a two week period. Has the depth of sowing affected the germination of these plants? Did the lupins and the chickpeas behave in the same way?

   Pot	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7	Day 8	Day 9	Day 10
   lupin 5cm
   chickpea 5cm
   lupin 10cm
   chickpea 10cm

2. Compare the appearance of the first and second pair of leaves for each type of plant. Are they the same or different? The meaning of this will be explained after you complete part B of this activity.

   Diagram of first pair of lupin leaves	Diagram of second pair of lupin leaves	Diagram of first pair of chickpea leaves	Diagram of second pair of chickpea leaves

3. Observe growth of lupins and chickpeas planted at 5cm and at 10cm. Record height of plants in cm. (Your pots will contain up to 4 plants each. Will you record the height of each plant? Will you just measure the tallest plant in each pot, the shortest plant or work out the average height of plants in each pot? Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of doing these things.)

   Pot	Day 14	Day 15	Day 16	Day 17	Day 18	Day 19	Day 20
   lupin 5cm
   chickpea 5cm
   lupin 10cm
   chickpea 10cm

4. For those of you who want a challenge, try working out which plants grew at the fastest rate.
   Was this affected by the depth of sowing?

Many Australian native plants and pasture plants are hard seeded but crop plants are soft seeded. Use the internet and/or a library to research this question. Here are some hints:-

Part B will be available in Episode 14 - Is This The End?
So keep recording your results till then!