Experiment Title: Does soil pH affect the color of tomato fruits?
A. Thesis statement: A high soil pH yields red tomatoes.
Set up: 9 pots each filled with soil of varying pH will be used in this experiment. The pots will be assigned into three groups: The control group will contain soil that has a neutral pH, the basic group will contain soil that has a pH greater than 7, and the acidic group will contain soil that has a pH lesser than 7.
The amount of water and sunlight received by the groups should be equal to eliminate other factors that could possibly affect the color variations. By keeping these factors the same, color variation would solely depend on the pH of the soil.
Control Group: It is necessary to keep the soil pH of the neutral group to be exactly 7. By making it neutral, we would be able to know what the natural color is exhibited by the tomato fruits.
The dependent variable in this experiment would be the color exhibited by the tomato fruits. The color exhibited is believed to be dependent on the pH of the soil. By having three samples each with varying pH, it is expected that there will be color variation.
Data Collection:
When the tomato plants bear fruits, determine the color of the fruits produced from each group. Create a table with two columns: the first column would be the group where the fruit belongs and the second column would be the color exhibited. Compare the data gathered from the three groups.
Data analysis:
A scenario which will support your hypothesis would be: the group which contained the basic soil produced red tomatoes. The neutral group produced orange tomato fruits while the acidic group produced yellow tomato fruits. It was found out that the higher the soil pH, the fruit color takes on a redder hue whereas if the pH keeps on going down, the fruit takes on a yellow a hue.
