EXPERIMENT III - Role of Plants in Water Filtration

This experiment is to help you understand the role of plants in filtering the water moving through a watershed. Experiments can be done to show how a plume of dissolved materials can move through soil and enter a groundwater aquifer. Depending on whether materials are dissolved or suspended in the water, soils and plant roots can remove some or all of this material as the water moves down through soil. Most suspended materials will adhere to the soil. These may then be broken down and used as food by the plants. Dissolved nutrients, such as nitrogen or phosphorus, chemically bond with some types of soil particles. They are taken up by plants, thus removing them from the soil before they can enter an aquifer. For the plants, these elements are food, for an aquifer, they are pollution.

Not all materials are absorbed by plants and not all water pollutants are food for plants. However, sediments from eroding soil, nutrients in human and animal wastes, and some components of household wastewater (“graywater”) are excellent plant nutrients. Plants also use different nutrients at different rates, so that the amount of material they take up will depend on how much is dissolved in the water and how fast the water moves through. This experiment is a very simplified way to show whether plants will take up certain kinds of materials from water moving relatively quickly through their root systems.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• Six potted plants, with pots roughly six to eight inches in diameter, and holes in the bottom. These plants need to be moderately dry, as if they had not been watered for a couple days. Plants with saturated soil will not absorb water, and very dry plants will absorb it all.
• Six clear containers, such as cups, which will support the plants and allow drainage to be viewed. You will need separate plants and cups for each of the materials in the water.
• Soil from outside (anywhere). The best soil is loamy, with smaller particles than sand.
• Unsweetened powdered drink mix, preferably grape or cherry for color.
• Vegetable oil.
• One or two different household cleaners (such as Comet/Ajax and Dish or Laundry soap). One should be liquid and the other powder.

PREPARATION:

Set up the potted plants, each in its own cup. Slowly pour six to eight ounces of clean water through the pot, and check the percolation rate through the pot. Loosen or tighten the soil so that water percolates at about one ounce per minute. The rate should be fast enough to prevent long waiting periods, but slow enough not to carry very much soil through the pot.

PROCEDURE:

1. Place the potted plants into the top of their cups. Pour clean water slowly through one of the pots and watch it percolate through the bottom of the pot. The water should look as clean as what was poured.
2. Add a gram or so of soil to 6-8 ounces of water and stir so that the soil is well suspended and distributed in the water. Pour slowly into another flowerpot. The water percolating through should look much cleaner than the dirty water poured.
3. Add about one ounce of vegetable oil to 6-8 ounces of water, stir (they won't mix completely) and pour into a third pot. See if the vegetable oil percolates through or is caught up by the plant roots.
4. Add some powdered drink mix to 6-8 oz. of water and pour through a fourth pot. See if the water percolating through retains the color.
5. Add some powdered cleanser to 6-8 oz. of water and pour through a fifth pot.
6. Add some liquid soap to the water (an ounce or so in 6-8 oz. water).

Using the “contaminated” plants, pour some clean water at the same rate through each one (simulating a rain shower). Is more of the “pollutant” rinsed away from the soil by the clean water?

Source: Environmental Protection Agency