We are experimenting with Brassica Oleracea plants. Some traits are leafy, green, and large. Here is a picture of one of the only surviving plants: 











This plant most likely came from another leafy vegetable. An offspring that could come from the seeds could be a cabbage. I predict this because it's leafy, green and large. I could predict what the offspring will look like by looking at the current traits of the parent plants. They would acquire these traits by meiosis. Meiosis splits the number of chromosomes in half from each parent, giving an equal amount of chromosomes from each parent to the offspring. The parent plants will pass on traits during the process  of the production of gametes. They may look like them, but no plant offspring will ever look exactly alike. When creating an offspring, the results can't be the same because of different sets of chromosomes ex AA + BB = AB, a completely new plant. The most possible explanation to this is through adaption and manual selection.

Crop Failure part 2

INTRODUCTION:
Soon after the Brassia oleracea plants were transferred into the garden, nearly all of the crops have died. There are many potential causes as to why they could have died.

THE QUESTION:
What could have caused the sudden death of the crops? There is one suspect and that is the insects, insects tend to feed on food such as cabbage, broccoli, and mant more because those are easiest to eat. The answer to this is not pesticide, but a task that requires a bit more work which is doing check ups on plants.

BACKGROUND
Crop failure is a fairly common thing with farmers. If avoided by doing the right steps, healthy plants could grow. If the plants aren't checked on very often, they will be vulnerable to consequences like diseases, insects, and animals and make the farmer lose money and people starve.

THE PURPOSE:
When beginning the investigation, my team and i noticed that there were signs of  bite marks on the affected crops. There also seemed to be a few insects such as caterpillars and insects.

THE MATERIALS:
What my team used were specimen jars, paper towels, a few rubber bands, leafy vegetables, and catterpillars. My team got help from classmates from another period that had a similar experiment to ours.

HYPOTHESIS
My team believes that insects are the major cause of the sudden death of the crops. The amount of leaves being eaten depends on the caterpillars. The catterpilars are in no way impacted negatively, but the plants are. We chose this as our hypothesis because of the presence of insects on the garden and because of the bite marks on the crops.

SUMMARY
The results of the experiment were not too much to support the hypothesis. After some time, the caterpillars started to go into miosis. This also happened to the other team in 4th period. But, the other insects that were caught did eat the leaves.

Link: Crop Failure

                          Hypothesis

       After planting the plantings, most of the crops died. A pattern that ocurred was the smaller the plants are the quicker they die,while the larger plants survived longer. Another pattern that was seen was that most of the plants had what seems to be bit marks and holes. The main potential cause for the sudden death of the crops is insects. The reason why insects are the suspects is because of the bite marks on the crops. Naturally, only predator would go for the smallest and easiest prey and that's why the smaller crops are first and the larger crops lasted a little longer.

My name is Juan Lopez. I was born in San Jose, California and I've been living there since then.

       I haven't done a lot of gardening, but i have grown a few plants successfully. My family does not grow plants anymore since we don't have much gardening space.  Once, i grew some carrots and after science camp, i was given a tree that i could take care of. My mom cooks all the time since my dad is not around. I enjoy watching people cook especially my mom since she could make a meal with a few simple ingredients.  Sadly, the tree that i was taking care of caught a disease and died in the beginning of 2015. It  was a bit sad knowing that i couldn't do anything since i didn't have much experience in gardening. I'm hoping that in this project, i can learn how to take better care of plants.

My name is Emily Williams. I was born in Campbell, California. I moved to San Jose, California with my family in 2005.

I haven't really done much gardening, but my mother loves plants. She mostly grows flowers, but when we first moved to San Jose she used to grow strawberry and tomato plants too. I was really young back then, so I don't remember a lot about growing food. I don't cook at all. My mom does most of the cooking and sometimes my dad helps with the cooking. Sometimes I like to watch my mom cook, though. I find the whole process of cooking fascinating. It's amazing how you can take a few raw ingredients and use them to make something that tastes delicious! I don't know much about gardening, but I know a few people that do. There's a couple that goes to my church that seems to know a lot about gardening. One time, when they went on vacation, we went to their house to water their plants. They had a lot of different vegetables it their yard. It was cool to see all the different plants they had. I still don't know much about how plants grow. So, I'm hoping that when this project is over I will know more about growing food.