Document Type
Capstone Project
Publication Date
2024
College/Unit
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department/Program/Center
Biology
Abstract
Herbivory poses significant challenges to many economically valued crop plants. Plant growth hormones such as gibberellins are known to influence plant growth mechanisms especially at times of stress such as herbivory. To investigate, we set up a two-factorial design with 60 Solanum lycopersicum plants and subjected 15 plants each to four treatment groups: reference control, 0.187M gibberellin, wounding, and 0.187M gibberellin+wounding. We found that addition of gibberellin significantly influenced plant height and chlorophyll fluorescence, but not biomass or root-to-shoot ratios. Mechanical wounding showed significant effects on chlorophyll fluorescence but did not significantly impact other tested plant factors. The interaction between gibberellin and wounding interestingly influenced root-to-shoot ratios. Our experiment allows us to conclude that gibberellin will impact plant growth factors and resource allocation under wounding stress. This conclusion highlights the importance of further studying plant growth hormone regulation and agricultural implications relating overall plant growth and yield to environmental challenges and stressors.
Digital Commons Citation
Davis, Molly, "Positive Responses of Solanum lycopersicum Growth to Additions of Gibberellin in the Presence of Wounding Stress" (2024). Undergraduate Scholarship. 4.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/ugscholarship/4